Miscellaneous Uses for a Blog

In the process of moving hosts

2007-07-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

Hey all... I'm in the process of moving hosts for all my podcasts and this blog. While I don't have the feed running properly yet, you can access my posts over at http://EdRobertsBlog.com

Once I get the feed resolved, I'll post here and there...

Blog Tag - 8 Things About Me

2007-06-14T07:43:00.001-05:00

My good friend Karen (aka Mrs. B) tagged me for the latest round of blog tag called "8 Things About Me." A pretty simple concept: Write 8 things about you and pass it on for others to do the same. So, in the same vein as Karen, let I'm going to try to write 8 things you may not know about me.

I’ve sung with the Cincinnati Symphony as a part of a nationally selected male chorus
I played violin for 12 years. This included time amped-up in a couple jazz combos, as well as a few months in the student run pep band in college (before I picked up percussion).
I'm a worship leader at our church, often leading people in singing from behind a pair of congas.
I spent 4 1/2 years as a meteorologist in broadcast television, although more than half of it was spent behind the scenes as a "weather producer".
I'm the chef of the house. My wife is allergic to soy, so that means I make a lot of things from scratch.
I married my first girlfriend. I had a lot of friends that were girls, but always got the "you're too good of a friend" thing if I mentioned something more.
The furthest "out of the country" I've been is Montreal.
I'm a Green Bay Packers shareholder.

People I tag:
Lynette Young
Jay Moonah
Rich Palmer

Contact solution recalls plead for greater awareness

2007-06-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

For those of you that have known me for a while, you know that my mother-in-law, Paige Reichardt, lost an eye to an aggressive, painful, but relatively rare eye infection last year called Acanthamoeba keratitis. It’s essentially an amoeba, relatively common in water and soil, that enters the eye through a corneal abrasion and attacks the eye. It’s incredibly painful and many that suffer from it go through multiple corneal transplants. Since the time my mother-in-law contracted the infection, she has been on a crusade to inform people about the dangers of water-borne eye infections such as acathamoeba. She was even flown out to Washington with Prevent Blindness America to meet with lawmakers to urge them for more prominent warning labels for contact lenses and solution and additional research into eye infections such as acanthamoeba.

The last time we got a chance to visit home, she got news of, and had the surgery to remove her infected eye. Despite the loss, it was a HUGE relief for her, as the months of excruciating pain were too much to handle. The infection had also spread to the back of the eye, and had the potential to travel up the optic nerve into her brain and kill her. On my trip to visit family at the end of May this year, we got some more great news. The contact solution she and many of the people she has been in contact with that have the disease was recalled. This was another thing she was working on with the CDC, and weekly meetings about it with the Illinois CDC had been happening for months. If you use AMO Complete contact solution PLEASE throw it out, and choose another brand (not Bausch and Lomb Renu).

After all the talks, the determined there was a link between this solution and the incidents of acathamoeba. However, the statistics of the disease that are being quoted in news articles are from 1986, saying 1 or 2 in one million people contract it. Contact lens usage hadn’t really taken off at that point. Some stats that my mother-in-law have include 65 cases in Chicago alone in the last 2-3 years, and even one doctor in Atlanta that has treated 24 cases himself in recent years. That’s not even 2 cities! Obviously the problem is much more widespread than what these old statistics would suggest.

Do you know how to properly care for your lenses, or know what should and shouldn’t be done?

Part of my mother-in-law’s quest has revealed that very little education is happening about proper use and care for contact lenses. With doctors out of the equation thanks to folks like 1-800-Contacts, very few people understand how to use their contacts. Some things not to do include:

Wearing your contacts

Do not wear your contacts in the pool or shower.
Do not wear your contacts overnight. While some lenses are now being marketed as “safe for overnight wear’ there are still serious threats for a corneal abrasion, that can allow infections into the eye.
If you eyes are irritated or uncomfortable, DO NOT WEAR your contacts.

Care for your lenses

DO NOT use water to store your lenses.
Wash your hands with soap and water before handling your lenses
DO NOT use the same contact solution over and over. Use fresh solution to store your lenses in.
Rise your lens case with solution and allow to air dry between uses.
Replace your lens case every 3 months.
“No Rub” solutions are ok, but still do not clean your lenses even close to as well as a simple rub for a few seconds with solution will do. This act alone will kill over 85% of the possible things that could lead to an infection.

Lens Solution

AMO Complete and Bausch and Lomb Renu have both been recalled (although Renu has been relaunched). These solutions appear to be great as many people find them comfortable to use. However, they are comfortable to use because they are very weak. They are not strong enough to kill many things that can cause an infection. Both have been linked to acathamoeba and to other eye infections. Doctors are now taking a serious look at solutions, and will often ask you specifically what solution you use upon a visit to the office. As a side note: a few days before the CDC advisory, AMO made public it’s intention to purchase Bausch and Lomb. Isn’t that just ironic?

So, if you use contacts, as I do, please do what you can to care for your eyes. You only have two of them. While some eye infections are rare, they DO happen. If it happens to you, it doesn’t matter if it’s a rare disease or not.

Links:

Recall of AMO Complete
Paige Reichardt's interview with ABC News
Paige's trip to Washington
Prevent Blindness America
Support forum for those with acanthamoeba keratitis

Advertising needs to change

2007-05-24T01:01:00.000-05:00

I just found out about this video from Paul Colligan's blog and simply HAD to share it. It deals with how advertising MUST change to continue to be relevant to their customers. I still can't believe it's from Microsoft, but it's great to see that they GET IT.

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

I've been talking about how valuable a personal recommendation is in advertising, especially when putting into the perspective of podcasting. Let's face it, would you be more willing to respond to a highly produced advertisement for a product, or the personal recommendation of the product from someone who's opinion you respect? The later of course... and hence, the incredible value that companies wanting to advertise in podcasting have. Social networking is the fabric of the culture today, and tapping into these relationships are were the real value is to advertisers.

I have had offers for advertising in my podcast, but for products I have no prior knowledge of, not to mention their relevancy to my listeners. I will not allow adversting in my podcasts that is not relevant or I can not personally recommend or have a passion about. It's not only unfair to my listeners, but to the company paying me to advertise.

Indie Music on the Launch Pad #2

2007-05-21T13:37:00.000-05:00

New news that hints that the RIAA may seek performance royalties from terrestrial radio stations has my brain thinking. I'm usually dangerous when I think, and often times talk out of my posterior, so we'll see how this goes. A big question that has been frolicking about my brain stem lately is:

What IS the RIAA up to anyway?

What is "hurting" the music industry right now?

There has been a lot of moving and shaking going on in the music industry over the last few years. Music sales have dropped off dramatically among the major labels. Most major label artists now make more money on tour than from CD sales. In the past, a tour was simply a mechanism to sell more music. This has organizations like the RIAA struggling to keep the revenue stream going. The major labels would now rather develop their own sexy, homogenized artists that they can promote extensively. Instead of seeking out good talent, they are going for the "sure thing" to help them make some money.

However, music sales are up as a whole (and continue to grow) with the advent of online music sales (such as Apple iTunes) and MP3 players. So if sales are up, why are the labels struggling? They claim that piracy is destroying their business. Does piracy exist? Absolutely. Unfortunately, there is a growing population that believes that music, television, movies, and all forms of media should be FREE. While piracy is out there, I don't believe that piracy is making as big of an impact as they would believe. It becomes a convenient scapegoat for what is really happening to the industry, independent music.

The independent music scene is becoming a major driving force in the industry. Online music sites, MySpace, podcasting, and the like are dramatically leveling the playing field of music promotion. No longer do musicians need to pay the radio conglomerates for the CHANCE to have their music promoted. Musicians can now do this themselves on the internet through all forms of new media. Suddenly, the major labels have lost their virtual monopoly on music promotion, and independent music is making severe dents in the pockets of the major labels.

Internet radio waves

The biggest controversy in the music world right now centers around the dramatic rise in licensing rates that the RIAA wants to charge internet radio stations. The price increase is retroactive to 2006 and has the very real potential to put many internet radio stations out of business. Everyone is screaming about the new rates and how it will kill off hurt internet radio. While the retroactive rates alone could put many out of business, those that emerge from that chaos will need to adapt to the new rates. In a post I made a few months back, I saw this as a huge plus for independent music. To compensate for increased royalties, internet radio will look much more seriously at independent music. Can't pay the RIAA? How about low cost independent and small label music?

Unfortunately, very few saw through the smoke-screen that the new royalty rates created. A part of this bill included the ability for SoundExchange (a part of the RIAA) to collect compulsory royalties on all music played over the internet. What this essentially means is that the RIAA will now have the right to collect royalties from independent music, even if they are not a part of the RIAA. What's more, SoundExchange does not need to contact the artists that they collected money on their behalf, and musicians can't even GET the money unless they become a member of the RIAA. If the money goes unclaimed for 3 years, SoundExchange gets to keep it. So what we have here are the major labels (who make up the RIAA) getting some of that pie back that independent music took away. Suddenly, the idea of internet radio stations switching to indie music to get around the royalty increase is now voided.

While it remains to be seen just how far SoundExchange will take their new royalty template, I'm deeply concerned that one of the mechanisms that will fall under this new license umbrella is podcasting (which is becoming a huge launch pad for many independent artists). The license set forth by the Podsafe Music Network, IODA Promonet, and others would seem to cover podcasters from these royalties. Unfortunately, the wording suggests otherwise. This "exception clause" may need to be filed on a per-artist or even per-song basis directly with SoundExchange. The wording is so vague, these compulsory licenses could be taken to nearly ANY site the streams music over the internet, including sites like MySpace or places that sell music. Suddenly, faced with new license fees, independent music starts to loose it's primary promotion mechanism, the internet. Independent musicians will need to make a concerted effort to file an exception to SoundExchange if they want to maintain their promotion through the internet medium.

More moves by the RIAA

News today, relayed by Steve from the Wicked Good Podcast, suggests that the RIAA may be looking to take those same performance royalty rates to terrestrial radio. While I don't know of any specific legislation that is pending, the idea of identical pricing and compulsory royalties being shoved through terrestrial radio is very real. I believe that the battle at the internet radio level was just precedence-setting for their push to get more money out of terrestrial radio (where the real performance royalty money is). Much larger audiences with very poor ways to measure actual listeners. Maintaining the compulsory royalty clause in this case will simply cut back the tendency for stations to step into the independent music scene, or at least slow its progress.

Only time will tell what is going to happen to the music industry as a whole in the next few years. The music industry is changing, and will likely look very different 5-10 years from now. I'm just thankful that I have discovered the wealth of independent music out there, and I'm thankful that I can promote some incredible music and musicians. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I'm still going to do my best to promote what's out there. I guess to be truthful... I'd gladly pay royalties to people like Matthew Ebel, Kevin Reeves, Geoff Smith and others because I believe in their music. I just wish I had the finances to do more...

Man Made Global Warming?

2007-04-10T15:57:00.000-05:00

As a meteorologist, it’s amazing the amount of questions I’ve got in the last few weeks from friends, colleagues, and others about where I stand on the whole man made global warming debate. The more people ask me, the more I want to do a blog post summarizing many of my thoughts on the debate. I’ve hinted in previous posts about the fact that there has been a gross bastadarization of the facts to the point where people believe the lie. Matthew Ebel and I discussed this effect a few weeks ago as to what he called “The Furry Effect.” While I don’t know where he got the name, the premise is simple: Get enough people to present a lie as the truth, and it BECOMES the truth in the minds of the culture. Man made global warming certainly fits this mold.

I viewed a video today on Google Videos that is probably the most solid assembly of the actual facts about how the manmade global warming theory came to be, how it has become engrained in the minds of the culture, and what the actual facts are. As a result, it’s given me the motivation to actually do this post.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the facts:

MYTH: Carbon Dioxide causes global warming. The main driving force in man made global warming is carbon dioxide emissions. One of the main evidence given by those that believe in man made global warming is the correlation between global temperature rises and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (taken from Antarctic ice cores). YES, there is a strong correlation between CO2 and global temperature. The unfortunately, supporters of man made global warming fail to accurately look at the data. In actuality, a rise in temperature actually PRECEDES a rise in carbon dioxide by a few hundred years. As a result, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is an EFFECT of global warming, NOT A CAUSE.
MYTH: Climate change would be a catastrophic event that would create more violent storms, create massive droughts, and eventually make earth uninhabitable. The truth of the matter is that climate change is a natural part of the earth and sun’s cycles. It has always been going on, and will continue no matter what we do. The atmosphere has been warmer in the past as it is right now. The Vikings had dairy farms on Greenland! With regards to violent weather, warmer weather globally would result in a smaller global temperature contract, and thus, LESS active weather.
MYTH: Every scientist agrees in man made global warming. This statement, which has been coming out more and more in the last several months is what is driving scientists to stand up and say, “Wait a minute… NO!” I believe. Let’s face it… whether man made global warming is true or not, the benefit of curbing pollution into the atmosphere is a GOOD THING. I think the debate has been stifled in large part do to this fact.

Here is probably one of the most well done productions I’ve ever seen that explains the farce of global warming. There is one section that claims the global warming debate is keeping third world countries from developing that I hadn’t thought of before. While I certainly don’t believe it’s as big of a reason for the lack of development in places such as Africa as the video hints at, it’s an interesting aspect to the debate.

Apparently Google has removed the video in the past (likely that Furry Effect living out), so hopefully you will have the opportunity to watch it if or before it gets removed again. Take the time to watch it. It's over an hour, but VERY good.

Blog Tag - 7 Top Songs

2007-03-26T08:43:00.000-05:00

So, I was reviewing some of the posts my friends made via Twitter (micro-blog where people send "what I'm doing now" messages) on Sunday night, and come across one made by my friend, Chris Penn. Chris, likely one of the most intelligent people in all of podcasting, tagged me for blog tag. In this case, pick 7 songs that you like. Since the original poster is 7 year old Aidan Hatch, I figured I'd keep that in mind. Also, following Chris' lead, I'll choose 7 podsafe songs from a wide range of generes. I have a feeling this is going to be harder than it looks, and I KNOW I'll leave some out.

"Restless for the Sun" - Jimmie Bratcher (An ABSOLUTELY beautiful song from one of my favorite blues artists)
"Better Life" - Common Ground (A great band from Texas with a 70s rock feel)
"Lonely Boy" - Black Lab (AWESOME alt rock band with deep, poignant lyrics about love lost)
"Goodbye Southern Skies" - David McMillin (One of the finest male singer songwriter voices I've heard in a while.)
"Shine" - Kevin Reeves (Another incredible voice, but with bit more edge and rock. Here, Kevin pleads to find his place to "shine" in the world. This, and his album It's About Time are one of my favorites)
"Not For Me" - Laura Clapp (Another beautiful, raw song that leaves you craving for more at the end. Close you eyes and just let this one soak into your soul. Plus, it's Laura's Birthday today!)
"Drive Away" - Matthew Ebel - (I CAN NOT leave Matthew out of this list. Matthew is likely my favorite podsafe artist. This fun, "driving with the top down" track is one of the most played in podcasting).

Others I had to leave off this list of 7, but deserve mentions include Karmyn Tyler (7 isn't enough!), Geoff Smith, Jeremy Rowe, Uncle Seth, Take 6, Tenth Hour Calling, Now is Now, New Leaf, and others. Man, so many great songs, artists, and bands. . . I can't decide! Those that doubt the quality of independent music need to take a serious second look. There certainly is a mountain of mediocre stuff out there, but a ton of great music too.

People in this chain of blog tag: Aidan Hatch, Chris Brogan, Chris Penn. Rules: Include these as well as a link to this post when you tag the next people.

People I tag: Lynette Young, Karmyn Tyler, Steve Webb, Michael W. Moss, and new daddy-to -be Jay Moonah

Independent Music on the Launch Pad

2007-03-21T15:07:00.000-05:00

Bum Rush the Charts and the recent internet radio licensing changes point to big things for indie artists.

It’s now the eve of Bum Rush the Charts. An initiative within the podcasting and new media spaces to send a podsafe artist to the top of the iTunes music charts. The organizers are using the initiative as a proof of concept to tell major media and the major labels that podcasting and new media is a social movement, and one to take seriously. Thanks to the press that BRTC is getting within news organizations such as the BBC, I think there WILL be some sort of statement or at least an acknowledgment of the event.

While I believe that someone at the labels will at least know about the event, I don’t think it sends quite the message that many of the organizers are hoping for. Traditional media and the music labels are well aware of the power of social media. Places like MySpace and YouTube make headlines almost daily. To think that these organizations are clueless to the power of social networking is probably short sighted. My thought is that the labels and major media outlets will think of this not as a proof of concept, but a flash event. Black Lab tops the charts for a day or so, then their watered-down, manufactured, underpaid artists will be back up top a few days later. To those the organizers are trying to reach, I believe that the statement will not be as strong as we would like it to be.

Black Lab was chosen for this initiative because they were actually dropped by two major labels (Geffen and Sony/Epic). Through each of these, the band had to fight to win back the rights to their OWN music. The labels said that one of their latest albums, “See The Sun” had no more than one decent song. Since the band won the rights to their music back and released it to the world of podcasting, they have found great success with many of the songs on the album. At least half of the songs on the album have reached the top 10 list of podcasting on the Pod Music Countdown over the last year. They have sold countless CDs and song tracks through iTunes relying on the power of new media and podcasting. When it comes to sending a “you lost out” message to the labels that dropped them, Black Lab couldn’t have been a better choice.

Bum Rush the Charts is a great proof of concept. It will be an event we can point to that will open many eyes to new media and podcasting. However, those eyes are not necessarily those of the major labels, but the eyes of other bands, fed up by their money grabbing contracts with the major labels to the power of “going independent.” Black Lab was able to win back the rights to their own music. Others may be able to so as well. It will open the eyes of those current independent artists that are hesitant to make their music available to podcasters. BRTC has the potential to start a brand new wave of artists that are eager to get a piece of the new media bandwagon. Until more artists start to do things on their own and show the world that they are successful in doing so, we won’t see any significant change in the major labels. Hopefully, initiatives like this will help expose how the major labels are robbing artists.

Let’s do some of the math for a traditional iTunes purchase.

On a 99 cent iTunes music purchase of an RIAA artist:
- 19 cents go to Apple
- 75 cents go to the label
- 5 cents go to the artist

On a 99 cent iTunes music purchase from an independent artist:
- 19 cents go to Apple
- 80 cents go to the band

(numbers courtesy of Bum Rush the Charts)

If a RIAA artist was able to sell 100,000 tracks from iTunes, their cut would be a whopping $5000. Meanwhile, the label has made $75,000 off of music they did not write or perform. An independent artist would only need to sell 6,250 tracks to make that same $5000. 100,000 tracks would net an independent artist $80,000! By some estimations, the 5% artists are making through iTunes is very generous compared to revenue brought in from CD sales and radio airplay (saying nothing about all those RIAA settlements).
It’s a sad, sad world when a third party can come in, grab ownership of your own work, and make 15 times as much as you do off your own creation.

New Licensing rates for Internet Radio

A few weeks ago, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) revised their fee schedule for internet radio. The retroactive rates (back to 2006) will also rapidly increase for the next 3 years.

$0.0008 in 2006
$0.0011 in 2007
$0.0014 in 2008
$0.0018 in 2009

(numbers courtsey of Save-Internet-Radio.com)

These rates are per performance. A performance equates to one person listening to one song. Multiply these number times 1000 listeners for one song, and they’re paying $1.10 per song in 2007. Multiply that by the number of songs played per day, and you get a total licensing fee of over $150,000. The cost to play the music for some will exceeded the total revenue coming into the station. The rates are so outrageous that many internet radio stations and companies are screaming that it will END internet radio. For a great many of stations, it will… especially those running on a small budget and find themselves bankrupt having to pay retroactive fees there weren’t ready for.

I’m of a slightly different viewpoint on all of this. Yes, I agree that the new licensing structure is absolutely horrible. Over-the-air radio stations do not need to pay per-performance; rather they pay a much more reasonable flat-rate license. There WILL be internet radio stations that will go bankrupt paying retroactive fees, and a significant number of them at that. Those that DO survive will either be owned by media giants such as Clear Channel, or the rare internet radio stations that can limp past the retroactive fees and restructure their programming. INSERT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS.

How to streaming internet radio stations survive in a money grabbing, license fee bogged down world? They play a considerably larger percentage of independent music. License fees for indie and small label artists are cheep or non-existent. They don’t follow the obscene license structure set forth by the CRB and the RIAA. If internet radio is going to survive this onslaught brought on by the CRB, it NEEDS to turn to independent and small label artists. There is virtually no other way around it. Suddenly, independent artists have another segment of the music listening audience that will be able to hear their music while the major labels shoot themselves in the foot.

Indie music will always be indie music. The percentages of those that do well are slim right now, and despite the resurgence of independent music in the last few years, those numbers will remain fairly small. Even so, there is a growing potential for independent and small label musicians to do well both financially and in social reward. Most importantly though is the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the music industry as a whole. That’s what I’m really excited about!

New Media Overload – Part 1

2007-03-09T08:06:00.000-06:00

You may have heard the phrase “you can never get too much of a good thing.” While I’ve never been one to agree with the phrase, I’ve come to realize the real truth of my disagreement with it in the last few weeks. No, I’m not thinking about good food, good times, or even good weather. I’m talking about being involved in too many social networking and new media circles. Too much online networking, discussions, and general clutter.

Part 1: My own personal chaos

As you know, I’m intimately involved in new media and podcasting. If you've read my bio, I’ve spent more cumulative days behind the podcasting mic than nearly anyone in the medium. Podcasting is really one of a series of new media / social networking mediums that are paving the way for a new form of communication, interaction, and entertainment. But my involvement in new media goes well beyond the 7 or 8 podcasts I produce a week. I’m involved in other online communities as well. I have a presence on MySpace, Second Life, LinkedIn, forum boards a-plenty (such as the Podcast Pickle). I participate in non-stop chats and partial chats through Twitter and Skype. I subscribe to and comment on several blogs. I have in the neighborhood of 80-100 podcast subscriptions sitting in iTunes. I monitor sites like Digg for news, interesting stories, and videos. I have RSS feeds running to monitor Technorati, Podzinger, and other new media search engines. I’ve been a part of a couple weather listservs for years. Yet, this barely scratches the surface of areas I could and feel I need to be involved in.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve begun to become overloaded. Not necessarily with the pull to participate in each of these communities, but to simply say current with what is going on. The frenzied pace of conversations to keep up with, draw information from, and participate in only seems to grow. The constant battle to stay on top of conversations has affected my ability to accomplish much else. With notifications of new blog entries, Twitter messages, news stories, emails, chats, and events in Second Life, my ability to concentrate is almost gone. My brain has become a battlefield of many for my attention, and I can’t keep any of it straight. So I sit, brain bouncing from one thing to the next, anxious that I’m missing something while there are things right in front of me that deserve my undivided attention. I try to concentrate, but am simply unable to. The desire to be intimately involved in new media has given me ADD.

The weather in Kansas City right now is beautiful. The sun is shining, it’s warm out, and the world is showing its first signs of awakening from winter. We were out of bread for sandwiches at home, so in my usual hurried pace, I walk/sprinted to a nearby restaurant. Still on my blistering pace, I called up to comment on a podcast I had just finished listening to. Before I knew it, I was ordering my food and rushing out the door bound for work.

My walk takes me through a park. On the way back, I see a picnic table and I get a crazy idea. Why not just sit down, enjoy the weather, and eat outside. That short time gave me a chance to simply relax unconnected from the chaotic world around me. I could feel the breeze, watch people walking through the park, and listen to the birds. It was a time to ease stress, to pray, and refocus. No iPod, no blogs, no IMs. I arrived back at work with a new freshness. I was able to easily troubleshoot a problem that would have sent me into a tailspin ending in a chaotic roadblock the last few weeks.

The few minutes I took to simply relax, and more importantly, disconnect, made a huge impact. I realized that I desperately need to be purposeful in finding some time in the next few weeks to simply get away for a few hours. Back home, it was a short drive to the Kettle Moraine State Forest. In Indiana, it was the same short drive to get to Lake Michigan and the dunes. Here… I need to find a place away from the noise and chaos of the city to simply enjoy the world that god has created around us. As nearly any parent can tell you, those times you can really experience quiet are precious.

Most importantly, I need to re-prioritize exactly how and what new media avenues I consume and participate in. I’ve already turned off the Twitter IM. Blogs only get auto checked every few hours. Updates to other social networking sites are essentially on hold until I can think properly again, decide those things that are the most important, and engage in those things rather than trying to do it all. The iPod needs to go off from time to time so I can focus on the main thing I’m doing. Multitasking simply can not involve doing 4 or 5 things at once. In short, DECLUTTER.

All of this from simply taking 15 minutes to listen to the birds, feel the breeze, pray, and have NOTHING else on my mind. THAT’s the kind of multitasking to enjoy.

Next installment: A community spread thin

To blog, or not to blog

2007-03-05T09:01:00.000-06:00

So, I've had this blog here in some shape or form for about 3 years now. I've cycled different blogs in and out of here, with this one serving as a staging point for podcasts before they launch. Yet, I still feel the need to roll more with a personal blog, not only so I can brain dump from time to time, but also to further my personal brand.

Who knows what will become of this blog. Will it continue to serve as a periodic brain dump as it always has, or will it roll into something more. I'm spread pretty thin right now with family, work, podcasts, my friends in Second Life... not to mention trying to keep the sanity of the latest flash craze on the internet, Twitter. At least spring is rolling in, which will give me the chance to get out and get some fresh air a bit more over lunch, clear my head, and try to head off the multitasking-induced attention deficit disorder.

Living the hype

2007-02-12T11:44:00.000-06:00

How many of you believe that a heat wave in your area is a sign of global warming? Seriously...

I've been thinking about this quite a bit today as some news organization and uninformed readers have claimed that the record 12 feet of snow in upstate New York is a result of global warming. Their claim: Global warming = warmer Lake Ontario = record snows.

*bangs head on desk*

The truth of the matter is that Siberia has seen the brunt of the arctic surge the first half of the winter, which allowed the eastern US to be warm. Hence, warm lake. Then when the arctic cold finally comes (along with some lift-enhancing disturbances) you get serious lake-effect snows.

But that's not the main thought that has crossed my mind today (as much as the global warming claims aggravate me). Unfortunately, it shows how media and political hype over controversial issues twists and distorts the truth. These organizations hype hot-button issues toward their side, presenting them as fact. In the case of global warming, as scientific fact. Then, when average people are presented with any claims to the contrary, those claims are marked as idiotic, uninformed, and externally motivated.

This is true in many of the politically charged issues right now. Global warming for one. The height of the global warming claims come from model simulations of what could happen if we continue doing X and Y. I'm all for cleaning the air, so when it comes to it, it's a good thing. But none of those models have verified as of yet, and the world can exist with temperatures warmer than they are now. Shoot, the vikings had dairy farms on Greenland!

Another topic, evolution. There is scientific fact to both claims, but anyone opposed to evolution is marked as a religious fanatic not willing to accept "scientific fact". In fact, it has gone so far as governments pulling funding for research to those that oppose evolution. And those are just two areas. Say nothing about how the media has made Islam and Christianity the sum total of their radical sects, and countless other politically-charged topics.

It all boils down to how easily we accept anything as "fact" the instant we see it. We have lost our critical eye in this information age, and these issues just scrape the surface of how lazy we have gotten. Maybe we simply rely on the media too much to give us a completely researched report. If we can't even rely on them, how more can we rely on citizen journalists?

I'm just as guilty as many of us in being easily distracted by shiny objects in the hype of news, but we are in for a lot of hurt as a culture if we don't start to regain that critical eye. Even more, if the media we have come to rely on continues to choose hyping up a story for ratings or politics over accumulating all the facts, yet we like lemmings continue to believe and accept it.

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Help! Should I switch to a Mac?

2007-01-30T14:31:00.000-06:00

So, the time has come for me to make the dreaded Mac vs. PC decision. My wife has begun to take classes in preparation for the CPA test in the summer. That means it’s time to purchase another laptop. The cycle of new computers in our house is usually a very slow one. We only dumped our 486 in 2000 for a P3 933. When I had to dump my work laptop when I changed jobs, I went for the Dell D620 back in August. A solid machine that has worked flawlessly for all the things I’ve thrown at it. This is definitely going to be the shortest time between computer purchases for us.

Here’s my background: I’ve worked in some fashion of computer support since 1995, Supported Windows and Mac machines at school, SGI Unix boxes in the weather office when I was in broadcasting, Windows laptops and hardware a-plenty at my last job, and a small combination of Windows and Mac machines at my current job.

My experience with Macs in the past have been terrifying and frustrating to say the least. OS 6 vexed my existence back in school, and these crash-in-toshes were some of the most unstable computers I had ever touched (and that was comparing them to Windows 95 machines at the time). If you’ve ever seen the old "Mac killed my inner-child" video, this was my experience with Macs. But, having gotten more intimately involved in the tech community through podcasting, I've begun to take a second look at the Mac. I just need some concrete thoughts on WHY I should switch to a Mac over a PC... and is it worth it in the long run?

Having been primarily a Windows user, I know a lot of the intimate details of the OS. It's comfortable and familiar enough to troubleshoot if I need to. If I plan to go the Mac route, I'd definitely be using Parallels. This for a few reasons.

I use Adobe Audition to produce my podcast. I paid good money for this program and absolutely love it. With now over 700 podcasts to my name, Audition has been a huge help. Unfortunately Audition is unavailable for the Mac (and no, I'm not switching to GarageBand).
Another program I use frequently in a variety of situations is AutoIt. A powerful, yet blatantly easy scripting tool that lets me automate many of my day-to-day tasks. Call it a cross between power of Virtual Basic and your garden variety cheepo macro program. I can schedule these to run at certain time to do everything from pulling the latest weather data over to my computer to adding macro support to programs. Also unavailable for the Mac. I realize that Apple Script can probably do much of this. Honestly though, I don't know if I have the patience to learn it.

My familiarity with OS X is still fairly lean. The UI is going to take some work to adjust to. I'm used to fully minimizing programs, having full use of mouse buttons, and other things. My few months periodically having my hands on a Mac again has been a bit of a uphill climb (as any new UI would be). On the plus side, I like the added security of the Unix platform, and the design of the MacBook Pro itself. The OS doesn’t get as cluttered and bogged-down as Windows, which is also a plus. I’ve been able to get around much of that with Altiris Software Virtualization Solution on the Windows side, but hey… it’s still Windows. Like a car that looses value the instant you drive it off the lot, Windows slows down the instant you start to use it. I also like the enhanced media capabilities of the MacBook Pro.

One fear I have is that I may use the bogged down version of Windows in Parallels more often than OS X. I am curious to use the Mac, but need some ammunition to get over the price tag (with myself and my wife). Most of the work I do with my computer centers around podcasting (audio, with the possibility of video in the future) and the processor burning program known as Second Life.

The questions for me are:

What benefits will I gain from switching to OS X?
Is it worth the extra $1000 to get a MacBook Pro with a decent video card and 2 gigs of RAM over a comparable PC like my Dell D620?
Does the much touted “ease-of-use” of the Mac and security going to make a switch worthwhile? How does Vista land in this whole scenario? How about Leopard?
What can the Mac offer me that a lower-priced Windows box can't?

I need to make a decision soon, so any help you could offer would be much appreciated! Mac zealots, Windows gurus... chime in!