Let's save the US. Let's switch to Metric.
You know, now is the time for the US to properly move in to using the Metric System and finally go through Metrication. Sure, we tried to get in to it in 1975 but here we are still trying to remember how many teaspoons are in gallon. It didn't happen, but I'm saying that now is the time.
In case you haven't noticed, our economy is kinda screwed at the moment. Why not have a large federal cash infusion that spawns jobs through changing all our road signs to kilometers? How about Public Service Campaigns? There are jobs there too. Not to mention that people would actually buy things again so that all home commodities were in Metric.
Sure, this is a big job, but we need to do it some day. After all, we don't need to lose another $328 million in an accident like the Mars Climate Orbiter. No one really likes to talk about that one, since it was the craptastics of inherited software based on American Imperial that destroyed that little project.
I realize that we can easily blame Spain and Britain for our crapped up system, but we just need to move to Metric. We need to be part of the world. We need have a measurement system that makes sense so that our students aren't the sordid lot they are. After all, I can barely remember that there are 5,280 feet in a mile, but I can always remember that there are 1,000 meters in a kilometer. It's almost like the powers that be in the US want people to remain dumb, as if learning Metric would free the American from some form of standards bondage that has so far kept us in line. Well, we did elect Bush to two terms, so maybe there's some truth in that.
All, I know is that we're one of three countries in the world still on this backwards system. Hell, even the inventors of our current system (the British), don't even use it anymore because it's such a piece of junk. In case you're wondering, the other two countries are Liberia and Burma. Liberia is a country with an annual GDP of $300 million. That's what the entire country generates for revenue, which is less than what the satellite we lost above Mars cost. And Burma? They're ruled by an extremely repressive military junta. Come on, we're the US, we can do a lot better.
Unfortunately, while I lead my day to day life in Metric as it's just so much easier, the rest of the US doesn't really take the hint. So, for people of a similar mind, write to President Obama. Thankfully we have a president how finally might be open to this as we aren't the 'Merkin People anymore. Also, while it's probably not worth much in the end, join the Facebook Group. At least you'll be able lament the issue with like-minded folks.
Anyways, the change to Metric is coming. Let's make it now. Let's put Americans to work. Let's set our measurement systems to work with the world and free ourselves from the Tyranny of Teaspoons.
28 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: metric, us america
Damn you Slovenia!
I was shaking my fist in the air over this article to which I don't have any true investiture, other than to say, watch out for Slovenia. That country knows when they've got you over a barrel, they're going to go for all they can get. In this case, it's water passage rights that they don't actually have any right to, but will undoubtedly get for their scrawny 40km of Adriatic Coast at the Bay of Piran:
"The European Union has called off the next round of Croatia's EU membership talks, over its continuing border dispute with Slovenia."
Tricky buggers indeed. We'll see how much Croatia wants that EU membership now.
24 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: croatia, politicis, slovenia
Weird Behavior #22: Playing guitar at a cafe
I guess it goes along with the general sense of entitlement that has been sweeping the US in greater and greater waves with each successive generation, but what is it with playing a guitar at a cafe that emboldens the weakest links of society? It just seems to fall in line with the, "I'm here. Listen to me. Fuck you. Listen to me. Only me. Mine. Mine. Mine." type of thinking that overruns our public spaces. These guitar players are extremely annoying in public parks, but there you can avoid them. But when at a cafe, enjoying your, let's just say... tea, or if you must, coffee, you can't avoid the guitarist short of hurting him. And why, why oh dear god for the love of fuck in holy mother of saints almighty from down below must is always, always be No Woman, No Cry?!!
While not a cafe, that's a classic piece of cinema there. The way the distinctly British dry heaves from William are overlaid with the chords of idiocy coming from the, yes, American's guitar are nothing short of transcendent genius. I'm sure if Marley could do it all over again, knowing that his song would be played in cafes and in the drunken expat squalor of Barcelona's Barri Gotic he probably would have said, "Hey Mick, you got one there for the fools to strum man?" Then again, he died of extremely curable skin cancer, so who knows.
23 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: customs, ramblings, us america
Dachshund perfection lies--on the sidewalk
Who ever knew that the best sausages came in two-packs? I didn't until a friend of #1 Fan tipped us off to this pair of dachshunds that lounge around a knickknack shop on Pacific Avenue, specifically, 1368 Pacific Ave. There is a shop called, Hope's Sports and Stationary Store (hipster crap page here) which is little more than some Chinese junk emporium. I don't even really know what they sell short of newspapers, Lotto, Fastpasses, and uh... baseball cards I suppose. Somehow they stay in business and it's obviously solely due to these two tweeny (between mini and full) dachshunds who call the place home.
Walk by and you'd probably never see them unless one is kicking it on his pillow under the newspapers at the door. Walk in and you'll get to know them quickly. There is the one who is insanely friendly. Then there is the other one who will bark til the cows come home like this. But they're both friendly. In fact, they're nothing short of lovey. I can't even believe that they're dachshunds given that the breed is privy to such a foul disposition most of the time. If you can get them to flop down on the hot sidewalk, they'll be your bestest buddies, soaking in all the scratching they can get.
The only time they get buzzy is if another dog comes near their premises. That is not cool with them. Oh yeah, there's also the case that the other "dog" will come running out demanding pets as well if you pet the two sausages. I'm sure he must have a massive inferiority complex as he is simply no where near as cute at these two marketing gimmicks that keep the customers coming back for more.
I lieu of the shops that I used to know and love which are shutting down by the truckload, this is the San Francisco flavor that I have to appreciate for the time being. It's not bad really, even if a wee bit scroungy to pet. They are dogs after all.
21 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: dogs, san francisco
Is there really any worth to SFGate anymore?
I will often link to SFGate.com. This is the online extension of both the Chronicle and the Examiner, our two main newspapers in the city. I've enjoyed the site over the years and the upgrade they did a year or so ago really brought the site around and made it seem like SFGate was taking a run at trying to be the new Chron in a world where newspapers are dying off.
This has changed recently. I assume it must have something to their massive losses last year which are requiring a huge staff reduction for the paper. It seems that now, instead of just their own content, they're linking off to others' as well and not that they're licensed the content, but actually full referral links to the other news agency sites. It's like they're trying to make themselves in to some of a San Francisco portal for news. The only problem is that this doesn't work.
As you can see in the graphic below, I've circled all of the alternate sources on a random day for the front page of the paper. It's a lot. In fact, it's the majority of the articles that they're running on the front page of the site. None of us really need this. We read this site because of the original content on it. If we wanted a portal, we could use Yahoo! or Google News. For those inclined, we could also strap together a custom feed reader to see all of this as well.
It comes down to the question that I always ask when doing anything, "What's the added value?" If you're just copying what others do, whether it be reporting, coding, art, or what have you, what are you really doing? What is there, that's new and has worth in your "creation" and merits it generating revenue? If the answer is nothing, then why are you doing it and how do you hope to keep doing it, as anyone can copy, especially in this digital age.
17 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: internet, news, san francisco
End6, Maneno, and Crowd Awesomosity
The term Crowdsourcing has been around with us for about three years or so now. As a theory, it's great stuff in that you work with a large group to spread out a task and see it to completion. Usually everyone works without payment on it as they believe in the project. It's one of the backbones of Linux as well as a huge slew of other technologies that make the web run. You're probably using something that was "crowdsourced" on your computer right now and you don't even know it. Of course, marketing types had to dig their grubby little fingers in to the whole thing and use it as a code word to try and get [trick] people in to working for free by working their wicked marketing ways.
I still believe in it though and for the projects that I'm working on, it's worked well. This probably stems from the fact that I'm not getting paid to work on these projects and I let them speak for themselves. Sure, there is the pitch for help if people want to contribute, but I let people make up their own minds if they think that what they see is worth their time. This can be a slow process to get going in the first place, but once momentum is gained, you can have a legion of fans who show that any project truly work its salt needs no marketing department. Happy contributors and users are your marketing.
I bring this up because the End6 project is a little something that I've been working on to try and rid the world of Explorer 6. It's a simple popup that gets in peoples' faces when they visit a website and are using Internet Explorer 6. The reason for this is that IE6 is dead. It's insecure. It's now two versions old and most importantly, it's a broken piece of crap to develop websites for. That last piece is what really make me take on this project. It's grown slowly. I've had detractors. I've had people who even copied the whole thing, trying to merchandise it, but then disappearing because you can't make money on something like this.
The site was redesigned a few months ago to be a bit more visually appealing, but what has remained is invaluable content from people who were fans. All the translations of the source were from people who were fans. Each language allowed it to grow in to another market and attract new fans.
Today, a fellow named Willian Molinari wrote to me, letting me know that he created a Wordpress plugin called, anti-IE6-army. This is super cool. It spreads out visibility to even more people and will hopefully work to get IE6 outta here faster. The other cool part, is that Willian put the other alternatives in there as well. I love that he gave people a choice. I would never tout my creation as the best. It is quite a simple thing really, but what's important is what's important to these other projects as well and the fact that they're all tied together for Wordpress users is really, really cool. The End6 crowd is cool.
Of course, as I'm prepping for a talk on Maneno at the Creative Commons Salon (if you're around, come out), I am looking at Maneno and can't be more pleased at how the crowd has made this site grow from the base that this Hudin site is running on to a full-fledged blogging platform. People have given great feedback and pushed it in a good direction to be a system that really is for Sub-Saharan African bloggers and not just a Wordpress installation hacked to work for them. But most importantly are all the language translations. Whether it be Bambara, French, Swahili, Portuguese, or the forthcoming Fula and Lingala translations, this work could simply have not have happened without a massive injection of work and support by those who believe in what Maneno is trying to achieve. This is cool. This is great and I look forward to more of it.
Long live the crowd.
15 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: crowdsourcing, end6, internet, maneno
I just don't have time
As I am coming out under the dark, viral clouds of a cold that has knocked me out of commission for the last week, I can easily narrow down on who Patient Zero was that brought this upon me. It was a guy at my gym who was obviously sick that decided to move next to me and cough like an idiot while I was in the middle of my workout. As a friend pointed out, "See, that's what you get for going to the gym." Sure, it could have possibly not been him, but at the same time, I work from home, haven't flown in a couple of months, and haven't really been around anyone sick recently except him.
It all makes me think upon the larger issue in US America in that we are continually building a structure in to our lives where we simply don't have time for anything except what is immediately important to the individual. Growing up in very rural California, when you got sick as a kid, you stayed home until you were well. The same went for adults. You only went to work if you were completely flat-out broke and even then you thought about it long and hard because you knew that you were sick and getting well meant resting.
Low and behold the shock when I moved to the SF Bay Area and found that people came to work no matter how sick they were. They are so focused here and feel that they are so crucial to whatever is going on at their job, there is simply no way they can take time off. Folks need to wake up and realize that if someone can't be offline for a solid week, then there is something seriously wrong with how that person is working and how the company overall is functioning. The "always on" mentality can't apply to we organic beings. We need to recharge.
But tied in with this is the complete frustration people feel in the US when something unscheduled hoses their schedule. A cold is a perfect example of this. In addition to the working sick, I was aghast when I found out that people went to the gym sick in order to "burn off" the illness. There are people who swear by this, but obviously it doesn't work. If it does, show me a controlled study that proves it. What it does do is give the individual the feeling that they are working as fast as they can to get back in to the swing of things, fighting their cold at the gym. Oh yeah, it also exposes everyone else in the gym to their viral-laden air and fluids all over the machines. Screw everyone else though. They're getting better faster; they think.
This attitude doesn't just apply to colds. It applies to other things as well, such as women scheduling a C-Section so that they know exactly when they're going to give birth and can work around the inconvenience of the whole thing. I wonder why women (and their spouses who go along with this) bother to have children at all, since kids are one unscheduled thing after another if raised in a healthy environment... But the quintessential summary of this attitude was a campaign by Monistat years ago that actually ran on TV with the catchphrase, "I don't have time for a yeast infection". While my family (remember, we're country folk) found it hilarious, at the same time, it's sad that in the American culture, health is such a secondary concern in life, where for other countries, it, food, and family all battle for top components to a life well-lived. I guess there are studies that show things are taking too long in the US.
With me, I'm still slogging through this and yes, I've been pretty inactive, just allowing myself to recover, which is why I haven't really written anything in a week. I've been far too busy being in bed and reading King Leopold's Ghost which is an excellent account of Belgian Colonial screwing they gave to the Congo. I highly recommend it as well as punching coughing morons next to you at the gym and then washing your hands thoroughly after said punching.
13 04 2009 1 comment
Tags: health, us america
Kodak Gallery has gone Mafia on me
Last week I got a lovely email from Kodak Gallery telling me that I either needed to pay up and buy some yearly swag or risk losing all the photos I have stored on there, which is about 11gigs at the moment. This is apparently a new item in their Terms of Service agreement and I don't find it all that surprising because despite the fact that storage is quite cheap these days, it can add up quickly when you have millions of users swaddling gigs upon gigs of photos on your site.
While I only have buy $20 worth of product from them per year, I could honestly care less if they delete what I have there. I used to use KG to share my trip photos and I happened to like them a good deal more back when they were Ofoto. They served their purpose but now I post everything to the Photos section here. It just works out better so that I'm not entering in two places and people can check out the photos anytime they want. Sure, folks might steal photos, but I've given up really caring about that, since there is little money in photography these days. That's why I gave in and slathered a Creative Commons license across everything here.
But to be honest, the real reason that I don't want to bother buying photo products from KG is that their photo quality is pretty shabby. The printing is okay, but the paper is flimsy and it just feels cheap. I've gotten much better results from Oscar's here in San Francisco. Yes, it's more expensive than KG, but really, if you're going to go to the trouble of printing your digital files, print them right.
As a side note, anyone I know who hasn't printed what they want from my galleries on KG better do it soon because in a month or so, they will be no more.
04 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: internet, photography
A Spanish street urinator does not a Spaniard make
A little while back, I came across this article where it is assumed that Google Streetview caught some woman in Madrid taking a wizz behind a parked car in Madrid.
While it was obviously in Madrid, it's not obvious that she is a Spaniard. I mean, sure, she could be, but she could be just about anyone else. In fact, the chances of her being a tourist are probably the greatest as I've seen tourists doing the most ridiculous crap when they're in Spain. It seems to be the national pastime of a great many countries to pee on the streets of Spain. So, before folks go pointing any fingers, let's just keep this in mind.
This is just one example of how bizarre the whole Google WorldDomination system is which is also not lost on Spaniards as seen by this shirt, a popular item in Spain, well, actually Catalonia.
02 04 2009 0 comments
Tags: google, spain, tourism
