Friday evening, I went to an event on event planning (circular thought, yes?). It was organized by Mark Baratelli of The Daily City. There was lots of great information, and I tried to write down as much as possible. I got nearly all of the discussion, in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. There were representatives from BarCampOrlando, Orlando Hispanic Film Festival, Orlando Fringe Festival, Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Festival, Florida Film Festival, Nerdapalooza, and the Orlando Puppet Festival. Enjoy the link below, and reach out to me with feedback tim [@] timrosenblatt.com
Author: Tim
White Power? White Flour!
Fighting fire with…clowns?
http://rafer.tumblr.com/post/179794296/pukomuko-mikehudack-onemonthhere-noneck
Tennessee clowns kicked kkk asses.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a white supremacist group, VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK, attempted to hold a hate rally. Then the clowns showed up….
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.
At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”
The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”
AirTran/GoGo Inflight internet on the airplane
I’m on a plane! AirTran has in-flight WiFi. $13 for 24 hours of access. Not a bad deal for WiFi, and AirTran is surprisingly nice too. Here’s the stats.
According to http://speedtest.cfl.rr.com I get 2480kbps downstream, 291kbps up. This is enough that I can stream Colbert Report on Hulu.
The airplane wifi is letting me SSH, use IRC, all IM networks, and full web access. IP is 12.130.117.56, proxied through 172.19.134.2:3128 (squid/2.6.STABLE14)
Ping latency to google.com is consistently between 150-153 ms. Traceroute yields nothing, maybe it is blocked. Not a problem for me.
Of course, through all these miracles (37k feet in the air, Mach 0.785/514 mph), accessing twitter.com is still inconsistent.
“I have no opinion”
One of the most powerful and underused tools in any manager’s toolkit is “I have no opinion”. In fact, it’s useful for anyone who is asked to provide input on a thing.
Unless you’re contributing real value to a question — don’t answer it. Unless you can really answer “why do you hold this opinion” — unless you can really justify your position on something — don’t respond.
“I have no opinion” is polite. It means “I’m not going to clutter your head up with a non-valuable bunch of words.” It says “I have confidence in your ability to make the right decision.” It’s rewarding to the other person. It’s empowering.
See “Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is?” for a great in-depth discussion on this.
@hamilton RT @publius hay guyz i think ppl voting in democracy 4 d uniting states FTW whatchoo think LMK
I got into a small debate/discussion about direct versus representative democracy. Via Twitter. While drinking. Not really the place for significant exposition. I thought of the founders of the US discussing the Federalist Papers. And I thought, “what if?” Not “what if the founders were drunk?” but “what if they were limited to tweets?”
I went to Project Gutenberg and grabbed a plain text file of the Federalist Papers. I stripped off the Gutenberg header and footer so that I was left with the main text, and the headings that were part of the original text.
I wrote a quick script to split the text on periods, question marks, and exclamation points. I filtered out sentences under 15 characters (since there are titles and non-sentence cases). Seems like a comfortable threshold for “smallest possible sentence” — at least 15 characters between “end of sentence marks”, excluding newline characters.
There are 6190 sentences in the text. Of those, 2528 are less than or equal to 140 characters in length (but larger than 15). There are 3662 sentences greater than 140 characters in length. 59% of the sentences wouldn’t fit in a single tweet.
The longest sentence in the Federalist Papers is
The recommendatory act of Congress is in the words following:“WHEREAS, There is provision in the articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, for making alterations therein, by the assent of a Congress of the United States, and of the legislatures of the several States; and whereas experience hath evinced, that there are defects in the present Confederation; as a mean to remedy which, several of the States, and PARTICULARLY THE STATE OF NEW YORK, by express instructions to their delegates in Congress, have suggested a convention for the purposes expressed in the following resolution; and such convention appearing to be the most probable mean of establishing in these States A FIRM NATIONAL GOVERNMENT:“Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress it is expedient, that on the second Monday of May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose OF REVISING THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such ALTERATIONS AND PROVISIONS THEREIN, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution ADEQUATE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION
I’m not sure where to go with this. I could filter down easy abbreviations like “for” => “4”, “people” => “ppl”, etc, but there’s a limit on the information content of a single tweet. Possibly we’ve invented new words in the past 200 years that would allow for a higher idea/characters ratio, but there’s even a limit on the complexity of sentence structures that can be conveyed in short messages. Franklin and Douglas would debate for hours on end using enormous grammatical structures that most people can now barely read. Does this make us dumber?
I’ve got no evidence to back this up, but it does seem easier to communicate things orally instead of in writing. I think the parts of the brain that process language have been around longer than the parts that process writing, so our brains might be better equipped for insanely long spoken sentences instead of written sentences.
Fun for brainstormin.
Anagnorisis and Peripeteia
Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs gave a talk at TED. In it, he mentions two words that I’ve never heard before, but I do like.
anagnorisis – basically means “discovery”. Aristotle defined anagnorisis as “a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune”.
peripeteia – a drastic and unexpected change of fortune. Perepity is a different form of the same word.
Dirty Jobs is awesome, and Rowe is a big reason. He’s well-educated, and spends his time going out and doing really hard and nasty work.
Here’s the video of the TED talk.
Al Qaeda is to explosions as MTV is to music.
I’m finally getting around to reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. I opened it this morning on the drive to work (Chas drove, not me), and in the first 20 pages, I read something that I wanted to share before I get started with my day.
In the six years since 9/11, Al Qaeda Central — the group led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri — has been unable to launch a major attack anywhere. It was a terrorist organization; it has become a communications compnay, producing the occasional videotape rather than actual terrorism. *
* Even if an attack were to take place tomorrow, the fact that, for six years, Al Qaeda Central has been unable to organize one explosion anywhere is surely worth noting.
Al Qaeda is to explosions as MTV is to music. Or, Al Qaeda : explosions :: MTV : music
Burn.
Discount Rock Star
Somebody bought Josh Freese’s $20,000 album package. This is fantastic news for two reasons.
One, people understand the value that we as rock stars* are offering.
Two, Josh now has already made enough money to purchase all of my album packages combined, for the small sum of $11,432.20
Honestly, I think the coolest possible outcome of this would be that Mr. Freese himself actually does purchase a copy of my album. I’m hoping he goes for at least the $100 one. Josh: If you are reading this, and are going to be back in Orlando soon, we should hang out. Call me.
(*I may not actually be a rock star at the time of publishing. Josh Freese is, and between the two of us, I’m rounding up)
Old people, Sweeden, and Dollars.
As I mentioned, I was at this investment meeting last week. They gave us a bunch of papers, and being a giant nerd, I actually read the stuff. (Hey, I do want to retire, and sooner rather than later)
There were a few things I read that I think are interesting for the long term.
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the US Bureau of the Census, we’re gonna have a lot of old people soon. Yeah, big surprise. Well, let’s put some numbers to it. Here’s the number of people over 65.
- 1990 – 31.2 million
- 2000 – 35.0 million
- 2010 – 40.2 million
- 2020 – 54.6 million
- 2030 – 71.5 million
We’re going to nearly double the number of old people in the next 20 years. Buy stock in Ensure. No, really. Buy stock in companies that make stuff for old people. That’s one of the big reasons people are freaking out about health-care. We’re going to need lots more doctors & medical technology, and the price is going up. Apparently, health-care costs are currently increasing 3x faster than the Consumer Price Index.
Oh also, old people? Thanks for taking care of Social Security. And by “taking care”, I mean “can we get some health-care to replace Social Security’s kneecaps after that cool thing you did with the crowbar?” You people just can’t handle credit, can you?
In the early 90s, Sweden had a financial crisis. In the 80s, they had a credit boom which produced high consumer spending and real estate prices. They had a currency crisis, in the 90s, and the boom was reversed. Sounds a bit like now. I think this is what the US is looking to as a model for our current crisis, because Sweden was able to solve their problem in only a few years. They nationalized 22% of banking assets, and then created some private companies to help come up with values for, and sell off the bad assets. I hope it works in our case.
Buy my album!
I’m proud to announce the release of promotional packages for my upcoming album. Some of you may have heard of Josh Freese, who has drummed with more groups than I care to list, including NIN, Devo, and A Perfect Circle. He has a line of packages to accompany his album. I figure since I’m (almost) a drummer, I should take inspiration from him.
One note: based on my currently limited drumming skills, and reduced access to famous people, I figure I’m about 10% as cool as Josh Freese, so I’m going adjust the package costs accordingly. There are even bonus items that Josh won’t or can’t give you. This will definitely be a way more affordable deal than Mr. Fancy Pants “I’m actually a talented drummer” is offering.
A second note: I have not recorded an album, nor written a song, ever. But I will eventually. It might even be about you.
Email me, tim [at] timrosenblatt.com with the package you’re interested in.
70 cents (Josh’s $7 package)
- You will get a digital copy of my upcoming album. I promise to keep a list and send you a digital copy when I eventually release it.
$1.50 (Josh’s $15 package)
- You will get a digital copy of my upcoming album, as well as a physical CD/DVD.
$5 (Josh’s $50 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt. I don’t have an official design yet, but I’m handy with Sharpie markers and will do something custom.
- THANK YOU phone call, from me, for buying. You can tell me what you like, or what you thought sucked…Ask whatever you like” Is maynard really that weird?”or”Which of Stings mansions has the comfiest bed?” or ” Are DEVO really suburban robots who monitor Reality, or just a bunch of Dads from Ohio?” or “Why don’t the Vandals play more stuff off the first record?” Honestly, I’ve never hung out with any of these people, so my answers will be best guesses. Questions that you’re likely to get good answers to are things like “What is a NP-complete problem?”, “What data should be stored on an association table for a Rails project?”, and “What do you consider the best way to cook a steak?”. Alternately, you can save up this call for a future date, when I’m able to hook up some better answers.But, it is your five minutes to yack it up- Talk about whatever you want!
$25 (Josh’s $250 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt. I don’t have an official design yet, but I’m handy with Sharpie markers
- Signed drum head and drumsticks
- We have lunch together at Winter Park Village’s PF Chang’s or The Cheesecake Factory
$50 (Josh’s $500 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt. Still no design, but I’ll buy a fresh pack of Sharpies, both colored and metallic, and make you one.
- Signed Cymbal and sticks.
- Meet me in Orlando, FL, and I’ll sneak you into the YMCA where I work out & swim. It will help if you look like me, so I can get you in with my ID. Otherwise, there’s a good chance we’ll be jumping a big fence/wall. For a slight upgrade fee, I will get you a day pass and you can walk in the front door. We will float in the pool with our eyes closed, which will get filmed and posted on YouTube. Alternately, you can upgrade (at cost) to meet me in Venice, CA and we go floating in a Sensory Deprivation Tank (filmed and posted on youtube).
- Dinner at Sizzler (get your $8.99 Steak and “all you can eat” Shrimp on).
$100 (Josh’s $1,000 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt. See above note.
- Signed Cymbal, Drum head and Drumsticks.
- Tim washes your car OR does your laundry….or you can wash his car.
- Have dinner with Tim at the Lobster Feast on I-Drive. We will audibly make fun of the tourists.
- Get drunk and cut each other’s hair in the parking lot of the Orange County (that’s Orlando) courthouse (filmed and posted on youtube of course). Dustin will probably come to town for this and help. Honestly, I hope you go for at least this level of package. I might throw this one in for the higher packages too.
- We will watch some drum videos on youtube. Also some snowboarding vids.
$250 (Josh’s $2,500 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt
- I give you a drum lesson. Honestly, I’m still learning this whole drumming thing, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least 300 hours of practice, so I can teach you about paradiddles, flams, and some limb coordination. So as to not totally rip you off, I will have an actual drummer friend join for the lesson, and teach us some shit. Or (for all you non-drummers) I’ll give you a back and foot massage (couples welcome).
- Pick any 1 member of the Vandals or DEVO (subject to availability) to accompany you and I to one of Orlando’s attractions. Keep in mind, I’ve never actually met any of them, so basically, I’m going to be writing them a nice letter and asking them to come and chill. I’m somewhat of a cool person, and hopefully you are too, so I think if they’re in the area, there’s a good chance this will work. If there’s another person you’d like to meet instead, I’ll work on hooking that up.
- A signed snare drum. Given the ultra discount that you’re getting, the snare drum may not be in great condition.
- Take 3 items of your choice out of my closet (first come, first serve). If it’s a box, you must empty it out before you take it. No cheating by claiming a full box is a single item.
- Change cat litter with Tim. At your option, we can also water my plants and feed my fish.
- I will buy a TV and we (you, Dustin, and myself) will take turns throwing it off the roof of Dustin’s vehicle. Alternately, Caleb (multi-time burn-out champion) will show you how to correctly body slam a car, and do 180s with the parking brake.
$500 (Josh’s $5,000 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download
- T-shirt
- I write a song entirely about you and put it up on iTunes (also on upcoming record that I’m working on now). I’ve never put a song on iTunes, but I’ll figure it out. Also, I’ve never written a song before, so maybe you’d prefer I write a song about someone you don’t like.
- Then you and I “co-direct” a video for the song I write and throw it on youtube
- I give you and a friend a private tour of Disney World.
- Get drunk together. If you don’t drink we can go to Lake Eola and look at/talk to homeless people.
- Stone from Pearl Jam might you a letter telling you about his favorite song that Tim has listened to. Again, I’ve never met him, but I’ll work something out.
- If you play drums (or want to), we will attend a private drum lesson from the drummer for the Blue Man Group.
$1000 (Josh’s $10,000 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt
- I will get you on the radio one way or another. It might be ClearChannel, it might be UCF radio. But, you’ll get airtime. We’ll also see how much of my music we can have them play before kicking us out. Alternatively, I’ll bring some music that I didn’t create, but do like. They’ll probably play some of that.
- I will get you a picture from A Perfect Circle’s 2000-2001 tour. I will sign it. I’ll see if I can get you a piece of music equipment from their tour, which I will also sign.
- I will get you a ringtone of my friend Greg laughing. It’s a seriously infectious laugh.
- Drum lesson or his and hers foot/back massage.
- We go to lunch at a Disney restaurant. It might be a super exclusive, private restaurant at Disney World, or it might not be. We will hit a couple rides afterwards, preferably the Tower Of Terror, Rock ‘n Roller Coaster, The Tiki Room and The Haunted Mansion.
- At the end of the day at Disney, I will let you drive away in my Hyundai. You do not get to keep it. You will drive away with me in it. It’s got a few years — I’ve driven over 140k miles — on it, but I’ve taken really good care of it, and is definitely worth more than $1000. We can negotiate a deal if you’re interested though.
- We will take kite surfing lessons in Miami. It will be filmed and posted on youtube.
$2000 (Josh’s $20,000 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt
- I will get you a picture from the 2008 NIN tour. I will sign it. I’ll see if I can get you a piece of music equipment from their tour, which I will also sign.
- Maynard James Keenan, Mark Mothersbaugh from DEVO and I take you miniature golfing and then drop you off on the side of the freeway (all filmed and posted on youtube of course). Again, I don’t know these guys and they don’t know me. I will still put my best efforts into getting us hooked up. If this falls through, I will substitute some very cool friends of mine, and we’ll throw down.If you don’t like miniature golf, we will get some beers and hit balls at the driving range with Rex (aka “drunk driving”).
- I give you a tour of Orlando. I’ll show ya my first apartment, the cannon we fired on the UCF campus, the house I rented (entertaining you with appropriate stories), and the place we went off-roading in Dustin’s jeep during a hurricane. I’ll take you out for some really great tacos. Also, Josh Freese is from Orlando. If you go for this package, I will buy the $50 Josh Freese package, ask him where he was born, and show you it.
- For an extra $5, the tour will be on the back of my motorcycle. For another $2.50, I’ll show you the section of the park that the homeless people have taken over.
- We will spend the night camping in Ocala National Forest with some of my friends. There’s a sweet place that no one else knows about. Separate sleeping bags, of course…no spooning. There could be bears. We’ll tie the food up in a tree.
- I write 2 songs about you (or if you want 1 can be about you and the other one can be about whatever or whomever you’d like) and it goes on my next record (you can sing back up on them, clap, play the drums, triangle solo…whatever you want). Given that I’ve never released a record, this “next record” will be my debut record. Again, I’ll let you evaluate my talent before we record, and give you the option to have them be songs about people you don’t like.
- Drum lesson OR foot and back massage (once again…..couples welcome).
- Pick any 3 items out of my closet. Full boxes don’t count. I have some cool shirts.
- I will train for a triathalon and complete in it with you. If you aren’t inclined to move under your own power, while swimming I will tow you in an inflatable chair; while biking, pedal a 2-person bike; and while running, pull you in some kind of rickshaw.
$7500 (Josh’s $75,000 package)
- Signed CD/DVD and digital download.
- T-shirt
- Come out on tour with me for a few days. Strictly speaking, I don’t have an actual touring schedule. But, I’ll put one together for a few days. We may end up jamming in the park on one of these days, but I will get us playing in a bar/club at least once.
- I write, record and market a 5 song EP about you and your life story.
- I will let you take my cat to the mall. He will have a lion cut, and will wear his leash. He is irresistable, and will help you pick up a member of the opposite sex. Or the same. Whatever you’re into.
- Take home any of my drums or cymbals.
- Take shrooms and cruise Hollywood in Danny from TOOL’s Lamborgini OR we play “quarters” and then hop on the Ouija board for a while. Again, I don’t know Danny Carey, but I’ll do my best. Honestly though, if you go for this package, you should practice your quarter bouncing. It’s like beer pong, except cooler, and you don’t have to wear a trucker hat or pop your collar(s).
- If you have a band, I’ll join it for a month, or until you kick me out….play shows, record a CD together, have a swim party, etc…. or none of the above. We could also just sit in yer basement and jam old Van Halen.If you don’t have a band I’ll be your personal assistant for a month (4 day work weeks….5:30 pm to around midnight). After this, we’ll take a limo down to Miami, or around Vegas if possible. I’ll figure out some awesome stuff for us to do. I don’t know what it will be exactly, but it will be both dangerous and fun. If you go for this package, I will buy the $50 Josh Freese package, and use my five minute call to get some ideas from him for Tijuana. If he’s not bullshitting and actually has some rockstar-awesome ideas, we still might do the Tijuana thing. If you don’t live in Orlando but are in the USA I will come to you and be your personal assistant/cabana boy for 2 weeks
- We will go sky diving together. We’ll get the full video package too, which will be posted on youtube. Then, I’ll get some lasagna from a great Italian place (Goodfellas), and we will listen to NIN music, and watch NIN DVDs with my friends. On second thought, one of my friends might actually be able to get me in touch with Robin from NIN’s wife, and I will get her recipe for lasagna. If I think it’s good, I’ll make it. Still, Goodfellas makes some awesome food, so that might be the best option.
As you can see, this is certainly a deal when compared to Mr. Freese’s offer. Order now. tim [at] timrosenblatt.com