Best response ever to idiot celebrities

I can not even take any credit for this it is too genius [they have shown the Dwayne Wade injury another 4 times].

You must watch this NOW:

Tim Hardaway is a Homophobic Asshole

The Web is close to living up to its expectations

I am here to inform you that the Web is getting closer towards living up to the stringent expectations that we (I) continue to place on it.  Point in hand:

Half way through the fourth quarter of the Miami Heat and Houston Rockets game (televised on ESPN) Dwayne Wade was injured.  Although, it is tough to tell whether or not Dwayne was seriously injured he was taken off the court in a wheelchair minutes (maybe even less than a minute) after being removed from the game.

We all remember (at least I do) the first few times we saw athletes get injured during the game (I can visually relive Joe Theisman and Bo Jackson’s injuries in my head at will).  Even if the injured player was not on your favorite team you were interested in the status of that player.  On TV, unfortunately, the show must go on.  And while the announcers invariably speculate on the health of the injured player (we all do after watching the reply 144 times), they rarely get enough information to the viewers.  Especially, as it was in the case of Dwayne Wade, if the injury happens towards the end of the game.

(here is where I tell you that things are getting better)

At approximately 11:33 PM tonight, NBA.com posted a news article (god save the CMS) which outlined the injury (slightly):

Miami star Dwyane Wade left the Heat’s game at Houston on Wednesday night after apparently injuring his left shoulder in the fourth quarter.

Wade got tangled up with Shane Battier and grimaced in pain before going to the bench. A couple of minutes later he was helped into a wheelchair and taken off the bench.

He was not moving his left arm and appeared to be in serious pain as he was wheeled away.

He left with 27 points.

Ok, so the report did not have any more information then I already knew, but it signifies the fact that the Web will soon become the source for all information.  Yes, you heard it ALL information.

Thought within a thought
Ok, I am going to try something here — often when I post to my blog I start writing on a topic and invariably my brain takes a few twists and turns as I try to put a thought into context.  [note: as we speak ESPN has shown the Dwayne Wade injury clip 10 (nope make that 12 - literally twice more since I started this sentence - this time with yellow rings around Dwayne's arm - he is screwed)]

So here is a new thing that I am going try:

Definition: Thought within a thought – a deeper thought about a particular topic which without any real proof becomes simply a thought.  Often, these thoughts don’t require an entire new post but rather then “lose” the thought, I record it.

<ThoughtWithinAThought>

Let’s say that the Web becomes THE source for information.  Most people may think that this will “ruin” verbal communication or the written word etc… We have all heard about the degeneration of the society.  But what if we went full circle … I mean FULL CIRCLE.  What if the web really does become the place where information flows, however the information is common knowledge, and REAL information flowed soly through the written and spoken word.  Like when people told stories (before the printing press).

</ThoughtWithinAThought>

[So they have now shown it 2 more times]

Unfortunately, the NBA.com post (which is now 20 minutes old) has no new information.

9/11 – CNN – and the new medium for history

I am writing this from our Nations Capital. I have travelled here today to deliver some training to the National Park Service on our product CommonSpot CMS. Today was a weird day and I was not to keen on travelling (especially flying to D.C). I decided to fly out of Providence instead of Boston (figuring that if anything was going to happen today it would happen out of a major city). This is not what I want to talk about (everything went fine and I am here safely). What I want to talk about is an extension on a previous post I made about the emergence of this new media – Internet Video. I guess it is not really “new”, but it sure is becoming popular.

Sites like ESPN and MSNBC.com have had video on their site for a long time. Way before Google Video, YouTube and the many others (check out http://www.break.com). But over the course of the last 9 months or so, all of the major news carriers have been offering supplemental (and sometimes primary) content in the form of Video. Some sites offer this as a free service while most are offering two flavors – the free version (small, short video’s) and a premium version (in-depth productions with large screen resolutions and full commentary – similar to a regular broad cast). It seemed to me to happen almost overnight and all kind of launched at the peak of Google Videos’ popularity (recently usurped by YouTube’s extraordinary growth). What does this all mean?

Well today I take this conversation a bit further. Since this is the anniversary of 9/11 I will add another perspective to this and talk about the Internet as an archive as general. If you read CNN.com at all you would have noticed that their front page was plastered with links to two video segments (each over an hour long) called “9/11/01 As it Happened”. The videos are actual videos uncut from the morning of 9/11. Amazing footage of what is probably one of the single most defining moments in US History (next to the signing of the Declaration of Independence). We were glued to our seats at work (or at home) as this amazing attack unfolded right before our eyes. And this video spared no details. Even catching one of the planes flying right into the trade center building LIVE.

What you received that day was not only the events as they happened but also a new emerging portrayal of news. CNN was the first to cover the attacks by using a local New York Affiliate. The Affiliate was broad-casted around the world and was essentially put on the spot with little to no information about the event. Over the course of the morning CNN pieced together the events by tapping into many resources including
- Eye witnesses
- Local news crews
- Political and Social Servants

Anything they could get their hands on. Simultaneously, all of the world was taken for this amazing ride as the news casters, torn between their feelings about the events and their own fixation on the delivery of this content as it happened, unravelled a puzzle of terror.

Education as you know it has changed
This topic enlightens my on another subject (which is really what I want to talk about), which is education. As I think about my two son’s future and what they may learn of this event (and others). I can’t help but think about how this new media will provide more insight into these events then ever before. No more “microfiche”, no more “microfilm” – just point click and watch.

Think of a history class 15 years from now – how will it change. Video vs. Reading. Surely there will still be books. Surely some information will have to be discovered the old fashioned way. I am sure this is happening now but imagine a wiley History teacher. Say someone that is currently in the 7th grade and has experienced this first hand having grown up in the Instant Messaging age. What will she do to explain this phenomenal event to her 8th grade history class. Think of all the resources she will have to arm her students with the truth.

Think of all of the points of view she will be able to offer
- Professional Video from news casts
- Personal home videos shot from across town in nearby high rise apartment buildings (search google and you will be amazed)
- Blogs and Wiki’s
- Prepared digital content of the findings: Open-Content projects like “Complete 911 Timeline” – certainly subject-able but contains valid sources.

Combine all of this with some of the raw footage that can easily express the emotions of everyday people as the tragedy was happening.

Here are a few other events “caught on film” that are worth noting (none having quite the rich resources of the 9/11 tragedy):
- Walking on the Moon
- Assassination of Kennedy
- Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia Tragedies
- Waco (watched an excellent Documentary on this on the Documentary Channel – worth visiting).

I find this time in life to be the most exciting time for information convergence. All mediums coming together to allow everyone with a computer ($100 dollar laptops) to explore.

powered by performancing firefox

You Tube, Steve Irwin and things to come…

Everyone is wondering when the video of Steve Irwin’s death (the actual film of him getting stabbed in the chest by a stingray) is going to hit the airwaves. At first I thought to myself “Oh that is going to hit YouTube in a week”. But the more and more I think about this, I have to disagree with myself. I don’t think that this video will _ever_ hit YouTube. Not if YouTube wants to stay popular because the fact of the matter is, watching a famed hero die is not something I want my kids doing. Now I know all about the movements on the Internet to produce a free environment for sharing information. This is not about that.

What it is about though is “Where in the hell did all of those Steve Irwin Video’s come from” Seriously though, I looked at the site today (because I was half curious) and in the last day over 200 videos were posted about Steve Irwin. Most of them are tributes and/or parodies about Steve.  I wonder where the footage comes from?  Do they tivo it and download it to their computers?  Are we seeing the advancements in video sharing as a result of operating systems like Windows Media Server?  Too be honest I don’t have Steve Irwin video footage hanging out on my computer. This is amazing. This guy wrestled alligators. Big alligators. I was actually a bit surprised to hear that it wasn’t an alligator or a wicked poisonous snake that finally got the best of him.

That aside, what I think is truly remarkable is that we are seeing the beginnings of the new medium at work. People armed with their super fast computers, broadband connection, DVD burners and editing software, are now sharing their thoughts and ideas in ways that I could only dream.

Rock on YouTube and please…keep the Steve Irwin death video off the site…please.

100 ways to wok your dog

There are those people out there that avoid change. There are those out there that feel that they embrace change but don’t and then there are those individuals that truly embrace change.

I have been going through a lot of changes recently and I started to sit back and think about all of them at once. All of my family changes (kids growing up so damn fast), my work changes (our company is becoming so good so fast) and changes with friends in my life (going on the road has given me a tremendous opportunity to meet some cool people).

My work changes are the most mentally challenging. Our company has changed so dramatically in the past year. Up until a year ago, we were a very flat organization. Pretty much all 18 employees reported to our president. Since then, we have had 4 people leave the company (which is big considering the size), added 9 and built some management hierarchy. Of all of the workers in our office (we have some off site sales people) I have been there the longest. Anyways, to say the least it has been crazy and quite difficult at times.

In addition, to all of the personnel changes in the company, my role has changed so much as well. When all of this change started, I was pretty much the CS Trainer/Consultant. Since then, I moved to Director of Support, Consulting Services and have begun to transition again into a Product Manager/Principal style role.

With all of the people coming and going in the company it has taught me a lot about embracing change. So today I was having a conversation about it with Bob (Sr. VP Marketing/Sales) and I came up with an analogy (I love analogies) that I think most people can understand:

Let’s say you were not a dog person. In fact lets say you really disliked dogs. However, since you were the type of person that wanted to embrace change, you decided that you would let the dog in your house. As you and your new dog got acquainted, you decided that you could not stand it. That it was such a change from your original habits that you wanted to get rid of the dog. But, since you were working so hard on embracing change, you decided to get a leash and tie the dog up outside next to it’s dog house. So, what you realized was that you did not really embrace change but instead forced change outside of your comfort zone. You were comfortable in your house before the dog came, and now since the dog is outside your are comfortable again. In essence, you really never embraced change. You adjusted your surroundings to get back into the swing of your old way.

I think that there are people that truly enjoy change. Or at least they are comfortable being uncomfortable. In fact, there are even people out there that are truly uncomfortable being comfortable. So much so that when they get into the comfort zone, they change it.

I believe that it is these types of people that are truly successful. Especially, in technology and business. The eb and flow of each of these is so phenomonal that it is nearly impossible to be successful and comfortable at the same time.
So when I was speaking to Bob about this he asked me if I had ever heard about the best selling Cookbook called “100 ways to wok your dog?”. I think that this offers a perfect solution to the problem. Thanks Bob.

Web archive grabbed my old site

I was once the manager of the Boston ColdFusion User Group. It has since been taken over by Brian Rinaldi (three cheers for Brian!). Anyways, when I ran the group, our domain name was "www.bostoncfug.com". Brian has registered "www.bostoncfug.org" and is using that to host content regarding the group. I completed my tenure as manager of the group about a year and a half ago and unfortunately had to let the domain name "www.bostoncfug.com" lapse. In fact, I even took the server down that was originally hosting the site.

This week, I attended the new group meeting (great session about Flex2 if you have not had the opportunity to review you should certainly give it a glance – really cool development environment) and was hounded by this one member regarding the fact that the old site was still up. I assured him that I had let the domain name lapse and that I had even taken the server down. He insisted that the site was available and that it confused some individuals because it contained information from meetings that appeared to be valid. I dismissed the conversation quickly because it was difficult to argue with someone that was adamant.

When I went home that night I tried to bring up the site. After typing in the address "www.bostoncfug.com" I was surprised to see the browser start to connect to the URL. I was waiting for that typical domain squatter page that states "this domain is for sale". You know the generic pages that show up when you type in Goooglee.com or something similar. To my surprise though, the page started to appear. The old page of the site, just as I had left it. How could this be?

Webarchive – The Wayback Machine
As I started to stare at the pages loading I could not help but notice my status bar started to display "web.archive.org" … THE WAYBACK MACHINE!!! I first ran across this site about 4 years ago and was amazed it's archive (Go here to see my first Web site – http://web.archive.org/web/19970724122243/www.uri.edu/artsci/ecn/ ) depth. If you haven't had an opportunity to poke around this site, have fun.

Then I looked up the dns record to see who it was registered to. Apparently "Dotster", the company I registered the domain with, has registered the site themselves and I am not sure if they have some deal with TWBM but it seems a bit odd that not only would Dotster keep my domain name but that would point it at the web.archive.org page of my old site.

What is even weirder about this is that they don't really "forward" people to the site, the browser URL is still www.bostoncfug.com, it just displays data from web.archive.org. Almost as if they have some program written that takes the content from the Archive and displays.

So I guess I owe the gentleman at the meeting an apology, he was correct, for all intent and purposes, the site is still up. Unfortunately, I have no way of taking it down.

I would love to know if anyone has any more information on this.

The new world of Games

If you have any opinion (good or bad) about the role Games (specifically video games) play in today's society than you need to read the articles written in the April issue of Wired magazine. I have always been a proponent of video games. We didn't have a game console in my house until I was in high school but I had plenty of opportunity to play them at my friends house growing up. I started playing video games in the 4th and 5th grade in a computer club after school but since those were Apple IIe computers I was easily bored with the 2d green screen displays. I wasn't until my friend across the street got his NES that I really started to enjoy the challenges provided by video games.
The early games were cool and offered general pattern and skill challenges. I can remember playing hours of excitebike and moving from level to level by learning how to jump and land properly to keep speed. Games like double dribble and blades of steel offered a great opportunity to challenge the mind and coordination of an opponent other than a computer. It was fun to defeat all of my friends at every video game possible. I can remember my cousin (who is 6 years my junior) getting a Comodore 64 when he was like 8. I loved playing simple games like (the paint bucket game) and even learned how to do some basic programming. When I finally got a console for my own I spent countless hours mastering Super Marios 1 2 and 3. I was a wiz at Contra and Metroid. Then came Zelda! Oh my! At the time my best friend and I were into D and D so the complex worlds of Zelda and the "adventure style" play was incredible. I wasn't a "junky" per se I just enjoyed the mental challenges of conquering worlds and boses. The trial and error style play was intriguing because while I was not playing I could think about the problem and then when I got back to the game I was excited to try my solutions out. I think it was at this time in my life that I truly understood the meaning of insanity and that if you tried something a hundred times in a row and did it exactly the same way each time to no avail that I could truly go insane.
Up to this point in my gaming career everything was 2D. And I loved it. When I was at arcades or the bowling alley my two favorite games were R-Type and Galaga. Again 2D games. I remember the first time I saw a "3D" game – Dragon Slayer. It wasn't 3D in the sense that we know of today but it had depth. The backgrounds were not as linear but you could not move in 3 Dimensions. I actually thought it was kind of stupid (and so did many other people because the game was not at the arcade for very long). The first true 3D game that I can remember playing was "Foxfire" on the Super NES/ That game rocked! I would play that game for hours. I can not remember if I ever completed the game but I know that I got real far. Some of my favorite early 3D games were Pitfall Harry (not the original one although I found a secret place in that game where you were transported to the old game in what I remember as the first "Game in Game" experience – truly amazing experience), Super Mario Bros 4 for the Super NES ( the one were Yoshi was introduced – boy was it fun hopping around on that guy – even named a cat after him), 720 (one of the best skateboard games ever) and Skate or Die.
My gaming experience began to taper off after I started college and except for a few stints on Quake and the recent PS2 I received 2 years ago for Christmas I don't have much time for playing games. Currently I own only a handful of games – NBA 2K5, NHL 06, GTA Vice, Grand Tourismo 3 and Ghost Recon. I know that I will get back into gaming (in a big way) when my two boys get good enough but for now I play maybe once or twice a month. So why am I posting this? Well the articles have sparked some interest in a few ways. One is that they are a great set of articles on the current state of gaming, everything from the past to the future, the gamers, the game inventors, the pioneers, the social acceptability (and unacceptability). A few of my favorite articles from the Magazine were
"Dream Machines…"
I like this article because it spoke to the "society" aspect of gaming. Gaming gets such a bad press from everyone except the gamers. We only hear about the bad things that games do – the GTA style killings, the immersion into "virtual worlds" and lack of reality. We never hear about the benefits of gaming – the fact that the nature of games today provide immense improvements in childs imaginations which is probably one of the single most important parts of your ability to learn and think. I am sending this article (and a few others) over to my sister in law who has two boys who are by far the most amazing game players I have ever met. A little over a year and a half a go, I had the opportunity to watch them play a computer game centered around the movie "Toy Story". The game had like 8 levels. It started off in Andy's play room (I know the boys name because I have seen Toy Story at least 30 times). Buzz lightyear is tasked with getting around the room by jumping from one area to another. You start in the crib and have to trigger the switch on the crib which drops one side of the crib wall down which enables buzz to get out. You then needed to jump over to the dresser, and then on a few more items and on to the door where you had to open it with some crazy jump move. Seems like an easy game but one thing that made it amazing was that my nephews were 4 and 5 years old and they beat all 8 levels without any instructions or help from the parents. In addition, they played together. The game is a single person game so one of them would take the arrow keys and move Buzz and the other would take the Space and action button to make Buzz interact with the game. I know that a lot of brothers their age can play constructively together but I also know that no two people play a video game the same way. For those two to work together as well as they did was amazing. My sister and law is concerned about their game playing time so I hope that the article helps here understand that there are some benefits to the gaming industry.
"Geekonomics"
An excerpt from the article:

"To spice up life in Habitat, developers added money and pawn machines. For a while, you could buy crystal balls at one machine and sell them for nearly twice as much at another. Of course, someone coded his computer to run a character between sellers, quintupling the money supply overnight."

For real? That is awesome. I can picture the geeky guy/girl behind the keyboard coding that with a wicked huge smile on their faces. The article also talks about how Sony ordered EBay to stop auctions of Everquest currency because it was screwing the games economic system. Like any good corporate move online, it only prompted other auction sites to sell the currency for more as it now became a scarcity ("choice under scarcity")
"My Second Life as a Muckraker"
The last article that I found interesting was one on the Social Aspect of MMORPG's and how some of the cyber society rubs off on our real society. Do a google on "Linden's crackdown on Ballermomo's crew". Seems like the game creators are only happy when the game is played the way it was intended. Sounds more like 16th century religious oppression to me.
My recommendation: By the magazine it is worth the 5 bucks. As a note the above article "My Second Life…" does not appear to be online nor is the cool "pull out" in the middle of the articles which has a history of games.

Coming to you live from …

Lets play 20 questions…

No,
I am not at home (I miss you guys)

No,
I am not on a deserted island (love to see you here Shannon)

No,
I am not riding my snowboard in the Swiss alps (get back to me in a week or so…)

No,
I am not in my home state ….

OK, so I got tired of 20 questions, I am in Minnesota, Richmond to be exact. The Mayo Clinic Captial of the world. Currently I am watching a movie (The Island) interesting so far.  I have been working with the Mayo Clinic since Monday and I will be here until Friday. Training them how to use CommonSpot.  They turned over their team and want to understand what it is that they can do to utilize CommonSpot some more.  Fun Fun.
I am getting back to my movie, so …

Later.

Hello There

This is my first post to the blog.

I will post more to this later but for now. Welcome.