I feel like I wasted most of my day off

I spent much of it in bed. When I wasn't in bed, I was blogging or on Facebook, or some other Internet site. I didn't take a shower, didn't take any of my medication, which is unlike me. I did finally take a nice, relaxing bath just now, and got into clean comfy clothes. I did finally hear back from my friend regarding our project; we're going to do it Wednesday between my appointments.

I would like to say that I didn't feel like getting involved in anything I might have to interrupt while I was waiting for that call, but that's not it. Part of it is the 'when I'm alone I sleep' thing. But mostly, I just didn't feel like doing much of anything today. I find it relaxing to play on social media and blog. All the while I beat myself up for not accomplishing anything, but I think my body just said, wait, it's your day off, get some rest.

I have tomorrow free from my normal responsibilities as well. I may go to the festival for a bit, time it around an hour before the parade, so that I'm not spending all day there. That leaves the morning for doing some of the things I felt I should have done today--cleaning house, going over my bills, doing game notes, enjoying watching something [I would like to watch Galaxy Quest, as it's fun, and it's streaming on Netflix]. Then, after the parade ends (around 4 pm), I can either come home and do some more stuff, maybe get in the pool if we're rain/thunderstorm free (it never worked out today with the weather the way it was). Then I'll head over to the fireworks that evening. I'll check up on my friends, at some point, and call my mom and see how she is doing. So it should be a pretty full day, unlike today. Maybe I just needed a day to do nothing. I didn't even putz, really, just slept, ate a little, and played on the computer. I don't relax as well as I used to. I used to read, or listen to music, or watch something. Somewhere along the way I got used to relaxing with other people involved, and lost the ability to keep myself occupied. So tomorrow I'm going to work on that.

They have a point

We do somewhat odd things online we would never do in person.



Thanks to YKWIA for showing it to me today.

Good article on copyright

That famous space shuttle photo: When is sharing stealing?

Short on sleep and worried about the recent loss of her job, Stefanie Gordon boarded a Delta flight from New York to Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. on May 16. Still miffed after a late-night Yankees loss to the Red Sox, she took a photo out the window of her airplane seat with an iPhone, tweeted it to friends when she landed, then headed off to spend the day with her father.

By the time she was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, her iPhone was practically buzzing out of her lap, teeming with messages of congratulation and requests for interviews. Gordon's now-famous photo of the space shuttle Endeavour soaring through the clouds got her an overwhelming amount of attention -- her 15 minutes of fame, Internet style. It also landed her smack in the middle of an ethical and legal debate that may be as important as the future of the Internet itself.

Gordon's photo has been viewed nearly 1 million times, and shown by media TV, Web and print news outlets around the world. She was paid by precisely five news organizations.

I'm behind on my news

So it's just now that I learned that Hemingway, the kitten found in a Pennsylvania library book drop (and of whom I'd blogged before), died a few days ago.

Kitten dies after being found in book drop

On the other hand, I saw this story today of Walter, a puppy saved by a blog and Facebook:

Meet the dog who was saved by a blog: A tail-wagging tale of how cyber-community rallied for puppy left to die

People have no business allowing their pets to breed if they are not prepared to take care of the babies, and they certainly shouldn't 1) allow kittens and puppies to get into the shape these two were in and 2) abandon them when they become a problem. Please consider spaying and neutering your pets.

I think it enriched her life

UK's oldest Tweeter Ivy Bean dies at 104

Most residents of care homes, especially those who have reached the ripe old age of 104, are lucky if their family or friends visit. For someone who is a very social person, the Bingo games and other activities to help while away the hours just don't cut it. But for the enterprising resident...

there's Facebook and Twitter.

Ivy Bean joined Facebook in 2007, and then Twitter a year later. She soon became a celebrity as UK's oldest tweeter and had over 56,000 followers, who received the sad news, through the feed, that Ms. Bean had died. Her posts primarily talked about her daily life and her friends. It sounds like she was a very engaging lady who had friends and admirers both in the real world and the virtual one, and she enjoyed the attention of the media. This comes just two weeks after an Australian woman, 108, dubbed the 'world's oldest blogger', died.

In both cases, the women were in nursing homes. In Ms. Bean's, the computer was originally meant for staff development but was opened up for residents' use. I think that's wonderful. As we age we become less physically active and it's easy to become socially isolated, which can affect the mind and increase the chance of senility, in my opinion. Engaging in interactive computer services may keep the mind sharp and foster a greater connexion to the outer world. All care homes should consider making computers available. I think many assume older people would not adapt well. I think there are people of every generation who are willing to try new things, especially when its uses are demonstrated. Although according to one study only 3% of social media users are 65+ I suspect that will change quickly as the Boomers reach that age (my mom, born in 1947, turns 63 this year, and she's on Facebook). 10% were 55-64. The largest group is my own, the 35-44 one, which has 25% of all users on social media sites studied. Indeed, 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older, 61% of Facebooks’s users are aged 35 or older, and the service with the greatest number of older uses is Classmates.com, indicating that re-connecting with old friends is a major thing for older users. 8% of its users are 65 and older; 78% are 35 or older. [Which makes sense, since the younger ones are still interacting with a lot of their high school friends in real life. :)]

Think how much your life revolves around the use of a computer now, either on the Internet or off. How would you feel if you were in a nursing home without access to one? No wi-fi, not even a desktop station somewhere? I hope adminstrators are considering this for the near future....

Interesting ticker

This is making the rounds. Thanks to Buffy for sharing. It's neat to compare the various interactions and uses of mobile devices and the Internet. Plus there's the sheer amount of sharing of content that is going on. It's just another reason to make sure our patrons have information literacy, as Steve points out on his blog, as it becomes increasingly important to connect through technology.