I have been tagged for 8 random facts by Wishydig. There’s rules:
We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.
At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Now that those are out of the way:
The first song I learned to play on guitar was “Patience” by GnR.
The only movie I’ve ever seen in a theater more than once is Die Hard.
On my 15th birthday my dad took me to my first job, working in the kitchen of an Portugeuse/Italian restaurant. I worked there for four years.
In college I could beat Doom II on hard mode without dying and without using any cheat codes.
I have won my fantasy football league for two straight years.
I was extremely skinny in high school and college. So skinny that my dad used to call me skeletor. He hung a sign up at our graduation rehersal. It was embarrasing.
I detest the telephone. In any given month I probably talk on the phone a collected six times. Almost all of these conversations are with my mother. One might be with my wife (asking me to pick something up from the store, etc). I have not talked to my best friend(s) since Christmas. They know me. They understand.
I have to force myself to drink alcohol. Don’t know when this happened. Certainly wasn’t a problem in my 20’s, now I can go weeks without drinking. I have been trying to have a glass of wine or a beer every night after dinner. I’d rather have a bowl of ice cream.
Most of the people I would tag have already been tagged, but I’ll hit up:
I saw the new Transformers movie. The special effects are outstanding–without question the best CGI I have ever seen. When I walked out to the parking lot, I thought my car was going to become a 50′ robot. Became immensly disappointed half way home.
Actually, the autobots and decepticons look so good, that I think the movie will look much better in HD. Non computer generated things didn’t have a high enough resolution on the big screen-they looked a bit too blurry.
The acting and the dialogue isn’t bad, but gets repetitive and predictable. It seems at a few times that they thought I wanted to see a budding teen romance rather than 50′ tall robots. Mistake. Give me the robots, please.
Overall, the movie was definately worth the price of admission. A few good goosebump moments. All set for a sequel.
Posted inmovies|Comments Off on Chi-chi-chit-chu-chit
SoundExchange (representing the music industry) has agreed to re-think its fee structure for internet radio, 16 days before the killer rate increase. DiMA has a mixed review to the announcement. While many people are questioning the move, it at least suggests that SoundExchange is willing to come to the table and is a bit fearful to take the matter before Congress.
The official All-Star rosters come out tonight, but I wanted to go on record with my picks. So here’s how I spent the Red Sox game today. To crank up the difficulty, I’m limiting myself to a 27 (the real all-star roster is over 30) man roster, and I’ll represent every team. First, some concluding thoughts.
Baseball’s claim to be cleaning-up the game might be true, but I’d check the baseballs. This might be a new dead-ball era–right now only two players are on pace to hit 40 homeruns (A-Rod, Fielder, both might reach 50; Dunn, Griffey, Morneau, and Howard might reach 40 if they get hot) By comparison, 11 hitters crossed the 40 mark in 2006, 9 in 2005, 9 in 2004, 10 in 2003–and three guys finished with 39. 16 guys made it in 1996 (right after the strike) and 13 in 1998, the year of the great chase. So, call me conspiracy theorist, but I think they are tinkering with the ball…again. The last time there were two or fewer 40 HR players? The strike season: 1994 (they only played 113-115 games). Before that its 1992 (2 players). No one reached 40 in 1991.
In the American league, I didn’t initially award an all-star to one team: the Royals. National League: Pirates, Washington, Cubs, and Arizona didn’t get an all-star. Washington is the worst–no one deserves it. No one is even close. I went with Scheinde because it was easier to cut a catcher than Ryan Howard or Hanley Ramirez (WSH’s “best” player is D. Young a 1B-man). But, based on my experience, I’m expecting bigger debates in the National league than the American. The National league is top-heavy, there’s 5-6 stacked teams and then a bunch of JV programs. The American League has more depth.
American League
Catcher
Victor Martinez, CLE (a close race between he and Posada, but Martinez has more total bases, much better K-BB ratio, more RBI, and is considerably better in the field. And he’s not a Yankee.)
First Base
David Ortiz, BOS (sure, he only plays 1B seven times a season, but who would you rather have hitting late in a game?)
Second Base
Brian Roberts, BAL (close race with Polanco, Roberts has 25 steals, more TBs, and a .412 OBP)
Third Base
A-Rod, NYY (Sure, I can’t stand him. But I respect a +1.1 OPS)
Shortstop
Orlando Cabrera, LAA (This is not Yankee-hating, I had Jeter until I looked at the numbers: Cabrera has a better avg, the same amount of runs, 10 more RBI, two more steals and a much better SB% and he’s committed eight fewer errors. He deserves it.)
Outfield
Magglio Ordonex, DET (Any question? .370-13-68)
Vlad the Impaler, LAA (Yup, he swings at pitches around his ankles. And leads AL outfielders in RBIs)
Ichiro, SEA (A really close call with Rios and Hunter. But Ichiro leads the AL in batting and has 23 steals)
Bench
Posada, C, NYY
Youkilis/Morneau, 1B (see bench below)
Lowell, 3B, BOS
Jeter, SS, NYY
Guillen, SS, DET
Hunter, OF, MIN
Rios, OF, TOR
Crawford, OF, TB
Starting Pitcher
Dan Haren, OAK (Haren is having a Pedro circa 1999 type year: sub 2.00 ERA, sub 1.00 WHIP, sub .20 OBA)
Bullpen
Santana, MIN
Beckett, BOS
Sabathia, CLE
Verlander, DET (Gaudin on OAK was next in line, if he had more run support he might have had it)
Meche, KC (Well, I need a Royal–and his numbers are comparible to the other top-starters, his sub .500 record is a product of that awesome Royal line-up
Putz, SEA (doesn’t get a lot of press, but he’s lights out with a ridiculous .61 WHIP)
Papelbon, BOS (Nastiest splitter in the game, .87 WHIP)
Gagne, TEX (Hasn’t pitched in too many games, but my vote for Comeback Player of the Year)
Jenks, CP, CWS
Okajima, BOS (Should win ROY, but I don’t think a non-closer ever has. His ERA, .92, is lower than Jenks and Rodriguez’s WHIP)
Toughest Cuts
Morneau /Youkilis, 1B, MIN/BOS (Another solid year, but Morneau’s RBI numbers don’t push him past Guillen. I might be “homer-ing” him behind Youkilis, but Youk has a .46 point AVG lead and an over .50 point OBP lead. Morneau does have more than twice as many HRs and 22 more RBI–this could go either way. I expect Morneau will make the team and Youk will win the final fan vote)
Polanco, 2B, DET (A few hits and AVG points above Youkilis, but trails significantly in HR, RBI, OBS, and SLUG)
F. Rodriguez, CP, LAA ((Great, but not as great as the other guys, plus I needed a White Sock, so Jenks gets the edge)
National League
Catcher
R. Martin, LAD (Front runner in every category)
First Base
Prince Fielder, MIL (Arguing this destroys any credibility you might ever have discussing baseball with me)
Second Base
Chase Uttley, PHI (Monster RBI and OPS numbers)
Third Base
M. Cabrera, FLA (close race, but Cabrera is the best across the board)
Shortstop
J. Rollins, PHI (Like Cabrera, Rollins is near the top of every category at a position with a number of superstars)
Outfield
Matt Holiday, COL (Almost 200 TB by the break, start’em)
Barry Bonds, SF (Talk about whether he belongs is ridiculous. His OBP is still above .500. He leads baseball in OPS. He’s hitting over .300. He’s taken human growth hormone. Deal with it.)
Ken Griffey, CIN (Wait, is it 2007 or 1997? Wouldn’t know by Griffey’s numbers)
Bench
Schneider, C, WSH (Definately doesn’t deserve it, but I need a National and there’s no super injustice at C–otherwise I’m cutting Ryan Howard for Delmon Young, Hanley Ramirez for Rafael Belliard, or Trevor Hoffman for any pitcher on the Nats).
Howard, IB, PHI
Pujols, IB, STL
H. Ramirez, SS, FLA
J. Reyes, SS, NYM (Best lead-off hitter in the NL)
Hardy, SS, MIL
Jones, 3B, ATL (+.600 SLUG and +1.000 OPS almost push him past Cabrera)
Lee, OF, HOU
Starting Pitcher
Jake Peavy, SD (a few WHIP points and a lot of strikeouts ahead of Penny)
Bullpen
Brad Penny, LAD
C. Young, SD
J. Maine, NYM
B. Webb, ARI (I intially had Sheets beating him out due to his high BB-K ratio and Sheets’ sub-.300 OBA)
T. Gorzelanny, PIT (Need a Pirate, otherwise its Webb)
Saito, LAD
Wagner, NYM
Isringhausen, STL
Hoffman, SD
Cordero, MIL
Toughest Cuts
McCann, C, ATL
Lee, 1B, CHI (Great AVG and OBP, but power numbers don’t compete at this position)
Hudson, 2B, ARI
Phillips, 2B, CIN
Wright, 3B, NYM
A.Ramirez, 3B, CHI
Renteria, SS, ATL (Has the best OPS for his position in the NL, but doesn’t have the speed to compete with the other superstars at this position; a victim of the fact that the entire NL bench could be 1B and SS)
Dunn, OF, CIN (lost his spot to Soriano, needed a Cub)
B. Sheets, SP, MIL (Would have made it, but I needed a Diamondback, so Webb beat him out)
R. Oswalt, SP, HOU (ERA and WHIP is higher than the other top pitchers)
C. Hamels, SP, PHI (Outstanding K-BB ratio, but his ERA and WHIP is up there compared to the top choices, allowed 19 HR)
T. Hudson, SP, ATL (Like Oswalt and Hamels, I can make a good argument-but not a great one)
Jalverde, CP, ARI (Great numbers, but closers shouldn’t give up four homeruns… unless they’re Saito or Wagner, in which case that’s the only way the other team has scored)
UPDATE
American League:
Cabrera at short. Michael Young has better career numbers, but I think Cabrera is having a better season
That’s my only big AL snub. I can see why Polanco made it, why Ivan Rodriquez made it, and why Manny made it. I do think Okijima was deserving, and they’ve put set-up men in the game before.
National League:
Hanley Ramirez
Jimmy Rollins
Ryan Howard
There’s more, but come on. Orlando Hudson over Rollins? Insane. Derrick Lee over Howard? Boo.
No links necessary: things haven’t gone well for the Celtics the last decade or so. Outside of one Eastern Finals appearance, its been a tough ten years. Toughest of all has been enduring painful personel decisions–how many future all stars have we traded? And what did we get in return? No, no, it hurts too much to look up the links.
But tonight’s NBA draft seems to be a move in the right direction. Although he’s got a big contract and is coming off of surgery, I think Ray Allen will be a great addition. So long as he meshes well with Pierce (and his ability to share the ball with Lewis would indicate he will), the Celtics shouldn’t suffer through the offensive woes of the last few seasons. They haven’t provided Paul any real offensive help since Walker left this team, and that was closer to last century than this season.
I’m even more excited about the prospects of Big Baby. Critics don’t like his weight (official scale: 290), but I think being a second round pick will motivate him. And the East doesn’t have too many quality big men after Shaq and Howard (we’ll see how Ben Wallace plays next season, and if Jermaine O’neil is even in the East).
Finally, I’d like to congratulate Ainge and co for the moves they didn’t make. They didn’t part ways with Al Jefferson. They didn’t part ways with Gerald Green. They dumped Wally Szerbiak’s insane contract (he’s not good enough for me to care about spelling his name right). Sure, I would have loved Kevin Garnett for Jefferson and the 5 pick. I would have cheered the five pick for O’neil. And I was skeptical when I first heard the name “Allen”– I thought we would overpay. But they didn’t: they made a reasonable trade, brought in a proven all-star, and should rank among the favorites (with Toronto and perhaps Jersey) to win the Atlantic next year.
6’10, 290 lbs. Awesome.
Posted inceltics, sports|Comments Off on Better than Expected
But all morning the lunacy is driving me crazy. And I think its because is seems to me that capitalism is beginning to fight itself. And the side of capitalism I support is clearly losing. Let me explain.
First, let me share the portion of the article that raises my blood pressure:
Charles Valauskas, a lawyer in Chicago who represents a number of restaurants and chefs in intellectual property matters, called their discovery of intellectual property law “long overdue” and attributed it to greater competition as well as the high cost of opening a restaurant.
“Now the stakes are so high,” he said. “The average restaurant can be millions of dollars. If I were an investor I’d want to do something to make sure my investment is protected.”
Ms. Charles’s investment was modest. She built Pearl Oyster Bar for about $120,000 — a cost that in today’s market qualifies as an early-bird special.
She acknowledged that Pearl was itself inspired by another narrow, unassuming place, Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco. But she said she had spent many months making hundreds of small decisions about her restaurant’s look, feel and menu.
Let’s ignore the obvious: that her restaurant was inspired by another. We’ve all read Lessig, we know most of our classics are adaptations of other classics, that the fetish of original thought is a perversion of some Romantic ideals injected with steriods. What really bothers me is Valauskas’ comment that an investor [in a restaurant] would want to do something to protect an investment. I completely agree. Do you know what she can do? Cook a better lobster roll. Cook better fried clams. Just f#cking cook better.
Isn’t that the spirit of capitalism? Free-market competition. We all have access (at least theoretically) to the materials, now who can put them to best use? Or, I should say, that was the spirit of capitalism, which is now lost under an “protect ip” culture that makes Big Brother look like a comforting Uncle. Again, Lessig spelled this out for us: applying 19th century [PHYSICAL] industrial property laws to a 21st century [INTELLECTUAL] service economy is going to stifle our society’s ability to create and compete on a global level.
I understand that the design of a restaurant, like the design of a website, is work. And that work should be rewarded. That work should be protected from theft. But not adaptation. The contemporary disdain for any kind of remixing or sampling is becoming more and more reactionary to me. And now that I’m about to be a dad, I ‘m thinking about what kind of world my son/daughter will inherit. If things continue like this, then it won’t be one in which America is near the front of the first world. This post is one of my contributions (with teaching, with digital activism) to changing it. So, if an adult Thomas Edward or Rowan Margaret happens to find this post, daddy did what he could, which wasn’t much.
Sigh. At least I got that off my chest (catharsis is good).
Today is a “Day of Silence” for internet radio, the SaveNetRadio Coalition is encouraging all internet radio stations to go silent for one day in protest of the extreme rate hikes expected to go into effect July 15th. Although I don’t listen to internet radio, I see this as a crisis. This rate hike would kill off many, if not the majority, of internet radio stations. This would be a major blow for the “many-to-many” dynamic of the internet and would move us toward a centralized, command and control media online. Boo. Read/Write web has a nice summation of the issue.
A few months ago I signed a few digital petitions and emailed my congressmen, now it seems its time to up the ante. The coalition is asking everyone to call their congressman in support of net radio, specifically to endorse the “Internet Radio Equality Act,” which would have internet radio stations share the same amount of profits as satellite radio stations already do (7.5%).
I recently finished working with a local dog group on a website redesign. Intially, I was particularly proud to recreate what was a table-based layout in xhtml and css. Later, the group decided they wanted to make some significant changes and I taught my wife enough Fireworks and Dreamweaver for her to redesign the color scheme. We worked together and remain married. Go us. But that’s not today’s victory.
From the beginning of the project the group wanted some kind of photo gallery for the site. The problem: how do I create a standards-compliant site that group members can easily update? My first idea was to use Flash to create a gallery. But this didn’t seem like a good option, since images need to be re-sized before they are added to a collection, and every update means going in and editing the flash file. No…no..no. I also thought about using Javascript (I’ve done this before for Purdue’s GradSEA), but this technique isn’t standards-compliant.
Reading a Mashable article on image editing resources yesterday, I came across a link to ImageShack–a photo hosting service that allows users to easily create slideshows and pumps out code to embed the shows on other websites (kind of like the libraryThing widget Michael uses on Wishydig, but using Flash rather than Java). The problem? Embeds are banned by the w3c–use the easy widget, lose your validation. All seemed lost. Especially since the classic fix for embed, McLellan’s satay method, works best when you can create a container moive. This wasn’t the case. Then I remembered (via del.icio.us) Elizabeth Castro’s article on how McLellan’s technique can be used on Google Video and YouTube movies without the satay…
When you complete a slide show with ImageShack (and you don’t have to register to create a slideshow, but you do have to register to be able to edit a show), it will produce this code:
The key to getting this puppy working is to include the unique id as a FlashVars parameter (the final line of the code). Google and Youtube supply each movie with its own URL, ImageShack doesn’t–rather, it assigns each slideshow a unique id in its database. So, bottom line, you have to include this id to get the show rolling. The only line I am unsure of is the “allowScriptAcess” line–it was in Castor’s code, but I’m not sure if its necessary. I tried removing it and the slideshow still played in Safari, but I’m not sure if it is an IE command (with the satay method, IE doesn’t like auto-starting… if anyone has IE, let me know if this is working, I promise not to chastise you too much for using IE).
Victory is mine! And, best of all, ImageShack is an awesome 2.0 app–it automatically resizes images, allows for easy captions, allows users to re-order images, determine background color, tag presentations, import images from Flickr or other URL’s (as well as direct upload), choose transition effects, add music (please don’t), and make shows public or private. And now, thanks to A List Apart and some wranglin’, it can be standards-compliant. Cool.
Here’s the final, standards-compliant code in action:
UPDATE: Things aren’t going quite so smoothly with my actual dog park moive. Yesterday, while working on the slideshow above, I noticed that the ImageShack server was reacting really slowly at times. I finished a sample dog park slide show last night, and it works fine through the standard embed method, my object method is running into problems:
UPDATE: I am dumb. Problem solved. Already sent “I’m an idiot” email to ImageShack (see my comment… before I delete it). Now I have to write this post up into something a bit more constructive and submit it to imageshack’s tutorial contest…
UPDATE:
Apparently the video is only working in Safari. I’m going to play with it this evening. If any visitors are looking at this post, can you tell me 1) what browser you are using [IE 6, Firefox 1.5 etc.] and 2) whether you see two movies above. Thanks.
UPDATE: O.k., its working in Firefox 2.0.0.1. But IE is being terribly tiresome. Back to the drawing board later?
For those with no desire to RTFA or the thread, internet service providers are using firewall technology to insert advertisements into websites without either the content provider OR the end user’s permission. One of the first replies in the thread makes an analogy:
Actually, I’m more pissed as a content provider then I am as a consumer. How dare they! If I wanted advertising on my content, I’d put it there, and get paid for it. For me, this is totally stealing from content providers and not just annoying to consumers. I mean, isn’t that like making money off of other peoples content? Wouldn’t that be more like a telephone company forcing you to listen to an add before you place or receive a call? Imagine….
Phone rings and you pick up….
(You) – Hello? (Automated Hell) – Hello, this is A-T-And T, we have a call for you, but first, we’d like you to enjoy a message from our sponsors…
(You) – Click!
[posted by tha_mink}
I can think of an even better metaphor: imagine your local cable operator putting streaming advertisments across the top of every tv program. Or think… of fuck it, I’m too pissed off to think of anything.
How is this not illegal? What surprises me is that content providers (those with big powerful legal teams) haven’t sued the shit out of the ISP’s over this. And I don’t want excuses about “rising costs”–as a user I pay top dollar for my broadband connection. As a content provider, I pay for my domain and my server space.
Why am I so angry? Because, as a standards enthusiast, I don’t want ISP’s junking up my code. This is happening right now with the NALS website. If you hit “View>Source” in your browser, you’ll notice all this crap code Yahoo is dumping on our site after the HTML ends. And this code is inserted server side: meaning that even if I download the files, I won’t see that code. That code is inserted as the pages are delivered to the web. And they destroy my standards validation. Assholes. Another poster described a similar problem with Virgin.net, and included a comment in his HTML to explain why his pages weren’t validating. Bullshit! Shenanigans! I call shenanigans! I dont’t want to have to include comments! I want my ISP to deliver content as I create it! S-H-E-N-A-N-I-G-A-N-S !
I keep meaning to send Yahoo a polite WTF email, but since I’m not the “owner of record” (the site is registered to our president, I use his account info for FTP), I have resisted. I think its time for me to begin drafting. In an age when ISP’s are battling to regulate and charge more for certain content types, they are also committing one of the most unethical acts I can think of: altering and profiting from an artist’s content without permission.
