A Whole Lotta Nothing

Jizz in My Pants (nerd remix)

2009-01-04T22:45:09-08:00

You've seen the original, now watch this one. Geeks may enjoy it more than the original:

I love that youtube makes this all possible, that two guys can make a funny parody and film it and upload it and no one in the NBC/SNL/LonelyIsland mix are copyright crazies that would pull it offline, and thousands more people can enjoy it. So great.

My new blog about cycling and stuff

2009-01-02T22:08:14-08:00

I've started and abandoned a metric ton of blogs in my time, but my latest is one I'll be sticking to at least for the entire year of 2009 and likely beyond. My new blog is called Stronger, Fitter, Faster and it's about how I'm devoting a lot more time and energy into getting in shape, losing weight, and racing bikes.

Over the past year, half of this blog has turned to cycling related stuff but I felt like taking the next major step of having a cycling coach would mean I'd have a lot more to talk about and a lot more stuff that'd likely be boring to any non-cyclist, so I'm going to toss those kinds of things on the new blog.

This also means my internal flow chart for how an idea in my head ends up as a post on the web is even more complicated, with some stuff going to twitter, metafilter, this blog, the new cycling blog, or anything else I can post to. I should really draw up a visualization of this.

So yeah, cycling stuff will likely go over there from here on out, but I'll try to post more here in 2009 and not let twitter take every idea for a blog post away from me. No more of this "one post per month" crap.

New Oregon Laws for 2009 list anywhere?

2009-01-01T12:39:56-08:00

My dad reminded me today that he enjoyed reading about the 700 new laws that went into effect in California today, so I set out to find an equivalent list for Oregon.

So far, after half a dozen Google searches I can only come up with the 6 laws listed here from yesterday's Oregonian. Quick summary: smoking ban in all bars and restaurants, bottle deposits, free electronics recycling, DMW checking immigration status, ATV safety for kids, and increased drug offender sentences.

Six new laws doesn't seem like much, is there a more complete list anywhere? Every other newspaper and TV site seems to be pointing to these same six laws as the sum total of legislative changes going into effect and that doesn't sound right to me.

Fa La Freezing

2008-12-20T19:15:25-08:00

This is a great holiday song:

Name that leader

2008-12-11T23:45:10-08:00

Reading these quotes tonight:

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

[...]

In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people.

[...]

This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation.

I was surprised to find this speech wasn't given in the past few weeks but almost 30 years ago. Read the whole speech and wonder what the world would be like if we followed half the recommendations he outlined that night.

Testing out Vimeo's HD embeds

2008-12-07T19:26:34-08:00

Does this work?

USGP Cyclocross Championships (Portland) Day 1 from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

The unfortunate mainstreaming of internet douchebaggery

2008-12-05T10:06:37-08:00

Today someone spammed MetaFilter on behalf of Conde Nast publications, and it pissed me off way more than the average occasional spammy self-promoter on MeFi. We have a strict rule at MeFi (since there's no editorial vetting upfront) that you can't post about your own stuff, you have to make posts to interesting random stuff you found on your own. Unfortunately, that doesn't matter to the douchebags intent on ruining the web for everyone else with search engine gaming, as long as they benefit their clients, so we end up having to delete these keyword-laden posts that feature over the top fake testimonials about sites they "found" when they really worked for them.

What pissed me off today was seeing a normally reputable outfit like Conde Nast stooping to hiring a dodgy firm that employs such lame spammy activities. I know the response from Conde Nast or the spammy SEO company will be the same I've heard a thousand times: "It was one rogue employee" or "We didn't know the firm would employ such tactics." I heard the same thing when the Times (UK) was found spamming social sites earlier this year.

The point that seemed to be lost in the Times story was that a cornerstone of journalism that had been publishing for hundreds of years would stoop to such lame-brained antics. You'd think that someone higher up at a place like that would think maybe getting a couple percent more advertising revenue by ethically shady means wasn't worth jeopardizing the reputation or position of a 223 year old newspaper -- that institutions with a long-term vision shouldn't be interested in a quick buck by any means possible.

It's a bummer to see Conde Nast hiring someone to "optimize" search engines for them (where "optimize" means spam the web and generally make social sites and tools less useful for everyone in the hopes they do better for certain key search phrases) but given the way the economy is going and where it is headed, I suspect we'll see a lot more big name outfits and longstanding institutions making these same mistakes and resorting to problematic methods of increasing their bottom line, and frankly it sucks for everyone involved. It sucks for anyone using the web and wanting decent honest search results based on real quality of information (not just the information promoted by self-interested parties). It sucks to see industry leaders with dozens or even hundreds of years of successful business think this is a sensible approach to the web. Finally, it sucks to see some chucklehead get paid to spam websites in ways that are becoming so normal that people think this is something every business should do.

Buying good stuff

2008-12-03T19:19:58-08:00

There have been a lot of posts to Ask MetaFilter recently asking about inexpensive christmas presents and how to make your own presents and where to find the best deals, but I really enjoyed this thread on great things worth splurging on. As I've grown older I've slowly started to look for value in things instead of just the sale price. I agree with a lot of the tips offered in the thread -- I love the super soft sheets on my bed, I have a trashcan so fantastic I didn't think that much engineering and clever ideas could go into a trashcan, and since no one mentoined it I wrote about the high-pressure showerhead that changed my life for the better.

Hodgman, Coulton, and Roderick

2008-11-17T23:16:34-08:00

The highlight of the Live Wire/Wordstock event I attended a week ago was this:

Bigger Stronger Faster

2008-11-11T15:18:16-08:00

I watched Bigger Stronger Faster last night. It's a movie about steroid use in sports which is something I thought I was pretty dead set in my opinions about. As a cyclist I'm keenly aware of how widespread cheating in the sport is and I've always held a pretty low opinion of those that did it.

A scant few things have challenged my opinions. Outside Magazine famously did a story on an older amateur rider taking all the banned substances he could handle and I remember the takeaway for me was "damn, that HGH actually sounds pretty good." and "Wow, I can see why people take these things."

On MetaFilter, user Chuckles compiled a list of 8 previous Tour de France top five results, with everyone implicated in doping marked with an X. If he updated it for 2007 and 2008, there'd be even more X's on the chart. It's really more ubiquitous than we want to think.

I have friends that have defended Barry Bonds and other atheletes and frequently mention Tiger Woods had eye surgery to improve his vision, which is another form of performance-enhancement that seems hypocritical to allow (and I can't help but agree with).

I sort of expected Bigger Stronger Faster to be either some sort of gross-out "let's take steroids and hurt oursevles" or a depressing "here is how it ruins lives" but it's nothing at all like either of those things. It really literally rocked my world because it presents a side of steroids in sports I'd never considered and it completely changed my opinion of the whole issue.

The best part is the main guy and narrator is quite literally just some guy off the street who was interested in examining a complex issue, and his passion for seeking the truth pulls you along through the entire film. I have no idea how the filmmakers found the guy or how the guy got into filmmaking, but he's the perfect subject to move through the film and I shared a lot in common (like my distaste for dopining in sports).

I can't recommend this documentary highly enough.