Guy Behind the Guy

I'm Christian, unless you're gay--or just mean

2011-12-05T22:34:00.001-05:00

This is a TL;DR post by "Single Dad Laughing" that talks about accepting people for who they are, not judging, and overall being a decent human being. Apparently, it's changed everyone's life, and inspired the original author to create a YouTube video, complete with words fading in over a plucking guitar and a willowy-voiced female singer. I actually don't really disagree with the gist, although it's written in that annoying and now all-too-common style of halting half-thoughts and rhetorical questions.

The actual issue I have happens less than a quarter of the way through the first page. SDL is in the middle of holding up those gluttons for punishment, the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of the "idiots" that are apparently ruining the lives of, well, everybody, when he drops this gem:

Almost every person of nearly every religion has no problem loathing and condemning the Westboro Baptist Church and its members, and perhaps with reason. They take freedom of speech far beyond what our founding fathers intended when they fought to give us that right, and they laugh at the rest of the world while they do.

But today I don’t want to talk about those idiots. I want to talk about you. And me.

You must be joking. This is what Thomas Jefferson actually said about freedom of speech:

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

There's a reason why freedom of religion and speech are the first two enumerated freedoms in the Bill of Rights. Who shall judge whether Westboro's speech is beyond what the founding fathers intended? Shall all statements by the church be run by the court of SDL for clearance? Or perhaps the majority shall decide what's appropriate for all to hear. It is precisely speech that is unpopular, despised, and emanating from the minority that needs protected!

The further ironic beauty of SDL's statement is that it undermines the point that he so fervently tries to make. By "loathing and condemning" those "idiots" from the Westboro Baptist Church, he finds himself on the wrong end of the "love all" principle he so desperately defends in his article. I'm sorry to say, SDL, that loving everyone unfortunately includes loving those who monger hate. Now why don't you reach your arm out, put it around them and give a big hug?

Things that are funny #7

2011-05-06T21:40:00.001-05:00

Rajesh: Thank you for coming with me, Sheldon. You're a good friend.
Sheldon: I'm glad you think so. That's what I strive to emulate.

- The Big Bang Theory

So You Want to Be a Programmer? #1

2010-08-12T21:58:00.007-05:00

This is the first of a series of posts where I give you actual problems that I have had to solve as part of my job. If you want to be a programmer, are interested in what we do on a regular basis, or just like to solve problems, take a stab at these. Post your solutions in the comments.

The problem:
Create an equation that uses each of the values shown below for the variables a and b and equals the number on the right side of the equation. You may add any extra numbers to the left side, but may use only the following operations:

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Integer Division, Modulo, Exponentiation, Parenthesis (to induce order of operations)

The values are:

So, for example, an incorrect answer would be:

a - b

because it would work for values 8 & 4, and 12 & 12, but not for 0 & 1.

Bank of Opportunity (And They're All Ours)

2010-04-05T21:46:00.014-05:00

source

I recently paid off my mortgage with Bank of America. However, when considering a lender for my new home loan, Bank of America did not even appear on my radar. That irritated the banking giant (slightly), so they decided to contact me personally (via a survey sent through a third-party service) to determine why I did not get my loan through them. To the question "Why did you not consider Bank of America for your new home loan?" I answered this:

"Bank of America purchased Countrywide, my lender in the fallout of the banking crisis. You have also acquired all of my credit card companies. From everything I'd heard about this company, you are a profit-generating machine for your shareholders. And nothing about my interactions with you have changed that opinion. I am a number to you. You will provide the absolute minimum level of service required to retain me as a customer, all the while attempting to squeeze more of my hard-earned money from me. And if I were to cross you, you will unleash the hounds of hell on me. You despise how easily I can take my accounts elsewhere, and look longingly at the cell phone companies with their account termination fees. I did not choose to be your customer, the decision was forced onto me, and I've never had any intention of continuing that relationship."

Roll Over or Get Tough? (P.S. Your cable bill's going up)

2009-12-05T11:36:00.010-05:00

So, Time Warner Cable just e-mailed me with a link to their new website Roll Over or Get Tough? This is where they attempt to flex "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and get all of their customers to be accomplices in fleecing the big, bad "TV networks." Look, I'm no fan of the networks. Their draconian attempts to lock down their content has led to a world full of DRM and double-purchasing. However, Time Warner Cable crying "We've got a hard choice" and forcing you to choose between "Rolling Over" and "Getting Tough" is corporate spin at its most absurd. Which did I choose? Roll Over, of course. Luckily, there was a comment field so I could explain my reasoning to them:

"Where I live, satellite TV and U-Verse are not available to me. Therefore, you have a monopoly over me, as well as most markets across the country. Like Wal-Mart, you get to dictate cost to your suppliers (the "TV Networks"), and they have to allow it. As a monopoly, the price your customers pay is not based on market pressures. You will raise the cost of my service whenever you see fit, for whatever reason you see fit. I have not control over that. However, what I *don't* want is for you to block my programming. I missed a good portion of The Ohio State Buckeyes' season two years ago because you could not negotiate a fair price with the networks.

So, yes I want you to "Roll Over." Your job is to negotiate a price with the content providers and deliver that content to me. As a monopoly, you have a powerful bargaining chip. Don't go asking your customers if it's okay for you to not do your job.

Thanks!"

Nobel Peace Prize Renamed

2009-10-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

Announced this morning, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has officially renamed the Nobel Peace Prize the "We really hated Bush, and you're not Bush" Prize. The committee will be reduced to one person who will simply verify your license, then hand you a Nobel Prize (provided, of course, that you're not George Bush.) Wal-Mart is already in talks to add a "Peace Prize Express" dispenser to all of their worldwide locations.

In related news, the committee is also considering renaming the Nobel Prize in Physics to the "F*** Stephen Hawking" Prize. When asked for comment, Mr. Hawking remarked, "Oh, I'm not concerned. I bought one a few years ago on eBay."

A Touch Of Class #2

2009-08-27T21:29:00.003-05:00

I believe the children are our future.

Windows 7 Rocks

2009-08-22T23:55:00.005-05:00

I was all set to sit down and write about why Windows 7 is making me love my computer again, but good buddy Michael already stole my thunder. So, I’ll simply append to his list with a few points:

I installed x86 mode instead of x64, so I haven’t had problems along those lines. I only installed one driver which was, ironically, the driver Michael can’t get—scrolling on my touchpad.
The fluidity of the OS can’t be overstated. I feel so much more productive thanks to the combination of better kernel scheduling (the part of Windows that picks what program gets access to the CPU) and major improvements to the Shell (a term that encompasses the Taskbar, Desktop, Explorer, and other UI components.)
The installer doesn’t delete anything. Anything Windows-related that’s already on your HD is moved to a directory called Windows.old. Anything else on the HD is ignored! (I spent over a week trying to figure out how I could backup everything on my HD and have it readily-available after I installed Windows 7, and it turns out I didn’t need to worry at all!)
Windows 7 is gorgeous. From the installer to the startup screen to the beautiful Aero effects, it truly elevates your lowly computer to a work of art. To be honest, it makes my MacBook look damn utilitarian. Yeah, I said it.
I’m so enamored with the responsiveness of the OS, I’ll make the point again: if you have ever felt like Windows XP is making you wait to use your application while it does something else in the background, you need to upgrade to Windows 7. Despite running all of the same background tasks that I did in XP, as well as switching between applications at a very rapid pace, Windows 7 keeps up without breaking a sweat. (And that’s running it on a laptop that only scores a 3.2 on the Windows Experience Index.)

Windows 7 won’t be in your local store until October 22nd. And, honestly, it’s not the right choice for older hardware. But if you’ve got a dual-core processor and a couple gigs of ram, you owe it to yourself to invest in a new Windows.

Macrium Reflect

2009-08-22T14:11:00.001-05:00

Macrium Reflect is a kick-ass piece of software that just saved my bacon in a big way this week. I’d highly recommend that you check it out—there’s a Free Edition that likely will do everything you’d ever need. But, do them a favor: if it saves your bacon, like it did mine, consider springing for the Full Version. It’s $40.

(Note: I’m not in anyway affiliated with Macrium, I’m just a geek who believes great software should have the privilege of word-of-mouth promotion.)

∀ Births ∈ Home Births: ∃ Death

2009-07-31T22:32:00.011-05:00

Good friends of mine just had a successful home birth. I was admittedly nervous, but thrilled that everything went okay; and Sarah's write-up about her experience is here. I encourage you to read it regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of natural birthing. Sarah has devoted much of her time and energy into learning about all aspects of motherhood, and it shows in her writing and conversations on the topic.

I do feel compelled to counter one rather minor and pointless footnote in her article, however. Sarah claims to have never heard of a baby "who died because he or she was born at home...not one." Well, that's just silly. A simple Google News query for "home birth death" turned up this article on the first page. It happened in Ireland last month, it was tragic, and there was a lawsuit against the midwife (litigation--not just for hospital births anymore!) There. Now nobody reading this can claim they've never heard of a baby dying because of a home birth. Return to your lives, citizens.

Update: Fixed link.

Things That Are Funny #6

2009-07-20T19:57:00.001-05:00

'Dance Your Ass Off' continues to be the biggest exploitation of overweight people since they started putting cookie dough in ice cream.

-Joel McHale, The Soup

Rejected by Bartlett #8

2009-02-11T22:40:00.005-05:00

Before the computer, the animals, mortal though not sentient, seemed our nearest neighbors in the known universe. Computers, with their interactivity, their psychology, with whatever fragments of intelligence they have, now bid for this place.

-Sherry Turkle, MIT Researcher

It will likely take at least another generation before man's affection for computers is seen as anything but "creepy." Consider, however, how mainstream our love of cars has become.

A Touch of Class #1

2009-02-01T22:44:00.000-05:00

In the interest of raising the level of conversation on this blog, I present a new series: "A Touch of Class." These will be links and snippets that I've found around the web that I think represent a more civil, sophisticated society (rare as they might be.) Please to enjoy.

Only $12.99.

Things that are funny #5

2009-01-28T12:48:00.003-05:00

Hat tip to Carpenter.

Ben Folds and Regina Spektor Doing It (Right)

2008-10-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

Here's Ben Folds and Regina Spektor tearing it up on Conan. (BTW, the new album is sweetness incarnate.)

Bonus points for recognizing Jason Sudeikis playing an in-over-his-head trombone player.

5th Generation iPod Crashes With Recent iTunes Purchase

2008-10-02T08:55:00.004-05:00

It appears there may be a compatibility problem with either new content being posted to the iTunes Store, or iTunes 8, and the 5th Generation iPod. After playing 3-4 songs from any new album purchased recently, the iPod crashes and reboots. See the (many) reports that are starting to pour in:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1715176&tstart=0

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1736364&tstart=0

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1723723&tstart=0

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1735197&tstart=0

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081001195912AAM3kQr

I'll edit this post with updates on this issue. Are any of you readers seeing this problem?

Update: Solution

I received an e-mail from Apple Customer Support, and the text is below. Re-downloading the tracks according to their instructions did fix the problem for me, although it forced me to download the entire album again twice. Weird.

Dear Customer,

Recently you purchased an item from the iTunes Store. You may have noticed
that there was an issue with this particular item, which prevented it from
being played on an iPod. We have since corrected this problem on the iTunes
Store and have verified that this will now play correctly on an iPod.

To correct the problem with the item in your library, we placed a new copy
in your download queue. To begin downloading, click this link:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/checkForPurchases

Or, you can open iTunes and select Check for Available Downloads from the
Store menu.

We know that redownloading these tracks will cause you to have duplicate
files on your hard drive, so we've created a step-by-step walkthrough that
will help you eliminate the affected copies of the files.

The walkthrough for removing these duplicate tracks is available at:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2905

After removing the duplicate tracks, you should also re-sync any iPod or
iPhone that have purchases from this account. If your iPod or iPhone is set
to Manually Manage Songs and Videos, you'll need to restore the device and
then re-add tracks from your Library. Your purchases should now all play
successfully.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our customer service
team by visiting:
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/

Sincerely,

iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

Things that are funny #4

2008-09-08T14:10:00.000-05:00

Lois (holding Stewie) and Peter confront Chris about murdering his hot teacher's husband:

Lois: Chris, we know what you did.
Chris: You mean that I lied about my age to get into an Indian casino?
Lois: No.
Chris: You mean about the time I had hard gas and pooed myself?
Peter: Close, but no.
Stewie: How is that close?

Things that are funny #3

2008-09-03T09:35:00.004-05:00

"Those pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib were considered torture, yet Anne Geddes can shove a naked baby in a watermelon and call it July."

-Daniel Tosh

Edit:This is #3 in the series. Thanks, Jeff.

The Hot Women of Hot TV Hotness #2

2008-07-30T18:13:00.004-05:00

Well, seeing as how my previous "hot women" post is by far the most popular thing on this blog, I figure it's time for a sequel. Besides, there's some new hot women on the TV shows that I watch that make those shows even more, well, watchable. With their hotness. Once again, fair warning to my female readers: this is pure, unadulterated guy talk*, so if the thought of your man drooling over some PYT causes you mental trauma, just keep walking. I hear there's a sale at Target.

Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother, CBS) - To be honest, I couldn't believe that Ms. Hannigan didn't make it onto my prior list. I've been a fan since her breakout role in American Pie. Geeky hotness? Funny coolness? To be honest, I'm not sure what it is about her--but she's got an adorable smile and great hair, which she changes often. In fact, if you've watched How I Met Your Mother closely, they track her hairstyle closely so that they can get it right in flashbacks. If you're not a fan yet, get on board the Hannigan express. You won't regret it. (Okay, unless you see Date Movie. Then you'll regret it.)

Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory, CBS) - Never thought much of her in 8 Simple Rules, but I think she's really come into her stride in Big Bang (which, BTW, are you watching? If you're a fan of my blog, you need to be watching this show). Oh, and I love how the costume people take every opportunity to put her in push up bras, lingerie, midriffs--or sometimes all three! I suppose it makes sense--she's the hot eye candy for all of the geeky guys on this show. No one wants to see her in a hooded parka. Like Suzanne Somers before her, she's there to make you drool first, laugh second. Except nowadays, there's quite a bit more skin allowed on national TV. And, she can be making a blatantly sexual joke while standing there in her tiny, tiny clothes. Progress, gentlemen!

Julianne Hough (Dancing With The Stars, ABC) - Alright, let me just state the ridiculously obvious: Julianne is why men watch Dancing With The [D-List] Stars. In fact, my interest in that awkward, painful-to-watch abomination is directly proportional to if Julianne is still on it, and what outfit she's wearing. Don't talk to me about the other "hot chicks" on the show; one looks like a boy, one looks like a man, and one has a full mile-and-a-half of forehead. (I'll let you figure out which-is-which.) No, no, Julianne in a Pulp Fiction wig is molten iron hotter than any of them. QED.

Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds, CBS) - Stick with me on this one. 1) Miss Brewster does not photograph well. I'll just come right out with that. Her striking features just don't translate that well into two dimensions. However, this is a blog post about TV, and in high def primetime, she looks great. 2) She's chummy with the Suicide Girls website and has even photographed for them. 3) She's self-deprecating! She once said of herself: "I'm like this wiry freak they pulled out of a bar two months ago and said, 'Let's throw it on the wall and see if it sticks.'" 4) She's stizzacked.

April Bowlby (Two and a Half Men, CBS) - I'm not going to say much about her other than she's the eye candy on this abysmal comedy that my wife enjoys, and she's got a ridiculous body and great eyes. It's criminal how much they exploit this poor girl for cheap laughs, but frankly, I might as well be bitching that Chipotle's burritos are "just too big." If she wants to parade around in front of millions of people in this, the least I can do is watch.

Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men, CBS) - The other pair of the pair that makes this half-assed comedy worth watching. She plays a stalker, and the crazy kind of turns me on. Well, that and the low-cut tops. And the pale skin with red lips. Really, it's all a winner.

Honorable Mentions
Kristen Bell (Heroes, NBC) - I actually had Kristen on my list, but I cut her. Yes, she's beautiful. Yes, she seems into geeky stuff. Yes, it's hot to watch her play a sociopath. But I just can't quite get on the bandwagon. For one thing, she's a little too skinny. For another, I get the feeling she's not completely genuine. I almost, almost get the feeling like this whole "I love geeks" thing is just a carefully crafted ruse to ensure that she'll always have a loyal following. Maybe I'm wrong (and I have no doubt the Veronica Mars army will come rallying to her defense), but I've gotta go with my gut on this one. This is who I am. Take it or leave it.

Alright, so that wraps up another installment. Who do you agree with? Who'd I miss? Who are you tuning in to see every week? Leave a comment and let me know!

----------------
*Yeah right. You'd swear off men forever if you ever heard that.

George Carlin, Dead at 71

2008-06-23T08:15:00.004-05:00

image source: sarahinvegas

God bless you, man.

WPLMR Interview #2

2008-06-21T10:03:00.011-05:00

This is the second part of my interview with Palmer, creator of the always fascinating podcast, WPLMR. In this part, we talk about music and podcast production.

GuyBehindtheGuy: I'm always impressed by the production values of the episodes. What kind of rig do you have?
Palmer: Episodes 1-4 were all recorded on a six-year old HP laptop. Just a POS laptop--probably $300 nowadays off of Craig's List. My mic is probably the most expensive component. I use a MXL-USB 006 that was about $130. I use $20 Sony studio headphones from Wal-Mart, and they work great. I use Audacity, which is amazing, for all of the audio production, and Inkscape for the logos--I'm big on open-source. And I host all of my mp3's on libsyn, which costs me $10/month. So, all-in-all, it probably cost me about $250 to start this podcast, since I already owned my laptop.

For sound effects, I use the Freesound Project. I have never not been able to find a sound effect there. Now granted, some of them I might have to build. For instance, just for the news reel, that's like ten different sounds, and I have to give credit for each one in the show notes.

And I have to say, that hands down one of things that's made the quality of the show so good is Audacity. There's just so much in there that you can do. I mean, I don't know dick about what I'm doing at all. But, it's just an amazing, well put-together, solid program that should cost $400-500, and it's free.

G: Obviously, the highlight of the show is the music. How do you go about choosing it?
P: The show is very formulaic--I have four sketches, four blocks of music, an opening song and a closing song; plus the news and the homework assignment. To choose the music, I go to Jamendo and I start with "Popular This Week." I also further restrict the search to albums that I can "edit or build upon," because I'm not sure with Creative Commons if just putting it in a podcast is the same as remixing, or if it just counts as transmitting the song. So I do that, and I get something like 350 pages of results.

"I mean, I don't know dick about what I'm doing at all."

After that, the first thing I look for is if the name of the album is in English. So, right there, I've knocked out a good half of the results. At this point, I'm focused on just the first page of results, which I believe is twenty albums. Then I'll look at what the tags for the album are, and skip any instrumental albums. So, now I've just narrowed that twenty albums down to about four.

I'll start listening to the first track of the first album, and I'm looking for a few things. First off, the riff that it starts out with has to grab me. You can tell pretty quickly if it's not top-quality, and I'm looking for top-quality tracks because between me mixing it and dumping it out to MP3, if it's already low-quality it's going to be shit by the time I put out an episode. Also, it has to have a good volume--I hate it when the artist doesn't normalize their songs.

Sometimes, the riff is amazing, and I'll be saying to myself "this is bad ass." But then they trick you--the singer will suddenly come on growling "Je m'appelle Andre. Pomme de terre!" And you're wondering what you're doing listening to a Frenchman who smokes eighteen packs a day talking about his name and potatoes. So, right there, if the singer doesn't match the quality of the music, that can turn me off. Now, there are definite contradictions--some of the punk stuff I love if it has a Johnny Rotten-style singer who's just awful, but that fits that style of music perfectly.

Another thing that's a huge turn-off and will quickly remove an album from my consideration is if I have to wait three-and-a-half minutes just to hear the lyrics. A lot of these bands are new and up-and-coming, so I don't know if the problem is that they're not confident enough in their lyrics, or for some reason they think they need a solo in every song, and that solo has to be in the beginning. I guess they've never heard of a bridge before. So, you'll hear this giant, epic instrumental at the beginning of every song, and you're thinking, "Get to the point! That's awesome and all, but let's get going."

So while picking the music is not as formulaic a process as laying out the show, here's how I would sum it up: if I like it, I listen to it; if I don't, I won't. It just has to grab me.

G: If the RIAA came up to you tomorrow and said, "We know we screwed up. What can we do to save ourselves?" What would you say to them?
P: I would love to see the labels band together and offer a free daily or weekly genre-based podcast. So, there's going to be a punk podcast, a rock podcast--and it's going to only be our newest and freshest acts. Those would be offered free, without DRM, and could be downloaded and shared with your friends however you want.

"Support local music. Support the independent artist."

Then, I'd like to see a service where you can download full FLAC, high-quality audio files for a flat fee a month--$20 bucks a month, we'll say. For the cost of two CD's, you can download as much as you want. They could even have it tiered--for $5/month, you can download 1 GB. For $10/month, you can download 2GB, and unlimited for $20/month. And these need to be DRM free, because I want to be able to use it on my $250 iPod, my $400 iPhone, my $200 Zune; I want to be able to put it on any of that. Further, I want to be able to burn it onto a CD and listen to it on my car stereo if I want.

G: Any other thoughts?
P: Support local music. Support the independent artist. I mean, when it's all said and done, no matter how many dick-and-fart jokes I might pump into an episode, it's all really about me trying to share music that I really like from artists who are okay with me sharing it.

Thanks to Palmer for the great interview! I hope everyone enjoyed it, and make sure you check out WPLMR for yourself.

WPLMR Interview #1

2008-06-08T00:11:00.022-05:00

Fan of indie music? Like to laugh? Then give WPLMR a try. With genuinely funny skits and killer music, WPLMR is the best podcast you're not listening to. I had a chance to sit down with its creator, Palmer, and talk about podcasting, the Internet, and other important things. It's closer to a magazine article in length, so I've split it between two posts. The first part of my interview is below:

GuyBehindtheGuy: What do you like about the podcast medium?
Palmer: I remember first getting on Prodigy, and there really wasn't anything you could do. It was this information platform, but really, that was about it. But now, it's turned into this huge conglomerate of connecting with people. I think in our everyday lives, we find things that try to pull us away from interacting with people, but with the Internet, we can be whoever we want to be. So, there's this huge interconnection for everyone to communicate in all kinds of ways. And podcasting is a piece of that.

"It's all about interactivity and interconnectivity between people. "

G: What do you say to those people who think that the Internet actually disconnects people?
P: If someone made that argument pre dot-com boom, I would totally agree with them. The Internet definitely had a consensus of disconnecting people and wasting time. The most interaction was probably in chat rooms. But since the dot-com boom there's been this big change. It's all about interactivity and interconnectivity between people.

My dream would be somebody in Germany e-mailing me and telling me he checked out my podcast. I mean, even if I had limitless funds and could travel the world, there's probably still no way I could get somebody to listen to me without going to each individual place. But using the Internet, I've connected to that person.

G: So are we still waiting for that e-mail from halfway around the world?
P: Yes we are. So, if there's any hot Germans out there…or, I like Japanese girls, too. That'd be pretty cool.

Actually, any girl could e-mail me. That'd be awesome.

G: What would make podcasting better?
P: Right now, I really have to do a lot of legwork to find music that I can use. When I first started, I had to worry about places I could store my media. And bandwidth. I mean, popularity can happen overnight, but I can't suddenly get a bandwidth bill for ten grand. I can't afford that.

I'd like to see more user-friendly services to support podcasting. I'm still waiting for that forward-thinking record label that says, "Here's our whole catalog. You can use it in your podcasts all you want. We recognize the advertising you're doing for us." And even if not the whole catalog, just give us a single like you do for the radio stations. "You have to give us a link and tell us how many people downloaded the episode, but you can use it for free."

"I'm still waiting for that forward- thinking record label."

G: There's been a lot of talk about "Web 2.0," and you've used the phrase before. What does "Web 2.0" mean to you?
P: "Web 1.0," or the "traditional" Internet worked just like going to the library. You'd find a source of information like a book, and you'd read it. That book was the end-all-be-all of that information! In "Web 2.0," I can still go and get the book, but then I read this article in this magazine, and I think the two really complement each other. So, I'm going to cut that article out, and I'm going to glue it into the book. That way the next person to read that book can benefit from seeing both those things side-by-side.

I see "Web 2.0" as a very user-interactive version of the existing Internet. Wikis, podcasting, screencasting, blogs--they're all a part of this giant interaction. And it's snowballing. It's like taking a bit and kicking it down a hill, and people are just adding to it the whole time.

G: Where do the social networking sites fit in to all of this?
P: I see those as "Web 2.0 for Dummies." It's a very simple way to get people into that concept. So, instead of keeping a private journal, I'm going to start a Myspace blog. I'm going to talk about today, and my feelings about that. And the cool thing is, I could be totally crazy and not even know it. So, I'm going to let people comment on it, and see what they think; see if I'm on the right track.

That does it for this part of the interview. Check out the second part in my next post!

Bank of Opportunity (To Slit Your Own Throat)

2008-06-03T20:47:00.001-05:00

Good friend Michael wrote an interesting take on where to place the blame for the current real-estate crisis. Read his article, and then my comment below it--consider it canon.

Video Game Myths

2008-05-31T10:31:00.008-05:00

image source: Thomas Hawk

Myth: “This bill [The Family Entertainment Protection Act] will help empower parents by making sure their kids can’t walk into a store and buy a video game that has graphic, violent and pornographic content.” - Hillary Clinton, 2005

Fact: According to the FTC, mature-rated video games are, and always have been the most difficult media for kids to purchase at a retailer. And this year, video games finally dropped below the king of difficult purchases by a minor: an R-rated movie ticket. That's right, mature-rated video games are now the absolute most difficult entertainment for a kid with a pocketful of cash to buy on a Saturday afternoon. Tell that to your grandma/pastor/in-laws next time they're spouting anti-video game propaganda.

Note: The bill ended up expiring in committee, and never became law.

Things that are funny #2

2008-05-30T17:49:00.002-05:00

The price of stamps is going up next week from 41 cents to 42 cents.
"Awww...that's cute," said oil.

- Amy Poehler, SNL Weekend Update