Al Gore, the Internet & “Thank You Al Gore Thursday”

Let’s dispel some myths, before we cause a ruckus.

Back in 2000, when Y2k didn’t end the world, and I was wasting time in my computer science class playing “Slime Volleyball” (at one point this game was freaking sweet), a man named Al Gore was competing with a guy named George W. Bush for a job.

During the agonizingly long job application and interview process, both men said a lot of stupid things, and we should have reopened the offered up the job to new talent… but we didn’t and it’s not really important for the purposes of this post.

Anyway, one of the stupid statements that was uttered by Mr. Gore during a CNN interview was:

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”

The truth is that Al Gore did do a lot to promote telecommunications technology, and lay a legal foundation for the creation of the Internet.

He also grossly overstated those facts when he uttered the aforementioned statement. Wired picked up the quote, and just like any pack of angry geeks, they ripped Mr. Gore to shreds. At that point Mr. Bush and his notorious pack of cronies ran wild with Gore’s dumb proclamation.

Did Gore mean to say that he “created the Internet?”

Probably not… but like most politicians, he couldn’t just take credit for his actual efforts, and he got spanked for it. Repeatedly.

If you care to know more about the Gore and the Internet, you can read all about on this old Register article.

Now that the facts are out of the way, let’s have some fun.

I love freedom of speech. I love that I live in a country where I can mock my leaders, because everyone should be mocked… especially the powerful. With that in mind, I give you…

“Thank You Al Gore Thursday”

For the foreseeable future, I will take some time every Thursday to thank Mr. Gore for something that lives on the Internet (since everything on the Internet is ultimately his doing).

Why?

Mostly because it amuses me. I hope it entertains you.

“Thank You Al Gore Thursday” come complete with a custom graphic that a good friend made. I would credit this individual, but he or she does not wish to have his or her name attached to this in any capacity… something about fearing an IRS audit.

Without further adieu, I present you with my first “Thank You.”

* * * * *

Al Gore, Thank You For BitTorrent!

The ability download data, be it music, movies, books or software, from multiple sources simultaneously all over the world, was nothing short of revolutionary.

BitTorrent was/is a total game changer.

I know that the music, movie, publishing and video game industries absolutely love you for it. Without BitTorrent, how would anyone view early cuts of blockbuster movies before they even hit the silver screen?

In the immortal words of George Carlin, “The status quo sucks.”

Mr. Gore, you sir, annihilated the status quo when you created the Internet.

Get That Bluetooth Headset Out of Your Ear Fool

I am by no means the final arbiter on “cool,” but I know uncool when I see it.

This month’s Wired cover perfectly captures a pet-peeve that has been driving me nuts for years.

The text to the right of Pitt's head reads: "Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it off - and you are not him."

Walking around with a headset hanging off your ear is not cool, regardless of how much it cost, what color the LED glows, or what nifty shape the manufacturer pressed the plastic into.

This is a guy thing, I can’t recall seeing a woman ever try and use a Bluetooth headset as a fashion statement. Since it’s a guy thing, I am guessing that the people who wear headsets around the clock probably think it’s futuristic, commando-ish, or it makes him feel like a superhero. Let me assure you, it doesn’t.

Unless you are on the phone so often, and making calls to a ton of different people, take the thing out of your ear when you aren’t talking it. Taking it out might not make you look cool, but it will help you avoid looking like a tool.

"Take that headset out of your ear fool! And stay in school!"

Geek Arguments Courtesy of Wired

I’m exhausted beyond the point of original thought – Here’s a funny one yanked from Wired.com (However, I did edit a small typo. They misspelled aficionado).

10. “No real programmer would ever use PHP.” – This won’t work for every geek, of course, but for those it works on, it should work really well.

9. “Comic books are just for kids!” – I’m sure you’ve heard this one before—I know I certainly heard it often enough in high school, and even though it’s even less true now than it was then, I’m sure comic book aficionados still hear it today.

8. “Role-playing games are just for people who can’t deal with real life.” – There are, sadly, still a lot of people who think anyone who plays D&D must live in his parents’ basement and bathe once a month. Such people must be put straight, and immediately!

7. “The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are so realistic!” – I doubt many people actually believe this, but there are an awful lot of misconceptions about pirates out there, so you never know.

6. “Yeah, I got an Xbox 360 so my daughter could play Hello Kitty games. Is it really good for anything else?” – We’ve hit the ones that are hard for me even to type, now…

5. “Mac, Windows, or Linux? Does it really make a difference?” – An argument so old its original form was probably first written down in hieroglyphs, I know, but I don’t know a single geek it wouldn’t work on—myself included.

4. “The Ewoks were the best thing about the original Star Wars trilogy.” / “Greedo shot first!” - I couldn’t decide between the two. If one doesn’t work, I’ll bet the other one would.

3. “Tolkien? Ehhh, I prefer Terry Brooks!” – I almost feel like I should argue with myself just for writing that. I’m going to let the top two stand for themselves.

2. “Joss Whedon is a hack!”

1. “I don’t see what’s so bad about DRM!”

Nine out of ten of these statements would drive me nuts. Any guesses which one wouldn’t?

Check back tomorrow when I reveal the shocking answer (And post something sensible).

Update

The answer is #8. State the other nine at your own peril!

How to Get Windows 7 Now

Microsoft’s next operating system Windows 7 will not hit store shelves until Q4 of this year. However, an early build of it is available for free.

Wired offers a “how to” guide for downloading and installing the operating system.

Remember to backup everything before you install this OS.

Don’t try it unless you are confident that you could restore your computer to its current OS on your own.

And always remember to practice safe computing.

Geek Aspects of Economic Failure & Recovery

With all of the media hype surrounding the Jon Stewart/ Jim Cramer death match, I finally caved and watched an episode of the Daily Show for the first time since the night before election day. I had to see what was causing the brouhaha.

Jon did a pretty good job of reminding us that the public beating never goes out of style. To Jim’s credit, he took it like a champ and handled himself well. You can check out the episode on Hulu (Hulu doesn’t like to embed on this blog. If anyone has any suggestions for getting it to embed, I welcome the assistance).

You might also want to check out the Jim Cramer interview that Jon pulls clips from. Cramer says some insanely damning things in it:

*As you may notice, the original video was killed. Try this one instead.

An important lesson for business here is the cost of silence. Allowing rumors to flow freely without a prompt and clear comment doesn’t just damage the companies reputation, it actually can become a means for market manipulation. Apple’s reputation for remaining silence in the face of everything made it an easy target. Transparency helps everyone.

I also want to share this October 1, 2008 post from The Register: Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia’s naked shorts

It is the story of Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne’s attempt to bring the dangers of naked shorting to public light in the Wall Street Journal, only to be censored and labeled a fringe loony. It is also a story about the manipulation of the Wikipedia entry on”naked shorting.” It is a bizarre tale that never should have happened in the first place. If you want to understand at least some of the major failings of our economy it is a good start (and it isn’t written in econo-babble). I read it for the first time five months ago and rereading it still makes my blood boil.

Finally, I will point you in the direction of an article from this past month’s Wired Magazine: Road Map for Financial Recovery: Radical Transparency Now

They did a good of summing up their own article:

Set the data free!

Without delving too much into my political ideology, I think radical transparency is the best way to regulate. It allows companies to do business without a jumble of federal regulations which almost always have negative unintended consequences, while also shining a big spotlight on businesses and their financial activities.

Technology Isn’t Frying Your Brain

Everywhere I go these days I feel like I’m bombarded with accusations that technology is destroying the fabric of society and rational thought. 

A month ago Wired wrote about it by way of an interview.

I’ve had conversations with coworkers, friends, family, even my last date spent some time explaining to me how she believed that technology was eroding concentration and in turn causing children to spend less time reading, writing, playing outside, and using their imagination. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind when pondering our imminent intellectual apocalypse brought about by technology. 

First and foremost, technology allows us time to stop focusing on day-to-day survival. No one makes this concept more clear than Vaughn, the author of the post, “The Myth of the Concentration Oasis” (I strongly recommend reading this). To paraphrase, technology let’s us focus on things other than finding food, and raising children at all times. “The ‘modern technology is hurting our brain’ argument is widespread but it seems so short-sighted. It’s based on the idea that before digital communication technology came along, people spent their time focusing on single tasks for hours on end and were rarely distracted.” 

If you think back to the history of the earliest humans, the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers was so important because it meant that certain people could focus on new tasks that didn’t involve basic survival. Farming meant that a smaller portion of a society could feed the larger group, thus allowing for the creation of new occupations. Technology allows us to build upon that basic principle (Seriously read Vaughn’s post, it is worth your time). If you think life would be easier without technology, try shedding all of it. See how easy your life becomes. 

I was one of the people who thought that instant messengers and texting were hurting written language. I was a teaching assistant in a technical writing course in college and was frequently appalled at some of the writing that the students submitted. However, poor writing comes from a lack of caring or understanding of written language, not from technology. A recent study showed that texting doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on writing. 

We also assume that everyone was intelligent in past generations. Think back to early America. Can you imagine people from that generation writing poorly? I couldn’t. I had no basis for the assumption, but I had just thought that people learned how to write properly. Then I read some of William Clark’s journal writings from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific coast. Meriwether Lewis could write well, but Clark was another story. I’m pretty sure he never spelled the work “mosquito” the same way twice. 

"Spell my name bitch!"

We live in an age where endless knowledge is at our fingertips. If you are unsure of a fact, Google it, unless you are looking for something abstract or intangible, you will have an answer in seconds.

“But no one knows how to find things in a library?” You might be thinking.

To that, I ask you – “Who cares?”

Browsing a library is only an important skill if that is the only place you can find the information you seek. Since everything is digital (even library catalogs) the skill is essentially useless. Using a card catalog or a search engine are a means to an end or more often a means to other means. The act of finding the information is less significant than the information itself. 

To look at this from a personal angle – I had a very hard time learning to read as a child. I loved to learn from an early age, but reading was so damn difficult that I didn’t do it unless I had to. For at least the first fourteen years of my life (probably longer) I spent far more time playing video games than reading or writing. I did well in school and if you looked at my grades in spite of this, but I didn’t really learn to write until I sat down and decided that I wanted to get better. I’m still learning, and always will. 

Come to think of it, in recent months writing this blog has pushed me to develop my writing more than school or work. I guess this damn technology is doing something to my brain.

Blogging is dead?

Have you ever gone years, or perhaps your whole life without hearing or reading a particular word, then one day you wake up, and hear that word constantly?

For me the word was luddite – one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; or, one who is opposed to technological change <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Luddite>.

I hadn’t heard anyone use that word since I was studying for the SATs in high school. Then one morning I wake up, and it’s everywhere!

… now to get to my point.

Twitter, the most popular site for micro-blogging, allows any user to post entries that are up to 140 character. It has been around for a while, and many people have discussed their preference for the shorter format. It is just another option for personal publication on the Internet.

A few weeks ago, Wired Magazine (Yes, I am going to use Wired as a punching bag again) put out this article: Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, and everyone went nuts! Wherever I go: work, school, social outings, blogs, and news sites I am hearing about the death of blogging.

Now, I am beginning to wonder if Wired intentionally publishes dreck like this to stir a controversy, or if they really are losing their grip on reality. Either way, the controversy is out there.

The answer is blogging isn’t dead. Period.

Social media and the Internet are evolving. New methods of communication are being developed, but the old ones don’t perish when the new arrive. Old fashion, non-social web sites are still extremely prolific in a post blogging Internet. Blogs will continue to exist happily in a world with Twitter.

Everyone needs to calm down and realize there is enough bandwidth for everyone.

Wired’s Editors Have Lost Their Minds

Wired Magazine/Online isn’t what it used to be. They get a lot right, but sometimes they are just a little bit insane. Take for instance this, article which was emailed to me by a friend:

Five Useless Gadgets You Should Throw in the Trash Right Now

What are the five gadgets that you should throw away right now?

1.     Printer

2.     Scanner

3.     All optics drives that are built into your computer (CD/DVD)

4.     Fax

5.     All landline phones

Before I delve into why this list is utterly brainless, I want to point out that this kind of attitude that Wired’s editors have taken reminds me of the dickish antics of “Nick Burns, your company’s computer guy,” one of my favorite recurring SNL characters.

Good ole Nick Burns represents everything that is obnoxious about your stereotypical nerdy tech guys and gals.

Namely, this concept that you, the user, are an idiot and will always be an idiot because you just don’t have the superior intellect to keep up with technology.

That being said, every person should use the technology they are most comfortable with. There isn’t and should not be a one size fits all approach to hardware. Every once in a while you will reach a point where your technology of choice has become completely outdated, and it is time to upgrade, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to sit on the cutting edge.

Printers have been a staple of the personal computer rig for a long long time. Before trashing your printer, you should ask yourself, “Will I need this?” If you are in school, or have kids in school, you need a printer. If you are ever going to want to get information off of your computer without writing it yourself, you need a printer.

Maybe you don’t need a big color printer. You can get a laser printer, and keep it turned off and unplugged until you need it.  It won’t draw power, and you can still print when you need to.

Scanners aren’t necessary for everyone, and never have been, but if you use one, you probably have good reason.

Getting rid of your optics drives now is a little on the extreme side. I have a MacBook Air, and love it, but I also have a Mac Pro with a CD/DVD reader/writer because plenty of programs, movies, and music still come on CD and DVD. Maybe in a few years this will make sense, but we aren’t quite there yet. Not everything is completely digital.  Wired is correct about how cheap hard drives are. You should use them to backup your computer in place of CD/DVD backup.

Fax machines, like scanners, are useful to those who use them regularly. Don’t feel bad if you still have one.

Landlines phones are cheaper, and more comfortable to hold. They don’t drop calls, and I will say it again, because it bears repeating, they are cheaper than comparable cell phones plans. They are also much more useful in the event of an emergency at home.

Now that I am thinking about it, the name “Wired” is pretty antiquated. Geeks of their “caliber” should really be completely “Wireless.” Especially since it sounds like they have thrown out everything but their MacBook Airs, and iPhones.