Nels Wadycki

Two hits from Lifehacker today: Hustle When You Want to Learn New Things and Ira Glass on Getting Creative Work Done.

The first is the key to the door, and it’s easy to insert and unlock: Hustle. Simple as that.

If you want to do something: do something. If want want to make progress towards a goal: do something. If you want to learn something (like Matt Nowack in the post): do something. Just keep doing something (hustling) and you will get things done.

So that pretty much covers that. Except, it also leads into the second post, which is: the reason you have to keep hustling.
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Nels Diatribes, Getting Things Done, Personal Improvement Fail, Getting Things Done, Hustle, Ira Glass, Lifehacker

From a (sort of) recent Facebook status update:

While I agree for the most part with the “Tumblr > Twitter” sentiment, well, that’s kind of obvious. Twitter is definitely good for some things (mostly sharing short fleeting thoughts, but also sometimes for sharing links, and conversing with people who use Twitter as their main form of communication). I did not see “being a blog” in that list, though. And as Commenter #1 points out, you can view Twitter updates on your Tumblr dashboard while posting slightly longer commentaries on Tumblr. Of course, Commenter #1 also makes the fatal mistake of saying that he (or she) wishes they knew HTML.
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Nels Blogging, Diatribes, RSS, Social web, The New Web, Twitter Blogging, Diatribes, RSS, Social web, Tumblr, Twitter

I’m so famous that all of Chicago is following me on Twitter! What up!

Nels Twitter Chicago, Twitter

or: The True Power of RSS

On the same day when TechCrunch delivered this piece on the Internet as Robin Hood, I also realized how irrelevant “old media” and/or “the establishment” has become to me personally. What brought me to this realization before I even looked at the TechCrunch article?

Vajazzle

I am going to say with all honesty, that nearly all of the blogs I read via RSS (which is nearly all of the blogs I read) are focused on tech (e.g., TechCrunch) and basketball (e.g., Ball Don’t Lie). And yet, I still found out about Vajazzling only a day after Jennifer Love Hewitt was on George Lopez’s late night show. Thank you, Basketbawful.

You can almost see the sparkling Swarovski crystals.

As someone who has received some of the riches that Robin Interhood has stolen from the big news outlets, I can’t help but champion the power of the Internet. But honestly, I was kind of amazed that I can be plugged into pop culture even when I limit myself to two particular subject areas. And I’m not the only one who’s interested in this kind of thing. Tracking new media, I mean, of course. Not the vajazzling itself.

Nels Misc Tech, RSS, The New Web Basketbawful, Jennifer Love Hewitt, New Media, Newspaper, RSS, Vajazzle

I’ve never been a huge fan of Kiplinger’s, but they do provide solid advice sometimes. I haven’t been needing as much financial advice (at least not the Hot Stock Top kind the magazines use to fill in around the stuff that’s the same every month) since I finally got most of my stuff automated (and invested in a single general mutual fund). But in the February issue, they’re really pushing it…
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Nels Diatribes, Personal Finance Kiplingers, Personal Finance, Retirement

Cause they’re near-sighted!

Get it? Get it?

Anyway, if you hadn’t heard (I first spotted it at my non-blood relative with the same last name’s blog), Warner Brothers and Netflix have reached a deal whereby Netflix won’t let people get new release DVDs (or Blu-Ray discs) from them until 28 days after the release of the DVD/BRD.

Netflix gets some sort of discount on the physical discs and also will supposedly get to stream some additional movies that they might not have gotten otherwise.

Conclusion: Netflix smart. WB stupid.

That said, the terms of the deal don’t actually affect me. I mean, the last “new release” that I got from Netflix was Wolverine, and that was about 6 months after it came out (so, definitely outside any sort of 28 day waiting period).

If WB was the smart one here, they would have done the opposite of what they actually did and told Netflix, release our DVDs whenever the hell you want, but give us a bigger slice of the old (or new, I guess) streaming pie. I mean, do the execs at WB not think that streaming video is the future of the business? Or are they so pompous as to think that they’ll just renegotiate another sweet deal once streaming video becomes mainstream (pun intended)?

Initially it made me want to boycott Netflix for kowtowing to the studio, and to somehow try to demonstrate that I disapproved of the deal, but then I realized that as long as Netflix can continue to increase their power in the streaming space, then it’s a good deal. That, and my wife and still have 2 seasons of How I Met Your Mother to marathon, and the third and fourth seasons are more expensive to buy outright than the first two.

Nels Diatribes, Misc Tech Netflix, Streaming Video, Warner Brothers

From TechCrunch

PoketyPoke is a new service that calls you when you have a conference call and connects you automatically. Why it took someone that long to think of and implement this is beyond me. This is like GTD times 80 bazillion. If implemented correctly, you’d never have to remember a conference call again (which could be a problem, I suppose if you’re supposed to give a presentation or something).

If you were me, you’d never have to worry about the timing of your meeting reminders (although I’ve got a pretty effective system down at this point).

I suppose the only downside is that is probably won’t be able to use Skype to call in for free. But, I think you can get a SkypeIn number for somewhere around $5 per month, so if that’s less than you’re paying for your normal phone or mobile because of conference calls sucking up all your plan minutes, then it might be worth it. Especially worth it if it means you never miss a meeting again.

Nels Misc Tech Conference Calling, PoketyPoke, TechCrunch

From Read/Write Web.

I just still feel like I’m missing something. I can’t get past the fact that Twitter is not a feed reader, yet people insist on using it as one. I mean, if I were following all the people whose feeds I read on Twitter instead of using Google Reader, I don’t feel like I would see even half the posts that I do now. Granted, I skip over half of them anyway, but at least I know that I’m consciously skipping things I don’t want to see instead of just losing them to a Devil’s Kettle whirlpool of information.

Here’s the Top 5 Reasons I Still Use An RSS Reader:
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Nels Diatribes, RSS, Twitter Diatribes, RSS, Twitter

When October/November rolls around, (aka Meteorological Winter) I go into full Hot Chocolate/Mocha mode. I’m talking about at least one a day. Sometimes as many as three. Now, of course, if I was paying retail rates for that, I’d be broke by the time Spring came again. But, lucky for me, I’ve trained my taste buds to accept my own special mix, which is not only super cheap, but also good for you, and fast to make.

You’ll need:
14-16 ounces of hot water
1 packet of Wild Harvest Organic Rich Hot Cocoa Mix
2 Nescafe® Premium Coffee Sticks, Decaf (I go with the decaf because I try to limit my caffeine intake – I used to use the regular version and it worked just fine)

Mix first three ingredients.

Done.

110 calories.

Nels Friday Fun Coffee, Mocha, Recipes, Starbucks