I have many things on my todo list for the indeterminate somewhat-near future, but two of my new year’s resolutions that will involve regular effort during 2009 are:

• Read 50 books.  Recent discussion about the effect of web-surfing on the brain’s text-processing made me realize that I don’t read books much anymore.  The ability to quickly skim one-page articles online and gain a brief understanding is good, but I think it is important to retain the ability to process the in-depth arguments of book-length writing (and plot, but I won’t be reading fiction, except perhaps for a few classics if I’m in the mood).  Books are still the best method for conveying big ideas and supporting them with great detail.  I’m starting off with On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm Pilot, Blown to Bits, about privacy in the digital age, and The Bill of Rights by Akhil Reed Amar, who coincidentally seems to have originated the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.  I will be posting reviews of the books I read.
• Increase my content and software production.  I have, so far, been mainly a consumer of information (RSS junkie, etc.) and a user of software, perhaps with the exceptions of my relatively unimportant Wikipedia articles and several-year-old calculator programs.  In 2009, I resolve to blog regularly, even if only book reviews, and to get involved in free software in a significant way, be it creating GNOME themes, writing a small application based on one of my frequent ideas, or contributing to a free software project that I use.

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