Kind of a yawner.

I'm glad Pittsburgh won, but you really only had to watch two plays...  the 75 yard run and the reverse.  Their biggest runs were by their quarterback and their best throw came from a wide receiver--and they don't even have Kordell Stewart anymore.

All of Seattle's big plays got called back on penalties.

And, not only did most of the commercials really suck, but didn't it seam like have of them were house ads?  I don't think all the spots sold.  Suckiness exceptions were for the streaking lamb during horse football and for the girl tackling.   

PLEASE READ WHY I POSTED THIS VIDEO

On January 14th, I went down to New Orleans with a bunch of other Fordham alumni as part of the school's Global Outreach Program.

We stayed and did most of our work at Project Lazarus. Project Lazarus is a home for people with AIDS in New Orleans.  It was the first residential home in New Orleans to address the need for homeless people living with AIDS.  Unfortunately, none of the residents are back yet, for several reasons:

• Project Lazarus usually puts on one of the most popular Halloween parties in New Orleans as an annual fundraiser.  Typically, they raise about $400,000.  This past year, they obviously couldn't have it.  That money is lost.
• Like many other buildings, they need a new roof.  Total cost: $96,000.  Plus, even if they had the money, its nearly impossible to get a roofer in New Orleans right now.
• 27 of the 30 personal care workers, the mostly minority women who attend to the residents day to day needs like feeding, changing, etc. had their homes completely destroyed. 

Over the next week or so, I'm going to be putting up some more posts about our trip and some videos that I took as well, but first I'd like to share a video about the devastation that still remains there.  While Project Lazarus was lucky enough not to be in an area heavily damaged by the flood, the areas in this video are where many of the homes of the healthcare attendents that worked there were.  I've really never seen anything like it.  Someone said during our trip, "I can't believe this is the United States."  Plus, its really eyeopening to see that its still like that, months later.

As I write these posts, should you be so inclined to help out Project Lazarus, I've added a little tip jar on the sidebar of my blog.  One thing I realized there was that the only way that NOLA gets rebuilt is one house at a time.  Most of the people I spoke to down there didn't see where all of the donations were going from these larger charities, and while I'm sure they will eventually do some good, sometimes, when you can identify an immediate need in a specific area, you can do a lot of good.

All donations will be sent to Project Lazarus to help get the house back in order and get enough funding to open their doors to the AIDS patients that either temporarily or permanently call it home.  This is especially important as at least one of the other similar residences in New Orleans will not be reopening after the hurricane.

If you'd like to give on your own, that's fine, too.  It doesn't need to go through me, of course, but I will be updating the totals each day.  I guess the nice thing about blogging is that a lot of you have been reading long enough, know me, or know enough people who know me that you have  reasonable trust that this isn't a scam.  In addition, they could use gift cards to such places as Home Depot.  They also need refrigerators, kitchenware, bedding, and furniture to replace those items destroyed by water from the roofs.   

Here's their site again.

Ok, so its not really about the Spiritual Exercises, but doing this kind of introspection is certainly very Jesuit-y.  I'm quite sure that's not a word, but then again, neither is truthiness.

I think I'm going to start doing this.  Writing works for me in the same way.

Link: Fabrice Grinda: Musings of an Entrepreneur � The Power of Introspection and Detached Analysis.

"To help me make those decisions – whether in my business life or my personal life - I write myself long, detailed e-mails analyzing where I am, where I want to be, my options and the pros and cons of them.

The very act of writing down the options helps me think through them. I rarely reach the right conclusion while writing the e-mail to myself, but usually find it a few weeks later – sometimes after using the e-mail as a discussion tool with my close friends and trusted advisors."

Virus or hard disk crash?  Die in a hurricane or a terrorist attack?

Does it matter?

I was having a conversation today about the irrationality of fear and how it applies to both the IT world and to the geopolitical scene.

First, the IT side.

How many of you have virus protection versus how many of you have online backup?

Ok, now here's the kicker.  How many of you have actually had a hard disk crash on you versus being the victim of an actual virus?

Many more people have virus protection than have any kind of online backup, but the reality is, you're probably just as, if not more likely to suffer a hard disk crash at some point.  Hard drives fail... they aren't built to last.  Yet, we keep pictures of our family on them, thesis papers, music... all sorts of important stuff.  No backup.  What if it crashes?  I dunno.

So why are we much more afraid of viruses than we are of bad hard drives?  I think its the malicious intention that prey on our fears most.  Bad guys are trying to get at your computer and steal or erase your files. 

Its an easier marketing sell.  Just ask the Bush administration.  (Here's the political part.)  While I may be a fan of fighting terrorism and into the idea of a stable Middle East, I'm not so blind that I can't see a little imbalance in how we spend our money.  Going down to New Orleans opened my eyes to the fact that Hurricane Katrina has killed at least half as many people as 9/11 did, possibly even more (still 3,200 people unaccounted for, many of whom probably got swept into Lake Ponchetrain or are still under the rubble), but we're not spending not nearly the amount of money nor the time and attention we are to preventing hurricane related deaths as we are fighting terrorism. 

That's because there's no enemy to fight.  Hurricanes are an act of God and you can't exactly try to blow up God.  (You can, however, mail him a letter.)  Without any easy answer to point to, to find some other problem to deal with and hope it never quite happens to us.  (That goes for both terrorist attacks and hard drive crashes.)

Its just an interesting paralell, that's all.

So does this make Symantec the Halliburton of the internet?  You might think that's far fetched, but has anyone seen the ThreatCon system on their homepage?

Perhaps my time is better spent backing up my levees...  errr... um...  my hard drive. 

I got scammed.  These puppies aren't real...  here's the scoop. 

At least they're cute, though.

A friend of Kerri's just send her a note about some puppies.  If you're interested, or if you know anyone who would like a free Golden Retriever puppy, contact Mrs. Gaëlle Wenger at gaellewenger (at) hotmail.com.  We really don't want to say what will happen to these little guys if no one takes them...  so just take one, give it a good home, and we don't have to worry about that.

Please use the "e-mail this post to a friend" post and help spread the word.

First came spyware:  programs that hid on your computer recording the things you did without your knowledge to try and spam you with advertising.  We've largely eliminated the spyware problem.

Now, we have "theirware."  Theirware is the sotware that drives the blackbox algorythyms of recommendation engines.  Amazon is probably the best example.  They keep records of what you bought, what you rate, and undoubtedly what you are clicking on and suggest products for you.  Not only do they not allow you to see that data, but you certainly can't take that data to another service.  You can't take the record of all of the Italian cookbooks you bought and use it to hint AdSense that they should be showing you ads about travelling to Tuscany.  That's theirware.  It mostly benefits Amazon alone and leaves you far short of reaching the potential benefit you could gain if you had access to the metadata you created.

Now people are starting to talk about spying on yourself...  Downloading little applications that follow everything you do and create a vault of data that you control.  The philosophy behind it is the right one--that users should be in control of their own data--but there aren't really good applications of having all that data yet.  It might be interesting to see where I click and how I search, but so what?  If I can't use that data somewhere, its a little bit wasted.  Plus, its going to be hard to convince a critical mass of users to start capturing that data, especially if it means downloading something, unless they can do something useful with it.

Here's one potential solution.  We're well underway on the client side app, but there needs to be a web site complement to enable a data for personalization "trade".  Its like a lock and key system.  The key side has all your captured browsing, any demographic data that you want to share, and is tweakable.  You can add and subtract keywords and change your interests depending on the time of day, your IP location, etc. 

The lock side should be offered on any site that could benefit from this kind of data...  Amazon, news portals, even ads.  When you first go into Amazon, there should be a little button to click that says "Unlock MyAmazon".  Clicking it exposes as much or as little of your personal data as you see fit and renders a page that is uniquely taliored to your interests.  So, maybe you're willing to give your news browsing habits to other news sites, but not to eCommerce sites.  Unlike the blackboxes, however, when you take the key out, Amazon loses the data and the page goes back the way it was.

This is good for Amazon because now they get the benefit of data gathered on you from lots of other places, and helps them target you better.  So if you're at Travelocity looking at trips to Italy, they can try to feature books on Tuscany on the front page.  This is like what Tacoda does for advertising, but now we're talking about rerendering the whole site based on your own data.

The consumer benefits because not only do they get a more relevent browsing experience, but they keep your own data.  I'd like to think that this will put an end to having to hand over your email address anytime you want to personalize anything.  Single signon and you can decide which advertisers you want email from and which ones you don't.  For an advertisier, they're  trading off the ability to mass mail you with something irrelevant for the data to give you want you want wheb you're actually on the site.  So, eBay, you can't have my email address, but show me bikes everytime I'm on the site.

Hopefully, each day we're getting closer and closer to balancing tipping the scales of the new media deal.

This doesn't happen enough to make me want to switch phones, but just enough to be annoying.  When I put it back on the cradle a lot of times, it turns the phone off.  Sometimes, if its clipped on to my belt, I'll look down and see that the phone is off, but I'll have no idea why.

Is there a "turn the phone off randomly" setting I'm not aware of?

Now that I've moved into the new place, I've realized I've forgotten something big.

Music.

In my old apartment, my computer was right smack in the middle of the living area, and close enough to the bedroom that I could blast it and it worked fine.

Now my computer is in an office way on the other side of the apartment away from the bedroom.  Plus, its going on 4 1/2 years old and I'm running out of disk space.

So, I think an upgrade is in order and I'm reaching out for some advice.  I'm willing to go pretty geeky here, especially if it means getting something on the cheap and learning something in the process.

Here's what I want:

I want something fast, with a ton of storage, that I can capture video on and play music.  The music needs to be streamed into 3-4 rooms, but I'd like to be able to choose which rooms.  So, if I'm cooking, no need for it to be on in the bedroom.  I don't need two different streams in two different rooms.  This isn't Webster Hall.

So, advice on a PC (minus a screen... I have a flat screen already) and a wireless speaker setup, as well as a good TV capture card...   Anyone either have ideas, sites to go to, or advice on how to approach my search?

Again...  let me reiterate that I don't want to/can't speak 10K on this.  We're looking to do this on the cheap.

ooops...   Somehow when I did the new format, I forgot to put my Feedblitz box back.  So, now, if you type in your e-mail address on the right, you can get this e-mailed to you.  This is good for people who aren't into RSS and my dad. 

Joshua from del.icio.us often says that lots of people are good at coming up with more ideas but very few people are good with less.  Less ideas?  Yes...   Narrowing down your service to its most basic features and elements.  Getting rid of the chafe.

When I wrote papers in college, I tended to be a bit wordy.  (I know, I know... right?   Me, wordy?)  I'd write a paper and then my first edit was to just cut the word count by 20% and say the same thing.  I'd go sentence by sentence replacing four words with three, just to squeeze under the target count.  It made my writing so much better, though.  More words don't always get your point across better.

With web services, more clicks and even sometimes more features, can confuse the hell out of a user.  When you develop a service, how about trying the following exercise:

1. List all of the ideas for functions of your service.
2. Rank them in terms of value to the user.
3. Kill off the most useless 20% of the features.
4. Take the remaining 80% and map how many clicks it takes for someone to actually complete them.
5. Even with the most simple, try and kill off 20% of the clicks... or if its really simple to begin with, just shave a click off of everything.

Seems that I missed some people at the NYSIA Web 2.0 meeting last Monday.  Fred mentioned that a couple of people, including a Fordham grad, asked for me.  Funny enough, I also cracked 600 today on my RSS subs.  I feel like my recent Chuck Norris association is really driving some of this popularity.  Blogging Chuck Norris=popularity.

Anyway, if anyone is going to be at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit, look me up.  I'll be the bald guy with the tablet.

If Yahoo doesn't want to be #1 in search, and they buy Digg after buying Delicious, what, then, do they want to be?

Have you been wondering about the tabs that appeared recently on my banner at the top--especially the peculiar "Pimp My Web" tab?  Well, wonder no more, because the Pimp My Web section of this blog is now functional, at least in Beta, anyway.  (We've wondered at Union Square Ventures why anyone would ever remove the "Beta" tag from a product.  Why would you ever say anything is done?  There's always room for improvement.  Shouldn't you always be working on something to make it better and soliciting audience feedback?)

The point of Pimp My Web is simple.  I'll be posting screencasts here on how to get the most out of your online experience... mostly for more novice users.  It will be the kind of site you e-mail to your mom to show her how to set up del.icio.us or maybe to view yourself before you set up del.icio.us on your girlfriend's computer and make her think you're smarter than you really are.  Starting a new blog?  Send folks here so they can learn how to use your RSS feed in Lesson One. 

These screencasts are just a start.  Two other things I use are the universal IM client, Trillian, and Linkedin.  Got other suggestions for future screencasts?  How about podcasting?  Drop a comment and let me know what every webhead needs to know at a minimum.

Losing 17-11 to the STV Scrappers wasn't exactly the way the Fordham Young Alumni softball team wanted to open their season, but the guys and gals in maroon made enough of a showing to give fans something to look forward to this season.

Crafty pitching from Brian "Strikes" Cuthbert (FCLC '01) and solid defense kept Fordham in the game through the first three frames.  Alexis "The Cannon" Kramer (FCRH '01) led the glovework, getting four of the team's first six outs in the field, including an unassisted double play in the second.  The outfield of Jason "Wheels" Giannitti (FCRH '02), Kevin "I'm not a small" Rodricks (FCRH '99, GSAS '04) and Larry "Young at Heart" Porco (GSAS '80) turned in some key plays to keep things close.  STV lead after three 3-0.

David "I live on the same block as Charlie" Murphy (FCRH '04) finally put Fordham on the board with a bases loaded two run single, scoring Christine "Nickname to be named later" Schildknecht (CBA '99) and Giannitti.  Charlie "Its my blog, so I make the nicknames" O'Donnell (CBA '01) singled home another run to knot it at three. Kramer than followed with a laser over the left fielder for a two run homer that put Fordham ahead 5-3.

After STV got one back, Fordham tacked on even more runs in the next frame.   The team had eight consecutive hits in the fifth, plating six more runs.  Fordham's females set things up in the inning with Christine "Christine" Guerrero (FCRH '99), Sofia "Steamroller" Won (CBA '03), and Schildknecht all reaching base and scoring.  Jim "The Wright Stuff" Gallagher (CBA '99) drove in a run with his second hit and also scored a run.  Murphy, O'Donnell, and Cuthbert all took part in the barrage, each hitting run scoring singles. 

All the hitting seemed to wear down the Fordham team, though, as the wheels came off the train in the sixth and seventh.  Despite flashy glovework from Nicole "Full Coverage"* Horsford (FCRH '99) at first, the defense didn't keep up, leaving opportunities open for STV to climb back and take a sizable lead with some timely hitting.  When it was finally over, STV would score five in the six and a painful eight in the seventh--13 unanswered runs.  Still, Fordham left the field in good spirits, looking forward to its April 21st practice and next game on Friday the 29th. 

All Fordham alumni are welcome to join us at our practice and afterwards at our regular "Third Thursday" Happy Hour.  T. G. Whitney's on 53rd between 2nd and 3rd.  Practice first, drink after.  Players will be signing autographs at the bar.

* See, the "Full Coverage" nickname is funny only if you know that Nicole works for HIP, the health plan.  She works for a health plan and she plays a great first base.  Clever, no?

AOL trying to make a social network out of AIM reminds me of when the A-Team used to make tanks out of junkyard parts at the end of every episode...it might look messy at first, but whatever they build, it just might work. 

All the pieces are definitely there... more AIM users than people tied to any particular social network.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Link: AOL: MySpace Invader.

...  Or at least let me CTRL+D or something.   

Link: Official Google Blog: It's in the mail....

Google replaced the "trash" like in their Gmail drop down with a delete button.  Fine for people who like buttons, but I was used to the drop down and now I keep going to it and finding nothing.  Its very frustrating.

I saw 24 Hours on Craigslist last night and it was pretty damn funny.

I was surprised the theater wasn't packed, given that is the 18th most popular site on the web.  Perhaps if they had put a Craiglist ad up, more people would have showed. 

Basically, they took something like 80 ads from one single day and filmed the stories around them...  everything from crossdressing rockers to moms selling strollers.  Some of the people score really high on the Unintentional Comedy Scale. 

Having met Craig Newmark in person, it was especially hilarious to hear people's comments on whether there even really is a Craig and what he's like. 

The thing is, Craigslist is really a reflection of ourselves in a lot of ways, and so I feel like I learned a few things in this movie:

1. No matter how creepy you are, there's always someone creepier out there.
2. There is a really thin line between hilarious and creepy.
3. There's no fat end of the curve...   In the end, its all long tail.
4. Its unclear whether anonymity breeds more or less honesty.
5. Free is good.  People love free.
6. Homemade cookies are the universal currency.  If someone has 50 pairs of surplus women's army pants, you can trade a bag of homemade cookies for them.
7. Flash mobs are cool... NYC should have some of them.