We naturally lead manicured lives, so that our favorite blogs and writers and friends all look and think and sound a lot like us. (While waiting in line for my cappuccino this weekend, I was ready to punch myself in the face, as I realized that everyone in line was wearing the exact same uniform: artfully frayed jeans, quirky printed t-shirts, flannel shirts, messy hair, etc. And we were all staring at the same gadget, and probably reading the same damn website. In other words, our pose of idiosyncratic uniqueness was a big charade. Self-loathing alert!) While this strategy might make life a bit more comfortable—strangers can say such strange things—it also means that our clichés of free-association get reinforced. We start thinking in ever more constricted ways.

Social media was created, I presume, with the intent to expand or inform our reality. Instead, it assists us in conforming our existing reality to itself (and also stalking the girl in tight jeans who sits at the front of the class in Brit Lit). It reminds me of this article which I’ve posted about before and which addresses the practice of “media fragmentation” to avoid challenging one’s pre-exisiting beliefs.

Is it possible that something like “social” media is ultimately only useful for allowing us to feel safe and comfortable and unchallenged and then, on top of that, is more and more being taken over by marketing machines as a subversive, less threatening way to peddle useless consumer goods to us?

Diaspora, a project by four early-twenties students to build an open source decentralized social network, reached their $10,000 funding goal on Kickstarter in only twelve days and the money continues to pour in. As of this writing, they’ve blown past their goal by 1766%, garnering $176,591 from hundreds of contributors. The creators were profiled in the New York Times and BBC.

I could definitely see this being something worth abandoning the alternative for.

As the first day of my twenty-third year on planet Earth, I think the inherent narcissism in this can be excused. The idea was inspired by and (shamefully) appropriated from the long portraits of Clayton Cubitt.

Admittedly, the music may be a bit much. But oh well.

It makes me realize I have to keep going.

Made by Matt Caplin.

I am thinking of signing up for a Tumblog and making it a subdomain at something like tumblr.allthingsthataregood.net. What say you on this, Internet?

In my post earlier today, I linked to a post on the blog Doobybrain displaying a neat infographic that shows the shift in population in Manhattan between the day and the night. I used it to illustrate the same kind of idea about the population shift in Seattle between the day and night caused by the influx of the office-working masses during the day.

Turns out the graphics come from a 2007 Time Magazine interactive map showing the population rushes in different cities and they had one for Seattle. I’ve cut out the Seattle maps and Photoshopped an image to look sort of like the New York City one (or as close as I could get). The image appears above and a larger version can be found here as well as linked in my original post

By Jamie Tao.

Besides simply being a great photograph, this photo reminds me of how much of a sucker I am for black leggings and white tees. Also for females, gorgeous oriental rugs, and sunlight.

Photo made by Liliya Gabdrakhmanova.

Photo made by Carlos Nunez.