Just an empty space for rent…

Advertising causes illness. It is the sign of a sick mind. Some, a small amount, is okay. Consider advertising like alcohol. Surely have a beer with lunch. Have a glass of wine with dinner. Enjoy it. A little here, a little there, not a problem. Imagine if you spent all day, every day drunk. Completely hammered wandering around the planet doing what you do every day. That is the point that the average person has reached with advertising.

5 years. 5 years have passed since the T.V. was removed from the living room. Initially the absence was noticed. Then, gradually that was gone too. The interest is gone. The idea of sitting in front of a box spewing ads invokes feelings of trepidation. Listening to ads on the radio ruins the experience of the music. Having ads in line with articles in newspapers and magazines, devalues the article. It says, “Your time reading is so unimportant that we will be happy to distract you with this ad.”

What is to be done?

First, get rid of the damn idiot box. You are not meant to be a passive victim of life as it happens to you. There is a difference between taking some time to be entertained by watching a show and taking some time to watch ads with a little entertainment thrown in. This is why iTunes exists.

Buy a season of Walking Dead (or whatever you like to watch), watch it, and be entertained. Notice that you do not sit through a single advertisement. The season may cost $40, $50, or $60 dollars. This is good for two reasons. First, you watch what truly has value to you (watch how quickly crap like Jersey Shore disappears from production). Second, you do not pay for watching advertising. You can always earn more money; you CAN NOT earn more time. You get the same 24 hours to spend that everyone else does, and spending it on advertising is costly.

Why spend money on a season of T.V. shows that you can get for free? I KNOW you are asking this. And, you are lying to yourself. If you get rid of your T.V. you get rid of cable too. You save $60 dollars a month on cable. Buy a season of a T.V. show every month, and watch it ad free. You are only paying for what you watch with BOTH time AND money. You are no longer PAYING TO WATCH ADS! Think about that for a moment. YOU PAY TO WATCH ADS! The added benefit of buying the season, you get to watch it whenever you want.

Next, stop listening to radio stations that have ads. You can pay for ad free music using XM, listen to public radio, or become an amateur radio operator. All three of these options allow you to avoid ads. The first one allows you to listen to music, the second will allow you to know what is happening, and can even educate you. If you like to participate in radio, become an amateur radio operator. Then, you can talk to people world wide and offer a public service.

Buy books and subscribe to trade journals.

The idea is simply this. Take back your life. Stop being a passive meat bag. If someone offers you a good or service, and the product is exceptional in some way, let people know. Word of mouth advertising is the equivalent of a beer with lunch. It is responsible use of advertising. Decide that you will not be an empty space for rent.

In the era of digital media, why analog photography?

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Chris Leigh asked, “why use film when there’s photoshop?” There was a time when a photograph communicated something. In order for that communication to be the desired message, skill behind a camera was needed. Often, there was no second chance. Current technology provides the opportunity to correct flaws in a photo. Eliminate errors. Make what was recorded different than what actually occurred. Some changes are technical, say balancing a white point. Some correct errors, say sharpen a blurry image.

Someone once said that the definition of beauty is to achieve a point at which nothing need be added or taken away. In a digital world where you can always add or take away, how does one achieve beauty?

Replacing good with bad, and accepting it

Today, a sheriff stood in front of me, and said the following:

A twelve-year-old can not decide that being in a place where they are duct taped, kicked, hit with a pool cue, and smacked in the head is unsafe, regardless of bruising or cuts, and earlier recognition of abuse.

All of these things constitute discipline, even the prior abuse.

Is anyone available to look my twelve-year-old in the eyes and tell him that for me, I can’t stomach it. Of course the sheriff gets to leave, and I get the mess. My job is to accept this or go to jail for standing against it, not really much of a middle ground.

For those that say go to court, ask me to play the video where the judge says, and I quote, “obviously the abuse wasn’t bad enough.” That’s right, our system has determined that there is an acceptable level of child abuse. Cost my wife and I $40,000 to discover that truth.

We can all sleep a little better tonight?

How to beat cable companies

Gawker media was ranting about cable companies. The complaint was that natural monopolies had carved up the U.S. leaving high prices and miserable customer service. The question was “how do we deal with this evil?” The best move is not to play the game. Netflix and iTunes exist for a reason. Instead of paying for bad service and commercials, buy or rent from iTunes and Netflix. Get exactly what you want, commercial free, and skip waisting 4 hours waiting for a provider to show up for a service call that never happens. Cable providers are in no way a necessary evil. Better still, go T.V. free for a year. Declare independence from the idiot box. Then the “need” for cable vanishes.

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Where my T.V. isn’t

Choosing the lesser of two evils

Red v.s. Blue. Left v.s. Right. The venerable Democrat v.s. Republican. For several decades we have been told by each side that the other is the problem. We know our own side has it’s issues, but really, they (not we) are the bad guys. So given the options two warring factions lead us to believe we have, we choose the lesser of two evils. This way we are less evil than they are…
Newsflash: You’re still evil, you still chose evil.
The only way to win, is to change the rules. Go green, go purple, go orange! Find another option that is not X and is not Y. Then support it.

Instax Business Card

Instax Business Card

Instax Business Card

Different. Business cards that marry Digital to Analog. Something personally created that is different every time. A unique product that raises peoples interest in it, and the process that creates it.

Necessary materials:
An instant camera (a Fuji mini 50s)
Film for the instant camera (Instax)
Transparencies (overhead projector type)
Possibly a computer and printer, or some artistic skill to draw/write on the transparency
Super glue
Creativity

Although this process can create business cards, what you do with it, is limited by your imagination.

Lion devours my functionality

Lion, eating my brains.
Why, oh why, does the OS X Lion upgrade have to suck so bad? It took away used functionality (NFS, network boot, network install, MySQL, etc) during the server upgrade. Apple software does not work (Mail, textedit, keep in mind, this is software bundled with the operating system written by Apple), the keychain repair malfunctioned, and finally, Lion itself will not install through the App store on a couple of iMac’s. Compare this bunch of fail to the greats (ME, Vista, Microsoft Bob..)Failing to install Lion
The nice thing about this situation is, Apple is willing to fix the fact that their OS will not install on:

Apple’s expectation is $50 more (than what the OS cost), for them to consider troubleshooting why the purchased OS will not install. Apple wants more money to figure out why their product does not work.
UPDATE:
If you update Apple Remote Desktop, before you update the client side (any servers or clients that you access with ARD), you will be unable to get into the device with ARD to update the client. This causes a problem for people running servers headless. Apple REALLY thought this one through.

UPDATE:
The result of the 10.7.1 update on my server was a reboot, a spinner, and then the Apple was replaced with a not symbol (circle with a slash through it).
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Then this screen:
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followed by:
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20 minutes later and the “signing in to the app store…” barber pole is still spinning.

UPDATE:
Full screen apps are great when they work.

It’s stupid to be a tech blog, and report this…

In an effort to prove unbridled idiocy, tech blogs the world over are reporting on a non-event. An example is found here: Thunderbolt connection in Mac Book air doesn’t support multiple monitors. Why is this a gigantic non-event? The video chipset in the MacBook Air, an Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor doesn’t support multiple monitors (just one external one). The Thunderbolt chipset called EagleRidge used in the MacBook Air is a lighter, smaller, cheaper version of the full-sized LightRidge chip. So let’s rephrase what the heading should look like, “Apple didn’t waste money on including a chipset in a sub notebook that was more powerful that what the internal hardware (the video chipset) could handle, thereby saving customers money, space, and weight.” Wait, what about the 4 data channels at 10 Gbps each that LightRidge supports? The EagleRidge only has two. That’s two 10 Gbps connections that would handle 12 FireWire 800 connections each. When was the last time you carried 12 peripherals around with you? Ever try to power 12 peripherals? How many people who use a Mac Book Air (purchased for portability) are going to carry a raid array (at about 5 pounds) with them (the ONLY way to take advantage of the speed that Thunderbolt offers) and plug this device in to a wall socket? Can we PLEASE stop being so STUPID? When you have something intelligent to add, that’s news worthy, publish it. Until then save the sensationalism.

Gym buddy

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This is after interval training. The goal is 5k. It is awesome to have someone to train with. Especially when that person is your 12 year old son.

Finally completed week 2′s training. Had to spend an extra week on 4 minute intervals. Could have pushed to complete week 2 earlier, chickened out instead. Can not do that with Landon here, have to be a good example…

Looking forward to Monday’s 5 minute intervals.