Twitter lists: Why you should find and subscribe to them.

Last week, Twitter released a feature that has changed how the service works for everyone.  The feature is called 'twitter lists'.  Twitter lists are curated lists of twitter users created by other twitter users.  The lists can be private or public. 

Public twitter lists is what I'll be referring to.  Public lists enable you to 'follow' everyone on the list without really subscribing.  When you 'follow' the list, it shows up on your twitter page it doesn't clog up your timeline.  You only see the list members twitter messages when you click on that list.

Here are a sampling of some public lists:

Photography oriented:
http://twitter.com/jrmcknight/notable-photogs
http://twitter.com/thetrudz/photographers
http://twitter.com/Heliopolis/photogs

Tech oriented:
http://twitter.com/tofer/tech
http://twitter.com/dregar/tech-people

Mandolin oriented :-)
http://twitter.com/fbjournal/mandolin

GLBT oriented
http://twitter.com/yomarga/lgbt

Entertainment oriented
http://twitter.com/HNatarajan/hollywood-entertainment
http://twitter.com/ccatto/entertainment
http://twitter.com/mcmvanbree/classicalmusic
http://twitter.com/MarkGhuneim/musicindustry

The website http://listorious.com/ provides a neat way to search for lists that match your interests.  

http://www.vobios.com/twitter-lists/ is a listing of the most popular lists out in the twitter sphere.

Using twitter lists enables anyone to get value from twitter without a lot of work.  It used to be quite a chore to find people to follow on twitter.  Not any more! 

Speaking of twitter, if you're not following me, you can at  http://twitter.com/sean808080

Geocaching fun - How to

People have asked me about geocaching, so here's a little run through of how it works.

 

[Above: A sample geocache as listed at http://geocaching.com ]

 

 

1. You go to http://geocaching.com and setup a free account.
2. Then you punch in where you'll be looking for caches.  Yesterday was a perfect fall day so a friend and I decided to check out caches in New Hope PA.  From the list you look over the list of caches and pick the right difficulty and terrain level for your group.  I tend to go for the easy finds and not too much climbing.
3. From there you punch in the coordinates into a GPS enabled device.  I have an old garmin e-Map that I use for this.  The GPS gets you to within 20 feet or so of the cache coordinates. 
4. Now you have to use your eyes to look around and find the cache. 
5. Once you find it, you get to write in the log book and trade any toys or knick knacks that are in the cache. 
6. You then return the cache to its proper hiding place
7. Optional: Log your find on http://geocaching.com and share your experience.
8. Repeat.

 

Easy and fun!  On the way home, we saw some hot air balloons for an added bonus.  I love happy accidents!

 

Lars and the Real Girl - a review

After seeing the promos for Lars and the Real Girl more than once, I figured I'd check it out.  I didn't have high expectations as the promos didn't give a clear indication of the type of movie it was.  

Lars is a small town boy who hasn't grown up.  He lives in the garage of his family home and his brother and sister in law are his only family.  The small town life is one where everyone knows everyone else and there is a strong sense of community.  Lars hears about a sex doll that is life like and thinks it would make a good companion.  He orders it and takes it everywhere introducing 'Bianca' as his friend from South America.  The delusion obviously ruffles quite a lot of feather in the small town but instead of castigating him, the people of the town try to work with him and accept Bianca as one of their own.  She is offered a part time job as a mannequin in a department store and is volunteering at the hospital.

While this sounds impossible in the retelling, the story and acting make it very believable.  This is a personal movie about true community and compassion.  The respect and concern people have for each other is palpable.  It reminded me of another great movie about community, Big Eden.  The depth of peoples compassion brought tears to my eyes more than once.

As Lars and the towns people work through their relationship with Bianca, we are given the gift of seeing a man transformed from a traumatized young boy to a man embarking on a new life.  I really enjoyed this movie.  

If you like personal films that are heartfelt, you'll enjoy this film.

 

Noteflight.com

How did I just learn about http://noteflight.com ?

This site allows you to enter music and it will render sheet music that can be played online. There's a facility to search for other peoples scores and save them to your collection. What a great way to learn new music and improve your sight reading skills.

Nicely done!

The Deaf community and the sidekick debacle

CNET News.com (@CNETNews):
10/15/09 7:01 AM
Deaf users sound off on Sidekick outage http://bit.ly/baYbW

Dinner and a show - On a school night?

Thanks to a flexible work schedule, I managed to catch a show mid-week which I rarely do.  A few friends took me to see solo performer extraordinaire, Keller Williams. 

First, my friends too me to a great sushi place in Northwestern NJ called Sushi Cafe.  The chef/owner, Paul is a sushi visionary who doesn't do the normal sushi platter but instead creates rolls that are personal and fantastic.  Using ingredients from other cuisines like Thai chili sauce and jalapeno pepper sauce, the flavors and tastes are truly fantastic. I was so impressed by his creativity that I had to take a picture of the plate that was put before me...before I devoured it.

 

 

After dinner it was onto the show.  If you don't know who Keller Williams is, you are missing out.  He's a very talented musician that can play guitar like no ones business.  The icing on the cake is his facility with looping recorders that enable him to tap, bump, chant, and musicialize all of his accompaniment and create a full band sound on his own.  Think Les Paul and John Hartford with a dash of the Mad Professor thrown in.

I was in awe of his talent. Usually you watch a musician and see and hear just the music but Keller had so much talent and joy doing his thing that it ws hard not to watch and smile.  He can play just about any style of music and has a growing following thanks to a gruelling tour schedule where he plays 200 shows a year.

 

Here he is playing a popular tune called Freeker by the Speaker.  You can see what I'm talking about....

All in all a great mid-week treat of great music and food. I just wish I could have some more of that sushi!

Why I love Philly...

I've said this before, I'm a fan of the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. There is always a great feel when you're in that city. Much like New York but not so nasty or frenetic. The people you see on the street are a healthy mix of urban hard edged or clean cut suburban preps and debs. If you enjoy people watching as I do, Philly is more interesting nowadays. This is especially true since the artist/creatives have been priced out of Manhattan proper. Where are they now? Williamsburg or something?

 

Here are my pics of the weekend. Enjoy...

a quiet place - the cloisters

I had a day off so I thought I'd head over to my old neighborhood at the northern tip of Manhattan. I used to live next door to a lovely park called Fort Tryon Park and within that park is a special place called the Cloisters. The Cloisters were built by John D. Rockefeller in the early 1930's to house a sizable collection of medieval antiquities. It has since been taken over by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and if you ever have the opportunity to go there, do it.

It's one of those quiet places.  The architecture and landscaping all work together to give a feeling of tranquility and reverence.  The artwork and relics are all laid out in strikingly beautiful and historically accurate settings.  There are rooms for praying, grieving, and being touched by the beauty of the craftsmanship that was perfected in 1500's Europe.

Here are my pics from the day...enjoy.

 

health care in america - in plain English

duke farms trip

On a rainy Sunday morning, I figured I'd head out to Duke Farms which has been on my  list of places to explore for a long time.  Sadly, I got there too late. The gardens for which the Duke Farms are famous were shut down a year ago.  The system of formal and grand gardens were comparable to the New York Botanical Gardens and designed by heiress Doris Duke herself as a tribute to her father who passed when she was 12 years old.

 

You can see one of the main grand garden buildings from the visitor center but sadly it's slowly decaying.  The visitor center rep explained that the gardens were shut down by the trustees as they had such a huge carbon footprint and and Ms Duke's estate was left to environmental causes. They could not see their way around maintaining such an un-environmentally friendly structure so they shut it down.

 

I was disappointed to say the least. I really had my heart and camera set on taking some great pics of flora but it was not meant to be.  There is more information at the tribute site to the gardens at http://savedukegardens.org  There are also a lot of pictures taken by the community before the gardens were shut down here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/savedukegardens/

 

I managed to get a few pictures of the grounds during the nature walk I took.  They still offer that, thank goodness.

 

Set "Duke Farms" by sean808080 (sean 808080)

Doris Duke Estate. Gardens were retired from service last year. More info at savedukegardens.org