I have literally hundreds of feeds nestled somewhat uncomfortably within my RSS aggregator. In recent months it seems that many of the authors I track have done nothing but rant and complain and whine. Yesterday I decided to clean up my subscriptions and remove those that add no value. I removed nearly one third half of them. For those of you I’ve cut (yes, I know you don’t care), here’s some advice… Bitching Adds Zero Value.

Here’s a short list of things that I find actually add value to any given blog…

• Create something new and show it to me. Photos, poems, ideas, I don’t care which.

• Teach me what you know about whatever it is you know.

• Tell me what you like and don’t like about something - anything, but don’t bitch about it. There’s a difference.

• Point me to something you find interesting.

• Tell me something about yourself now and then.

To sum up, if you feel the urge to surround your next post with tags, just skip it. Maybe try instead. Again, there’s a difference.

The Bubble Project)’s goal is to free public spaces of corporate messages by allowing anyone to contribute to the “corporate monologue,” thereby transforming it into an “open dialogue.”

So print some stickers already.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Leeloo, our newest family member.

!/images/leeloo1.jpg!

The Image Culture)

“…our patience for the creation of images has also eroded. Children today are used to being tracked from birth by digital cameras and video recorders and they expect to see the results of their poses and performances instantly. Let me see, a child says, when you take her picture with a digital camera. And she does, immediately. The space between life as it is being lived and life as it is being displayed shrinks to a mere second.”

3QD) is one the most interesting sites/blogs I’ve run into in a very long time.

A few recently posted items to suggest its flavor…

• The Ethics of the New Brain Science

• ELEGANT TAXONOMY

• The Philosophy of Philosophy

• Testing Action at a Distance and other Quantum Weirdness

• Humans Do Not Understand Mirror Reflections

A particularly interesting piece, Richard Dawkins, Relativism and Truth) from Dec. 12th in which Abbas Raza challenges Richard Dawkin’s statements about the true-ness of truth, is where I came in. Good stuff.

From New Scientist: 13 Things that do not make sense). I like the fact that science not only admits that it doesn’t know everything, but seems to enjoy that fact. Incidentally, I suspect that the solution to 9 of the 13 specific things mentioned in the article will involve aliens.

I’m way late on this one, but…

Our) fabulous annual holiday “Coaster” was released last week. Play it yourself at swoop-to-nuts.com). The arcade player in you will love it. Take a moment to get the hang of the controls and fly like a… well… like a squirrel!

On the other hand, Michael Bay’s The Island) pretty much sucks. Mr Bay did The Rock, which was great. After that, it’s been all downhill. Besides Michael Bay is a blowhard. Lots of noise about not much. Scarlett Johansson is not-quite-too-pretty and very watchable, but skip this one.

Serenity) is a surprisingly good science fiction film based on Joss Whedon’s ill-fated Firefly television series. Don’t let its T.V. roots stop you. Serenity is better than all three recent Star Wars movies. It’s funny, the dialog is reasonably fresh, and there’s actually a fair amount of character development. Oh, and a hovercraft chase - naturally.