February Break, 2012

Skiing is so classic rock sometimes.

We recently went skiing at China Peak over February break, located just east of Fresno, CA. The ski area actually sits at a pretty high elevation above California’s central valley and it’s a bit weird how quickly you move from orange tree orchards to ski slopes within a matter of an hour and a half. Upon our arrival we were greeted by sunny skies and a bit of fresh snow for our kid’s first real skiing experience. A lot of the time was spent hanging out at the lodge, eating lunch and snacks, and people watching. We were also greeted by the requisite feel-good classic rock that is piped through the sound systems of so many ski areas. Think Foreigner and ELO. Pink Floyd and Steely Dan.

As I mentioned, it was our first time getting the kids up on skis so we decided to enlist the help of some instructors. There was a pretty good-sized group of young kids ready and waiting to get going by the time the instructors showed up. The kids practiced making french fries (skis straight ahead and parallel) and pizza (skis in snowplow formation). They also practiced walking around like penguins with their skis on. After a bit of instruction they all got a chance to practice coasting down a gentle hill with the instructors. As you can see in the first part of the video, the instructors would ski backward while adjusting the speed and direction of their students. After an hour or so of that Sonja was chomping at the bit to move on to a more challenging hill. We went over to the bunny slope and she had a fantastic time cruising down the slope. We also went tubing the next day.

P.S. This is my first real video production and I want to get good at it so let me know what you think. All constructive criticism is appreciated.

Free Soloing Half Dome: A Must Watch

Alex Honnold. This guy seriously blows me away. I saw some footage of him free soloing Half Dome a couple of years ago at the Banff Film festival. His climbing had me on the edge of my seat during the entire video sequence. Hands sweating the whole time. No joke.

Every once in while I find myself thinking about how incredible his climbing is. If you haven’t seen any footage of Alex you might want to take the time to watch this video. If your hands aren’t sweating by the end of it then you’re not paying close enough attention.

 

 

Facebook – It’s Complicated

“The Ruler of the Universe is a man living in a small shack on a world that can only be reached with a key to an unprobability field or use of an Infinite Improbability Drive. He does not want to rule the universe and tries not to whenever possible, and therefore is by far the ideal candidate for the job. He has an odd, solipsistic view of reality: he lives alone with his cat, which he has named ‘The Lord’ even though he is not certain of its existence. He has a very dim view of the past, and he only believes in what he senses with his eyes and ears (and doesn’t seem too certain of that, either): anything else is hearsay…”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I was at REI the other day getting some shoes for Jonas when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of my students participating in a Wahine Surf Club in REI’s conference room. Interested, I went over and talked to the coordinator who told me that she has been leading this club for some time now, encouraging girls from ages 7-17 to participate in ocean-based sports and conservation efforts. Thinking of Sonja who is now six years old, an avid swimmer, and ocean lover, I asked as to how I might sign her up if she wanted to participate. The leader of the program told me that the easiest way to get in touch with her would be to subscribe to her Facebook page. I refrained from telling her that I had deleted my Facebook page months ago and nodded my headed slowly. “Ooo-Kay”, I said.

I don’t know what it was about that interaction but while cooking up some pasta for the kids the next night, I jumped onto my phone and signed up for a Facebook account – for the second time. I can’t exactly tell you why I did it. It was almost an unconscious action. What I can tell you is that I had been feeling a bit bummed that since deleting my account I had lost touch with a good friend of mine, someone whose friendship I want to maintain. Minutes later, I was following the confirmation link I had been sent to Facebook central.

Some things have changed since I deleted my account: The page layout has been modified. Facebook Timeline has been implemented. There seem to be more ads.

Some things haven’t changed: Jimmy is still posting pictures of his cats and inciting political rants from his fan base. Mike is still posting pictures of his travels (and making people envious to boot). Thomas hasn’t posted anything new for months (forever the lurker).

But I’ve realized over the past day or two since having rejoined FB that I had missed out on some cool things. Don’t get me wrong, there are “algunas cosas” that I still really dislike about Facebook. I continue to think that the privacy settings are wonky. Moreover, issues pertaining to ownership, or agency as my cousin speaks of, will always strike me as being backwards. And the whole, “Facebook is the uncanny valley of social relationships” statement I read on Twitter a couple of months ago still resonates with me. But missing pictures of my new nephew and stories related to my friends and family kinda sucks. So with some mixed feelings, I am back.

I do plan to do some things differently this time around. I probably won’t post many personal pictures or stories to Facebook as I want to be the curator of my own property, files, and ideas. Instead, I will continue posting to my blog and perhaps linking to my blog via my Facebook account. I probably won’t friend as many people because I want my page to more of a communal space for me rather than a networking instrument that some people employ. And I am going to be careful about which apps I will integrate with my account.

I guess what it comes down to for me is the fact that Facebook is where people are sharing. Who can blame them? It’s easy, fast, and ubiquitous. In many ways it has eclipsed email as a means by which people share. Do I wish that there was a more open source alternative? Of course. And there may be a day when more people I know are using Diaspora* or some other social media platform. I suppose I could continue to be like the Ruler of the Universe, close my eyes and my ears, and pretend like the people I care about aren’t using Facebook. But I imagine I might regret missing certain slices of their lives further down the road. Except for pictures of cats. I probably wouldn’t miss the cats.

Dessert

As my friend Charlie puts it, we get a lot of meat and potatoes surf in Monterey. However, occasionally all of the elements line up just right for us. This was a particularly nice day this past winter. Yum yum.

Some Turtles Can Breathe Underwater

My four year old son and I were sitting on the couch this morning watching a great documentary called Super Croc, by National Geographic. Midway through the movie he hit pause and proceeded to inform me that turtles can breathe underwater. Whaatttt? Turtles are reptiles I told him. They can’t breathe underwater.

Read this article. It turns out my son is partly correct. In fact, some turtles do breathe underwater. And interestingly enough, they actually breathe through their bums.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

The Snowball Effect and SOPA

You know what was cool? Stopping (or at least slowing down) the passage of SOPA and PIPA.

It was really interesting to watch how the Stop SOPA movement gained traction on the internet. I watched it pop up here and there on Reddit and as time progressed it garnered an increasing amount of attention. Soon there was talk of other big name players joining the movement: Google, Mozilla, Wikipedia. Some even dreamed that Facebook and Twitter might join in participating in a mass blackout proposed for January 18.

January 18th rolled around, and while some of the big name players didn’t join in, many of the biggest players followed through and blacked out their sites. Other websites flew banners in support of the movement.

These actions caught people’s attention. Millions of people signed petitions and wrote in to protest these bills. A day or two later and support for the bill amongst Senators has fallen significantly.

What is interesting to me is how organic the movement was. I was talking with a colleague the other day about how I had never before seen a mass protest on the internet before. It was inspirational it was to watch and really nice to see people standing up for something they believe in and affecting change.

Digital Music Wonderland: Pandora One and Turntable.fm

Not too long ago I wrote a post regarding Spotify and how I loved being able to play almost any song at any time and how I enjoyed the ability to share those songs with my friends. Lately however I’ve switched gears and have since dropped Spotify. Don’t get me wrong, Spotify is pretty sweet. It has a nice UI, is very fast, and houses a huge music library. I dropped Spotify though due to its requisite Facebook integration and have since moved on to other music services. The two services that I find myself utilizing the most recently are Pandora and Turntable.fm.

Everyone knows about Pandora. I’m not ashamed of sharing the fact that our family pays a bit of money to use Pandora One (thus losing the ads) and taking advantage of their music genome project. It consistently plays a good chunk of the music you want  to hear and you can modify your stations to include a fair amount of variety. I find that we use it most often when we are doing housework or eating dinner. We also use it quite a bit when we are expecting guests over.

Pandora One

However, when I want to explore new music I usually turn to Turntable.fm. Using Turntable.fm is a bit like going into the wilderness in search of the good stuff. An isolated surf spot. A desolate fishing hole. Whatever. Turntable.fm provides just such an avenue for exploration. After logging in to TT you can join a room or station of your choice; Top 40, Old School Country, Hip-Hop, Electronic, and a plethora of Indie stations.

Turntable.fm

I think there is a limit of a 100 users that can join any particular room. Up to five users (or DJs) in a room take turns playing their favorite tracks. They choose songs from an enormous online library and create a virtual queue. Play one of those songs when it’s your turn to spin. People in the room vote on your song. Lame or Awesome. You gain a point for every awesome your song gets. You lose a point for every Lame. Natural selection tends to weed out the really bad stuff. Chat if you wish while you listen to songs or sit back and let others play music for you. It’s not a perfect system but I have gotten a lot of good music out of it. The trick, in my opinion, is to find one or two rooms that attract people who play good music. Not necessarily music you might always opt to listen to but stuff that you can recognize as being inherently good. Of course, good is a very subjective term and you might find yourself in a dark patch every now and again but sometimes you get skunked when you go into the wilderness too. It’s worth the risk and fun to boot.

Facebook: You’re Awesome, I’m Just Not Ready For A Relationship Right Now

This post is partially in response to my cousin Lou’s blog post – Breaking Up With Facebook: It’s Not You. It’s Me. In his post Lou raises some valid concerns with respect to how, when we post content to Facebook, we effectively surrender the rights of ownership of our own property to Facebook. While I agree wholeheartedly with Lou’s stance, I would also like to add a couple of my own thoughts to the mix.

I first want to make it clear that I had originally written up a fairly scathing diatribe regarding the use of Facebook as a means of connecting and sharing with the people in your life. I have since tempered my position and would merely like to submit a couple of rational motives for why a sane person might want to delete their account.

I deleted my account for a couple of reasons. I won’t go into them in detail as I feel like other people are much more eloquent than I am regarding the matter. What it breaks down to though is that I am not a fan of their muddled privacy settings management system and I don’t like how FB encourages you to post personal information regarding your life and interests and then goes onto sell said data to advertisers.

It’s a bit more than that though. Hilary Mason, the lead scientist at Bit.ly, recently tweeted (I would imagine with tongue in cheek) that, “Facebook is the uncanny valley of social relationships.” There is something to that statement that resonates with me. I can’t necessarily put my finger on it but there is definitely something behind that thought that resonates with me.

“When human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.” Uncanny valley. Wikipedia.

Favorite iPhone 4S Apps

I recently upgraded to an iPhone 4S. Here are my favorite apps as of now. Most of these apps are available for iPad as well and some can be installed on Google and Windows-based phones as well.

1. Camera+ (iOS only)

Camera+

This is by far my favorite camera app. It cost me two dollars at the time of purchase and has been worth every penny. It now resides in my dock and is my default camera on my iPhone. I like it because it is fast and easy to use. Plus, it comes with a multitude of useful features. It allows for normal, stabilizer, timer, and burst modes. It, of course, allows you to use the iPhone’s flash (off, auto, on, and flashlight modes). And one of the coolest features the app provides is the ability to change your exposure level, which isn’t an option the original iPhone camera offers. After you take a shot you can then edit it in your “Lightbox”. It is here that you can adjust any effects you want to add to an image. Once you have edited your photos you then can save them to your photo roll or share them to your Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter accounts.

2. Tweetbot (iOS only)

Tweetbot

I tried out a couple of different Twitter apps out before settling on Tweetbot, produced by Tapbot. Let it be known that I love this company! I also own the Pastebot and Convertbot apps that are produced by Tapbot. The Tweetbot Twitter app is rich in features and fun to use.

Along the bottom of the screen is a five spot menu which allows for quick and easy navigation through various aspects of your Twitter account. Three of the five slots in the menu are preset and are devoted to your Timeline, Mentions, and Messages. The other two spots are semi-customizable and can be assigned as Favorites, Retweets by Others, Lists, Mute Filters, or Profile.

I love the UI. It is clean and elegant. Kinda playful in a way. And I know it’s gonna come off as a bit dorky but the Tweetbot app sounds definitely add a bit of style to the app. There are a bunch of click, swoosh, and wisk sounds made as you navigate through the app that make for a strangely satisfying experience.

Note: If you use a Mac and have an iPhone you may also want to think about buying Pastebot. I don’t use it a lot but it sure comes in handy sometimes and, again, it is fun and easy to use.

3. Flipboard (iOS only)

Flipboard

Do you want a gorgeous means through which to curate your media and RSS feeds? Look no further. Let me tell you – it took me about 15-20 minutes to work out how to use this app as I had never heard of it before initial time of download. However, once I got it I really got it. The gist of the app is that you subscribe to a group of feeds, all of which are curated by Flipboard and then presented to you in a really nice “magazine style” UI. Twitter feeds, Facebook, RSS feeds, you name it. Flipboard pulls from them all and presents them to you in a one stop shop. The Cover Stories feature is brilliant as it uses an algorithm to select and display the best pulls from all of your feeds and presents them to you in a diverse, yet coherent, timeline. It’s hard to explain. Just get it.

4. Evernote and Instapaper

Data overload? Use Evernote and Instapaper to help simplify and organize your life.

Evernote

Haven’t heard of Evernote? Read this. There’s not a whole lot I can say about the Evernote mobile app other than it works great on the iPhone 4S. It is very quick and responsive. The interface is simple and yet well-designed and easy to use. The Evernote team continues to impress with its continual betterment of their product. Cheers to them.

Instapaper

Sometimes it gets old trying to read blogs and online articles on your mobile phone. Mobile phone screens today are gorgeous and chalk full of pixels but it’s nice to let your eyes relax while reading on a full size computer screen or tablet. Instapaper is an online repository through which you can save webpages and articles. The idea is the same – whether surfing the net on your phone, skimming through your Twitter feed, or browsing the interwebs on your laptop – when you stumble upon articles that you want to read later you save them to your Instapaper account, usually with the click of one button. It’s that easy. Access those archives later from your computer and read them at your leisure. In fact, it is so easy to use that I find that I save articles to it at a higher rate than I read through them. Something I will need to work on.

5. Alien Blue (iOS only)

Alien Blue

Reddit much? If so, you might want to check out the mother of all Reddit clients – Alien Blue. I enjoy reading through Reddit more on my iPhone via Alien Blue than on the actual Reddit website (and yes, I use RES). The Night Mode is where it’s at. Apparently there will be a Mac client arriving in the future.

Alien Blue - Classic Theme

Alien Blue - Night Mode

Movie Trailer: The Hobbit

Apparently these movies are coming out in late 2012 and 2013. Yes, you heard me right. Two separate movies. Looks amazing! Check out the trailer below.

Trailer: The Hobbit