Archive for December, 2007

I had a great day today (other than a 4am barrage of crying from my baby) at the SF Food Bank. Gotta up the ante for next month! The real question is how far can it go? How infectious can doing good really be here in the real world? All I know is I’m believing more and more in the raw power of the individual.

Definitely a good day.

Let me paraphrase from wikipedia:

A 400 pound cat with huge nasty teeth that likes to eat meaty things.

In case you missed it, a tiger recently killed a boy and mauled two others at the SF Zoo. As a new father, I cannot possiby imagine the horror the family must be going through, and my heart truly goes out to them. This is awful, and a terrible terrible tragedy.

But what is wrong with the media? From the coverage I’ve seen and read it seems like the shock is about the fact that a tiger attacked a person. This really isn’t up for debate. Take a WILD PREDATOR and coop him up his whole life, then give him just a single shot at breaking free, guess what he’s going to do? Run for it, and use every one of his natural instincts, whether it’s attack, run, duck, or attack running ducks.

Please, can we let this family go grieve in peace? They don’t need to be paraded around television, and they don’t need to be scrutinized by national press.

As for the zoo? Well, I don’t think there’s any real good argument for zoos other than showing children what depressed animals look like. I’ve never really been a fan, and I don’t support them as it is. Yes, there is some good being done for animals that are near-extinct and being bred in captivity, but for the most part, it’s a bunch of unhappy animals. Putting a bunch of ligers in a “lifelike environment” is a notch better than living in a cage, but it’s probably at the same level as putting a Manhattanite in Pierre, South Dakota. I’m sure he/she’ll survive, but it ain’t quite the same.

I read a decent amount of tech blogs, and the topic of lifecasting comes up from time to time. Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, and Jeremiah Owyang are all fans of Twitter. Bijan Sabet is a Tumblr user (and investor), and my friend Brian Solis likes, well… everything. There are a few other services out there too, some as simple as the Facebook status update, and others like Pownce enable file sharing as well (although not everybody seems to like them).

I don’t like any of them. At all.  I’m actually antilifecasting.

Reason #1: life is mundane. Yours, mine, his, everybody’s. We live mundane lives with occasional fleeting moments of interestingness. I for one am simply uninterested in following people around to discover what kind of sandwich they prefer.

Reason #2: I don’t feel a need to be “followed”. If I feel like sharing something with the world, I have a blog, and it’s easy as pie. I tried using delicious to do some link-sharing, but I got bored with that too. Bottom line is I believe so much in #1 above that if I have my exciting moment du jour, I have this blog, this other blog, Facebook, and so many other ways to share it with those who care. Which are few.

Reason #3: privacy matters. Sooner or later people are going to find they’ve exposed TMI a few too many times. Whether this will cost them personally or professionally, it’s simply fraught for errors. For example.

Reason #4:  sooner or later, evil will happen. And I don’t want it to happen to one of my friends or colleagues (or anyone for that matter, but our President is apparently working hard on that one). When Scoble or Bijan or others talk about being on the road, at a Starbucks, or in another country, they are basically telling the world that they aren’t at home.  And there are plenty of smart criminals out there.  The last thing I want to see, though I most certainly won’t be surprised when (not if) I do, is a tweet entitled “My house just got burglarized.”

So to my legions of fans and devotees, I’m sorry, but this blog is about as close as I’m going to get to talking about my personal affairs in a public, permanently recorded environment.  Okay, I’ll make one exception with the next 160 characters:

Writing this after eating a bite of havarti melted on whole grain bread. No HFCS or unbleached enriched flour. Baby sleeping now which means its RockBand time.

Forbes put up its list of “Web Celebs” yesterday.  This list is utterly pointless and shows nothing but ignorance of the diversity of the Internet and the power of individualized content.  Sorry, it’s not completely pointless, as I’m sure 25 people feel pretty cool today, and I’m genuinely happy for them (especially for the ones who I’m friends with!). As Robert Scoble observed, tons of prominent Internet voices are missing from the list.

Further, the list is missing other “celebrities” such as Tila Tequila who has (at the time of writing) just short of 2.5 MILLION friends on MySpace.  Again, not to take anything away from the listmakers, but only Engadget and Boing Boing have traffic above that number.  I think the criteria Forbes used is also fairly… inane:

To generate the ranking, we first defined “Web Celeb” as a person famous primarily for creating or appearing in Internet-based content, and for being highly recognizable to a Web-based audience. That definition excludes people who were significantly famous before they hit the Web–like author Arianna Huffington, billionaire Mark Cuban or journalist Michelle Malkin–and leaves us with a pool of people whose fame depends on the Internet.

But beyond all that, really, what’s the point?  Who benefits (again, other than the 25) from this list?  Is the world a better place?  Do the other billion people on the Internet feel a bit worse about themselves?  Do the ones who got cut from last year’s list care?  And more to the point, should they?

Lists like these do nothing to make people feel good about anything.  They make people envious.  They make people strive for things beyond their means.  They make people mock the lists themselves.  They serve virtually no public good.

And dammit, I’m not on there.  And I probably wasn’t #26 either. Jerks…

Saw on good ol TechMeme today that TIME mag put out 50 “Top 10″ Lists.  Now I love me a Top 10 list as much as anyone.  I clicked through to check it out.  Normally I’d read each list.  Except there’s never a List, just individual entries!  Rather than having to browse through 50 pages, they expect me to read through FIVE HUNDRED.  Not a chance.

By the way, who defined the category of “Business, Tech, and Sports”?  One of these things doesn’t belong…

Last night I wrote a letter to my Congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi, regarding my concerns over the newly introduced PRO IP act. This is one of those moments where I felt the issue was so important I wanted to make sure the awareness spread beyond the typical scope of my readership. As a result, I picked a handful of fairly influential friends of mine, and asked them to read my letter, and if they agreed with it, to blog about it. First, I’d like to thank all of the following individuals for their support:

• 1to10reviews
• Alexander Grundner
• Ben Drawbaugh
• Bijan Sabet
• Brian Solis
• David Cohn
• Doug Felteau
• JD Lasica
• Michael Gartenberg
• Robert Scoble
• Ryan Block
• Sean Alexander

As a result of their postings (and mine), it’s on TechMeme, and at least the following blogs also covered the topic (I say “at least” because TechMeme doesn’t pick up everybody, and I know it):

• AllThingsD
• Cruel to be kind
• IPDemocracy
• Vince aut Morire
• WebProNews
• Under the wire (where a good debate in the comments is currently occurring)

I have quite a few other colleagues who I believe will cover the topic. I hope they do. It’s important, and more important than things like Kindle, Beacon, and a new MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, I think most of the people I talk to seem pretty dismayed about what our government will do with this law. Two of the IM conversations I had on the topic resulted in clearly voiced opinions that we aren’t going to get any better anytime soon. One person almost didn’t blog on it for feeling “what’s the point?”

I hope a lot of people take action on this topic. I hope they are writing their elected officers and having their voices heard. I hope a lot of things. But I fear the worst. I fear this country’s true thought leaders have “checked out” of the political process. Voting turnout, blah blah blah.

I chose to get off the sidelines for this one. I have low expectations, but at least I can feel good that I did something about it, and applied my skills to shoot for the best outcome possible. If I hope for no other thing it’s that my act inspires others to attempt to effect change around them. Maybe we can all make a difference.

I’ll put the Last of the Mohicans score (by Randy Edelman) down as one of my favorites of all time (some others include: LOTR, Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story, Schindler’s List, Raiders, Star Wars (duh), Jurassic Park, and Danny Elfman’s Batman). Saw this commercial while watching last week’s Steelers game:

Awesome.

Saw this article today in which the Steelers’ Anthony Smith has supposedly guaranteed a win this week. Here’s the quote:

“We’re going to win,” Smith said. “Yeah, I can guarantee a win. As long as we come out and do what we got to do. Both sides of the ball are rolling, and if our special teams come through for us, we’ve got a good chance to win.”

Well let’s see.  First sentence has a very definitive “going to win” followed by an equally positive “guarantee a win”.  Then we get a little “as long as…” disclaimer.  The last sentence is where it all goes downhill with an “if our…” followed by the much-less-definitive-than-a-mere-two-sentences-ago “we’ve got a good chance”.

For those unclear on the grammar in play, “a good chance” is not equal to “guarantee a win”.  Not by a long shot.

I may be a Steelers fan, but I’m never a fan of duh.

NOTE: this is mostly spoiler-free, but if you want a really “clean” Heroes experience, just don’t read it.

Last year, the marketing prior to the start of the show Heroes had me juiced up for it. I was ready, and when it hit, I took the chewy worm and swallowed it wholeheartedly. In fact, episodes 1-21 were all pretty strong. I think they had a few too many characters which left too many episodes dealing with minor plot movement, but for the most part, I liked. I liked so much I wrote a “Heroes Drinking Game” post.

Somewhere mid-season the marketing started getting a bit crazy. Virtually every commercial contained a spoiler, and they even did mid-episode commercials for the show once. Lame, but I guess I chalked it off as enthusiastic marketing folks trying to get the viewership as wide as possible. My guess is production costs run high, so I understood the need to get big advertisers on board. Fine, no worries.

Then the season finale hit, and it was junk. Loyal viewers, aka the fans, were screwed with a mediocre non-resolution to a huge buildup. No big “HURRAY” moment anywhere. No character making any moves that really made you excited. Just a boring little superhero fight and an utterly weak resolution to the season. And the last 2 minutes of the show, the sneak preview to this season, were a clear sign that problems were afoot.

Last night they aired the end of what they call “volume 2″ (probably wrapped up due to the writers strike. go writers!). Of the 11 episodes, I’d say 1 was Good, with 5 Average, and 5 Bad. The Good one was the “last 4 months” episode (don’t remember the real name of it), as they did a really good job tying the plots together. All the rest blended together into a steaming pile of volume 2.  Some specific gripes:

• Virtually every character that we are supposed to like spends most of the season either making stupid decisions or acting inconsistent with why we like them.  Matt’s supposed to be the good/pure guy – that’s over.  Mohinder’s supposed to be, well, smart, and he gets suckered in so pathetically obviously.
• All the “bad guys” are ridiculously good at manipulating everyone around them.  I don’t mind them being manipulative, and I don’t mind them pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes from time to time, but this was ridiculous.
• NBC killed any chance of excitement or suspense about “big” things.  We all knew Sylar would return, but did they have to show it in a commercial?  It seems like the once-clever hype machine has turned into a desperate pathetic attempt to constantly make the show seem more exciting than it is.
• TOO MANY CHARACTERS.  Seriously, just when one plotline gets interesting, it disappears for three weeks while they deal with stupid things like Maya or Jessica – both of whom were terrible plot vehicles.
• Clearly UNcomplicated villains.  The best bad guys have goals beyond “do evil”.  They are conflicted about something. For about 15 seconds of one episode it seemed like there really was a Sylar/Gabriel debate going on, but then it vanished.
• Boring plotlines were drawn out forever (tip: Jessica is boring, as are Micah, Nathan, Matt, Maya, Ando.  Whereas HRG is interesting, as are the Haitian, Peter, Hiro, Sylar), and interesting ones were killed off in 1-2 episodes.  Matt’s father was supposed to be this season’s Big Villain, and instead lasted how long?  Come on.
• Lots of the dumb James Bond-like moments, straight out of Austin Powers: when you have the guy you want to kill in your sights, and your intent is to kill, then you just SHOOT, you don’t TALK.  Stupid stupid stupid.
• Unnecessarily rash decision-making.  There’s a moment when Hiro and Peter are talking, and without too many details, let’s just say they have the moment to themselves.  They can talk as long as they want to come to a decision/consensus, and nothing will rush them along.  What do they do?  Rush into a silly fight. STUPID!

I could go on for a while, but I’ve invested enough energy as it is. Tim, the rest of the writing staff, please, take your time and sit down and write out a storyline that’s really clever.  Advance it along at a good pace, you don’t need to bore us with teenage angst melodrama, we have tons of other shows for that.  Watch X-Men 2 a couple more times.  We all want the show to be great, so you have everyone on your side.  Now please, make it great again!