Over at Kevin Kelly’s blog is a great review/peek by Merlin Mann of the new Peter Walsh’s book, It’s All Too Much

While you might think the book is ostensibly about clutter and too much stuff, it is really about much more than that. It is about how materialism can get out of control and ruin our lives. It’s a form of obesity, and capable of ruining our lives as much a being greatly overweight can.

Read the review: you will get much just from that. Then buy the book, read it, use it, and then give it to someone else.

As for me, I have been doing this for some months now. I don’t miss the stuff I tossed or sold, and my life is better off. How many cheese slicers does a man need, anyhow? 🙂

I was curious about a comment Ana Marie Cox made on twitter today: “I am no longer enjoying this election”. This was followed by: “The only way this election could be more disappointing is if either of the candidates win. Uh. Hm.”

Since Cox writes for Time.com’s Swampland blog, I checked out what she wrote recently, and it turned out it was this . While her feelings come through to some degree in the Swampland piece, a more detailed picture comes out when cross referenced with twitter. Her Swampland piece is critical and sarcastic towards Obama’s comments on abortion, but her feelings are more obvious in her “tweets”.

As people use social computing (blogs,twitter, etc.) for communications, others will cross reference the information — like I did here — to build profiles of people. I don’t think it will necessarily surprise people, but what may surprise people is that others are doing it.

The nytimes.com has a great profile on Dara Torres: Dara Torres – Profile – Olympic Swimming – NYTimes.com

While the article seems to imply that she is not too extraordinary, I think she is incredible. While older athletes may continue to maintain their fitness, what the article doesn’t appear to touch on is that athletes often lose interest in the demands of training for so much. Not Torres: she seems driven.

Great photo by Robert Maxwell, too. Even if you don’t read the article, just looking at this woman’s body tells you she is unique. Incidentally, you would never get to see her this way in a Speedo LZR.

I don’t know why airlines send out emails like: low cost flights from one city to another, but then when you try and find them, you can’t! Porter Airlines is just one of many airlines that do this. All it does is encourage me to go to Expedia or Travelocity. And once I do that, I am now looking at other airlines as well. So for airlines who think this a good idea, think again.

…when it takes a law to get Nelson Mandela removed from it, I would say it is poor. See here: Mandela off U.S. terrorism watch lists – CNN.com for more information.

WALL-E is another in a sequence of great films from Pixar. What is great about Pixar films, besides the obvious, is the way they include great detail in each film. For WALL-E, there are a number of things, obvious and otherwise, that can be found in the film, as noted in this article from slashfilm.com: WALL-E Easter Eggs

One thing this article doesn’t point out is the references to “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Kubrick. I spotted at least two: the references to HAL and the part with the apes. There’s likely more.

For folks like me with kids who will watch these things over and over again :), all these details are appreciated.