Restoring Honor

Did anyone else watch today's Glenn Beck rally? I had two friends who attended it.  They said that the crowd was ridiculous.  It was impossible to see anything.

This entire experience brought on a huge amount of controversy in the media because of the anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.  Beck held his rally in the same location. He claimed he didn't know.  Right...

The purpose was to "Restore Honor".

It was VERY God centered.  Very America centered.  Very Glenn Beck centered. I didn't feel like it was very restoring-honor centered.

The BEST part of the entire experience is that no news (other than CSPAN) covered the entire rally on television.  Almost all of them covered it online tho.  Facebook is where most Americans watched the UStream upload.

Under the stream, Beck's team allowed anyone watching to update their Facebook status.  I found this much more interesting than the event itself.

I've collected some of my favorites below, on both sides of the political spectrum.

NOTE: When you updated your status from the page, you had to check a box saying that you allowed the status to be shared with the public.  Because of this, I have not blurred out the name of those included.  You may disagree with this, but I've thought deeply about it.

If the slideshow goes too quickly, press stop and then use the arrows to read them all.

[slideshow]

-B

This is Impressive to Me

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YJ7Rugl3eI] BP destroyed faith in our oil drilling system.  That's a given.

But, we have all but stopped talking about the history-breaking spill in the gulf.

BP hasn't.  I think that's incredible. Speaks very highly of them.

They could have let the PR go with the news story.  But they didn't.

Very stand up.

-B

Oh the Places You'll Go

I played foursquare.  I quit. I got annoyed with having to check in.  I probably would have kept up with it, had its point system not been so whack.

One thing that I never did...connect it to Facebook.  I have over 2,200 friends on Facebook. I didn't want all of them to see where I was at any given point.

I'm sure you are all well aware that now Facebook has their own Places feature.

I tried it out.  It's the exact same as foursquare without the whacked out point system. And you can't be a mayor of a place.

I want to like the idea of sharing with friends where I am. If I go somewhere cool (like the Grand Canyon or the Apple Store), I want to be able to easily tell people that I was there. But I definitely don't want it to be available to people who I don't know.

I considered two different things: De-friend people who I don't want to see my places. Or change my "places" settings to only the people I wanted to see it. Both of which are a considerable amount of work.

Facebook's mission is to make the world more open. We get that.  We even kind of like it.  Otherwise they wouldn't have 500 Million Users. It's been a great way to keep in touch with people who we haven't seen in awhile.  It's a MUCH more effective way to communicate than email lists.  It's a much more effective way to just casually keep up with one another.  Something that we didn't do before. It has done incredible things for networking for political campaigns.

But location, that's a big hump to get over.  Seriously, how many people do you know that went and unlisted their phone numbers and addresses?  How many of you had timers that you set when you left for a trip so that the radio would play and lights would come on during certain times of the day?

We Americans worry about people following us. That's why celebrities can't publicize their wedding. We lock our doors when we leave to throw out the trash.

Of course, there are some people that sharing my location with could be fun with.  My family, my close friends, oh wait...that's it.  That was the best part of foursquare-it was a new community who could only see your location if you were near them and they played too.  With Facebook places, anyone you let see them can see them. Even if they don't check in.  Even if they're not nearby.

So, for now, I'm doing a mix of the two.  I'm de-friending people who I don't know, I think might be sketchy, people who I shouldn't have friended in the first place, and others.  Sorry if you're one of these.  If you're reading this, you probably aren't.

But I'm going to try Places.  I like being an early adopter, so I'll give it a try.  If it seems to be too much work or annoying, it'll probably go the way of foursquare. Who knows, I might even pick up foursquare again too.  But I'm going to add people I trust with my location by name inside of Facebook privacy settings.  Both of these are going to be a lot of work, wish me luck.

Chances of you seeing my Places...are pretty small.

Once I get all of my friends back down to a manageable number, I'll reassess this location aware idea.  Maybe I'll make it available to my friends.  It's just not safe right now.

Anyone else thinking about this stuff?

-B

UPDATE: Forgot to include this video (Facebook's attempt at a FaceTime type video...I don't get emotional over knowing where a friend is though...)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfX_ZQag1BM]

Flash For Android

Enough Said.

I’m the last person on earth who wanted to believe Steve Jobs when he told Walt Mossberg at D8 that “Flash has had its day.” I took it as nothing more than showmanship when Jobs shared his thoughts on Flash and wrote that “Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices.” After spending time playing withFlash Player 10.1 on the new Droid 2, the first Android 2.2 phone to come with the player pre-installed, I’m sad to admit that Steve Jobs was right. Adobe’s offering seems like it’s too little, too late.

ProtectMarriage.com

A few things that I find interesting:

  • The display of two marriage rings that are to be considered both distinctly male and female show just how different each way of thinking really is.  Also, how out of touch each side is with the other side.  I would imagine that many women in a gay relationship might desire to wear a ring that some may refer to as more "masculine" than normal for a female.
  • The choice of graphics, fonts, buttons, and all around design reminded me immediately of Obama's campaign.
  • It's interesting how a conservative mindset calls on it's followers to "take action".  Don't we typically think of action as a liberal act? It seems to me that in recent times, more so than any other point in my life, Conservative mindsets have been to "take action" so that to keep things the "way they used to be". Significant change in the world?
  • Quote from "Why Marriage Matters" page:
  • Traditional marriage is the foundation of society and has served our state well for centuries. California’s constitutional marriage amendment exists to strengthen society, encourage monogamous and loving marriages and to provide the optimal environment to ensure the well being of children.
  • My thoughts on above quote, California is the home of everything progressive.  The computer industry began and continues there.  It's the home of the entertainment world.  When many east coasters think of California, they think of Hollywood.  Hollywood has done anything but "serve our state well" when it comes to marriage. It's a stretch of an issue, but a reality(I think) nonetheless.
  • At the time of this post, they had 105,048 online supporters.  I don't know much about it, but that really just seems like a small number.

-B

Dear Leader

I have only been acutely aware of North Korea throughout my lifetime. I know very little about the society and even less about the one we all hate/make fun of, Kim Jong-il.

Tonight, Lisa Ling was on Jimmy Kimmel Live discussing her book about the rescue of her sister by President Clinton.

She said a few things that I found interesting, and I became fascinated with North Korea and the things she was saying about Kim Jong-il.  Where did I go to find out some more info? Wikipedia, of course. I would imagine that Wikipedia might be the opposite of anything of any relation to North Korea.  Of course, they have their own media that is controlled by the government and tells the people what they need to hear, rather than the truth.  Input from outside sources would be...unwelcome...and I'd imagine pretty violently unwelcome at that.

Ling said a few things that blew my mind.

  • She said that cell phones are banned.  I guess I can see that, but it almost made me gasp.
  • She said that Kim Jong-il is considered a huge movie buff and owns over 20,000 titles.  Wow.  Can I borrow some?
  • She said that the media reports that Kim Jong-il shoots around a 27 on a normal round of golf.  How many hole-in-ones is that? How true can it be?
  • She said that she sat in a room there that had a bookshelf, with only books that the "Dear Leader"(Jong-il) had written.

It painted a picture for me that reminded me, of course, of Hitler and Nazi Germany.  I obviously had this picture before, but it's as if that picture had come to life.  Hitler has always been an interesting person for me to study because of his sheer brilliance in leadership.

Then she said something that nearly brought me to tears.

I don't know if she is right about this, I don't know if it's exaggerated.  I can't guarantee this story, but if it is true, it is incredible.

Kimmel asked Ling why it was that President Clinton was able to get the women back when others were unsuccessful getting through to the leader (and we are all very aware of the controversy of this).  Ling said this (my own paraphrase): When Kim Jong-il's father (Kim Il-sung-the founder of North Korea) passed away, Clinton was the first world leader to contact him to express his condolences. Even before many who were associated with the family in the country contacted him.  Ling said that that display of humanity (remember that) has stayed in Jong-il's mind to this day.

Humanity, eh?

Interesting.  I would argue that humane is not a good way to describe Jong-il.  If it was really that touching to him, would that have changed his actions since?  How can someone who does not display any sort of recognition of humanity actually recognize a humane act?  Was he only appreciative because it was a humane act toward him?  Were there selfish ambitions? If so, why would he have allowed the women to leave?  Leaving certainly didn't benefit him directly.

And...did anyone ever act in such a humane way to Adolf Hitler?

Interesting, at least to me, to say the least.

What's more, the official name of North Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"

Ha.

-B

UPDATE: Perhaps this says it better: