Hey, could I persuade somebody to build this application for me?  What I want is something that combines the functionality of something like Library Thing with the functionality of a bibliographic software package like EndNote—a web-based application that would let me keep track of the books and articles that I use in my work, that would allow for note-taking (and perhaps even both independent and collaborative note-taking, so it might combine a personal-database type function with a more wiki-like function), and that would export in various formats that would allow for the insertion of proper citations in a range of styles in the standard word processing packages.

Or does something like this already exist?  Could it just be done with a wiki?  If there’s a better way, and it’s not out there yet, I beg you:  Go build this and make yourself a small fortune.  All I ask is that you name it after me.

Originally uploaded by fgt.

I woke up this morning to news of the London bombings on NPR, as, I imagine, did much of the west coast.  I’m devastated by this news, not least because of how much I love that city, but primarily, at the moment, because of the number of people I care about who are through there all the time.  GZombie is elsewhere in England right now, thankfully, and meg is back home, and R., who was there for six months last year, is of course currently in DC.  My niece, on tour with a school group, was slated to arrive in London today, but her group is being kept outside the city instead.  My friend C., who lives in London, I’ve emailed, but have for all the obvious reasons not yet heard from.

I got online and went looking for information about what’s happening there, and of course the New York Times and CNN are heavily reporting on the attacks, but their reports, as always, feel like they’re leaving something out.  Perhaps the actual experiences of those present.

This image, though, found on flickr, conveys something through all its multiple mediations (image taken with someone’s mobile phone; broadcast over television; photographed on the tube; posted on the internet) that the press can’t capture.  A member of a listserv I’m on posted a few minutes ago that

BBC has created an online environment where people who are “blocked” in the areas of explosions are sending hundreds of e-mails, pictures, but also mms, sms and calls to tell what’s going on – and ask what’s going on – I was told by a friend who works at BBC. I am reading on the Internet those stories from central London… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4659237.stm

I’m not sure what to say about this yet; it feels wrong to begin theorizing this soon.  But there’s something important in these multiple, mobile modes of communication and broadcast, something that seems to me to relate to television and other broadcast modes of the mainstream media in much the same way that blogging does—a vast diffusion, a popularization, an emergence… And there’s a parallel I want to draw between this kind of guerrilla activity and that of terrorists—both attempting to wrest power from traditional structures—but with the obvious dichotomies of purpose and effect.

My thoughts go out to all those in London, and in the rest of the world as well.  Here’s hoping that someday, somehow, the diffused, popular modes of communications we see coming into being might actually bear changes for our social structures—and for our safety—as well.

deconstruction 1

Originally uploaded by KF.

So I’ve finally given in and drunk the kool-aid, and have uploaded my first photoset to flickr.  I’m not entirely sure why it took me this long, though it has something to do with the gallery feature of ExpressionEngine, which I was pretty committed to making work.  And it’s a great feature, but flickr’s mighty compelling, so this is kind of an experiment to see which I like better.

This post is largely a test, to make sure that the API I’m using is working properly.  In part, though, I’m also showing off a set of condo-related photos, documenting the demolition of the old city yard directly across the street from me, over the course of the spring semester.  Construction is on the verge of beginning on phase 2 of my neighborhood, and the new village expansion is similarly beginning just down the street from me.  The good news about this is that my pseudo-urban life is about to become a bit more convincing; the bad news is that the inconveniences of construction will be everywhere in evidence for the next year-plus.

This may be just about the coolest thing ever:

We are pleased to announce our newest feature, package tracking. Now, you can have Bloglines track the status of your UPS, FedEx, and USPS packages. From your My Feeds page, click the Add link in the left pane. Then, click the Package Tracking link in the right pane. From there you can enter tracking numbers for UPS, FedEx, and USPS packages. Also, you can do a search on a specific tracking number. Entering a tracking number will create a subscription in your account that is updated whenever the status of your package changes.

Now that’s handy.

Here’s the thing:  I’ve resisted the whole syndication wave for eons.  I’ve provided various feeds for this site, mostly because the software made it really easy, but also because I knew there were folks out there who I wanted to keep up with the doings here via Bloglines or other such aggregators.  For myself, though, I’ve really stuck with my blogroll, checking the sites that ping blogrolling.com religiously, and the others a bit less so.  Reading blogs has been for me as much about the personalized interface as about the text—actually, probably not as much, but the site design creates an important sense of the blogger for me, and I didn’t want to lose that.

Last week, though, I started thinking about the number of sites that don’t ping blogrolling.com, whose updates I frequently miss out on.  And then a couple of days ago I dreamed that I opened a Bloglines account.

Honestly.  I dreamed about reading blogs via Bloglines.

So I figured this was an omen, and who am I not to follow its dictates?  I’ve opened my Bloglines account, and have been adding feeds this afternoon.

But here’s the massively stupid question—and I do mean massively stupid, i.e., so stupid it’s not even included in the FAQ, because who could possibly ask a question like this:

What’s my Bloglines username?

When I created the account, I was asked to log in with an email address as my user id.  But if you want to make your subscriptions public (and I may or may not), you are told to direct the folks you’re sharing with to “http://www.bloglines.com/public/USERNAME”.  And clearly that username is not meant to be the user id/email address I created the account with.  And when I attempt to update my user profile, where I’d assume such a username would be either created or stored, I get bupkis.  The form has entries for first and last name, and whether you want those to be shown, but nowhere does it specify a username.

A little help…?

Why are my blogrolling.com pings suddenly producing database errors?  There, I mean, not here.  Other folks’s blogs are showing up as updated in my blogroll; is this retribution for the Foghat debacle?

Take that, LJ-hating-type snobs.

Or that, or that, for that matter.

45 trackbacks at Mena’s Corner.  2905 comments (and counting) at LiveJournal.  Here’s hoping SixApart is ready.

I’ve been too busy hyperventilating over the financial machinations that have taken over my life of late to post this in anything like a timely fashion, but it turns out that I’ve got 6 Gmail invites to distribute.  If you want one, comment below (with your email address), or email me at kf AT plannedobsolescence DOT net.  Friends and regular readers will get priority, but after that, it’s first-come, first-served.

[UPDATE, 6.27.2004, 8.34 am:  I’ve still got 5.]

[UPDATE, sometime after that:  Invites gone.  I’ll post again if I get more.]