The recommended daily allowance of sodium (RDA) is 2,300 mg. However the average american probably gets 4,000 – 5,000mg. The main culprit is of course processed food. But I don’t just mean pizza’s, and frozen dinners (both guilty). If you eat a bag lunch at work then lunch meat is also a major source of sodium in your diet.

On average people put somewhere between 3 and 6 slices of lunch meat in their sandwich. Each slice probably has at least 250mg of sodium in it. That’s 750 – 1,500mg of sodium just from a lunch sandwich and it doesn’t include the bread itself!

There’s a solution though. It’s economical, it’s healthy and it actually tastes better. Best of all it’s easy.

Go to your local grocery store and purchase boneless, skinless chicken breast (or tenderloin). Make sure it hasn’t been pumped with brine (a common practice now). 3oz of chicken breast (around 6-8 slices of lunch meat) could have as little as 30mg of sodium in it. While you’re at it pick up some sodium free poultry seasoning.

Now chop up the chicken into strips, season to taste and grill. Separate the strips into bags (2oz per lunch for however many lunches you want that week) and then freeze them.

Simple as that. They taste better than the processed lunch meat, you can stock up and do weeks at a time (I’ve done two months worth before) and you’re cutting hundreds of mg of sodium a day out of your diet. Personally I dropped 2,500mg per week off my diet from this single step.

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There’s a lot of hype behind the idea of real time information flow on the internet. In particular the idea of getting news updates in “real times” is floated as a holy grail of the information age. But is it really such a good thing to get instant reports? I present to you the Android 2.1 Non-Release for the Droid Eris.

The HTC Droid Eris is a Verizon phone that currently runs Google’s Android 1.5 mobile phone operating system. It’s owners (myself include) are eagerly awaiting an update to the latest and greatest Android 2.1. An upgrade that has been promised by Verizon for Q1 of 2010.

On February 17th there was a post on the Droid Eris forums at Android Forums from someone someone claiming he’d received an OTA (Over The Air) update to 2.1. Of course posters started speculating. Screenshots were posted to back up the claim and they appeared legitimate.

In a matter of hours Engadget had posted Some Droid Eris Users Getting Android 2.1 Update complete with picture cribbed from the forums.

Shortly after, an almost identical post appeared at Eletronista and another one at Androinica and afterdawn.com.

Fast right? Just one problem. Android 2.1 hasn’t been released on the HTC Eris yet. It is however available to a small number of Verizon testers.

In each case the reports were almost identical and they were clearly based off the same handful of forum posts. These reporters were in such a rush to give us up to the minute, “real time” news that they didn’t bother to apply even the most basic of common sense to the information they read on the forums. Just a few minutes of thought and fact checking would have quickly debunked this rumor.

But hey, it’s more important to be fast than right yeah?

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New Doctor Who Logo

And we still don’t have an air date. Spring 2010 is all they’re saying. So the earliest it could be would be the end of March and if I was to guess I’d say mid-April is a more likely date. That’s still two months away!

Patience is a virtue, but there’s so much to anticipate. A new Doctor. A new companion. A new TARDIS interior. A new producer. I’m generally in the wait and see before judging camp, but I am oh so curious about how the feel of the show may change from series 4 to series 5 (or 1 or whatever).

I’m a huge fan of Steven Moffat and have been since I first saw Press Gang many years ago. The man has rarely if ever put a foot wrong in my book. Jekyll was fantastic and his Doctor Who stories have been hands down brilliant. But there’s a huge difference between writing 1 or 2 episodes a year and writing 6-8. And what affect will he have on the other writers for the show this year?

I’m curious about the new lead too of course. Matt Smith looks distinctly different to either David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston. And he’s younger, but I’m not too concerned about that. I’ve been watching Who for a very long time and I expect my Doctor’s to change on a regular basis. I don’t think there’s been a bad one yet so I’m sure he’ll grow on me quickly. Takes most of them a few episodes.

Lots of questions that need answers, but more importantly I just want to watch more Doctor Who! I want adventures in Time and Space. Lets see more of the TARDIS. More alien planets. By all means bring back some familiar faces. Not too many Daleks, but some other classic monsters would be good to see again.

I love being a Doctor Who geek!

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I’m noticing some common story telling techniques emerging in recent sci-fi series and I’m starting to wonder, have producers learned the wrong lessons from Lost and Battlestar Galactica?

The Story Arc

The most significant change in modern television is the emergence of the story arc. To various degrees it can be seen in almost all science fiction shows from Warehouse 13 to Chuck via Heroes and V.

The series that solidified story arcs as a valid method of tv storytelling was of course the scifi classic Babylon 5. Adoption was slow initially, but we now have shows like Lost and BSG that almost have to be watched as part of a larger arc if you want them to make sense. Even the continuity light shows like Chuck or Warehouse 13 generally have a season long story arc these days. Each show stands on it’s own, but there’s some hints at a larger story as well.

I’m a big fan of the story arc. Done properly it creates a much richer story than can be achieved in the standard 45 minutes. But there are a lot of downsides. My wife and I fell behind in watching Lost during the second season and after about a month realized it was just more trouble than it was worth trying to catch up again.

Grim and Gritty

Back in the 80’s and 90’s there was a big fad for “Grim n Gritty” superheroes. Fortunately it seems to have faded in the last decade. Unfortunately that same trend has infected my scifi shows!

Battlestar Galactica showed that stepping away from the space battles and focusing on characters who aren’t purely black or white can produce some intense viewing. But that doesn’t mean every single character has to behave like an ass.

Shaky Cam

As part of the trend towards a more realistic presentation, quick cuts and shaky hand held camera work. Done well this can add to the tension of a scene. Overdone, it is intensely annoying.

How About Making It Good?
All of these techniques have been used successfully before but they aren’t what made Lost or BSG a success. Strong characters, a plot that pulls the viewer in and high production values are what actually made those shows popular. None of these elements are actually required to make a good tv show.

Wouldn’t it be much better to create a show that is true to itself? That has a style that enhances the story it is trying to tell rather than mimics the latest fad? Wouldn’t the show do better if it wasn’t pretending to be something else?

It’s certainly not a new phenomenon. People have been complaining about the media’s tendency to over-hype and over-react to every bit of news they report on. With the advent of blogs that annoying habit rapidly spread to everyone else who felt the need to share their opinion.

But the advent of social networking seems to have escalated this problem. Now people have to make judgements quicker than ever before and in order to get attention, to get a reaction, they have to couch them in ever more extreme terms.

This constant upping of language intensity numbs the audience and devalues both the previously perfectly adequate words and the words we are now using in their place. It’s no longer sufficient to say that Google showed poor judgement. Now we have to call them evil. So if Google are evil, does that mean we’re placing them on the level of murderers?

The English language contains over a quarter of a million words. With that level of subtlety at our fingertips why do we immediately reach for a sledgehammer?

This linguistic laziness is made even worse by the speed of reaction on the internet. Because not only does the originator of the post have to make a snap judgement, apparently so does everyone who reads it.

But if all anyone does is scream at the top of their voice and repeat the same handful phrases that they just, there’s no value in the medium. You’d get as much insight by standing in the middle of a train station and listening to fragments of conversation from the people passing by.

So what’s the point of this little screed of mine? Think before you post. Life isn’t binary and nor is language. Use the textures and shading that language provides to show the complexity of the subject you’re discussing.

It can be done. Even in 140 characters.

At this point there really can’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind that mobile is the future of the internet. The real question is what form factor does mobile come in?

Right now it comes in three main flavors: Smartphones like the iPhone or Android; Netbooks; or WiFi connected pocket devices like the iPod Touch or Nokia’s N810. A fourth format is slowly emerging in the form of tablet’s like the iPad.

But all of these formats have limitations and problems. Phones are too small for heavy text entry and while perfect as an “everywhere” device their small screens are less than ideal for reading or watching. Netbook’s are perfect for data entry and reasonably portable. But they aren’t good for reading books, nor for making private phone calls. They are also a little inconvenient when you’re out on a walk. The iPod Touch isn’t much use if you’re outside the range of a Wi-Fi signal etc. etc.

The future is mobile, but mobile is not going to look like any of the devices we currently have. That much is clear. But what will they look like?

Personally I think there has been far too much focus on creating a single device that will do everything. But that’s not going to work. You can’t optimize a device to do everything. Instead we need to approach the problem from a different angle.

There are two reasons to want a single device. The first is so that you have access to all your data no matter where you are and the second is because carrying multiple items is a nuisance. They take up space. They weigh you down.

Data access is partially solved by the evolution of Cloud Computing which will make most or perhaps all of your data accessible from any internet connection. But you need a guaranteed connection if you’re going to rely on that. It would be better and faster to combine your cloud data with a local cache that gets synched in the background (as many smart phones do currently).

The bigger problem is need different form factors to achieve different goals. But I think there’s actually a simple solution. Separate processing and storage from input and display. Picture a device about the size of a thumb drive that contains Wi-Fi, 3G (or 4G), a CPU and solid state storage. It weighs almost nothing and fits in any pocket. Need to check stuff on the move? Plug it in to a slimline mobile phone (contains the mike, speaker and screen but not much else). Need to write a blog post from your hotel? Plug in to the dumb terminal in your room and off you go. Sitting at home and want to watch some video. Plug into your tablet.

A single device means paying for a single data connection (instead of the current arrangement where you pay for internet twice or three times). You have a local copy of your data just in case you are in a dead zone. And of course it’s light weight so it eliminates most of the problems of carrying multiple devices.

So what do you think? How would you re-invent the mobile experience?

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Start up the browser and go to https://m.google.com/app/buzz. Now click “Continue on an unsupported device”. Bookmark that site and away you go.

It is unsupported so not all of the features and functionality of Buzz may work, but it will do until Google gives us official support.

Take a look at the basic concept of both shows:

Lost in a different galaxy so far from home that they will likely never see Earth again. The ship’s crew must overcome distrust and antagonisms to work together and survive.

That could describe either Stargate: Universe or Star Trek: Voyager wouldn’t you say?

I’ve had this comparison in the back of my mind ever since Stargate: Universe first aired, but what brought it back to the surface was the recent news that for Season 2 of Universe the writers plan to introduce a recurring villain. In itself that’s a good thing. One of the problems with Universe so far has been the lack of a clearly defined enemy.

However, I have to question the use of the Lucian Alliance. The alliance were originally introduced towards the end of SG-1’s run. The whole point of Universe was to move away from the familiar and explore new aliens, new societies and new enemies. This was of course the exact same premise for Voyager too, and they also ended up introducing some familiar faces.

There comes a point in any franchise where the uniqueness and originality has been mined out of the setting and desperate measure are taken to try and keep things going. I think most people would probably point to Star Trek: Voyager as the moment that the Star Trek franchise began to founder. It was such a significant cultural phenomenon that it kept going for years after that, but it gradually slid into obscurity.

Stargate, despite it’s longevity, has not had nearly the social impact that Star Trek did and I have to wonder how quickly the Stargate franchise could fade if they continue to make the same mistakes that Star Trek did.

Of course franchises can be resurrected. Look at the phenomenal success of the recent Star Trek movie. But in that case it took a full reboot to undo a decade’s worth of damage and I don’t think Stargate has that luxury.

What do you think? Will Stargate: Universe survive beyond the second season? Is there some way to rejuvenate the franchise with out a full reboot? How would you fix it?

3D is the future of cinema apparently. I’m not clear exactly when that decision was made, but it seems that Hollywood has made up its mind. In the last couple of years we’ve had more and more movies coming out in 3D, a trend which has culminated with Avatar.

And now there is news that Blu-Ray movies will start coming out in 3D as well so we can experience this in the comfort of our own homes. My question is why?

I don’t mean to dismiss the technical achievement of Avatar, which is clearly substantial, but I can’t help feeling that the move to 3D is driven entirely by money, not storytelling or artistic merit.

There are several reasons why 3D movies are not a good idea currently:

1. There are at least 4 competing 3D standards
2. Most cinemas are not capable of playing 3D movies
3. Shooting a movie in 3D requires special techniques or it is more distracting than anything else
4. Not everyone is capable of viewing movies in 3D

So with all those problems, why is Hollywood (and the rest of the entertainment industry) pushing so hard for 3D? Well it comes down to money of course. A large part of the entertainment dollar has been siphoned away from cinemas by DVDs, TV and the internet. 3D was something that these outlets couldn’t offer. It gave people a reason to spend $15 or so on the movie ticket and associated snacks. It fed into the idea of movie going as an experience.

Money is also the reason you can now by 3D enabled television sets. People have spent thousands of dollars on big screen TVs and the electronics companies need a big feature in order to persuade them to upgrade again. 3D is the feature they’ve picked.

We are repeatedly told that this is what the viewers want. But do they? In 2008 only 1,400 of the 30,000 screens in the US could actually show 3D movies. In June 2009 there were estimated to be only 5,000 3D screens worldwide.

Avatar is held up as the pinnacle of 3D movie making and it’s been a huge financial success despite the considerable cost. But is that because of the 3D? Well look at the numbers. In the US Avatar has raked in $352,111,000.00 with an average of 3,461 theaters. But most of those theaters will have shown it on multiple screens. Wikipedia reports that it played on some 2,200 3D screens for its midnight showing, and made only $3,537,000.00. The majority of Avatar’s box office came from people viewing this “3D” movie on non-3D screens.

It seems to me that the 3D trend is being driven entirely by companies, not by consumer demand. People don’t hate 3D, but they don’t really want it either. Am I wrong?

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You know I was planning on writing a normal review of David Tennant’s Doctor Who swansong, but ultimately that’s pointless. The End of Time really sums up the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who perfectly. Within the 135 minutes of story is everything that was great and everything not so great about his version of Doctor Who. You can pick apart the details from End of Time Part 1 and Part 2. There are certainly flaws, some of them quite big, but that’s really not the point.

When Davies returned the show to television after it’s long absence, he had a very particular vision in mind. While I really liked Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor, really it’s clear that David Tennant embodies how Davies sees Doctor Who. So their departure really is the end of an era even more than a regular regeneration is.

The End of Time isn’t the best Doctor Who story. It’s not the best regeneration story. It’s not even the best 10th Doctor story. But it is a very fitting send off for Tennant and Davies.

What we get is an epic, mainstream, Doctor Who story with John Simms playing a wonderfully insane Master and Timothy Dalton as an equally manic Rassillon. The scale was huge, the big action sequences were interspersed with some great one on one acting between Tennant’s Doctor and Bernard Cribbin’s Wilf. Action, pathos and explosions. That’s Davies’ approach to Doctor Who in a nutshell. And if you don’t like his vision, you won’t like this story.

There were of course also some unanswered questions (which I can forgive) and some rather large plot holes. There was also an overlong send off to all the Doctor’s companions. But in the end the flaw’s don’t really matter because the emotion of the regeneration is hard to ignore. It’s a formula that works judging by the viewing figures and audience ratings. But it’s not to everyone’s taste of course. It’s not 100% to mine.

That’s one of the great things about Doctor Who though. It changes. We’ve seen radical changes in style over the years. Pertwee’s “James Bond” era followed by Tom Baker’s “Gothic Horror” era, followed by his increasingly comic era. It’s not just the actor that changes Doctor Who, it’s the producers too.

And for those who didn’t like The End of Time, take heart. Something different is coming. Steven Moffat’s vision of Doctor Who is not Russell T Davies. We got the briefest of tasters of Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor. Not enough to judge the man (though I’m sure it won’t stop people), but enough to see that he will be different to David Tennant.

So appreciate the Tennant / Davies’ era for what it is an enjoy The End of Time on that level, then wait impatiently for the beginning of the Matt Smith / Steven Moffat era.

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Stronger, Leaner, Fitter

It seems I’ve put on around 10lbs over the course of the year, so now I have to lose them again. I’m also going to make yet another attempt at the elusive 170lb target weight (now around 20lbs away). The best I’ve ever done was to lose 14lbs so it’s a major target.

I’m looking at a combination of diet and exercise to do it. So I guess I need to finish up those candies sitting on my desk!

I’m still figuring out the details for this one, but regular breakfasts, controlling portion sizes and a regular exercise routine are at the core of it. I’m also toying with the idea of walking a mile a day. If I buy a pedometer I might just do it, because I do love my gadgets.

Mental Strength

Last year was rough and it’s taken it’s toll on me. I’ve had problems with depression in the past and I can feel similar patterns emerging again. I don’t plan on letting it develop any further. I’ll be taking the necessary steps to get my mind back on track in early January. The clarity of thought and confidence that should come with that will hopefully feed into all aspects of my life.

Photography

I’ve gotten really into photography in the last couple of years and I feel that in the last 12 months I’ve got noticeably better at taking pictures. I’m an amateur snapper and nothing more but I have taken a few pictures that I’m really pleased with.

I now have a tripod that I’m looking forward to using as the weather gets better and maybe this will be the year I get a camera with a bigger zoom. Or maybe not. Either way I look forward to taking lots of pictures of my family any anything else that catches my interest.

Disney World

It has been decided that we are going to Disney World in September this year which will no doubt cause a lot of excitement for my sons as we get closer. My priority at the moment is getting the money together for it. It may also mean that for the first time since I moved here, we won’t take a trip to Ocean City, MD. Not sure how I feel about that.

Organization, Networking and the Internets

I’ve had an online presence for over a decade, but my websites have become stagnant in the last few years and my online presence is fractured and sporadic. Somehow or other I want to tie that all together so I am interacting with people on a regular basis again and updating at least this blog with interesting new content.

Sadly I think that my science fiction site Solar Flare may have run its course. There are better and faster ways to gather sci-fi news and I cant produce sufficient in depth articles to because of my other commitments. I’m reluctant to take it offline though so it will probably stay as it is.

Yard Work

Last year I had a lot of plans to improve the yard around my house. Most of them didn’t get very far. I did start, but enthusiasm waned. More important things came up and finally time ran out. So I’m going to take that same list and work on it again this year. They’re all good projects. I just need to complete some of them.

Writing

This is a perennial on my to do lists. I’d really like to spend more time on my writing and maybe actually finish something. One can always hope.

The problem is I don’t really believe in New Year (or New Decade depending on how you count it). It’s an arbitrary day that has no more real significance than any other. And the fact that it is in fact the start of a new year is largely historical chance.

But it occurred to me that for once this new year has taken on a greater personal significance than ever before. It really has been one bitch of a year for me and my family and I can’t wait to see the back of it and seize the chance for a fresh start.

The first blow was when my wife was let go from her job. Fortunately it didn’t take very long before she had found an new position, but that was just the warm up. Only a month later my Mother in Law passed away suddenly and pretty much blew our comfortable lives apart. From then on it was a quick succession of problems to be solved from dental work to behavior at school. Then few months later a work colleague passed away unexpectedly.

Under the circumstances, I think you’ll forgive me if I am ready to see the back of this year.

I know that statistically there hasn’t been any more death this year than in previous years, but it hit close to home this time (several times actually) and while there were some wonderful moments, they get overshadowed by the sadness of other events.

So… it was a bitch of a year. But we’re about to start a new year and the next post will be more positive and forward looking. Promise.

This evening I was confronted with a perfect example of what is wrong with real time news. The guilty party was Twitter, frequently touted as a wonderful source of the latest information. The problem is that people are in such a rush to pass on this information, they don’t apply any form of critical review.

In this case the news was a story that a woman had been awarded huge damages for her plagiarism case against the Terminator and Matrix franchises. Naturally there was a link: http://www.dannyjohn-jules.com/news.aspx?newsID=10.

One of the scifi news sites picked it up and posted it to Twitter. I’m not going to name them because that’s really not the point of this post. Besides they were hardly the only one who got caught out by this.

Twitter being Twitter, this link was rapidly retweeted. I saw one of the retweets and read the original article. Something just ring true about this. How could I possibly not have heard anything about this previously. I’m kind of obsessive about my science fiction. And why hadn’t the mainstream media or even websites picked up on a court case of this scale?

So I did what any self respecting geek would do. I Googled it. And look what I found: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp. It took me a couple of minutes to dig this up and confirm my suspicions. But of course by doing this I was stepping out of the real time news stream. Don’t waste time attempting to understand the information you’ve been given, just pass it on.

Having identified the problem, I then made some efforts to correct it. First I posted a suggestion that this story might not be real to the same hashtags that I had seen it on in the first place. That didn’t work. Within 5 minutes someone else had retweeted the story again to the same hashtag. Are people so busy passing information on that they’re not actually reading the places they’re sending the information to?

So then I tried to contact the retweeter. That didn’t work. They didn’t respond and seven minutes later someone else retweeted it again. I sent a further tweet to the originator in the hopes they would eventually correct their error, but who knows how far this story will have spread before that happens, if it does.

Maybe the people who are championing Twitter as the future of news, might want to take a serious look at why real time is not automatically a good thing. Lists won’t stop this sort of thing, they’ll just make the bad information spread faster. You need to step away from the instant gratification, now… now… now… mindset. You need to step back and take time to digest the information you’re being given.

I’ll take good information in an hour over bad information right now. And that’s why I don’t use Twitter to get my news.

I’ve been looking forward to ABC’s remake of V for some time now. Eagerly absorbing the initial news and then worriedly consuming the more recent tidbits of information. There’s a well known phrase: “You can’t go home again”. Revisiting the past can often lead to disappointment. Was this going to be one of those cases?

Kenneth Johnson’s original 1983 V miniseries holds a special place in my heart. I was 11 years old at the time and just really getting into science fiction as a genre rather than individual works.

You have to understand the time period. The early 80s wasn’t just pre-internet. It was before most people had home computers. Unless you were connected to a local fandom (and at 11 I wasn’t) then all you had was the small number of professional magazines that were available.

And there wasn’t that much TV scifi to choose from. In the UK there was Doctor Who of course and a handful of American imports, but not much else. A big budget sci-fi mini-series, that was unheard of. V was a big deal.

Since then I’ve not only watched V multiple times, I bought both the mini-series on DVD. Admittedly I did skip the dodgy series. So a reworking of this show had a an awful lot to live up to. Does it?

Well, honestly, no. Nothing can live up to the weight of those memories and I don’t think any new scifi show can have the significance that V had when it was broadcast. But that doesn’t mean that the new V is a bad show. Quite the contrary.

In many ways it’s a more sophisticated, more mature show than the original. V was full of people escaping alien spaceships; running around; shouting; shooting. It was very 80s. This is more subdued. Where before the references to Nazi’s and the holocaust were quite blatant here we get a more modern subtext with sleeper cells and terrorists.

This time round the visitors aren’t marching in with jackboots, they subverted from within before they even arrived. I could have done without the leaden “Universal Healthcare” line mind you. No subtlety there. All of the original elements are at play here, but shifted to reference the new millenium. In the old show V was a reference to victory. Now tagging V on walls is part of the visitor’s (now called the V’s) propaganda battle.

Visually the show is a success. Obviously special effects have come a long way since the 80s and they make good use of them here. But again it’s subdued. After the arrival of the V’s ships we don’t see much spectacle until the end. Instead the effects are used to present the scale of the V’s craft and what they are capable of.

So I like the visuals and I like the concepts of the new V. But it’s not all roses. The biggest problem was time. They really should have made this a two hour premiere. They were really struggling to introduce all the cast and set up all the plot lines in a normal length episode. As a result most of the characters come of almost one dimensional in nature.

I feel that V has a good cast to work with. Morena Baccarin is well suited to her role as the ice cold leader of the V. Alan Tudyk as always excels in his relatively minor role. Outside of Whedon alums we have Joel Gretsch (best known from The 4400), Morris Chestnut and Elizabeth Mitchell. All capable enough but hamstrung by very little material to work with.

That problem can be fixed in subsequent episodes of course if they give the individual characters some time to shine and build up their backgrounds a bit.

The other problem that came from only having one hour was pacing. A lot of stuff happened in the first half hour, but we didn’t really see it. We just had it referenced as having happened. It was like watching a recap and this makes for dull TV. At the half way mark I was really questioning whether the show was worth continuing with.

However, they were able to suck me back in during the last 10-15 minutes of the show. I was actually cheering on for Erica to rip Dale’s mask off. I came away from the show feeling that they had sent up a lot of potential plots to explore and looking forward to seeing the next episode.

Do me a favor ABC, don’t cancel this show after only 4 episodes please!

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And like the addicts we are, we all go scurrying off to the latest and greatest in the social web. Marveling at the new features as we once again try to find all the contacts we had on the last 5 platforms. But I’m becoming increasingly conscious of how fractured a community we are becoming as the number of platforms increases exponentially.

Facebook is the largest of the social networking sites (though the new functionality in Google Reader could catapult it up the list rapidly) and number two is MySpace. But we don’t talk about MySpace because “no one” uses that. You have the cool kids over on Twitter and the geeks on FriendFeed. And on it goes.

Despite considerable efforts to cross-pollinate the conversation between sites there’s no doubt that each of these is still a single flower in the garden and the result is a series of overlapping but largely independent discussions.

Now of course this isn’t radically different to the real world. We create partially overlapping circles of friends based around geography, interests, social backgrounds etc. But isn’t the social web supposed to be better than that? To extend our range of knowledge and widen the conversation?

How can we do that if we’re being broken down into progressively smaller and smaller groups, many of which only the most net obsessed geeks have even heard of?

Or perhaps more to the point, how can we reverse this trend without stifling the creativity that is generating these new services?

Recently I’ve been trying to create a self-hosted lifestream so I can center all of my online conversations around my blog. People would still be able to interact with me on their service of choice (FriendFeed, Twitter) etc. I’m using the open source software Sweetcron to do this. But while it is fundamentally sound, it’s not user friendly. It takes quite a bit of tweaking to get the output I was looking for. And even then despite it’s open plugin system there are a number of services that I can’t seem to import into it. And how to account for comments I post on old school message boards or other blogs?

I think what the social web needs is a protocol in the same way that we have HTTP, email and RSS. We need a discussion protocol. A standard that would allow easy movement of discussion from one service to another and the collation of all my comments regardless of where I made them.

So… who’s going to write that then?

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