Bitful

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Burns Supper

Posted via web from Luca Belletti’s Lifestream | Comment »

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2009 was not all bad

I don’t think I’ve ever done one of these end-of-year reviews. I always lacked the energy and motivation to look back.

But as 2009 draws to a close, after seeing so many friends’ Facebook and Twitter updates bidding good riddance to what has been for them an awful year, I can’t help but ask myself if it was all that bad for me too.

There are a couple of things that yes, I would have been happier if they had not occurred. Stuart mum’s breast cancer (chemo- and radiotherapy completed, waiting game started), and my own mother’s heart surgery (very slow recovery as she is 84; for a while we feared she would never be independent and lucid again, but we now hope for a full recovery in due time).

These were opportunities for me to grow and develop. I found the discipline to train for the Great South Run in Portsmouth while collecting funds for breast cancer research (a staggering 1,691 pounds, thanks to the generosity of family, friends and colleagues, and you can still donate if you wish to do so). And dealing albeit briefly with my mum I discovered what it is like to care for an old woman who requires assistance for even her most personal needs.

What else is there? I’ve enjoyed my job, I love the flat, city and country I live in (as a British citizen since August), I have been in reasonably good health and I am grateful for having family, friends and Stuart in my life.

So let me raise my glass (which is definitely half full) to wave goodbye to 2009 and welcome the new decade. May it bring health, love and work to all of you.

Posted via email from Luca Belletti’s Lifestream | Comment »

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A timely Christmas present

Posted via email from Luca Belletti’s Lifestream | Comment »

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From email and RSS to Facebook and Twitter

At the beginning of the month I deleted over 300 unread posts from Google Reader after three days abroad. And then never logged on again. I figured that if news is important it will get to me somehow, and I wanted to spend less time reading stuff online and get faster access to the essential instead.

I now trust my contacts on Twitter and Facebook to inform me - when I want to be informed - on what matters most to me.

What I appreciate the most about Twitter and Facebook is that I don’t have to constantly be connected, I can dive in every now and then, go with the flow, and then get out when I want or need to. If I am away for an hour or a week I don’t feel that I have to catch up with everything that has been posted in my absence. This is very liberating and a world away from trying to keep up with RSS, something that now feels like swimming against the current most of the time.

I have just read that I am not alone in moving away from RSS to instant streams. Steve Rubel (that I used to read via RSS and now I follow on Twitter) argues that RSS is fading (and never really peaked), and even Dave Winer (that some consider ‘the father of RSS’) acknowledges that Google Reader is wrong because it views RSS as email.

Winer’s criticism resonates with me, because I am now regarding email as mostly for professional use. Even my personal inbox is full of e-tickets, receipts, delivery slips, online check-ins, and messages from the bloke that fit my kitchen cupboard door the wrong way.

All of that is work. If you want to play with me, you can follow me on Twitter or if you know me IRL look me up on Facebook.

Posted via email from Luca Belletti’s Lifestream | Comment »

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