WorldChanging Seattle: Smaller Homes, Bigger Communities - my interests seem to converge a lot. Reading an article about how small houses are better (which I have been trying to convince people of for some time) on a Seattle (where I now live) website, the article goes on to talk about trying to do the same thing in Toronto.
I came back from vacation a few days ago and am still catching up on missed news, and I need to publish some posts that are currently in my head. Anyhow, Jon Udell never ceases to impress me. He’s taken his community-building work in his town beyond the web and pushing it to local television as well; Turning Internet feeds into TV feeds « Jon Udell. Every town needs a Jon.
I ran into Terrill yesterday at a Waterloo UX group event and it occurred to me that I hadn’t read anything of his lately. So I check and it turns out I wasn’t subscribed to his blog. Whoops. There’s a ton of interesting stuff in the last twenty or so posts that I’ve had the energy to look at.
It makes me think that I should really blog a lot more myself, since I do it so rarely these days. I guess I’m just lazy… a lot of stuff I bookmark on del.icio.us, but most things I just keep to myself, really. Or in some cases I complain to tons of people in person (such as about my school’s LMS software, which Terrill has written a great criticism of).
Terrill actually posted a screenshot of him using Quizify, a tool I made last year (and haven’t properly announced since it’s not quite ready) and keep trying to convince myself I will get back to working on shortly. I really want to, ‘cause it could be so darn useful, and I’ve got pages of ideas for it. I just need to get on it. Since I’ve already got a job (oh, by the way I will be joining Microsoft in Redmond around September), I’m thinking that at some point before then I will probably just open source it, so it has some chance of succeeding… I dunno.
Speaking of getting on stuff, back in March I had an idea for a Web Clinic at the University of Waterloo, where I book a computer lab for a few hours at the same time and place each week, and anyone who works on web stuff (any skill level and specialty) can show up, work on their own stuff, and help each other. Basically there is almost no web community at this school, and thanks to Jesse and a few others who started BarCamp here, there is something now, but I felt it needed a lot more. So this week was the second week of the Web Clinic. I’m proud of myself for actually following through with something (for once), and for trying to start a community (way harder than starting a website for instance). It is still just starting of course, and could easily collapse, but the turnout so far I’ve been happy with.
I’ve already met people I didn’t know at this school who are working on neat things. It’s funny how things come to you once you start things. Someone I didn’t know at all emailed me out of the blue to talk about his startup. I’m getting a couple of inquiries about people looking for employees, volunteers, etc. So hopefully before I finish school in April, this will have morphed into a real thing that can survive without me.
London Free Press - Local News - Ban on clotheslines put through wringer - so for a couple of weeks I’ve been pondering putting together a one-page poster infosheet to convince people to hang-dry their clothes rather than use appliances. (Also need to work towards accomplishing this myself).
Today on CBC Radio I hear that some cities are banning clotheslines? I’ve never heard anything so isane (well, okay, anything from the Bush administration, but still).
They’re more environmentally friendly, cheaper, make clothes last longer, etc. The supposed “problem” is that people don’t like seeing each others’ clothes. That’s just ridiculous and is yet another symptom of the North American attitude of everybody being afraid of each other. So much for community.