GracefulFlavor

Once you start, you can’t stop, because the goddamn thing eventually sends so many bugs at you that you begin to go insane and you just have to keep trying to protect your base and Jesus Christ there are a lot of bugs and why did you use your smart bomb and supersize so friggin’ early?

Bug Battle Combat

I’m going to Boyne Mountain for my company’s annual meeting, which means it will be quiet around here until Sunday. I suggest you take this time and think about what you’ve done. Think about life, think about what you want to be when you grow up, think about the greatest challenges facing mankind in today’s world. Think about how volatile our sun really could me, and maybe send it an email for being kind enough not to explode while we’re running around like idiots trying to buy big houses.

Think about chocolate and its newfound superfood stardom. Wonder aloud to a passing stranger about why you’ve never tried raw milk. Marvel at the various shapes of people’s fingernails. Argue with someone about how speech recognition for data entry is nowhere near being ready to replace keyboarding for mainstream use.

Also, think about what night smells like. Take a few moments and look longingly at a book that you want to read, if it weren’t for your goddamn ADD. Realize that in 95% of American households, air quality inside the house is anywhere from 5x to 100x more polluted than outside. That’s why they open the windows as wide as possible in some countries (Ireland, I’m looking at you) for an hour a day, regardless of weather.

Ask yourself this question: would you rather someone took away your TV for good, or your computer with its internet connection? One has to go forever: you choose.

Finally, go outside at night and look up into the stars when the sky is clear. Stare at the stars for at least five minutes. Marvel at the endless galaxies winking back at you, and ask your son or daughter if there might be someone way out there, looking up into his sky, wondering if you’re looking at him.

Feel small, but in a very good way. That’s it. That’s being connected. Enjoy that feeling, because that’s being alive and human.

Now go inside, you nut. You can’t just stand there in the dark staring at the sky with your kid. Someone’s gonna call the cops. What’s the matter with you?

See you Sunday.

Mike Jeffries, the 61-year old CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, sells youth, sex and casual flawlessness:

Mike Jeffries, the 61-year-old CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, says “dude” a lot. He’ll say, “What a cool idea, dude,” or, when the jeans on a store’s mannequin are too thin in the calves, “Let’s make this dude look more like a dude,” or, when I ask him why he dyes his hair blond, “Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.”

This fall, on my second day at Abercrombie & Fitch’s 300-acre headquarters in the Ohio woods, Jeffries — sporting torn Abercrombie jeans, a blue Abercrombie muscle polo, and Abercrombie flip-flops — stood behind me in the cafeteria line and said, “You’re looking really A&F today, dude.” (An enormous steel-clad barn with laminated wood accents, the cafeteria feels like an Olympic Village dining hall in the Swiss Alps.) I didn’t have the heart to tell Jeffries that I was actually wearing American Eagle jeans. To Jeffries, the “A&F guy” is the best of what America has to offer: He’s cool, he’s beautiful, he’s funny, he’s masculine, he’s optimistic, and he’s certainly not “cynical” or “moody,” two traits he finds wholly unattractive.

Jeffries’ endorsement of my look was a step up from the previous day, when I made the mistake of dressing my age (30). I arrived in a dress shirt, khakis and dress shoes, prompting A&F spokesman Tom Lennox — at 39, he’s a virtual senior citizen among Jeffries’ youthful workforce — to look concerned and offer me a pair of flip-flops. Just about everyone at A&F headquarters wears flip-flops, torn Abercrombie jeans, and either a polo shirt or a sweater from Abercrombie or Hollister, Jeffries’ brand aimed at high school students.

When I first arrived on “campus,” as many A&F employees refer to it, I felt as if I had stepped into a pleasantly parallel universe. The idyllic compound took two years and $131 million to complete, and it was designed so nothing of the outside world can be seen or heard. Jeffries has banished the “cynicism” of the real world in favor of a cultlike immersion in his brand identity. The complex does feel like a kind of college campus, albeit one with a soundtrack you can’t turn off. Dance music plays constantly in each of the airy, tin-roofed buildings, and when I entered the spacious front lobby, where a wooden canoe hangs from the ceiling, two attractive young men in Abercrombie polo shirts and torn Abercrombie jeans sat at the welcome desk, one checking his Friendster.com messages while the other swayed subtly to the Pet Shop Boys song “If Looks Could Kill.”

If looks could kill, everyone here would be dead. Jeffries’ employees are young, painfully attractive, and exceedingly eager, and they travel around the campus on playground scooters, stopping occasionally to chill out by the bonfire that burns most days in a pit at the center of campus. The outdoorsy, summer-camp feel of the place is accentuated by a treehouse conference room, barnlike building and sheds with gridded windows, and a plethora of wooden decks and porches. But the campus also feels oddly urban — and, at times, stark and unwelcoming. The pallid, neo-industrial two-story buildings are built around a winding cement road, reminding employees that this is a workplace, after all.

Link: Salon

[Via Cyn-C]

As some of you might know, I am in charge of marketing and brand development for a consulting company. I’m doing lots of things to incorporate modern marketing into the traditional marketing mix, and one of these things is Twitter. (Yes, a blog is coming too. Soon.) Twitter has been recognized by Daniel Jalkut, Steve Rubel, TIME magazine and the NYTimes as one of the fastest-growing networking/microblogging phenomena on the internet, and for a company like mine whose services are so reliant upon human interaction, a communications tool like Twitter makes perfect sense.

Assuming you like what you read here at GF, I encourage you to follow my employer’s tweets. I am the sole author of these tweets, so again, assuming you find me at least somewhat entertaining/informative, you will probably like the Twitter stream I create for my employer. I don’t normally ask for things like this, but I figure I need to get the word out as quickly as I can, so I hope you’ll forgive this tiny sales pitch.

My employer’s Twitter stream can be found right here (equally sexy RSS feed here). Follow me if you so choose. If you don’t, you’ll probably miss out on buckets of timeless wisdom. Can you afford to miss such buckets? I bet you can’t.

Thanks. I shall close with the following picture. First one to comment on where it’s from (no Googling, you cheaters), wins a mention in my brand new Twitter feed. It’s not quite the Lotto, but it’s close.

Talking Points Memo:

Nader’s friends, if he has any left, should publicly and pointedly beseech him not to run. But the media should ignore him consistently and firmly. He has no measurable support. He has no credibility on issues. He does not deserve to be on Meet the Press; he does not deserve press coverage of any kind. Only if and when polls show he has a few percent of support might he plausibly deserve mention. But the Washington Post is off on the wrong foot by giving him press coverage: that is what he wants, in his never-ending ego trip, and what he needs to campaign across the country and win voters in order to deserve.

There is some debate as to whether or not this is a digitally altered video, but from my extensive research (watching it over and over while drinking white tea), I can safely say that it may, in fact, be fake. Then again, it may not.

So, that said, the stuff depicted here is nearly superhuman. Or fake. You decide.

Following episodes 1-6 of this hilarious series, I hereby present you #7 (Patch Tool and Levels). In this one, Donny tries to hot-up a viewer’s FaceBook pic.

Ralph Nader has announced to NBC’s Meet the Press that he will run on the independent ticket in the 2008 Presidential race.

Translated: somebody needs him in the race to siphon votes away from the Dems.

Then again, anyone who turns away from a viable candidate to vote for this guy deserves to throw his vote away. This should be flagged as an IQ test.

Link (BBC News)

Hillary Clinton decides to go negative after all and condescendingly mocks Barack Obama’s hope message during her campaign rally in Providence, Rhode Island. I take this as a sign that her campaign wheels are falling off, because it’s almost common knowledge that going negative in such a dramatic fashion will only hurt her cause.

The bigger person typically wins in the end, especially when judged by a population who’s had their fair share of negativity when it comes to politics. I think tolerances are low for this kind of thing. Aside from a few screaming loons in the audience, I don’t understand where she thinks her support will come from as a result of this.

Link (Huffington Post)

[Via Sean]

If you’re up for some nice, quiet, hyperbolic reading about how global warming not only exists but will plunge the world into a nuclear war-torn, anarchist planet teetering on the brink of complete collapse, well, here you go. The UK’s Guardian newspaper claims there is a report issued by a Pentagon defense advisor that claims global warming is a bigger threat to the world than terrorism. The report, heretofore suppressed by US defense chiefs under the Bush administration, says:

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’ concludes the Pentagon analysis. ‘Once again, warfare would define human life.’

Scary? Of course it is. That’s how things were back in 2004, when this article was written. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to see the extremes to which this topic has traveled since its mainstream introduction.

Link: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

Incredible optical illusion that fools your mind into seeing a grayscale photograph in full color.

Link

[Via DF]

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. — Arthur Schopenhauer

When I left my old job, a fairly close colleague of mine was struggling with cancer. His name is Tom.

Tom had a brutal situation, if I recall the details correctly: they found it in his lungs, his stomach, his brain stem. It had metastasized everywhere, which, oncologically speaking, is as bad a diagnosis as there is. More often than not, that sort of penetration and spread translates to simply a matter of time.

I found out today that Tom isn’t doing so well. In fact, Tom is in the hospital after fighting his affliction for months on end, and the chances of him leaving the place alive are incredibly poor.

Tom is only in his late 40s. He is happily married to a wife who loves him and has two children who consider him a hero.

I remember the last conversation I had with Tom, and even then he wasn’t doing well. The chemo was taking a massive toll on him: he had dropped a ghastly amount of weight and was strikingly pallid and thin-haired. To any casual observer, Tom didn’t have long.

I’m angry at myself now because I realized as I was talking to him that day that it may well be my last real discussion with him. Instead of doing something sincere and gracious, I just carried out my conversation with him, reluctantly joining him in his thin hopes and sanity-defending denials that everything was going to be alright.

At that time, Tom was still showing up for work. I never understood that, but I also didn’t pretend that I knew what one day in his shoes felt like. I suspect he kept coming in to feel like he still had utility; to quit his daily routine was to tacitly concede his life to his captor.

During that conversation, I talked to Tom about small stuff: whether I would give him a ride to work if he was too weak to drive himself (sure), what the status of my product line’s requirements was (who cares?), and a few other things I can’t quite remember. What I do remember is how he stayed there with me for 45 minutes, just shooting the breeze, laughing easily and having almost a Zen-like peace about him.

I drove home that night thinking how I had a chance to reach out, to create a memorable moment, to do something special. I didn’t, and I had failed.

Looking back, I think my reaction was arrogant and presumptuous. There Tom was, sitting with me at my desk, laughing with me and making jokes as if we were sitting in a bar over a beer or two. He was at ease, he was mindful, he was present. He was real.

Who am I to try to define what he would have considered special on my terms? It was the same logical hitch that bewildered me when I couldn’t understand why on Earth he would still come into the office. Who am I to presume what would be best for him when life was looking at him down the barrel of a gun?

Tonight, as I write this, I still feel the need to say something to him, to reach out, to let him know I’m thinking of him. Chances are he’ll never read this, nor will his family.

I hope Tom fares well, but I fear this is fate collecting its due. But whatever happens, I can say that have never seen more grace and humanity under fire than what Tom showed me. I’ll never, ever forget that, so in that sense Tom gave me a gift I couldn’t get anywhere else.

A man is facing death, and he still finds a way to give. That’s a lesson. Everything’s a lesson. You just have to be awake.

Whenever I feel my personal struggles are the weight of the world, I think of Tom. I think of the strength and calmness and courage he radiated. Sure, he probably had amazingly difficult days and moments of profound weakness, but I will always remember him for that which I don’t know if I could ever be: a man facing his own mortality with acceptance, humility and wisdom.

I’m thinking about you and your family, Tom. Whatever you do and wherever you find yourself, good luck and godspeed.

Hop on over to GOP.gov and you get to watch this super fun video about how America is at risk and at Defcon 4 or something because the horrible House Democrats have allowed the Protect America Act to expire and Jack Bauer is on vacation in St. Lucia and we could be so very screwed but maybe not because there are rapidly-changing LED numbers blipping atop the video and everyone knows that means there’s cool computer stuff going on, and computers can be awesome. But also scary.

I don’t advocate reducing security measures in today’s climate, but I am not on board with invasions of privacy in the name of security. Eventually, the logic that privacy and security aren’t synonymous will sink in.

[Via Wonkette]

I’ll be very clear: most political satire videos suck (did you see me post the many rip-offs of Obama’s Yes We Can video? No you did not.), but then again, most political satire videos don’t feature a reasonably amazing brunette riding stuffed dinosaurs.

The Onion: We Must All Do Our Part to Preserve This Climate of Fear:

We must all do whatever we can to preserve America by refocusing our priorities back on the contemplation of lethal threats—invisible nightmarish forces plotting to destroy us in a number of horrific ways. It is only through the vigilance and determination of every patriot that we can maintain the sense of total dread vital to the prolonged existence of a thriving, quivering America.

Our country deserves no less than every citizen living in apprehension.

Fear has always made America strong. Were we ever more determined than during the Yellow Scare? When every Christian gentleman lived in mortal terror of his daughter being doped up on opium and raped by pagan, mustachioed Chinamen? What about the Red Scare, when citizens from all walks of life showed their pride by turning in their friends and associates to rabid anticommunists? Has America ever been more resolute?

This is two things: all too true, and great satire. Not necessarily in that order.

In preparation for Vista’s first service pack (SP1) Microsoft has started to ship a prerequisite ‘helper’ program that will enable SP1 to install and configure properly when it becomes available to the general population.

The bad news is that the helper program isn’t very helpful at all.

One irate Windows Vista Ultimate user replied to White’s blog post, saying the prerequisite had corrupted a PC and resulted in the need to reformat the hard drive, with the resulting loss of all of the files and programs.

Microsoft has stopped the helper program’s automatic distribution until it can figure out how on earth it’s actually making Vista worse than it already is.

The good news is that this sort of catastrophic failure is only affecting ‘a small number’ of customers in ‘unique circumstances.’

That sort of detail should make you feel just fine and perfectly safe. You’re probably not at risk at all, depending on pure dumb luck and what your computer configuration happens to looks like.

The irony from all of this is that Vista Ultimate, the top-end SKU, costs $400, and Mac OSX Leopard $129. You’ve got to love that.

In the February 19th primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Barack Obama won his 9th and tenth straight contests, while John “Walnuts” McCain widened his lead over the insanely weak GOP field.

The writing on the wall is certainly getting clearer.  The only thing uncertain at this point is what high-level management figure from Camp Hillary will depart in a huff and which big-name Hillary supporter decides he can’t deal with her pantsuits anymore and switches to Team Barry Obama.

Finally, with weakening holy powers and the majority of America not quite ready to absorb Huckabee’s theocratic, Constitution-changing message, I expect the good minister to pack it up and go home, despite his tendency to vaguely resemble Kevin Spacey when photographed from certain angles.

It’s little things like this that make me realize how much the iPhone will kick ass when the SDK is released.

A few days ago, I posted a link to a NYTimes article that discusses our growing hostility towards knowledge and its value in our culture.  The star of that article is Ms. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason and a vehement protestor of the toxic mix of anti-intellectualism (the general decline of knowledge) and anti-rationalism (the meme that suggests that knowing isn’t that important in the first place).

For the Washington Post, Ms. Jacoby pens another fantastic article on this same topic, this one more stern than its NYTimes sibling.

Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans’ rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.

I happen to agree with Jacoby across the board, and I’m only 38.  I think about what my 3.5 year old son will have to deal with as he enters adulthood, and it’s terrifying.  If today’s sound bites are down from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to just 7.8 seconds today due to our disheveled attention spans, what will information look like when he’s 20?  1.7 second clips?  At what point do ‘information’ wavelengths become so short that they have zero efficacy?

(Are we there already?)

As horrible a movie as Idiocracy was, I seriously wonder if that’s the general direction in which we’re headed.

The video below is about 20 minutes long. It’s a single man on stage by the name of Ben Dunlap, who tells the story of Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian man he met at Wofford College. Dunlap narrates Teszler’s life story with an intense energy and passion, and it’s clear to anyone watching Dunlap that what he’s talking about is rooted at the very core of his being. The message is simple: the gift of life is lifelong learning and endless curiosity, which, in turn, enable us to rise past any adversity that faces us.

I won’t ruin the whole story for you, as it’s masterfully told. With no slides, props or notes, Dunlap captivates in a way I’ve never seen anyone do.

I will say this: this may be the best speech I’ve ever seen given. Ever. And it’s the best TED talk I’ve ever seen — which, if you’re familiar with TED, is astonishingly high praise.

I think every single person on earth should hear this message.

There are lots of videos I’ve posted to GF, but none so special that I thought I would be doing a disservice by not sharing it.

Until this one.

[Thx Sean]

First Chris Pirillo broke up with Vista and reverted to Windows XP. Given Pirillo is a longtime Windows advocate, that wasn’t exactly a positive omen for Microsoft’s flagship OS.

Now Pirillo has all but switched entirely (he claims he hasn’t, but his bent is certainly evident) to Mac OSX, and he even has gone so far as to list his top 50 reasons to make the switch.

(He even challenges the Windows diehards among us to come up with their own list of why one should switch to Windows from the Mac. That’s what we can an unenviable task down in the ‘hood.)

Pirillo’s first reason is something I’ve noticed some time ago, and I think it’s a dangerous thing for MS to let bubble into the conscience of the general geek population. Or, more accurately, to bubble any further into the conscience; the trend has already begun.

Seems that the future of Windows development is happening largely for corporate environments and customers. I don’t take issue with this other than being someone who doesn’t live or work inside a corporate environment at home.

Indeed: since when do corporate wonks who need ‘legacy application support’ more than anything set the bar for innovation and consumer trends?

Since never, unless you count really strong WebEx support as hot innovation.

You can slice and dice stats to your liking, but it’s undeniable that there is a Mac movement afoot that’s stronger than anyone could have reasonably anticipated. It’s an amazing thing for the platform.

A ‘best of’ video clip collection from a site whose primary purpose in life is to collect snippets of video of people saying their personal goodbyes to our commander-in-chief.

(I’m secretly pissed that I didn’t come up with this idea myself.)

Best quote: “Thumbs down for you, guy.”

Video montage: Farewell Mr. President

Shawn Blanc interviews John Gruber, who has been one of my biggest blogging inspirations since the day I started. Without A-listers like him, GF may not exist today. Very much worth reading if you care about America or puppies.

John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd

Just after I post this I stumble across its personification in the purest form possible.  Proof positive that the universe talks if you’re willing to listen.

Warning: Faith in humanity may be diminished after viewing.  Not intended for all audiences.  Viewers with IQs under 100 may fail to recognize the humor.

Wheel of Fortune Fail

[Via Cyn-C]

If you have been following the ridiculous FISA gyrations and mechanized behavior of the Republicans when it comes to retroactive immunity for the phone companies, no doubt you have, like me, shaken your head in anger and wondered how we’ve stooped to such a base level in our land’s highest office.

The entire flimsy, shameless veil of “stopping the terrorists” by listening to our phone calls and analyzing our online behavior is as implausible and idiotic and insulting to our intelligence as suggesting that the terrorists are winning because the government doesn’t have unrestricted access to our bank accounts.

Honestly, it’s news and stories like this that make me want to turn off the TV, because I just can’t avoid getting angry at the state of our leadership today. And maybe it’s exactly because I turn off my TV most nights that I missed Keith Olbermann absolutely condemning the stupidity inherent in the most recent walkout by the Republicans regarding this issue.

Olbermann is hit-or-miss for me, but here, he’s an unqualified hit.

Paul Craig Roberts has been around, and he’s what I’d call a classic Republican. A former Reaganite, he wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during Reagan’s administration. He was the Associate Editor of the WSJ editorial page, and he’s the author of several books, most notably The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press) and The Tyranny of Good Intentions (of which he’s a co-author).

I’ll make one thing clear before passing you to his most recent editorial: I’m no fan of this current administration. I used to call myself a conservative, but looking back, I align with the ideologies of the Reagan administration, whereas I don’t align at all with GWB and his lieutenants. In fact, I think GWB will be remembered as perhaps the worst president this country has ever suffered. I am ashamed I voted for him. Twice.

Yes, you read that right.

Today, I’d call myself an independent/moderate with perhaps a tick to the right. Maybe no tick at all.

Anyway.

Roberts’ latest op-ed piece, entitled War Without End: Bush Calls on France for Help, is scathing. Not just a little scathing, but flat-out brutal with respect to not only GWB’s incompetence, but also the state of conservatism today.

A teaser:

What a laughing stock Bush has made of America. What ruination this utter idiot and his supporters have brought to America. What total traitors the neoconservatives are. Every last one of them should be immediately arrested for high treason. Neoconservatives are America’s greatest enemies, and they control our government! All Americans have to show for six years of Bush’s “war on terror” is an incipient police state.

Now standing in the wings is mad John “hundred year war” McCain. Will the American electorate wipe out the Republican Party before this insane party wipes out America?

Very much worth the read.

Link

For anyone who’s picked up on the subtle trend that what used to be knowledge really isn’t anymore, and that what matters is everyone’s personal freedom to interpret facts and information according to whatever framework they please, this article is for you.

But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.

NYT: Dumb and Dumber