John LeMasney

Open is Beautiful

Mar
6

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Using Google Groups to share a Gmail account

Category: accomplishments, design, friends, ideas, simplicity, technology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

The TED (Technology Entertainment Design) logo...
Image via Wikipedia

So right now, I’m part of a committee to bring about 100 people together to celebrate a TED styled event in Princeton. Up until now, the committee has been working very well together using a Google Group. The way that it’s set up is pretty locked down. We only have committee members in the group, and it’s not advertised. We have other tools for that, such as a WordPress blog, and a Gmail account, with which people can contact us, exchange ideas, and offer sponsorships, etc.

The only problem is that no one person on the committee really deserves the burden of solely being responsible for the Gmail account. It’s about to get very busy, since we’re about to start advertising heavily for our upcoming event. So, wouldn’t it be great if the Google Group that we all already subscribe to and get emails from could just be posted to by anyone? Well, no, not exactly — some of the back and forth on our Google Group really needs to be behind closed doors — no one makes soup for the first time in a crowded room, if you get my meaning.

But we all wanted to be able to get the messages from the Gmail account without having to remember to login, remember the account info, remember that it’s not just us, etc.

It turns out it’s easy — I’m not sure why I thought Google would block the action:

  1. Sign up your Gmail account on the Google Group as a posting member.
  2. Forward a copy of your Gmail account’s incoming messages to your Google Group email account, which only members can post to.
  3. Everyone on the group starts seeing messages to the Gmail account along with other group activity.

1 caveat I’ve found so far: replying to the email will send a message back to the group and back to the Gmail account, but not to the original sender, as one might expect. You’d have to do a teensy bit of copy/paste, or as my mom likes to call it, magic!

Know of a better way to do this, without adding any caveats? Let er’ rip on the comments!

May
9

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Poem: In Protest

Category: books & reading, creation, friends, ideas, living, poetry, politics, simplicity, writing Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

http://poetsonline.org/archive/arch_protest.html holds my most recent poem (Thanks, again, Ken!):

IN PROTEST

When you shake your head
while I’m speaking
what I know is the truth
I suppress a scream.

I can feel a protest rising in my throat
but I’ve learned to smother it
with a pillow
and slowly push in a knife
to quiet my convictions
to avoid a follow up sit down
written out reprimand.

I think back to times
when I said to myself
“I love what I’m doing
I’d do this for free
I’ll do this
for the rest of my life”

When we speak at each other
sometimes in gently increasing volume
and a sharpened tone,
raising our fingers
to note we’d like a chance to speak again
we’re not listening.

We’re just speaking.

We’re not in a dialogue
but two monologues.

You remind us very often
that this is not a democracy
and that if we don’t fit in here
we should leave
and my chest tightens when I hear it.

Having to leave would mean
starting over with
devils I don’t know,
demons I don’t care about,
daemons I don’t run
anymore.

You removed them from my care,
and it was of the greatest valence to me
in this work of service and bits.
And I have always felt
calm in this place,
until recently.

John LeMasney

Apr
14

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Idea: Green Gymnasium

Category: accomplishments, design, food, friends, fun, goals, health, living, simplicity, wishlist Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Problem: Millions of people exert energy in gyms everyday, though none of the energy is captured or recycled. Those places which focus on health and self-improvement seem to limit their concern to improving the body and not the individual or social mind.

Idea: Make an environmentally conscious gym club where all of the equipment is connected to generators, where people who are working out can make money by generating electricity and sending it out to the grid. Membership costs would be variable by effort, as all members would be effectively generating money for the plant. Theoretically, a high output member would easily achieve a free membership. Teams could compete to generate the most electricity. An effort would be made to recycle, reduce, reuse and conserve (recycled gravity driven showers, clivus multrums, solar redirected lights, open air cooling) throughout the building, which might use the latest in renewable materials. Food would be all organic, grown on premises, and nutritious.

Wellness services, nutrition, green consultation, solar power, low cost membership, healthy locally grown foods, health, and weight control would all be available as services.

I’m fairly certain this is not a new idea (Ed Begley Jr. has a generator bike on his show Living with Ed), but it seems like its time for mass adoption has finally come.

John.