Opinion – Blogaholics

Sean Penn calls Bush a Beelzebub

Posted in News, Opinion

Sean Penn does a flip on Bush that is incredibly satisfying. It something every person with a voice, on tv or not, should be saying (in some form or another).

This is what Sean Penn says of Bush:

"he’s Beelzebub – and a dumb one."

In context:

"One could make the argument that George Bush is a good politician," he said sarcastically. "I think the issue is how you define politician. Once upon a time, politics was the organization of things to benefit the people."

When asked by a reporter – who apparently missed the irony in the actor’s words – to explain his describing Bush as a good politician, Penn said the definition has changed, just like the definition of good actor is now "contest winner."

"So that’s the level of politician I think he’s good at. So out of context, he’s Beelzebub – and a dumb one."

More from Canada.com ; Tags: sean penn, bush, beelzebub

Posted by arieanna on September 11, 2006
2 Comments »

Disconnected medical system

Posted in Opinion

Do you sometimes feel like you’re repeating yourself too much when you go to see specialists? I know I do. I have a complicated medical problem, generically chronic pain, more specifically thoracic outlet syndrome, that gets me shuffled from specialist to specialist fairly regularly.

For two years now, I’ve been in a disjointed chain of medical analysis. I go to one specialist, who does a whole bunch of tests that take a few months, then get referred to another specialist, who does more tests, who passes me on, etc.

Each time I get passed on, they write a letter to the next doctor explaining their findings and their ideas. And that’s the brief. My family doctor gets all the reports and test results, but he’s pretty much the only person who has all of them.

Now that I’ve been shunted for so long, the tests are starting to repeat. More MRIs and EMGs and CT Scans and whatnot, not because they need them, but because Specialist Y wants to see them personally but Specialist X has them, or something like that.

Do you ever feel that the medical system is disjointed? That if they band together with all their folders and test results and medical knowhow they could more quickly and efficiently work things out?

If you have medical issues, do you have any advice? I know of some people who keep personal files on their problems, who ask to be CCd on test results, etc. Perhaps it would help so that I’m not repeating my symptoms and chain of tests.

Tags: medicine, health, health care, healthcare

Posted by arieanna on August 25, 2006
4 Comments »

BlogMe: Interviewing Myself

Posted in Arieanna & Ianiv, Blogging, Opinion, Professional Blogging

As an early kick-off for BlogHer, which is now 10 days away (I’m quite excited to network with my fellow BlogHers again), I am going to interview myself. To pre-introduce myself to the other BlogHer attendees, and anyone else who may be interested.

Â So, hi :)

In choosing to interview myself this way, I am choosing questions that are more unusual than your standard interview. So here we go.

Why did you choose to share that piece of yourself in a photograph?

Getting married to Ianiv represented, to me, not just love but personal growth. To get married takes trust and responsibility and dedication. I feel like I have made great progress in my life and I am proud now to be married and committed to Ianiv.

The picture also represents an achievement of other sorts. Not just the stress of planning the wedding (there was lots of that), but of the year in general. It was the year we both quit our jobs and started our own business. A very public business, interacting daily with people around the world. So, the hands represent not only that achievement and love, but also the reaching out to the world through what we do together.

Are you and your blogging persona the same person?

I think every blog I write has a little piece of me, but some blogs get a larger piece than others. Blogaholics represents my "blogging home" – it is the place where I try to share "me" as if I were conversing with friends. Telling people what is affecting my life and what my opinions, joys and sorrows are. Not everything goes online – I make choices, and the act of writing does distinguish between the "online me" and the "me" in general. Blogaholics is the most accurate portrayal of me, but it is still yet a persona.

As we brdge out into my other blogging efforts, we find different pieces of me. Cooking Gadgets has my love for food and for baking and gadgets – but has only parts of my personality. She Knows Best has my love for shopping, for helping others, and my taste – but only in that area. Gilmore Girls News is an over-amplified version of my liking of the show. And then we move to my least authentic blog, Lohan Groupie. Following a celebrity who honestly annoys me, and writing in a style foreign to my beliefs. Pure profit incentive, nothing more.

So, when you read me, you don’t always see me. It depends where you go ;)

How do you use blogging to build friendships?

I love to talk with other bloggers. I often email back bloggers who left good comments and that leads to emails or Skype conversations. I use Skype almost exclusively to speak with other bloggers. Conferences have been a great way to meet other bloggers and start those relationships as well. To find new people to read and talk to, and new ways to express myself in my writing as a result.

My involvement with b5media has given my a very good opportunity to meet and work with some amazing bloggers, and to develop new relationships. At first, my role as CE was overwhelming. Hard to manage the growth of the channel and the needs of bloggers. But as relationships have formed, I have come to love my role. I act as friend and advisor, but I learn always from them and my experiences in the network.

If you had a super power, what would it be?

To fly. Oddly enough, I don’t like the feeling of free-fall – would never skydive – but I have always wanted to fly. To feel weightless and to power through the wind and see the world below. Freedom.

What is your favorite thing that you wrote? What got a strong reaction from readers?Â

These are two different questions. My favorite post is the one that was hardest for me to write – I have struggled with the question of Canadian Identity, and identity in general, for a long time. I tackled the question in school, and again on the blog. I am still dissatisfied with my writing, which is why I like the piece. It’s not complete, but it is an expression of my personal struggle.

As for a strong reaction, it was my blunt honesty about a cafe that drew the strongest, and most negative, feedback I’ve ever received. It caused me much pain but reminds me that I need to be inclusive – to involve the people behind the story in the story, rather than omitting them. However, it reminds me also of the progress yet to be made by the corporate world in embracing open commentary.

Tags: BlogMe, BlogHer06

Posted by arieanna on July 18, 2006
3 Comments »

Bitch Session with Jeremy Zawodny: Gnomedex 6.0

Posted in Events, Opinion, Social networking

I think it’s appropriate that Jeremy Zawodny moves into a planned "bitch session" [particularly social software/media] after the bitch slapping of our last session.

there is too much social software and the value of each one is being depleted
focus on why you use a service not how you use it or the features it has (don’t put the solution first)
connect services so they are not data islands
we don’t look outside our own ecosystem to the real world
we look down on other services (MySpace) and people because they are not in the A-list but rather the "mass" market
we talk about users not people
we argue too much about terminology ("buzz words")
we don’t know what regular people do at their computers (our assumptions suck, especially in software development)
we need more non-geeks at ‘geek’ conferences
the computer screen is not the only user interface – ‘think beyond the screen’
we need to think globally [place] don’t forget what’s happening now with visions of the future [and vice versa], we need standards to build niches upon [scale]
it’s easy to claim something is dead, but when is the true death and what will replace it?
if we are making things for ‘our parents’, why don’t we ask them what they want out of social networking sites?
do our parents even realize they want something more from their computer experience? probably not.
we focus too much on a user experience for an audience we may never reach, while a growing one (the giant massing teen audience) is being looked down on by all of us
how much of the information we put online now going to affect us in the future?
are tags hot? or a solution for broken search?
spam spam spam
more programs are going online, thus more data is going online – but our legal boundaries do not extend and protect us online. laws are outdated – apply physical laws to the digital world
creativity is age defiant
age is an outdated marketing concept. It’s experiential now. People in this room need some marketing teaching.
old school code does not talk well with new school code
large companies like Yahoo need to take a lead in de-compartmentalizing their stuff (groups, photos, Flickr, 360, etc)
we need APIs in order to de-compartmentalize
if we don’t know problems, we cannot solve them – we need to talk to more everyday people
we spend too much time infighting (mass ego fights)
how are we going to reach the masses if we fight internally about who is better all the time? We’re coming at it from the wrong angle
seniors have the most amount of discretionary time & $ – we can’t forget them either
it’s the context of when people use the tools not the tools themselves
let’s build things for real people, not for each other
our tools – what we use as geeks – have very little value to outsiders. Our echo chamber is not the real world.
mainstream issues are not the same as issues that are in the blogosphere. Big news to us may have little relevance or impact outside our bubble.

Tags: jeremy zawodny, bitch session, social software, geeks, gnomedex, gnomedex6, gnomedexcommentary

Posted by arieanna on July 1, 2006
5 Comments »

John Edwards Courts Tech Crowd in Seattle

Posted in Events, News, Opinion

Gnomedex makes the cover of the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

[picture only took 20 minutes to upload]

The article goes over the interaction during that session. See here for my notes as well.

This goes to my exact thinking on the session – it was good, but for the Senator to truly "listen" to us, he should have stayed:

Edwards arrived shortly before speaking and left immediately afterward, and that didn’t go unnoticed. Attendee Natala Menezes of Seattle said it was good that Edwards appeared, but she noted that former Vice President Al Gore not only spoke at the Technology Entertainment Design conference but also attended the rest of it.

"I think if you’re going to attend a conference like this as a newcomer, you can’t just speak and leave," she said, explaining that it might not have helped his cause. "You have to be part of the dialogue and conversation."

Tags: john edwards, seattle post intelligencer, gnomedex, gnomedex6

Posted by arieanna on July 1, 2006
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Dave Winer: Gnomedex 6.0

Posted in Blogging, Business, Events, Opinion

Dave Winer starts of day two of Gnomedex to talk on blogging, RSS et al.

Dave actually put a good deal of his speech up on his own site:

Quote "We live in an age where creativity is distributed"

You can do X even if you’re not the best at it. Everyone can do whatever they want. Ever consumer is a product developer. Every person is creative and innovative. We live in an age oft termed that of "enlightenment", but which in reality means that we each have the freedom to think and create.

We have a wealth of information – more now than ever before. And yet the newspaper industry is shrinking. We expect more and get more information, and yet our sources are different. Information is now created and distributed in different ways.

Making money on the Internet does not mean placing ads on websites. That is antiquated. Our websites are ads for ourselves.

Can a large company be too secure? Can a billion dollar company like Apple just "go away"? Well, yes, but it may take a while. The walled garden approach is not viable.

We need to flex our muscles and learn how to have an effective two-way conversation with the government. "We can’t keep fighting wars and wasting the economy in the process."