Erik's Blog

Today I stumbled on this awesome speech written and given by Michael Crichton back in 2002 about speculation, and how the media – which he defines as movies, television, internet, books, newspapers, and magazines – is, to a large extent, a gurgling blob of useless drivel. It’s a shame that he probably didn’t get to watch much of the farcical climax of vacuous speculation that was the 2008 US presidential election, as he died on the day Obama got elected. My favorite part of the article is how he talks about the fallacy that we all commit (a recent favorite topic of mine) when we read the newspaper, or receive information from any news source for that matter.
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For several months now, my favorite podcast has been Are We Alone?, put out by SETI. At first one might think that a podcast from an organization that has listened to the heavens for years without hearing so much as a peep from the aliens might not have much to talk about, but it turns out that they do: astronomy, anthropology, biology, psychology, etc. It’s more about understanding how humans became what we are and extrapolating that to speculate about alien life.
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Today I stumbled upon a website that is rather incredible. The technology to run it is utterly unremarkable. What’s amazing is that the internet is becoming so ubiquitous that such a sight is possible at all. The site is called OMGICU, which is teenager/text message language for “Oh my god, I see you”. The way it works is that, when you spot a celebrity, you submit a sighting report to the site, saying who you saw, where you saw them, and what they were doing. Obviously only a small percentage of the users of the site, mainly those living in Los Angeles and New York City, will be submitting sightings. The key is the service that minority will be providing for the other curious majority. The whole point of the site is that you can follow a celebrity that you are a fan of, and get real-time updates of what they’re up to. Amazing!
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A few months ago I acquired the DVD box set of every episode of Seinfeld, all nine seasons. Since then, I’ve been making my way through them one hilarious 22-minute episode at a time. It’s always funny to see actors in guest spots on old television shows that later went on to become more famous. Imagine my surprise when I got to the first episode of season six, The Mango, and see that George’s girlfriend is played by 27-year-old Lisa Edelstein, who now plays Dr. Lisa Cuddy on my current favorite television show, House.
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This is one of the cooler internet services I’ve seen in a while. Check out fontcapture.com and turn your own handwriting into a font you can use on your computer. It’s been a long, long time since I have written anything longer than a shopping list by hand. Those muscles are completely atrophied. This handwriting font trick isn’t much more than a gimmick, I don’t think, but it’s fun to do if you have a printer, a scanner, a pen, and five minutes.
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On Sunday, my wife, daughter, and I took a leisurely walk up to Colindres de Arriba. At one point the street is lined with a tall concrete wall. As we walked by the open gate, we glanced in for the second it took us to pass the gate. Several steps later, our brains had processed what we’d seen: a group of young people with HUGE ash-colored eighties hair, each wearing zombie make-up, just sort of milling around, as young people at parties and zombies tend to do. The music that was playing? What else? Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
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Back in April, my friend sgazzetti sent me an invite to particpate in a new social networking site I’d never heard of, called Aardvark [vark.com]. I’ve been using it for several months now, and I must say that I’m very impressed and fascinated. Aardvark is a question-answering engine that uses its users to answer the questions of other users. It functions on several principles…
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A tweet by Ze Frank got me watching some videos of Bill Shannon. On crutches from a disability for most of his childhood, he has invented a new style of dance. Ze, as usual, summarized it perfectly with only one word: Inspiring.
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This video is great. The shit that companies try to get away with in business-to-business relationships wouldn’t stand a chance with business-to-consumer relationships. Tip o’ the hat to Marigoldie for pointing me to it, and to Scofield Editorial for making it.
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This article was published in the Charlotte Observer – which I think is some sort of paper-based RSS feed – on March 24, 2009, the day that my daughter was born. My parents clipped it out and brought it to me on their recent visit. Of course I agree completely with what is said here. The underlying part about leadership depending on confidence is right on, too.
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