BLADAM - February 2004

DISCLAIMER: This is my personal blog. The blatherings here aren't (necessarily) the views of the current company I work for, companies I've previously blessed with my presence, my loving parents, the Illuminati, or anyone other than me, me, me!

Privacy, paranoia, and Plaxo

For those of you reading my blogs and primarily interested in the TIPS category, I'll get the useful / utilitarian part of this post out of the way first:

The Plaxo service is pretty darn cool. Despite some annoying quirks, it's useful, it's fun, and it's free. I definitely recommend giving Plaxo a try.

What is it? Well, in a nutshell, Plaxo is a service (with optional software) that allows you to:
- Keep your addressbook up-to-date pretty effortlessly.
- Send out contact-info changes to your friends easily.
- Access your entire addressbook securely on the Web from anywhere.

Read on for my detailed thoughts about Plaxo.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, February 28, 2004 at 21:14 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Society • People and relationships • Tips
- Commented on by 13 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

“I know all about you, Adam”—Context and queasiness

"I know all about you, Adam" she were practically her first words to me, spoken more matter-of-factly than warmly. Indeed, she had a pretty good grasp on my hopes and dreams, my fears and failures... before she had even set eyes on me.

For the rest of this job interview I sat humbled, stunned, uncomfortable... feeling naked, almost violated.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 23, 2004 at 13:31 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery • Blogging • Personal • Society
- Commented on by 4 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Celebrating Love

Many folks asked me how my Valentine's Day was. As a single-but-not-angsty guy, I noted that the following made my Valentine's Day a happy one:
- My roommate is dating a really nice guy.
- I'm blessed with great friends and family.
- Hundreds of people in my city of San Francisco -- who happen to love someone of the same sex -- have gotten married.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Monday, February 23, 2004 at 3:00 Permalink
- Filed under Society • Law • People and relationships • Politics
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Poetry slam falls flat / And that is that.

My friend recently invited me to accompany her to a poetry slam, and gave a compelling set of reasons to attend:
- It's free.
- It's cultural.
- It's something different.
- It's free.

Since she's unemployed and I'm, well, self-employed (which is about as secure), the free part's important.

But in the end, we got barely more than we paid for.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Sunday, February 22, 2004 at 23:43 Permalink
- Filed under Arts and entertainment
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Tragedy of the Social Networking Commons—and the fixes

I've been doing a lot of thinking about online social networks (like orkut, Friendster, Tribe.net, etc.), and am increasingly wondering not IF they can work, but rather, HOW and in what way.

One of the most complicated and interesting issues, in my mind, is that of how the social networking services (SNs) reposition and provide access to various social strata... layers of ordinary folks, the down-and-out, the meek, the powerful, and poor, and the rich.

Are SNs the great leveler? Or do they -- or will they -- simply replicate the strata and their boundaries that exist in the Real World? How will they evolve to keep people from all ends of the have/have-not spectrum interested and engaged?

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 22:01 Permalink
- Filed under Society
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Health Hypocrisy

Two odd tidbits crossed my mind this evening.

1) Aaahnold, the Governator has proposed converting the state Capitol's interior courtyard into a "smoking plaza." Isn't this the same guy that's been the head of various Fitness councils?

2) Once again, the gym I belong to (24 Hour Fitness) is shilling Tanning packages ("Fry 3 times, Fry the 4th time, free!"). This is the same organization that offers actually thoughtful e-mail newsletters about health and fitness, not to mention (obviously) a physical space to get in shape... and it's promoting skin cancer?

What a weird, wacky world we live in.

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 21:58 Permalink
- Filed under Happy body
- Commented on by one person so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

To neither have nor hold—a voyeur’s lament.

Imagine that you're invited to a private house party every three months or so.
Live music. Free alcohol and snacks. Beautiful and talented women. Handsome and confident men.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Saturday, February 14, 2004 at 4:16 Permalink
- Filed under Dancing • Personal
- Commented on by 4 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Forget marketing, just gimme the darn info, please!

After buying a cordless phone for my new apartment a while back, I learned -- after the 30 day free-return period -- that the stupid thing didn't have the capability to turn the ringer off. Given that I receive junk faxes at all hours of the day and night, this is a pretty important feature that's missing, since my phone is in my bedroom and I don't fancy being woken up several times in the middle of the night.

So, after an extended period of cheapness and stubbornness (just disconnecting the phone at night), I decided that it's time for me to get a new cordless phone.

You'd think that this would be a relatively pleasant and painless process. And you'd be wrong.

Read the full entry...

- Blathered by Adam on Friday, February 13, 2004 at 15:44 Permalink
- Filed under Business and consumers • Marketing and advertising
- Commented on by 3 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Personally quantifying the spam mess

I let my spam folder fill up over five days and -- stopwatch in tow -- I just forced myself to face the mess and clean it up, checking for miscategorized mail and so on.

Here are the stats:
- 1203 e-mails I had to sift through (241 e-mails a day) from which I had to save 9 non-spam e-mails which'd been incorrectly tagged.
- 21.5 minutes of my time
- That's 26 hours of my time wasted yearly
- At an approximate $75/hr worth of my time, that's $1,613 dollars.
- For a company of 1,000 employees, that's 1.6 million dollars just in lost time (doesn't count bandwidth or storage costs).

But our government finds it more important to chase after naked breasts instead of really applying firepower to the war against spam. Wonderful.

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 at 13:56 Permalink
- Filed under Geekery
- Commented on by 4 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

Here’s why Lieberman (thankfully) lost

Lieberman and those close to him have defiantly insisted that it's his support for the Iraq war that sunk his candidacy.

No, Joe, you lost because you're a sanctimonious twit, and little better than the holier-than-thou and hypocritical Christian Conservatives that tut-tut at regular folk.

I still remember my disgust when the first words out of your mouth after Saddam's capture were berating your Democratic opponents instead of simply voicing hope and support for Iraq's people. I remember how you crusaded against 'filthy' entertainment instead of spending your time discussing core issues that lead to poverty and hopelessness. And I remember, too, how you so frequently invoked the concept of Faith and God instead of offering thoughtful and viable solutions to our earthly problems.

Joe, I'm happy to see you go. Good riddance.

- Blathered by Adam on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 at 11:48 Permalink
- Filed under Society • Politics
- Commented on by 2 folks so far. Visit the full entry page and join in!

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The magic number for the moment is 37. Neato.

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