YakShaving

• Technology Review: How Digg Combats Cheaters
  (tags: digg)

…Just to allay any fears out there for potential employers, and, apparently my Intro to Design 2 instructor might have. The reason its called YakShaving is posted on the about section to the right.
Great. Now my site is going to show up when people Google “animal husbandry”. Dang-it.

• WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Tools for Understanding Poverty
  (tags: charity economics poverty)
• User experience design resources (Dey Alexander Consulting)
  (tags: user-centered design ID experience)

• Note Taking Application Faceoff at The Apple Blog
  (tags: software OSX apple notetaking)

It’s nice to put things into perspective sometimes, as this NY times article did for me last week.
The war on terror has been estimated to cost the United States $1.2 million.  Just kidding.  It’s $1.2 billion.   Nope, gotcha again.  $1.2 trillion.  Right.   Its kind of hard to even fathom, huh?

I’m not going to turn this post (or blog) into a partisan, right-wing-hawk-bashing, and I’m not going to say “I told you so”.  It’s common sense that war is unnecessary and valueless, and its reckless to assume that the executive branch of our government should be able to unjustifiably send people to fight without congressional support.  But let’s leave that issue aside for now.

Let’s talk about what we could be doing with $1.2 trillion.

This is what it would cost a year to provide to the world:

source
The NY times article also has some compelling visualizations so you can understand the scale of the problem.  $1.2 Trillion dollars is not a joke.

Dang. That was easier than I thought. Everything works, now I just have to spruce up the place a little bit. It’s a little bit like moving, when you change blog management systems. Once you come to the new one, you just have to make sure that everything is clean and in order.. and you need to paint the place. I’m still working on perfecting the template… But for now, you can read all the old YakShaving content (if you had any desire to do such thing).

I’ve used WP before, and I’ve even suggested it to other people who’ve asked what blog software they should use. I had no idea that WP was so much better than MT or I would have got on this much sooner. Clean user interface, much more responsive, and the user community looks like it pumps out more useful plugins.

There are some comments missing, I realize.. I’m sorry, but I went on a mass SPAM comment deletion rampage… and I might have inadvertently got rid of some legitimate comments.  But now, it should be better.  A lot better.
Please remember to update your feedreaders!  (Sorry, I tried to keep the same feed address, but realize its just too much of a pain to switch now.

• Green.view | Dr Strangelove saves the earth | Economist.com

• (tags: green environment technology)
• WordPress: The Complete Post-Install Checklist – Download Squad
  (tags: wordpress howto blog)

My little brother announced that he might have an interest in starting a blog.  Not a random pre-teen myspace page or anything (i’d lynch him if he did any such thing)… but he really likes writing.   So he did the research and he says he wants to start a wordpress blog.

Only one problem.  I use Movable Type.   And, my host only allows one mysql host (doat)… and call me a purist, but I don’t want to clog up the one database with more than one CMS running with the same database.

I gave it some more thought, and I decided… MT’s gotta go.   Its not like I am married to this template (I didn’t even spend much time putting this template together.

So, over the next month or so, I should be swithcing to WordPress altogether and importing all my content from MT.   I think it should be pretty easy, there’s plenty of documentation out there.   The only thing I think  might be a little annoying is moving all my stuff over from the Media Manager plugin on MT to some comparable WP plugin.   Which I’m sure I’ll end up finding a shortcut for.

Sorry MT… but your time has come.    You’ve been a good friend… except for the random rebuild errors… and the lack of a BUILT IN wysiwyg editor…. and the SPAM blocking….. OK maybe you weren’t that great after all, but you served me well, daggone-it. 

I’m working on the new look of YakShaving now, complete with a dancing Jesus animated gif.  Well, maybe not that. 

• India: Emerging as Eastern or Western Power?
  (tags: global india research)

As most of my friends know, I don’t watch television. It’s not that I’m trying to be pretentious, but its because most of the stuff on the TV makes me flaccid with rage.

When I occassionally hit the gym for a quick workout, I am unfortunately exposed, unknowingly to the depths of the pop culture underworld, grappling to find meaning in the vile detritus that makes up contemporary media.

Today, some pubescent girl next to me was on the elliptical, happily bouncing up and down watching a show called "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV. Its a show about the myspace generation and their wild coming-of-age parties… what the parents are thinking to throw their kids these sorts of parties, I have no conception.  
My initial reaction to the show was OMGWTF.   My second response to the show was OMGWTF, No wonder the United States is losing whatever superiority it ever had in producing a workforce capable of competing globally.   Lou Dobbs, shut up about outsourcing already, and open your eyes to what is shaping our nation’s youth.  Companies are going to go where the talent is.. and our MTV culture is NOT even making the slightest attempt at trying to solve the problem.

Though I’m not a raging "WorldIsFlat-ist"– I have a fair number of contentions with Friedman’s hypotheses — I did like one quote from his book…. "In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears.   In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears." 

C’mon Hollywood.   Is it REALLY THAT difficult to make shows that enrich humanity, to inspire our teens to boldly endeavor to solve contemporary social ills?  It’s not as if we’re lacking problems to solve, there are plenty going around.   Don’t talk to me about the Discovery Channel or the History Channel or TLC… There hasn’t been a single time I’ve walked into the gym and any of those channels have been on.   People have an aversion to learning or enriching their lives, and its because school has taught them that learning is boring.   What if tomorrow, MTV were to undertake a bold new campaign to make their shows more meaningful? 

I can hardly imagine what it must have been a child growing up during Kennedy’s time- when he expressed his enthusiasm for putting a man on the moon.   His speech inspired decades of creativity, imagination, and made people work toward something.  Even those who weren’t somehow involved in the space race were affected positively.  They didn’t have shows like "My super sweet 16" back then.

::Sigh::  Alright, my rant is done, for now.