Too Much @hotdogsladies

I started this mental list the other day. In a comic store. I’ve been reading/following this fellow for far too long. Here’s the proof. You might be copycatting a little too much. Feel free to add more.

• You’ve read Getting Things Done (David Allen Copyright DavidCo 2001) more than once.
• Inveterate OmniFocus power user.
• TextExpander
• You have a billion .txt files that you access in nvALT and a half dozen iOS apps
• You have to lay down constantly.
• You over carbonate your soda water.
• You’re the kind of person who likes to push a Tonx.
• Way of the future
• At one time you employed a Hipster PDA and a space pen.
• You remember Kinkless GTD.
• You know how to properly pronounce “artisanal” and “manga”.
• You keep your blood sugar regulated with hotdogs or galetes.
• You can say “TPB” quickly without getting tongue tied.
• Don’t be creepy.
• You use apps like Hazel, Pathfinder, Keyboard Maestro…
• You know there’s a script for basically anything you want to do as long as you’re willing to fiddle with it.
• You need to eliminate keyboard dander.
• You’ve recently gotten into comics like X-Men, Saga, and Hawkeye.
• You’re moderately sure you know what Vim is.
• You know there’s no such thing as 15 priorities.
• The Bunk. Happy now…?

Don’t Be Evil

Or, well, you know, just go ahead, Google.

Think I’ll go ahead and start migrating my G-mail to some other service. Any good ideas?

Congressional Responses to My SOPA and PIPA Emails

Here’s a response from Senator Mark Pryor following an Email I sent asking him not to turn the US into China or Iran:

Thank you for contacting me regarding online piracy legislation. I appreciate hearing from you.

I understand your concerns about this issue. Supporting Arkansas’s businesses and the American economy is one of my highest priorities. This means encouraging all countries to play by the rules of a fair market. Counterfeiting and pirating are harmful to U.S. companies and must be stopped. Consequences of such intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements include deprivation of income for legitimate businesses and their workers, discouragement of innovation and creativity, endangering consumer health and safety, providing a source of revenue for organized crime, and a loss of tax revenue.

To date, several bills have been introduced into the 112th Congress designed to address this growing problem. However, I understand there are serious concerns regarding some of these proposals. Please know, as I closely review each proposal that comes before the Senate for debate, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I value your input. Please do not hesitate to contact me or my office regarding this or any other matter of concern to you.

And why would I not hesitate? He completely misses the point. If he really wants to discourage innovation then he should support PIPA. I get it, though, and PIPA really isn’t as bad as SOPA - it’s just wrongheaded.

Here’s Rep. Steve Womack’s canned response concerning SOPA:

The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act, S.968, was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on May 12, 2011, to allow the U.S. attorney general to seek court orders requiring U.S.-based search engines and internet service providers to stop providing links to infringing sites. In addition, it requires payment processors and online advertising networks to refrain from conducting business with such sites. The PROTECT IP Act was reported by voice vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee and is currently pending before the full Senate for passage.

While a companion bill to the PROTECT IP Act has not been introduced in the House, Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21) introduced H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, which has the same general goal of protecting American ingenuity. It goes further than the PROTECT IP Act to work with other governments, including those of other countries, to combat piracy, in addition to increasing criminal penalties. Furthermore, it aims at protecting American consumers at risk for identity theft or fraudulent charges every day. SOPA is a more aggressive bill in regard to fighting the theft of intellectual property, and it is currently under consideration by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet.

While I believe individuals and entities who possess copyrights and patents deserve to fully benefit from the legal protection afforded them, any legislation of this magnitude must be carefully considered. Contrary to what many believe, this bill will not censor free speech but will work to protect those rights afforded to us by the Constitution, including free speech and property rights. I support working toward a solution to ensure our nation’s legal system protects the hard work of songwriters, performers, authors, artists, engineers, and countless others who invest their time and energy to better our country while, at the same time, ensuring that the internet allows for freedom of speech and ideas. I assure you I will keep your thoughts in mind as I consider my position on this legislation.

The emphasis is mine because it is so emphatically wrong. If you’re going to make a statement like that, then please, please prove it. I suspect the only rights Rep. Womack (or any other Washington politician) cares about are the rights of corporations.

These are very dispiriting responses to a very real problem. 

Upgrades!

I’ve now got iOS 5 running on both my iPhone 4 and my iPad 2 as well as OS 10.7.2 and iCloud on my MacBook Pro. It did take some elbow grease to get my iPad 2 to update properly but it was a minor headache (though I was pretty ticked at the time and tweeted about it). 

Everything is up and running properly and the only downside is the number of people I have contact with who aren’t using it yet :-) I want to try Find My Friends and iMessage with others so the more friends I have using both the more fun it will be. 

I do like the split keyboard on the iPad, though the buttons are a little small for my huge thumbs. I also like the iCloud syncing of my iWork documents. I hope that iCloud will start rolling out to third party apps quickly because I think it could really, really make my work flows, well, flow.

The biggest downside I see is that folks who aren’t Apple honks like me might find some of the upgrade process, particularly with iCloud, a little more confusing than past upgrades.

iPhone Announcement

(Posted originally on Google+)

I thought the Apple announcement was a bit of a yawner but I’m still a little surprised at the negative reaction.

My amateur opinion is that there are a group of people who figured out which rumors about the new phone were probably true and the event confirmed them. I’m in this group. No real surprises. That’s cool.

The other group, who are agitated, are the ones who don’t pay attention to reality and really thought that there would be an iPhone 5 (!!), a cheaper iPhone nano (oh, good grief), and a “one more thing” with a television featuring iOS. I’m having a hard time not saying things about this group’s lack of cognitive function.

There must be a lot of pent up nerd angst among the Karl Van Hœts of the world.

Fascinating

Just spending time together is not enough, he said. The sort of activities you engage in are vital. Graham concluded you are driven to grow, to expand, to add to your abilities and knowledge. When you satisfy this motivation for self-expansion by incorporating aspects of your romantic partner or friend into your own skills, philosophies and self, it does more to strengthen your bond than any other act of love. 

- Misattribution of Arousal (You Are Not So Smart)

The author mentions activities like remodeling a kitchen in the full paragraph, but I wonder what other activities a couple could do together to strengthen this bond? Sounds like fun.