Using Yahoo! Pipes wasn’t an ideal solution, but an easy one to set up and share. It has lots of bugs and, after a month or two of eating my own dog food, I decided to try again, this time with a little bit more web nerdery in my back pocket.

So I created one that uses PHP and XSLT to make a very nice, pretty Tumblr dashboard RSS feed. Then I put it on Github using the best open source license I could find so that anyone who wants to play with it or download it can.

The only problem is you have to be nerdy enough to have a place to host this thing for yourself. I’d tell you where mine is, but it’s a secret.

Future plan: make one of these to aggregate Facebook notifications so I can stop going on Facebook too.

There’s been a lot of talk that we Americans (and all consumers of mass-produced food) are basically corn chips with souls thanks to corn subsidies in the American midwest. So what if we knew that our vegetables were grown, not only organically, but with fertilizer from well-pedigreed cow manure with three “generations” of distance from mass-produced feed?

Okay, maybe vegetables are an overwhelmingly large food to start with, but we could at least do it with meat, right? I’d much rather eat beef that I knew had five generations of grass-fed, free-range behind it.

There are other things we could rate too: how humane the slaughter house is; the quality of the land the cows were pastured on; the number of cows shared the square acre it lived on.

Yeah yeah, most people don’t care about these things. But that’s half the point: creating a system where people can see how well, or how terribly, our food is managed, maybe it’d be easier for them to care, and easier for them to make wise decisions, and easier for food-makers to feel bad when they serve us crap.

It’s just an idea. And before you proclaim that it’s “too much work” (though in reality it probably is) let’s have a look at how often we add personal content to the internet cloud that, collectively, creates enough material to create 3D models of certain parts of the world. What if we cared enough about our food to spend a little time caring about where it came from.

Here I am, contradicting my own thoughts about technology purchases from a few months ago. This is what happens when your Verizon contract expires mere days before the launch of the Droid, unarguably Verizon’s best smart phone to date.

To be fair, as a web developer on the go, I can probably justify owning a smart phone more than a lot of people, but that’s beside the point. I bought it and, thus far, have not regretted it. Other than a slightly higher phone bill, it’s been all ups and very few downs.

What I love about the Droid

For one thing, it does everything I’d want an iPhone to do, but on a way better network. Sure, not as many apps and games, but if I really wanted to game on the go, I’d get a Game Boy or whatever they’re called these days. But when I was in a rural spot with a few iPhone friends and had full bars of 3G while they were all barely getting Edge, I smiled. Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPhone. If it were on Verizon’s way-better network instead of AT&T, I’d probably have it. But, at the same time, the opportunities for expansion on the Droid with its open development platform give me a lot of hope when I look at Apple’s sometimes-draconian control over their app store and device.

I also am enjoying the turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps that comes for free with the phone. I used it all last weekend getting around southern California with zero complaints. The GPS is accurate and I only lost GPS signal for a few seconds on a back-country road.

And the fact that I could run multiple apps at once came in handy when I was listening to music on my Droid through my car stereo and it was still giving me turn-by-turn directions over the music. And to run those apps at lightning speed with the Droid’s impressive hardware is nothing to complain about.

On a similar note, the fact that I can listen to streaming music and download podcasts from anywhere I get service is extremely convenient.

Also, I’m a big texter and tweeter, so the keyboard is highly important to me. The Droid, conveniently, has three: two on-screen keyboards (one each in portrait and landscape mode) with amazing predictive text when your fingers slip and a physical keyboard that isn’t perfect but can be nice once you get used to it.

Lastly, being the Google apps junkie that I am, the automatic integration with my contacts, calendar and email on my multiple Google accounts, and the integration with my contacts on Facebook, make for a smooth interface when calling, emailing and texting friends.

What I don’t like about the Droid

Well… not much. Nice, huh? The only things coming to mind are minor bugs and annoyances. One thing is the lack of multi-touch on the screen. It’s a bit confusing in the web browser, Google Maps and photos. I hear the phone actually supports it, but that it hasn’t been built. I’m not sure how true that is, but I can hope.

Another is that, occasionally, the text messaging app freezes up for a few seconds when I try to type and the browser has crashed for me a time or two. But they recover quite well, so I can’t complain too much.

Also, the camera leaves something to be desired, with its weak auto-focus and dark-ish exposures, but I hear there are already software updates in the works to fix some of that.

Lastly, the music player pauses briefly when a new text or email notification pops up. I’m not sure if this is a bug, really, because it was actually nice to know I’d gotten a message once I figured out what was happening.

Wrapping it up

All in all, I’m extremely satisfied with my purchase. I am still finding new reasons to love it and I think most people jonesing for a great smart phone on a great network will be satisfied, unless there is some iPhone-only feature or app you “need” that you know isn’t ever going to come to any other phone. (I can’t imagine what that would be.)

I intend to work this phone to death. I’m rarely an early adopter of new devices, and this one came along at just the right time. I will use it until it no longer works and, unless another better option comes along in the meantime, I can’t see myself switching phones any time in the near future.

I’ve been excited about the effects of this recession. No, seriously. When the natural consequences of our irresponsibility arise, there is no choice but to adapt, learn from our mistakes and figure out how to be more responsible.

This video gives me hope for what might happen. The signs of hope seem small right now, but perhaps a few more years of this will help them to grow.

I especially love the part technology is playing in this. It’s amazing how it’s helping people work together to find ways to save money, spend it wisely and use the resources we have in the best way possible.

Sometimes I try to come up with ideas for how, as a web developer, I can play a larger part in promoting the responsibility of our culture. Do I build a directory for food co-ops? A wiki where people share tips on how they’ve saved on groceries or their gas bill? A Facebook application for ride-sharing?

Does anyone have any ideas for how the Internet, social networking or mobile technology would help you find ways to promote sustainability, local community and responsible living? Maybe we can do something together.

Am I the only one that finds it weird when you talk to people online that you don’t know in person, speak about personal things, grow some sense of a friendship or acquaintanceship with them, and then when you meet them in person, they still feel the need to shake your hand and say “nice to meet you”?

I’ve been on a casual date or two where we talked online for a while before arranging a meeting. I’ve become friends with my girlfriend’s friends on Facebook and Twitter and had conversations there, and yet it’s weird when I hug them like a friend rather than shake their hand and say “nice to meet you” even though, in many ways, we’ve already met.

This is a new thing, obviously, and only pertains to a small number of people on the Internet. A lot of you feel like it’s dangerous to meet people from the Internet, which seems silly to me, but that’s a different issue. The point is that there seem to be differing views on how well we know people that we’ve never shared a room with but have still had personal conversations with.

Does there need to be something in between a hug and a handshake for those of us that “know” each other virtually when we meet in person? This Internet thing doesn’t seem to be going away, so perhaps it’s time.

From inside the IT room, we often see outsiders as hopelessly optimistic about the possibilities of technology. (Or, on the flipside, completely ignorant about what we can do to make their lives easier, but that’s another topic.) Not a week goes by where a new project is proposed, or a brainstorming session is underway, and someone blurts out those terrible words: “can’t you just…?”

On the other hand, from what I can tell, outside the IT department, most people seem to see us as negative people. We are the ones that tell them that the answer to “can’t you just…?” is actually “no” or, perhaps more often, “not without a significant amount of work that will distract us from the goals and projects you gave us last month.”

The problem, of course, is that IT people (at least not the annoying ones) are usually realists. We are aware of what it takes to do what is asked of us, and when people have their grand ideas, our job is to make sure we don’t promise anything of impossible scale or schedule. Trust me, I may be a down-to-earth pragmatist, but it kills me to have to tell people that what they want isn’t going to happen when they want it, or at all.

But the one thing that definitely doesn’t help is continuing to use the words “can’t you just…?” because that not only tells us “we think we know how to do your job better than you” but also puts us in a position where we have to look like the pessimists that we are not.

If only all people would be so kind as to include us code monkeys early on in the brainstorming process and instead ask “what are some possible solutions to this problem or opportunity we have in front of us?” It’s all about building trust. And stroking our egos.

I suggest a different, even darker solution to Fermi’s Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today.

The World Question Center 2006 via Ze Frank

This is just a snippet of a great piece of writing that I suggest you all go read right now. It’s short, I promise. It kind of makes you wonder what we’re doing to the human race when the virtual economy outweighs the physical economy. Scary, thought-provoking and encouraging in a “we can catch this before it’s too late” kind of way.

• you give a teenager a ride home and he says, “Whoa! Your stereo is really bright!” and it takes you a minute before you realize he’s talking about the back-lit screen, not the equalization.
• you judge others by how they wind their instrument and mic cables.
• you pay two times what you need to for Monster cables even though the difference is barely noticeable.
• you judge anyone with a stereo with attached speakers.
• you are annoyed by “kids today” and their obsession with bass and subwoofers.
• you much prefer boosting the mids when you even decide to use the equalizer at all.
• you hate when you have to do an album review and all they give you is 128kbps mp3s and when you ask for a hard copy they just burn those mp3s as a CD.

Hey, check me out. Telling jokes that are true about me that nobody else will get. What else is new?

As a strong advocate for Twitter, I have to say this is the best that’s come of it thus far: after loaning Ramit’s book I Will Teach You to Be Rich to a friend, who subsequently had her purse stolen with the book inside, I tweeted about it and Ramit responded personally, offering to replace my copy of the book and give one to my friend as well.

If I weren’t a fan of his before, I certainly would be now.

Other things Twitter has done for me:

• Gotten a response about a technical issue with Mozy
• Gotten a response from Rhapsody that led to me being included in a private beta of the next version of their player
• Multiple personal responses from record labels and musicians that I respect
• Getting to know my girlfriend better before we started dating
• Learning the power of brevity
• The ability to track last year’s Los Angeles fires in real time for a friend who was visiting me while his family was facing evacuation

If you aren’t using Twitter, maybe now’s a good time to start.

On the positive side, this thief didn’t take anything else or cause any damage to my car. And whoever it is gets a huge collection of really good music! For some reason I imagine a kid that gets into a locked 1998 Honda Civic to steal an iPod (and nothing else) probably listens to crappy music. Like Insane Clown Posse. Or Staind. I listened to Staind in high school when I didn’t know any better, but that’s another story

I haven’t decided this for sure yet — since my discovery of this theft happened less than an hour before writing this — but I might take this as a challenge to live simpler. I don’t really need an iPod. It’s a nice convenience, especially for someone that does music journalism as a hobby. But I don’t really need it. So I might see how long I can go without it. Any bets on how long I last?