Outrage Fatigue

I’d be a lot more outraged by shenanigans like this: White House won’t rule out Libby pardon if they were not so utterly predictable from this administration.

I’ve definitely got outrage fatigue. And it’s showing in my blogroll too; in recent months, the balance has tipped from “mostly political blogs with a few others thrown in” to “business and tech blogs, food blogs, and a few political blogs too”. Six years of this administration has taken its toll: I am tired of being angry, and reading the same rants by the same people over and over again isn’t interesting anymore.

This might be related to why Obama seems to be doing so well lately. I can’t be the only person out there who is sick of the anger, the divisiveness, and the screaming. A Presidential candidate whose unique selling point is a passionate call to positive action can seem mighty attractive when you’re burned out on the other emotions.

iDay

I’m off to work. I’m taking a camera and plan to swing by an Apple store at lunchtime to check out the party. I may or may not post photos, depending on if I get any good ones.

UPDATE 3:25PM: I did get a couple of photos, including one of Steve Wozniak himself camping a line like the rest of us mere mortals. @Flickr.

To iPhone or not to iPhone?

As I write this, there’s roughly 73 hours left until the iPhone hits the streets. I still haven’t decided if I want to buy one or not, and if I do, I need to get serious about my line-camping plans.

I’m still on the fence, though.

A wave of reviews has hit the web this afternoon, and by and large they are highly positive. The virtual keyboard, considered by many to be a potential issue, sounds like it is a lot easier to use than expected. The biggest snafu seems to be the speed of the AT&T EDGE network itself, and sadly, it sounds like that’s not something that a software patch will be able to fix.

I want one, oh yes. But I don’t need one, and I do have a lot of other uses for the $600 or so an iPhone will cost me. Plus, for that much money, do I really want to live with slow data speed, when that’s one of the key features I’d be using the thing for?

Right now, I’d have to say no. If I am going to drop that kind of cash on a convergence device, I don’t want to spend the next 2 years cursing out my too-slow net access every time I use my iPhone.

And yet — I reserve the right to change my mind.

A Few Facebook (and LinkedIn) Thoughts

I’ve been mulling around a post on Facebook for a day or so. I signed up for Facebook sometime this past winter, but didn’t really do much of anything with my account there until April, when I realized that my 20-something cousins were using it heavily and that if I wanted to stay in better touch with them, that was a way to do so.

Since then, I’ve started checking Facebook more frequently and gotten more aggressive about adding friends. Along with LinkedIn and Flickr, I’m checking it more or less daily now. Sadly, though, my social circle doesn’t seem to be the Facebook target market, because after exporting my entire Thunderbird address book (more than 250 e-mail addresses in all) I found fewer than 20 of those people actually on Facebook. That was disappointing; especially as many of those addresses were classmates from USF. I don’t really expect that my old college friends or my relatives would be on Facebook, but I am a little surprised that so few grad school friends were there.

Aside from not finding a whole lot of my friends there, I like Facebook. It’s easy to use and entertaining, and it lets me share things about myself that I can’t or don’t want to share on LinkedIn. Nick O’Neill has some thoughts on this issue, and suggests that Facebook might “bury” LinkedIn, if they so choose. It’s possible, although if Facebook goes public and gets a big enough warchest, they might just as well buy LinkedIn instead.

This is a really good example of the never-ending dynamic flow between disintermediation and reintermediation, actually. How do you hit the right balance between the costs and the benefits of spreading your information across multiple social networks, versus having everything in one place?

Anyway, if you’re on Facebook and want to friend me, please feel free to do so.

UPDATE 7:30PM: After posting this, I ran across Danah Boyd’s excellent article on the class division developing between Facebook and MySpace. It’s well worth reading.