I definitely didn’t set any land speed records. No distance records either. Luckily I didn’t feel any pain in my foot. Of course, I was definitely distracted by the pain in my lungs and knees. Baby steps…two weeks without pain and times will start dropping again.
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You know what would be awsum? A Broadway version of “The Itchy and Scratchy Show”.
They already have the catchiest theme song in history. Let’s make this happen!
If you ever worked in fast food, did your manager(s) track the number of items you had to take back when orders were wrong? Did they factor in the number of people who were unhappy with their order but were probably already home and didn’t want to bother taking it back?
I’ve been noticing lots of the people I follow on Twitter have been connecting up with me on Google+ over the last few days. Some of these folks are using Google+ in the same way they use Twitter and putting out a steady stream of status updates. Of course, it’s kind of Twitter in reverse. Instead of “following” the way you do on Twitter, Google+ lets you choose who you want to “Share” with.
It seems like over-share in the beginning, but when you think about it, it’s kind of nice. Because Google+ lets you decide who you want to share with, it also lets you decide whose updates are going to make it to your main stream and which people who are sharing with you are going to get chucked into the “Incoming” bin.
Not that I don’t care about these people and what they are up to. I do. That’s why I follow them on Twitter. But I may not care so much that I need to be notified if they’ve said something new. Twitter is nice in that way. If I choose to go back and read their full stream I can. But for me, Twitter is more about what’s going on in real time, and I seldom have the urge to go back and read any stream history.
And for the Twitter folks I follow who I’m not sharing with on Google+, there’s no reason to feel rejected. The stuff those folks would care about is still flying out publicly on Twitter (and maybe even on Buzz). I promise, I’m not sharing anything on G+ that’s earth shattering or ground breaking. It’s mostly stuff I don’t like putting on Facebook. You know–stuff that people who have known me personally for years may care about.
My favorite thing about Google + so far is that I have yet to receive a notification that someone got a high score on Farmville, a flood of happy birthday wishes from people who would have no idea when my birthday was if they weren’t forced to know, or an invitation to find out what my cat’s stripper name is.
How To Move Your Facebook Photos To Picasa – Get them over to Picasa/GooglePhotos/Plus. One step closer to ditching Facebook forever.
Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends – It’s ON! HT @slashdot.
Fast-food chains selling alcohol – HT @FrankStrovel. I will not rest until I can get a Cherry-Vodka-Limeade straight from the drive-up window.
RunKeeper Building ‘The Facebook Of Fitness’ – I started using RunKeeper when it became free, and at the time it was just the mobile app that drew me to it. I was using DailyMile as my “Fitness Facebook”, but was pretty frustrated at having to keep transferring from one system to the other. Looks like DailyMile may have missed the boat. I’ll know more when I’m able to work out more regularly.
The 5 Switches of Manliness: Nature – The last post in this series. Every one of them was a great and worth reading.
I’ve been playing with Google Plus for a few days now, and I really like it a lot. One of my favorite features is the Buzz tab on the user profiles. This makes Buzz an almost usable product. I think Google could not only make Buzz more viable but also improve Plus a lot by making a simple change.
Plus needs a Buzz gutter.
I’m seeing lots of people making public updates to Google Plus as if they are using Twitter, and the problem with that is that it’s filling up my Stream with information that…I already get from those people on Twitter. This is a problem with Facebook as well–too much minutia showing up in the main stream. It would be nice if Google would bring Buzz up to the forefront, allowing users to enter those type posts with Buzz. They could also put a Buzz section in the sidebar for “short updates” and have that sorted by Circles just like what you see in the regular Stream.
It’s a pretty simple change, but it could breathe life into an almost dead product while also cleaning up the main Stream, solving one of the other big problems Facebook has.
I was thinking about Google Plus a little last night as I continually refreshed my screen hoping it would magically appear. I think there are a few things that can really make or break Google’s latest attempt at social.
1. Nobody has groups right yet
Twitter’s lists are great, but are basically read only. You can’t broadcast to them. This is in keeping with the way Twitter fundamentally works, so that’s cool. But as far as the people on your lists go, it is more of a mark of reputation to be on someone’s list than it is an indication of engagement from that person to you. Facebook has done a better job with Groups, but they aren’t even close to the three dimensional overlapping of sets of groups we are able to so easily process in our brains. Maybe Google is actually smart enough to tackle this abstraction.
2. Group Texting
Yeah, everybody has a group texting gadget, but Google has more reach. They bought Disco, and have seemingly re-branded it as Huddle. I hate texting, but this may make it a little better.
3. Ubiquitity (I just made up that word I think)
With Chrome, Google has the ability to offer a nice extension to make Google Plus always on. No need to visit a site or run a separate app to see what is going on…it can always be there, yet still unobtrusive. I don’t see why Facebook couldn’t do something like that with Chrome, but they don’t own the browser. Google could actually ship their extension as a part of the browser (and I bet they will), while Facebook will have to settle for being an extension. I don’t know the numbers on how many people running Chrome don’t ever install extensions, but I’m betting that number will rise as Chrome gets closer to the meaty part of the user adoption curve.
4. Android
Google already has a big market share for mobile, and they’ll be able to tightly integrate all the features of Plus into Android. iOS users are stuck with an HTML 5 webapp for now. Again, I don’t know what this has done for Gmail, and it was already a hit before, but this may be a huge factor. Bonus points if they offer up an online locker with plenty of space the way they did with Gmail at the beginning. That would be a big feature for storing photos and video.
Just some thoughts. I’m sure I’m way off base here. Tell me why.
***UPDATE***
Instant Upload from Android devices is a money maker! Coolest thing yet for any social platform I’ve used!
I jumped in the river with my buddy Ryan on Saturday for a training swim. It was his first open-water swim, and my first swim in a long time. We’re lucky to have a perfect spot to swim at his parents’ condo with no boat traffic and a loop course that’s about 400 yards or so. The water was nice and calm, except for the occasional manatee poking its nose up to get a whiff of whoever was manning the paddle board. I think they were pretty curious about what we were doing. Ryan bumped into them a couple of times during his session, and I got bumped by a few when I was in the water before we started.
Here’s the thing…manatees feel like sharks.
Not that I’ve ever felt a shark in the water, and I know manatees are really gentle. But when you can’t see exactly what it is rubbing up against you under the water it’s kind of freaky; lots of incentive to swim fast and try to avoid them. It’s actually good race training in a way. It simulates getting bumped into by other swimmers without getting punched or having your goggles kicked off.
Just as we were getting out of the water a couple of dolphins showed up. As fun as it sounds to swim with dolphins, those things are freakishly strong, and they aren’t nearly as gentle as manatees. And while I can out-swim a manatee that’s leisurely goofing off in the water, I’m not quite as fast as a sleeping dolphin…yet. Getting unexpectedly bumped by a dolphin would not only be a little alarming, it would actually hurt.
We’re going to try to do this swim at least once a week, and hopefully we’ll get some choppier water next time to change the conditions up a little bit. And hopefully the critters will keep their distance.
“Self-knowledge is a bitch.”
I have been all of these people at one point or another, and I’ve definitely run with all of them. There are more I could add to the list too!
Desmos Graphing Calculator – I am in nerd heaven. I can’t wait to play with this gadget. I can’t wait until my kids are learning higher math and we can do this together!!!
Get Drunk Not Fat – My knees wish my brain had been supplied this information at an earlier date.
Leverage is leverage, and leverage always brings with it increased risk.
True, but what scares me most is the amount of this “leverage” that represents items of depreciating value or Super Value Meals. And that’s just on the consumer debt.
HTC EVO 3D Review – Hope to get mine before it’s obsolete.
iDoneThis – Very cool, very simple service. Every day it sends you an email, and you respond with that you did. Makes TPS reports a snap.
The 5 Switches of Manliness: Provide – Haven’t even read this one yet, but if it’s half as good as the others, it’s a must read.
India’s $35 Android Tablet Finally Ready Ship – Would be hard not to buy at least one of these. HT @_Neville
High-Pressure Tactics Culture At Groupon – More dumping on Groupon. The more details I read about this company, the more I am wary of it.
Forget Student Loans, And Maybe Even College – Can’t say it enough times–student loans are horrible. The whole industry is basically pay day lending that you can’t bankrupt.
Short Groupon – “Groupon is essentially holding a portfolio of loans backed by the receivables of small businesses. If a business goes under, consumers will come back to Groupon for their money back. Unless Groupon is actually doing credit assessments on businesses that it chooses to feature, this is a big risk for Groupon.”
Perfect Iced Coffee – A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give up coffee for 30 days. This post is the first time I’ve regretted that decision.
Amazon has released even more movies and TV shows for Prime subscribers today, including the last 7 seasons of Sesame Street
We ditched cable about a year and a half ago and are exclusively streaming stuff from Netflix, Amazon, and Pandora through our Roku
$11 a month for Netflix plus $79 a year for Amazon Prime gives us way more TV than we could ever watch.
Classic.
Make your secondary Google Voice number permanent – Perfect solution for a a reasonable price. I don’t want to give up my old number for old contacts, but only give out my Google Voice number for new contacts.
The 5 Switches of Manliness: Challenge – Part II of this series. Dead on so far.
Texas movie theater makes an example (and a PSA) of a texter – Awsum. This should be rinsed and repeated for pretty much every venue except for phone booths.
Millionaires versus The Aspirationals – I’ll see your $10 wine and raise you a light beer in a can.
TN columnist: No athletics for home-schooled kids – Public school services (classes, athletics, etc.) should be a la carte.
Desmos Interactive Education – Saw this from TechCruch Disrupt. Coupled with Kahn Academy…strong!
The 5 Switches of Manliness: Physicality – Hells yeah.
The newly designed visual that tells us what we should be eating is going to be revealed today. That’s probably a good thing, since no one was paying to much attention to the Food Pyramid as the chart below shows.
Since Al Gore has taught us that correlation and causation are interchangeable, it makes sense to blame the jump in obesity starting in the early 80s on Atari. I’m not sure what George W. Bush was doing during that time, but there’s probably plenty of blame for him too.
Of course, the real reason for the jump in obesity is that people consume more calories than they burn. They don’t exercise and don’t pay attention to the food pyramid, or any other reasonable recommendations. You know, they’d rather just eat stuff like this.
It probably would have made more sense to ditch the Food Pyramid for a Food White Castle, Food Pizza Hut, or some other more modern structure that people do want to acknowledge.
Just brainstorming.
Shrimp and grits inspired by a Throwdown–the best of both recipes. My boredom with food was temporarily paused. The Missus cooks good groceries.
I’ve been looking at (wanting) a Kindle for a while. But, I’m cheap. And I know the prices are going to keep dropping. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been reading just because I don’t have a Kindle yet. I just keep having to go to the library, reserve books online, pay late fees, etc. Several things have happened recently that have me (almost) ready to buy, but the sum of these things makes me think I should wait it out just a little bit longer.
There’s speculation that Amazon is going to have two Android powered tablets out by Christmas for under $500. That means they’ll be motivated to empty out some of their lower end Kindles between now and then. They’ve already started to do so with the $114 6″ Kindle with ads for a screen saver.
This seems like the best choice for me…if I was going to buy yesterday. I’m really wanting the e-ink display instead of the LCD the tablets will have, and it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a touch screen or not. I just want something easy to look at with long batter life. Also, I don’t care if it’s 3G or not. I’m home most of the time, and I’m sure I can load it up with plenty of stuff to keep me entertained in the event I’m away for a few days, so Wi-Fi connection is fine with me. The screen size is actually perfect. I currently use the Kindle app on my phone, and my two biggest complaints with it are that the screen size is small and the display. A bigger screen would be nicer to look at, but the 6″ screen is about right for lugging around the house and holding without being cumbersome.
Barnes & Noble announced its own 6″ Nook today, priced exactly the same as the 6″ ad-free Kindle. It’s not a Nook color; it’s black and white e-ink. But unlike the Kindle, it’s running Android 2.1 and has a full touch screen. It also features a two month batter life. Sounds like a nice little device. It’ s not the one I want to buy though…I want to see what kind of pressure this puts on Amazon to lower their price even further, especially considering what they have coming later this year.
For the kicker, there was a rumor a while back that Amazon was considering giving a free Kindle to all of its Prime customers. That’s what I hope actually happens. I’m all about free. Now would seem like the perfect time. I could imagine one scenario where they do this sooner rather than later as a “reward” for existing Prime customers. Another possibility would be to not only give current Prime customers a free Kindle, but also send one out to new customers around October/November. This would be a great way to get rid of existing inventory while putting the device in the hands of people who don’t yet have one to entice them to request/purchase the newer devices as gifts. Wouldn’t hurt to entice people to try out Prime right around Christmas and have their gifts shipped (and purchased) through Amazon.
I think the end game here is control of the market itself. Readers are eventually going to be available for next to nothing either way.