20 posts tagged “random”

After leaving church last Sunday, my wife and I passed my mom and step dad who had pulled off the road to check out some vegetables & meat a local farmer had for sale.  Later on they told us that no one was manning the table.  You simply looked at the price list (ex. $1 per pound for fresh tomatoes), picked out what you want and then put your money in a drop box.  That's it.  Talk about trust!  It makes me smile that places like that still exist in our country.  I will definitely be stopping there next week.

Do you ever feel like you have to give your friends the diet version of yourself?  I'm a naturally intense person - and 99.999999% of the time I'm perfectly content and happy to be that way.  I am constantly in thought, whether I'm reading, driving, eating, sitting outside, sitting inside, putting my shoes on or gassing up the car.  The main issue seems to be the subjects upon which I dwell:  history, culture, politics, theology, philosophy, music, programming, education....  It is impossible for me to see those subjects as unrelated.  I often find myself trying to explain the cause and effect nature of those subjects (and typically along the lines of something happening in the real world) and then I sense the "eyes glazing over" effect with the person listening.  I get so excited about a particular book/subject/article/conversation/whatnot that I find myself "reeling me back in" since there is some default internal response of "C'mon Jim, they don't want to hear the unabridged version".  I completely get the need to be concise; to not overwhelm someone in conversation - and have worked a ton throughout my life to better my skills in that area.  But I gotta admit, the people with whom you can truly let your hair down...the ones that not only don't mind, but actually want to hear the 'unabridged version' of whatever is on your mind....those people are like that first breath you take when you come up from being underwater for almost too long.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about technology – specifically social networking.  I’ve been a software developer for the last nine years and I’ve watched with amazement the dramatic changes in how the web is both produced and consumed during that time.  I quickly learned the importance of staying current (believe me, it’s a full time job).  I am a classic “geek” – I truly enjoy what I do.  However, I’ve noticed a growing trend in my life:  The longer I work in software, the more I attempt to insulate myself from certain effects of technology in general. 

The “All Style and No Substance” Effect

Out of all the blessings and curses of modern technology, this one worries me the most.  I think that so-called “Social Networking” is potentially causing much more harm than good.  Before you write me off as some “backwards naysayer” who just doesn’t get it – remember – I work in this industry!  Through some business connections a few months ago, I had some inside information on what was going wrong with Twitter as the user base grew exponentially.  Nearly every aspect of what I do is geared towards providing our customers the information they need via the web.  Before I lay out my concerns, understand that I think there are some great aspects to sites like Facebook, Vox, Twitter, etc.  My wife and I have met some wonderful people – many of whom have become friends (albeit, mostly long distance).  However, none of that shakes my conviction that the great casualties of our age are substantive conversation, accountability and robust intellect.

Dumbing-Down Conversation

One of the aspects of Twitter touted by friend and foe alike is “you’ve got to work hard to say a lot in 140 characters”.  Right - and those same people have their blogs auto-Tweet when they post new entries, since, after all, some things (try ‘most things of substance’) simply can’t be said in 140 characters.  Facebook status updates are not much different (and many, like me, have Facebook and Twitter linked).  Whether we “tweet”, leave a response on a blog or reply to forum threads, there’s a certain anonymity – even when we use our real name – that subconsciously buffers us from the consequences of harsh words or banal comments.  The more recent joke comes to mind “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1”.  Just watching the scathing political comments on Twitter is proof enough.  Even worse, some of those I follow have made sweeping generalizations about people whose heritage, faith or accent I share – all in a nicely packaged 140-characters-or-less insult.  It’s easy, I guess.  If you don’t like the heat, you don’t have to leave the kitchen, you just un-follow someone, or boot them from your friends, un-link them or otherwise block them.  In a world where we’re not talking directly to an in-the-flesh person, and where the usual means of consequences and accountability aren’t present, it’s easy to begin to treat people as usernames to be demeaned & discarded.  I was amazed to hear a comment one responder left saying “These conservatives scare me.  Can’t we just get rid of these Fascists?”  While that statement might be under 140 characters, I’d question who the Fascist is really. 

We are in danger of allowing all our conversational exchanges to boil down to the lowest common denominator.  Real ideas take time to develop and discuss.  While I’ve seen great uses of Twitter and Facebook along these lines, the vast majority of our technological options lend themselves to short, superficial and often rude ‘conversation’.  Seriously!  If you’ve made it this far in this blog entry alone, you are in the minority.  There’s so much downward pressure on the quality of relationship and exchange:  “no one reads long blog entries”, “keep your tweets pithy and intriguing”, “always leave comments on the blogs you read”, “how many followers do you have?”, etc.  Should we be so worried about how hip our status messages sound?  Can we really discuss anything of weight in less than 140 characters?  Is the content we’re trying to direct our Twitter followers to just an expanded cotton-candy version of the “nothingness” so often “tweeted” about, or is it constructive, personal, helpful and perhaps educational?  Too often it’s all style and no substance – a sad & empty flash in the pan of human experience.

Dumbing-Down Intellect & Losing Time

I love that Facebook has re-connected me with childhood friends.  But at some point or another I have to come to the realization that I can’t respond to everyone who super-pokes me, I can’t read everyone’s tweets, I can’t take the 25^th meme I’ve been tagged on – you name it.  It’s fun, sure.  But my close friends are the ones that I talk to – in person, on the phone and yes, even IM.  Two-hundred years ago Americans actually met and talked – in taverns, churches, schools, etc.  They argued about principles and ideas.  They watched each other’s backs.  They actually knew their neighbor’s names.  They could certainly be a raucous bunch, but there was a level of civility and integrity which I believe we have lost.  Today, instead, we allow the great potential of our minds and hearts to be wasted on an overload of TV, web and ever-present-marketing.  We have forgotten the joy of working to be entertained – like reading up on a subject that actually requires thought, learning a game or pursuing a hobby.  We – and I’m right there in the middle – have preferred, instead, to have even our entertainment spoon-fed to us, no thought or assembly required.  We think that a night of “vegging” is just what the doctor ordered, but at what cost and is that truly rest?

While the web has made it easy for anyone to publish “information”, the quality of that information is questionable, and the respect for the veracity of the author hinges on the whim of the reader, not fact-checking, peer-review or other means of accountability.  Many schools have banned (rightfully so) the use of Wikipedia as a source on essays, but Googling abounds.  I love Google, but is anyone contemplating the cumulative effect it will have on an entire generation currently developing the habit of not retaining information over the long term, much less knowing how to look it up if the internet connection is down?  Prior to MS Word, students were taught to outline their points before writing their paper.  This wasn’t just to help the writing process, but the thought process.  Today we are encouraged to just simply write and we can edit it later.  The initial thought process to refine your ideas happens less and less.  Intellect is like any other thing in life – without use, it breaks down.

My encouragement to you (and if you made it this far, thanks!) is to use the technological tools we have at our disposal to make it easier to do substantive things in life, rather than be sucked in by the appealing “brightness” of the brief flash in the pan.  Re-learn what it was to live life prior to the iPhone or CrackBerry temptation of being “always on, always available”.  Take a walk and think, reflect and enjoy your own company.  Then do the same with friends and family.  Go and introduce yourself to your neighbors.  Don’t feel the ridiculous pressure to keep up with every Facebook status change, Tweet, Linked-In update that crosses your computer screen.  Determine for yourself and your family that when the world finally gives up serious individual thought altogether for the sake of entertainment , that someone will be left in the world who is actually qualified to run it.

I have a tendency to lose sunglasses.  They get crushed, pulled apart by kids, scratched, scorched, dropped in a river while canoeing or they fall prey to spontaneous combustion.  As a result I tend to buy the cheap $10 pairs at Walmart or Walgreen's.  About a week ago, my latest pair were suddenly MIA.  I was dumbfounded!  I had tried SO hard to keep up with them, but they vanished one night between my desk at work and my car.  Keep in mind, the entire week (or more) that they've been missing, I've driven all over town (especially 70-80 mph on the highway), through construction zones, parking lots with massive speed bumps, you name it.  This morning as I was getting into my car, I found them:

FoundThem

On the TOP of my car.  Go figure!

1. Many of you may already know from Facebook, but my Saturn SC2 was sandwiched between two semis during rush hour on January 9th.  The car was totaled, and I am still sore (mostly left shoulder and upper back).  I was extremely fortunate that this happened during rush hour (traffic was slow).  Had we been going anywhere near normal highway speed, I'd currently be meeting my great grandfather for the first time.  I was oddly calm after the initial impact (the guy hit me 4 or 5 times in succession).  After the initial "Oh my God, he hit me!", it was as if time slowed down and I was trying to determine how much of the front end of my car was left, did I have enough power to pull free and get to the shoulder, realizing I probably wouldn't make my nephew's b-day party, thinking "wow - my last drive in the Saturn", etc.  The fun part begins now - trying to get all the insurance stuff to line up so I can get an Ortho. to check out my shoulder and back.  The Saturn's replacement? A 2004 Pontiac Vibe....
   
2. I was EXHAUSTED today for some reason.  Steph was awesome and let me sleep in until 8:30 (if you know me, you know it's hard for me to sleep past 7).  I couldn't hold my eyes open around 1 PM....and my wife said "Hey - why don't you take a nap?"  (isn't she awesome?!).  THREE HOURS LATER I was pulled my head off of my drool-soaked pillow.  So, I've been asleep more than awake for the last 24 hours.....
3. I'm about to write some blog posts that are going to really tick off some people....and subjects will include some recent executive orders, so called "reproductive-rights" (an oxymoron considering the context it's being used in), our still "Do Nothing" Congress, the "myth" of neutrality and the huge gulf between two prominent approaches to justice in our nation.  I know, I know....I just can't keep quiet.
4. Our 10-week old son is sleeping through the night.  HOLY COW IS THAT AWESOME!
5. George Washington's older half-brother caught TB, and George went with him to Barbados....during which his brother died and George caught smallpox.  He survived, of course, and carried with him an immunity to smallpox - the same disease that swept through the Continental Army more than once years later.  Perish the thought of one of the finest men in history being taken from us during the critical days of the Revolution thanks to a disease.
6. Really, please.....don't buy everything you hear on the news.  There's a lot of whoodoo about Limbaugh saying he hopes Obama fails.  If you want to actually have moral authority to discuss the issue outside the out-of-context quotes, read the transcript of his interview with Hannity.  Bottom line?  If Obama's policies are going to mean bigger government and a move towards nationalizing entire industries (i.e. banking...which is happening as we speak and eventually healthcare, etc.) then yes, we hope he fails in implementing those policies.  If Obama takes a cue from reality and figures out that the fastest way to stimulate the economy is to cut TAXES on business AND individuals NOW (rather than $1 Trillion to do crap like bail out the 70% of homeowners who received money from the FIRST bail out and are still delinquent on their mortgages), then yes, we'd like to see him succeed on that.  And realize that now Bush is no longer on the scene to be blamed for everything, they're looking for another scapegoat.  Come to think of it, Bush WAS still president when that semi hit me.....

Nite nite.

A buddy of mine posted this on Facebook....and I thought it was hilarious and worth sharing...

Yes, that's right - as in "Twitter Etiquette".

I've been using Twitter for a while now - long enough to form some opinions on how to, and how NOT to use Twitter.

RULE #1 - Don't be a twitter-litterer.  Play-by-play accounts of "I just walked into McD's, headed to the bathroom"...and then "Done in the bathroom" (and for crying out loud, don't you dare send "...in the bathroom...") - yeah, we can do without those.

RULE #2 - Don't be a Twitter-er-er. That means, watch the excessive "Re-tweets".  I'm following you for your thoughts, and while I don't mind be pointed to another twitter account I might like, if you sound more like them than you, I will follow neither.

RULE #3 - Don't be a Twinkler.  I have a nice phone with super fast data service ala Verizon.  However, I don't really care to click on every URL sent to me via SMS from Twitter.  Excessive linkage is like over-sweetening the iced tea.  I know pictures are worth a thousand words, but maybe Twitter was onto something by limiting tweets to 140 characters?  Just sayin'.  (I know a lot of people are using desktop twitter apps, and that's fine.  I will probably turn off phone updates for those users.)

RULE #4 - Impersonal Direct messages make Twitter bitter.  As my buddy Kyle so wisely pointed out, anyone who sends automated (i.e. - impersonal) direct messages deserves to be "un-followed" immediately.

RULE #5 - Keep it between us.  Replies are ok to a point.  But if you reply to someone I'm not following....Jim likey not so much.  Honestly - at this point how about just use SMS or a phone call?

RULE #6 - Don't be a "Not a twitterable response" twitterer.  Actually, this goes for SMS as well.  I've lost count of how many times someone has direct-messaged me, or texted me a question like "Hey, you looked down yesterday, everything ok?"  Now, granted, odds are I was down simply because someone sent a "I'm in the bathroom" twitter reply to someone I don't follow, but if I was really down, do you think that I (being a man of unfortunately many words) really want to somehow type out a "pouring-my-heart-out-fighting-back-tears" 140 character reply?  I get it.  Twitter and SMS are easy ways to "have a conversation" without actually having a conversation.  But come on, already!  If you want to have your one way chat, I'm cool with that.  Just say "Hey man - thinking of you and the fam.  Hope the new baby is doing well....would love to catch up, will call later".  That's splendiferous.

Having friends that are in the marketing industry, I hear a lot of speculation about how Twitter can be used to improve your brand, win customers and what-not.  Not trying to be a scrooge, but I dont' get it.  Sure, I'd follow, say, a FoxNews twitter (given proper filtering of unwanted nonsense), or maybe a "weather channel" twitter for alerts and warnings.  But what does a business gain by following me and learning that someone brought a cheesecake to work and it made me happy?  I'm bombarded with enough advertising.  My main interest in twitter is following my friends and family throughout the day and hearing bits and pieces about their lives that I don't normally get to see.  And by "hearing bits and pieces" I mean "reading 140 characters or less of a non-image-link-URL-non-'hey-I'm-in-the-bathroom'-and-not-sending-you-my 50th-retweet-of-the-day" tweet.

Sweet.

Twitter still gets my vote overall....it would be nice to see better filtering and even a "distribution group" option to selectively target certain friends that are following you, etc.  If you're on twitter, check me out here.

Now if I could just get Steve Betz on Twitter......

...perhaps I had picked a poor combination of snacks for work today.

And then it hit me....

So - some more awe-inspiring intellect is on display in the world of education.....a report from the "The National Children's Bureau" (in the UK) is claiming that toddlers who dislike food "foreign" to them (to be more specific, the context of the claim is when a toddler is exposed to ethnically unfamiliar food) are expressing racist attitudes.  Really.  I'm not kidding.

So....let's try this out:  My son will not eat anything with balsamic vinegar on it.  He can't say "yuk" yet in the context of disliking food, but I'm sure he would.  That is expressing a racial tendency? (i.e. - it makes him racist?)  And since it's been like that from day one, can I turn a common pc argument on its side and say he was born that way?

Would that study call a Kenyan child racist if he turned up his nose at an American grilled cheese sandwich?  (Many east Africans do not share the Euro-American love of cheese...are they all racist?)

My sarcasm aside, our feelings-oriented culture has become a caricature of itself.

Meic Pearse (Prof of History at Houghton College, NY) says this: "The currency of the term tolerance has recently become badly debased.  Where it used to mean the respecting of real, hard differences, it has come to mean instead a dogmatic abdication of truth-claims and a moralistic adherence to moral relativism - departure from either of which is stigmatized as intolerance."

So, our toddler dilemma plays out like this:

In the old definition of tolerance:

Person A: "Want some of my tabouli?"
Person B: "Yuck!  Sorry, have all you want, I'll stick to my lasagna."
Person A: "Oh,ok - you don't know what you're missing."

In the new definition of tolerance:

Person A: "Want some of my tabouli?"
Person B: "Yuck!  Sorry, have all you want, I'll stick to my lasagna."
Person A: "You racist pig.  What do you have against mediterranean food?  I'll see you in hate crimes court."