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PETA, Sea World, and Slavery

October 26, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

The fact that PETA is suing Sea World for enslaving orcas is ridiculous on so many levels.

These are killer whales. They lost all their constitutional rights when they violated the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of food of the seals and fish they devoured while they were in the wild.

I consider their imprisonment justice for their misdeeds. Doing flips and splashing me with their tails a few times a day beats the hell out of picking up trash on the beach. They should stop complaining and clogging up the courts with their frivolous lawsuits.

October 24, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

You don’t need to see their tax returns.

These aren’t the CEOs you’re looking for.

They can go about their business.

Move along.

{As seen here}

October 21, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Sorry…I just had to post what I saw on Twitter today:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/JoseCanseco/status/127435700441321472″]

Um…sure. Ok.

Actually, this response was much better:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/CaughtOffBase/status/127436411858194432″]

October 18, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Real quick…two articles in Mashable today that should give Facebook a clue:

Sean Parker (a FB shareholder) notes that Facebook’s power users are moving to Twitter and Google Plus

and

Users surveyed dislike Timeline.

What do these have in common? It’s the perception that users’ privacy is being chipped away too rapidly. For instance, I think Timeline is awsum! I want to look at my Timeline…what a great tool! It’s just that I want to be able to lock it down and only show it to a few people (or no one).

What if Facebook’s default position was to make all new features super-private in the beginning and give users a chance to adjust to them and open up themselves instead of forcing everything to be public and ratcheted down? They continually come at things from the wrong direction.

UPDATE

And teens will leave Facebook for Google+? I’ve said it before…they really screwed up by putting off that IPO.

I’m reading– September 27th through October 17th

October 17, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Facebook Missteps and Shortcomings – Exhibit F.

Heart Rate Training Zone Calculator – Will have to do until I write one. Which will be tomorrow plus infinity.

Page Speed Online – Woot…super useful tool.

Will the New Facebook Lead to Information Overload? – What he said.

Google Financing Solar Installations – This looks interesting. If the cost is the same as your typical electric bill and you don’t have to worry about the maintenance, what’s the downside? Thinking you could also get your pool heated this way. Yeah…I’m thinking.

October 12, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

A guy came by yesterday selling a cleaner than works wonders on just about everything. I stared at the sun for a second, hoping I could muster up a sneeze I could aim in his direction and ask, “How is it with germs?” No dice.

Idea: Remove Limitations to Find Fitness Limits

October 11, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

This could be a long-ish post for me, but I’m going to try to keep it short and sweet. I’m done with my time in the Clydesdale division. It was fun, but it has really just held me back. The last race I ran I was struggling to keep my weight above 200 for the last few weeks of training. How much faster could I have gone if I’d let my self drop another 10 pounds?

Back when I was lifting weights regularly, it would have been tough to get to 199 and not be a little too little (I was 230 for my marathon PR). I was playing rugby for most of that time too, and I needed the bulk.

It’s not bulk anymore. Now it’s just fat. I’m about 218 right now, and could probably comfortably walk around at 185-190 if I got rid of all the, uh, bulk I currently have.

Ok…maybe I’ll lift just a little and shoot for 195. I mean, the only thing worse than being fat is being skinny.

“Occupy”. And Then What?

October 7, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Ok, so I have some questions about the whole “Occupy” movement. Not trying to be a jerk here, even though that will surely be the way it’s interpreted. There are just some things I don’t get about this movement. I don’t think what they are doing is wrong or a bad idea necessarily, I’m just not sure they are doing it for the right reasons or if they’ve thought about what would happen if they got what they’ve asked for.

If the minimum wage is raised to $20 (demand one), all the people currently making $10-$19.99/hour will get a raise to $20/hour, but definitely no higher than that. They’ll only be making minimum wage. Because the increased cost of labor will cause the retail cost of pretty much everything to increase, isn’t this effectively giving those currently in the $10-$19.99/hour range a pay cut? Doesn’t this really hurt the middle class instead of helping them? Or is step 2 an introduction of price controls? Careful what you ask for there.
If you put pressure on a political party (probably the Democrats) to nominate anti-capitalist candidates, what do you expect to be the end result at the end of election night? Will those folks receive “the other 99%” of the vote?
One of the major talking points seems to be a disagreement with the 2008-2009 bailouts. Another major talking point seems to be that “Occupy” is an answer to the Tea Party. But aren’t the bailouts a major issue both groups agree on?
Free college (demand four)? Ok…but by doing that you’ve basically ensured everyone will go, which waters down your liberal arts degree even further. Or do you still want entrance standards? If so, won’t this be giving things to people based solely on their intelligence? And people will have to compete for these funds–who will set the standards and entrance exams? Isn’t this knowledge rationing? And look out…those professors and administrators who planted some of these ideas in your head may not be to happy about working for less (or for free).
Wipe out all debt (demand 11)? Ok, now you guys are just ripping off Fight Club. Of course, we never got to see the result of this effort. I am Jack’s longing for a sequel.

I’ll happily argue about this, but really I’m just looking for some clear answers. The impression I’m getting so far is that many of these folks are no different than some people who identify as Tea Partiers who are in favor of saving Social Security/Medicare and continuing/expanding war spending. You know…people who haven’t really taken their stated positions to their logical end.

In Honor of Steve Jobs – The Facts of Life

October 6, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Sad day. Whether you are with Apple or again’ ’em, you have to admit that Steve Jobs did more that any other single person to raise our expectations of Apple and every other tech company.

And now, a 1984 episode of “The Facts of Life” entitled “Dear Apple” where Jo has a Siri-esque conversation with a computer named “Steve”. “The Facts of Life” writers were visionaries as well.

<3 Google+ Photo Sharing

October 5, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’ve shared plenty of photos from my phone on Google+, but in the last couple of days I’ve started uploading larger albums there. The display of photo albums within Plus is very nice (waaaaaaaay cleaner than Facebook), and if you upload through Plus instead of Picasa, your photos get auto-resized and don’t count towards your Picasa limits:

If you’ve signed up for Google+

Free storage limits

Photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won’t count towards your free storage.

Automatic resizing

All photos uploaded in Google+ will be automatically resized to 2048 pixels (on their longest edge) and won’t count towards your free storage quota.

Well, sorta. You can only have 10,000 albums and you can only have 1,000 photos within an album. Maybe not enough for pros, but plenty for people who just want to share with the fam.

So all you have to do to back up all of your photos is upload them through Plus set to private. Then go over to Picasa, create new albums and move/copy photos into them to share.

My one complaint is that the beautiful photo album layouts we see on the Plus website haven’t made it to the Android applications yet. It would be nice to get the same broad overview when browsing photos on a tablet.

The Great Facebook Compromise

October 4, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’ve been going back and forth for a while on what should be done about Facebook in my particular case. It would be kind of nice to eliminate it completely since I don’t ever post there, but there are some work-related advantages to being there that I just can’t deny.

Oh, and I also need a FB account to use Spotify.

My first thought was to go to an extreme and un-friend every single person on there. I even started doing that (sorry if you got axed…I made it to the letter ‘C’). The logic was that I’m easy enough to find on the web in other places if you really want to find me, but the problem is that other people aren’t. The simple fact is that I do have some great friends who have a presence on Facebook and nowhere else, and I like to keep up with them and occasionally comment.

Then I remembered reading somewhere that a person can only really have 150 friends–the Dunbar number. That gave me the idea of shrinking my list down to 150 Facebook friends as a maximum. But that required some rules. So here’s my strategy…

If I just kinda knew you but have no funny stories about you, you’re out
If I only know you through other social media (blogs, Plus, Twitter), you’re out…we communicate in those places and not Facebook.
If I only know you because the person you are married to or dating, you’re out. Think of it this way…who would get me in the divorce?
If you are close family that I regularly talk to on the phone and in person instead of online, you’re out. We already have an established means of communication, and it’s not Facebook.
If you are other family and we don’t talk even though we’re Facebook friends, you’re out. (I post photos of the family here, and I would love to share with you!)
If you don’t actively participate on Facebook anyway, you’re out (and good for you!)
If you are married to me, you’re in. Always.
If we were once really close but aren’t any longer because of time and distance, and Facebook is the only way we can stay connected, you’re in. But I’m going to try to get you to move to Plus.
If someone who trumps you tries to add me as a friend later, you may get the boot. Sorry. 150 is the limit.

Some of these rules may seem harsh, especially the family stuff, but since I don’t share on Facebook, I figure no harm done. And it also clears up a few spots for friends. So we’re pretty much down to people who I really liked in high school and college, people who have sweated and bled with me on the rugby pitch, and chicks who are good kissers.

On Getting “Chicked”

September 28, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Emily has a pretty funny post about mixed-gender running and talks about guys who lie about planning on an easy run only to come out and try to race their female running partners.

Most of the time I’ve spent training has been with women, so I guess I have something to say on this. I’ve trained with all sorts of girls. A couple have been a little slower than me, but they were very experienced runners. I learned a lot from them when I let them control the pace. The Missus is much slower than me, but all I have to do is grab the ~~parachute~~ double stroller and count her miles as a warmup, and I’m happy to run her pace.

A couple of my female running partners have been much faster than me. I remember doing some 1m intervals as part of a longish run with one girl who absolutely took me to the brink on every rep until the last one; that’s when she really opened it up and buried me.

So yeah, I’ve been chicked more times than I can count. And I don’t care. In a training run, it just helps make you faster. In a race, well…there are so many girls who finish so far ahead of me that the one or two who sneak by me at the end are negligible in number.

Most of the girls I’ve run with have had a comparable pace to mine. This can bring out the best and worst of everyone. The upside is that you are in a good position to push each other. The downside is that once the pushing has started, I’ve noticed girls are much more likely than guys are to get mad when you beat them…as if they weren’t participating in the pushing all along.

Of course, their fury (“no…nothing’s wrong…what makes you say that?”) is ultimately expressed in terms like “you drug me into that pace”, not because they got beat.

Bull butter. It’s obvious when you are running with other people exactly who is participating in pushing the pace and who, if anyone, is trying to slow it down. You want to claim after the race that you didn’t want to race? Please.

Personally, I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that they got beat by a guy, at least from my experience. I have a different theory about what’s really going on:

If there’s one thing worse than getting “chicked” , it’s getting “fat-guyed”.

I love fat-guying people.

Amazon’s Table Announcement…Let’s Get To The Important Part

September 28, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Pricing.

The E-Ink Kindle is now only $79. Yeah…$79. That’s with “special offers.” For me, upgrading to the $100 version seems worth it because you can play mp3s and it has a touch screen.

And what about their new Android tablet?

The Kindle Fire 7″ tablet is $200. That’s right…a high functioning Android tablet for $200. That’s less than 50% of what the iPad costs. I was excited to get the Acer Iconia for $300 with a coupon earlier this summer. It seems like Amazon is going to basically give these things away knowing they can make it up on the back end by selling content through the stores that are tightly integrated with the device.

If I didn’t already have a tablet, I’d jump all over one of these. They are going to be great little media consumption devices. All the other things you can do with them are just going to be bonuses. I think Amazon is making a great bet here by leaving off the stuff most people don’t really care about for a tablet. I’ve never even considered using the camera on my tablet for instance.

iPad killer? No.

iPad competitor? I don’t think so.

I think Amazon just put this device out at a crazy low price with a strong brand behind it that will expand the market for tablet devices, and I think they are going to own the lion’s share of the new market growth.

Homeschooling, Robot IronMen, Unstructured Play, Plus MORE!

September 27, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Another link dump. I promise I’ll try to include more bloggers and less news stuff in the future.

Here’s How to Stop FB From Tracking You Online – Logging out isn’t enough.

Can We Play? – Feeling guilty because you don’t get to spend enough time on education and they are aimlessly wasting the day? Don’t.

Career Ruin: Homeschooling

I realized that public school is like Social Security. There is no money to do what we are pretending we are aiming to do. We should just grow up and admit that we cannot have effective public schools for everyone. Just like we cannot have Social Security for everyone.

Well there go her Presidential hopes.

Gamers Unlock Protein Mystery That Baffled AIDS Researchers For Years – More of this please.

Woman tries to shoot possum, shoots acquaintance instead – I wasn’t even aware @knoxvillerugby was playing in ATL this weekend.

Dubya and Me – You don’t have to be a fan of his politics (I’m not) to enjoy this great piece on W.

Three Market-Based Solutions To Pull People Out Of Poverty – More of this too!

Robot Triathlete Will Complete An Ironman? – These things don’t have the greatest form, but I’m not one to talk.

Sorry Facebook–MySpace Had It Right From The Beginning

September 26, 2011 / Scott / 0 Comments

Nothing is easier than self-deceit.

– Demosthenes

Last week I wrote a post that stated Facebook had no long-term direction. Boy was I wrong. The F8 keynote address made it obvious that they have a very clear vision…they want to know everything about everything you do.

They want to seamlessly allow you to share your entire life with your friends. No effort required on your part. Just install the right apps to your Facebook account, and you can share everything you do real time, while also automatically curating the details of your life for later in Timeline.

Technologically, that’s amazingly cool, but it potentially introduces a huge problem. Real time, seamless information about you being streamed to all of your “friends” means it’s hard to filter anything. Since Facebook is so proud of it’s integration with Spotify to share what music you are listening to, let’s use that as an example.

While Facebook is right that people love to share music with their friends, they’ve neglected to realize that people also love to listen to a lot of music that they don’t want to share with their friends. Do you really want your friends to know that you love that Milli Vanilli song and listen to it first thing every morning? Don’t we all have music that isn’t at all cool, but we love to listen to?

Now…think about that exact situation applied to all the other things Facebook wants to know about you: books, movies, websites, food, (lack of) exercise, etc. Now…think about what it will mean when all of these things are lumped together. I’ll save you the suspense and cut to the chase:

Facebook is slowly but surely taking away its users’ ability to present themselves as they wish to be seen. Instead, Facebook is going to force people to be seen exactly as they are.

Take that in for just a second. The real you is going to be out there for everyone to see. Not the version you’d like to present to people.

The real you.

Now is the time in this post when we’re all going to have to be painfully honest with ourselves. Or if we don’t want to examine ourselves, let’s just consider other people we know.

Doesn’t it seem like a lot of your “friends” who are active Facebook users really just see it as the reality show they will never be cast for?

And doesn’t it seem like many of them are crafting an online versions of themselves you know isn’t 100% accurate (just like people on reality shows)?

Don’t you sometimes wonder if these people even realize that they are misrepresenting themselves?

And when you consider the ones you know really well in real life, doesn’t it seem like the only people they are really fooling about these imaginary fabulous lives are themselves and people who don’t really know them?

What’s going to happen when these uber-active users realize they are no longer able to fool other people about their real selves and are also unable to continue to fool themselves?

What happens when Facebook becomes a reflection of real life instead of a collection of beautiful self-portraits created by master artists? What happens when that mirror of their real lives is held up to Facebook’s users’ faces?

That’s not going to be a completely scary thing for most people, but the fact that it’s being shared with everyone else and that it can’t be turned off will be. Are they going to continue to be so active on Facebook, or are they going to dramatically cut back?

Personally, I’m a big fan of the ability to present yourself as you choose online. It’s why I blog under a domain name that is my name. I control it. It’s why I seldom use curse words on Twitter. I control it. It’s why I’m thankful every person I encountered in my 20s didn’t have a digital camera and a platform to broadcast my behavior to the world.

It’s the reason I basically eliminated my participation on Facebook a while back.

I’m not being critical of people who work hard on Facebook to control their online personas. I know why they do that. I get it. I just don’t think they realize that’s exactly what they are doing; and I don’t think they (or Facebook) realize what’s going to happen when the ability to control that is completely removed.

MySpace did a lot of things wrong, but there’s one thing MySpace got right.

MySpace was about me. On MySpace, we could pretend to like only the coolest music by featuring only the coolest music on our profiles. We could pretend to be way better looking than we really are by sharing only the most flattering photos of ourselves. We could pretend to be popular by becoming friends with people we had no interest in knowing and boost our friend count.

MySpace let us all be fabulous. Or gangsta, intelligent, athletic…whatever we wish we really were.

Facebook is about to take all of that away. And the better they get at representing the real world, the more their users are going to have their images of themselves shattered.

Mark Zuckerberg may have made a very critical mistake when he failed to realize that everyone in the world isn’t a billionaire at 26 with hot chicks and cool friends clamoring to hang out with them, even if that’s what we all secretly wish our lives were like.

Scott Adcox