Advice for clearing literary clutter | Ask MetaFilter

There's a thread on Ask Metafilter about book-centric clutter that's getting lots of good comments right now. It started when matildaben asked for "practical and creative systems for reducing the number of books I own," saying:

The vast majority of my possessions by weight and volume consists of books. I would like to develop a system for getting rid of them that will have a very practical, behavioral, methodical approach to the emotions that compel me to keep them...

The solutions people offer are thoughtful and suggest that many of the better ideas are coming from fellow bibliophiles who've struggled with The Book Problem.

Like several folks in the thread, I think this comment from occhiblu gets to the heart of what makes clutter such an emotionally complex problem:

• Dynamism.com - Next Generation Japanese Notebooks and Electronics - New-to-me geek gadget site, highlighting stuff not easily available in the US. Very fun.
• IGDA - Articles - Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work: 6 Lessons - "Productivity drops immediately upon starting overtime and continues to drop until, at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks."
• NPR : GPS Goes Mainsteam - Your author would be one of those alluded-to persons who uses GPS as a "crutch." I could get lost in an empty bathtub with two St. Bernards and a sherpa guide.
• THE PRAGMATICS OF HUMOR: Representing Communication - "Cleese...says, 'I think any time I see a possibility of a misunderstanding, I jump on it.'" Cleese once brilliantly pointed out that Basil Fawlty wouldn't be nearly as funny if there weren't people standing around watching him make a fool of himself.
• Bacon Cheese Baconburger - "You may think you've done a lot of strange things in your life, but until you've put slices of raw bacon into a food processor at 10:30pm, you really haven't even scratched the surface of strange." [via MeFi]
• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks - I'm a proud "admin" for a "related" but "unallied" Flickr "group" that I "like a lot" called "Quotation Mark" Abuse. (thanks, mathowie)

MacBreak Weekly 70: Happy Life Day!

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Hosts: Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko, Chris Breen, Merlin Mann, and Scott Bourne

It's the Macbreak Weekly Year Ender!

Here's a direct MP3 download of MBW 70.

And here's linkage to a few of the things I mentioned (adapted from this episode's show notes):

Although the first priority in ubiquitous capture is getting it down, the red-headed stepchild trailing in at number two is providing context. And I don't mean the GTD kind of contexts, but the kind of context that minimally explains what this information means, where and when you collected it, why it matters, or anything else that will help you find a meaningful place for it in your life later on.

Example? Sure. Here's one from my real and recent world. Index card with one word on it:

Once

• Where I Go [Chris Glass] - One of those old-school "home page" conventions that I miss most is the once-ubiquitous links page. In addition to being my personal muse on all things visual, Chris Glass also posts his highly clickable list of favorite sites. Need to make me one of these.
• helvetica - ThisNext - Casting about for gift ideas for the Helvetica lover in your life? Not a problem.
• Graphic Design and typography - Swiss Legacy - "...a collaborative blog focused on typography, swiss graphic design and grid." Grid pr0n, and that's okay by me. (seems to be down just now)
• My personal war against Crackberry - "Here at the office, we’ve begun to make most of our meetings 'topless' (i.e. no laptops allowed). I’ve gone a step further by trying to ban any form of networked communication from the working meetings I put together." Good on ya, Todd.
• And now it's all this: Shortened URLs with Quicksilver - Python script lets you build a fast Quicksilver trigger for generating (and copying) a shortened url based on the the front Safari window. Really useful. [via Daring Fireball]
• What are the most intellectually stimulating podcasts? | Ask MetaFilter - I'm so overwhelmed by podcasts these days that I've pared down to about five, most of which are mentioned here. My single "don't miss" right now is "Radio Lab," which is kinda like This American Life with more science and less Yo La Tengo.
• WiiHealthy - [via MeFi] - I wonder what kind of hideous freak I'm becoming by playing an hour of Wii Bowling each night while a 12-lb. baby is footballed over my non-dominant arm. That seems like the makings of a pretty odd workout when I think of it.