Here's that sleep book I've been reading. I'd definitely recommend it as a light non-fiction read that combines history, science, and sociology. Martin definitely has an axe to grind, but it's a fairly benign one: get more sleep.
He makes a very compelling case, and peppers it with trivia on everything from sleep in the pre-electric era to the difference between blind & sighted people's dreams. Makes good cocktail party / work gathering conversation, and helps you to re-evaluate the role that sleep plays in your life.
I have found that it's one of those books that if i put it down too long I'll never come back to it, so I can't say it's riveting. But still recommended. Overall grade: B.
Is there any way to add RSS feeds of your other online content to your blog? I'd like to add my tiara.org feed to this blog, but it would also be super awesome if you could add your LJ feed as well. Although my LJ is all flocked, since both LJ and Vox are owned by SixApart, perhaps there could be some sort of seamless privacy integration. Wishful thinking!
I wrote yesterday on tiara.org that the only way to realistically "solve" the "problem" of people (read: young people) exposing personal information online (which then makes parents, resident advisors, bosses, etc. uncomfortable) is to give the information generators more control over who sees that information, tools for obfuscation, etc. Which I guess is the point of Vox? But then sns companies would argue that the utility of the network is diminished if everyone locks down their profiles, which is how MySpace justifies not letting people over 16 having private profiles. I need to think about this.
Also: note to self: revisit the problem of how the semantic web deals with people (beyond FOAF) particularly w/r/t community applications.
I'm in Austin right now, so minimal books:
The new War Fiction issue of the New Yorker
Counting Sheep by Paul Martin, about sleep
and at home I'm slowly, slowly working my way through Arundhati Roy's "An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire", which I may or may not ever finish.
