I’m back. And I’ve seen the future.

And it looks positively nothing like that.

Here’s something scary: my internet in my apartment failed about a month ago and I didn’t care.

That may not be a big deal, but housemates from university will attest that back then if the internet failed I didn’t sleep or eat until it was working again. I would hold Ghandi-like hunger strikes to protest Bell’s lack of service until they addressed the network issues.

What’s changed? What’s different? (or, Why did I eat like a pre-post-KFed-Britney [aside: I’m obviously a bit rusty… I just made a lame up-to-date pop culture comment. It will be my last one for a while. (Promise)])

Two things: (1) work has been beyond insane (insanely busy/insanely great); (2) I’ve been enjoying the future.

With my Blackberry I didn’t miss out on email which was huge and with Google Reader’s excellent mobile implementation I was able to stay up-to-date with the ~100 sites that I regularly read.

I know this may not be the future for most (”where’s the hover board?”), but I suspect many of my readers don’t use mobile email (take that step) and I suspect at most 5 % (?) use a reader for feeds.

Over the past month I had everything I generally wanted from the internet. The one thing that suffered was Disruptive Thoughts (and my ability to listen to new music).

So, anyway, my internet is fixed, I’m well fed, work is great, and Disruptive Thoughts is back (thank you for the emails wondering what happened to it - I continue to be impressed by this medium for networking)


COMMENTS / 10 COMMENTS

Good to see you back. Gmail on my phone and imap access for my other email on the phone works out for killing time, but I’ve got wireless almost everywhere I get stuck (and municipal wifi at my apartment, too, for when the cable dies) so it’s not really necessary at this point. Feed readers, well… I go try them every year or so and give up again, and I might write one to do what I want instead in a firefox extension at this point.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 19 06 at 9:53 pm

Good to see you back.

Gmail on my phone and imap access for my other email on the phone works out for killing time, but I’ve got wireless almost everywhere I get stuck (and municipal wifi at my apartment, too, for when the cable dies) so it’s not really necessary at this point.

Feed readers, well… I go try them every year or so and give up again, and I might write one to do what I want instead in a firefox extension at this point.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 20 06 at 12:53 am

The email on the blackberry was great for reading and responding to emails that only required a short response; however, the phone wasn’t good for writing lengthy emails to friends, etc. I don’t like the feedreader experience in my browswer - I prefer taking in the content on the site where I can easily comment and see the widgets and sidebars - but it does serve a purpose and google reader mobile was great for reading feeds while waiting in lines/killing time.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 20 06 at 6:44 am

The email on the blackberry was great for reading and responding to emails that only required a short response; however, the phone wasn’t good for writing lengthy emails to friends, etc.

I don’t like the feedreader experience in my browswer - I prefer taking in the content on the site where I can easily comment and see the widgets and sidebars - but it does serve a purpose and google reader mobile was great for reading feeds while waiting in lines/killing time.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 20 06 at 9:44 am

Wow, someone else who doesn’t like feedreading in the browser. What I actually want is something that checks the feeds to see if anything’s changed since I’ve been there. Problem is firefox’s history format is disgusting.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 20 06 at 2:58 pm

Wow, someone else who doesn’t like feedreading in the browser. What I actually want is something that checks the feeds to see if anything’s changed since I’ve been there. Problem is firefox’s history format is disgusting.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 20 06 at 5:58 pm

Well, it may be for different reasons. I feel that the site, the header and the sidebar, the feel… add so much to the words. Also, I find that a reader in a browser can be overwhelming and I don’t digest the posts like I should before moving onto the next one.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 21 06 at 8:17 pm

Well, it may be for different reasons. I feel that the site, the header and the sidebar, the feel… add so much to the words.

Also, I find that a reader in a browser can be overwhelming and I don’t digest the posts like I should before moving onto the next one.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 21 06 at 11:17 pm

What I tend to miss most is the comment interaction. I have a whole pile of subscribers to my feed on livejournal, and it creates this comment disconnect, because people comment to the feed entry too. A year or so ago (I think, don’t quote me) I added a ‘comments (#)’ to the bottom of the posts in the feed, which has helped, but that’s not in anyone’s default templates for rss feeds at the moment that I know of.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 22 06 at 12:05 am

What I tend to miss most is the comment interaction. I have a whole pile of subscribers to my feed on livejournal, and it creates this comment disconnect, because people comment to the feed entry too. A year or so ago (I think, don’t quote me) I added a ‘comments (#)’ to the bottom of the posts in the feed, which has helped, but that’s not in anyone’s default templates for rss feeds at the moment that I know of.

candice added these pithy words on Dec 22 06 at 3:05 am

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Where I’ve Been

Welcome to the conversation.

Hi, I'm Fraser and this is my personal site where I write about the things I'm interested in: start-up strategy, the web, music, and life.

My days are spent commercializing emerging technologies. Currently I'm helping to deliver the promise of semantic web to the consumer market at AdaptiveBlue. Previously I was at Trivaris, a Canadian seed stage investment firm.

I am a co-founder of Innovation Night, a community driven event supporting entrepreneurship in Canadian and US cities.

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