I’m the only member of my family born in Texas. My parents, sister, and half-brother’s family all still live in Texas. I currently live in Colorado. Recently, governer Rick Perry started a dialog about Texas leaving the union and now NPR is picking it up. I don’t want to get into the issue of Texas potentially secedeing from the nation. The issue is widely misunderstood as Texas holds no right to leave, merely to split into 4 individual states.
As I’ve traveled, I’ve found as much dislike of Texas inside the US as I have for the US in other countries. No where have I found as much anti-Texas attitudes as the snow covered slopes of Colorado. This past season I got in a gondola full of kids who were skipping school. Their entire dialog on the way up was littered with stories about “dumb Texans.” What’s worse is spending enough time on the slopes to see that they’re largely right. When Texans come here on vacation (and they come in flocks), it always makes for a less enjoyable day.
There’s a silly link going around to see if someone was on Twitter before Oprah. Seeing the link today, I started doing something I’ve thought about for a while. I did a quick audit of some of the social sites I belong to and referenced when I joined. I also looked at some of my other social media activity in the process. It was surprisingly hard to find some of the information. For example, I can’t seem to find my Facebook join date. The oldest related date I could find was the oldest profile pic I still have up. Anyway, here’s the dirt:
Where
When
Reference Method
Facebook
7/5/2007
Oldest Profile Pic
Twitter
6/19/2007
First Tweet
Tribe
2/21/2007
Profile Join Date
YouTube
12/11/2006
Profile Join Date
Flickr
10/4/2005
Oldest Image Online
LinkedIn
8/3/2005
Profile Join Date
MySpace
9/17/2004
Profile Join Date
Blogging
1/26/2004
Oldest post online (once I started calling it blogging).
MeetUp
1/20/2004
Profile Join Date
Live Journal
12/30/2003
Profile Join Date
Usenet
9/17/1996
Oldest post I found on google groups.
Blogging
8/8/1996
Oldest post still online (didn’t call it a blog then).
The file sharing rant has raged on for years. While the media industries claim that file sharing has hurt their market share, the movie industry is seeing record sales. For many, it’s obvious what is going on. With the advent of new media, we saw a shift in how things work in our world. Once upon a time, you had to have a lot of money to record media and distribute it. This need gave rise to a collection of media industries, music and movies in particular. Now, recording and sharing media is very cheap and very easy. The MPAA and RIAA are no longer important. However, with their size and power, they will do anything and everything they can to keep the status quo.
Today is April 15th. Just like previous 4/15s, today is tax day. This one is unique because of the Tea Party Protests. There are varied opinions as to why folks are protesting, but most revolve around the massive spending that has occurred under the Obama administration. It would seem, however, that many protesters seem somewhat uneducated. Cries of socialism and reflections on the cold war abound.
I ride at Vail resorts because their pass is the best bang for the buck around here. Looks like next season, all the employees I see on the slopes will be wearing helmets. From the GJSentinal:
Starting next winter, all employees at each of Vail Resorts’ five ski areas will be required to wear helmets when skiing or snowboarding on the job.
I’ve long had the helmet debate. Personally, I hate riding with a helmet. I’ve had some close calls where I’ve almost hit solid objects (trees & rocks) where a helmet could potentially save my life. However, I have issues with my head overheating while wearing a helmet on all but the coldest days. I’ve had this issue to the extent of making me dizzy and lightheaded. I’ve also hit piles of soft powder in what would have been an uneventful crash only to have the helmet cause minor injury.
I can’t really sit here and argue against the value of a helmet. Still, I really can’t give kudos to Vail for requiring them. Snow sports are dangerous. If you’re there, you’re already risking your life. From an operations point of view, I can accept requiring employees to wear safety gear. I just worry this will soon be applied to all riders.
Maybe I’ll change my mind when I find a helmet that works well for me. Photo credit to kandyjaxx.
Nino and I have been working all evening on the Steampunk Snowboard. I hope to demo it tomorrow at A-Basin. I intend to get a run in down the bunny slope. Anyway, it’s late and I’m tired. I just wanted to post a couple of pics before bed.
A while back, I posted about an appliance that will change our lives. I described the vision as a piece of hardware that would sit at your home entertainment center and do lots of neat stuff. In the comments, I showed a couple of desktop machines that fit the bill from the hardware perspective. (Many of these machines are being called nettops now.) Today, I saw a bit of news that fits for the ‘other half’ of the problem.
Ars is reporting that Boxee is gaining an apps store (has a new API for Plugins!) and is getting it’s own hardware next year.
I’m sure Boxee is not the only project of this nature in the works right now. I’m also sure that there’s about to be a whole new marketing opening up in front of our televisions soon. If only I had a rich investor friend. ;)
I’ve struggled with some job titles in the past. Occasionally I would be filling a new role that related to some emerging tech and have the challenge of trying to tell people what I was doing in as few words as possible. About the time I would finally settle on something I thought fit, I would either find out that the title I selected already meant something else or that the popular group think of the greater community already selected another title and I just hadn’t noticed it yet.
Apparently, group think settled on the title of “Social Media Expert” recently. Meanwhile, the title is being mocked in a few places. Here’s what I know about social media – it’s not likely, perhaps not even possible, to be a social media expert. If you knew everything about social media this morning (even though you didn’t), by this evening it will have changed and evolved so much you’ll have already fallen behind.
In fact, I would go so far to say that anyone who is willing to call themselves a Social Media Expert immediate brands themselves as a fake – a seller of snake oil in a roadside freak show. That’s not to say you’re not wonderfully gifted in understanding the ebb and flow of social media dynamics – but an expert you are not.
So here’s an alternative, call youself a Social Media Specialist. Face it, you’re not an authority on social media. Social media is greater than any one of us. However, if it is your passion, if you are dedicating a significant part of your energy to understanding it and being involved in it – then call yourself a specialist.
The success of some gadgets seem obvious in retrospect. From mp3 players to netbooks, you never know when something is going to expode. Or do you? I think the next potential explosion will live in our livingrooms.
I recently started exploring home theater computer systems such as LinuxMCE and Boxee. I had a vague sense of what I wanted before I started looking. These applications were interesting, but not the experience I was looking for. I wasn’t searching for a TV replacement. I did want to consume media, but that’s not all I wanted to do. It came to me while Nino’s mom was visiting. I fired up the Wii so Nino could show off Raging Rabbids. Meanwhile, I found myself playing with the news and weather applications. I sat there watching the view jump around a map of the earth while related news items were shown at the bottom. That was the trigger that brought it all together in my mind.
