Things Of Love From 2007

Great post today by MegFowler. She says:

I know that none of us feels loving or loved all the time, but sometimes forcing yourself to think through the things you enjoy/are passionate about/get the tingles for is a good way to pull yourself through the muck. A small step, but an important one.

But instead of focusing on the next year yet, I’m going to ask YOU to tell me what YOU loved in 2007.

Using her template, here’s my list.

Movie of Love: Transformers – such a good movie! I’m still impressed with it.

Song of Love: Umbrella by Rihanna. I also listened to JT’s What Goes Around… quite a bit. Yes, again. Oh and Linkin Park’s What I’ve Done…great song!

Book of Love: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I read so many books it was hard to pick, but Dawkins wrote a book that definitely made an impression on me.

Album of Love: Riot! by Paramore. I’m still not sick of this album. Love it!

Place of Love: Facebook. Hard not to love it now that almost everyone is on it!

Month of Love: December…all the travel (London, New York, Yellowknife) was tiring, but totally worth it. Plus there was Christmas with my parents, and my birthday too!

Best Day of Love: June 12th because I graduated from university!

Best Moment of Love: Justin Timberlake concert, especially when all the cameras flashed, it was so awesome.

Word of Love: sweet! I also said "that’s how I roll" quite a bit.

Purchase of Love: Moleskine notebook, though I don’t use it enough! And I bought a second one while in NY (at the United Nations store).

City of Love: New York, of course! I’d go back in a heartbeat.

Food of Love: Goat cheese. Dunno why, but I seem to have fallen in love with it!

Beverage of Love: Coke Zero, my drink of choice. Also drank an awful lot of Starbucks.

Person of Love (someone who made a difference for you this year): So many people made a difference, in so many different ways. I’m thankful for all of them. If I had to pick just one though, I’d say Mom. She’s always making me smile with her Facebook and MSN messages! Yeah, I’m a momma’s boy 😉

Spot of Love (the best place to go to just be): Starbucks, for dozens of reasons.

Clothing Item of Love: Gap socks! So glad I finally bought some.

Random Thing of Love (anything you want): Text messaging. Couldn’t live without it!

That was harder than I thought! What does your list look like?

Read: MegFowler.com

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face

Post ImageThere is no privacy on the web.

Early this morning, Robert Scoble’s Facebook account was disabled because he violated their terms of service by scraping data from the site. That caused a flood of a posts from people saying that either Scoble was wrong or that Facebook got what it deserved. Most people siding with Scoble said that as he owns his data, not Facebook, he was in the right. He should be able to do with it whatever he wishes. Except that he doesn’t own all the data. Would his friends be happy to find out that he was taking their data elsewhere without their knowledge?

Not that it matters. It should be a non-issue. If everyone realized the truth – there is no privacy on the web – no one would be up-in-arms about the whole situation.

Sure there is something to be said about Facebook only sharing data when it makes good business sense for them to do so. Some might say that’s evil, others might say that’s business. Either way, it all boils down to privacy. Facebook gives you the impression that your data is secure, but it really isn’t.

There is no privacy on the web.

Scott Karp rightly points out that data is power. He suggests a war will be fought over control of data. I wonder though, if such a war can ever have a victor? Does Scoble own the data in his account? Does Facebook? What about his friends, don’t they own some of it? What about advertisers, surely they own some of it? Other companies? I think it’s a pointless battle. There’s far too much entanglement.

Forget trying to control the data. Let it flow freely. Forget trying to keep things secret. If there’s something that must be kept private, don’t post it on the web.

There is no privacy on the web.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re safe. With each passing day we give up a little bit more privacy than the last. The bottom line is that we almost always choose convenience over privacy, whether we know it or not. There’s a reason that concepts like identity theft didn’t really exist a hundred years ago. We share more information about ourselves now than individuals did back then, and we think nothing of it. Of course, accessing and distributing that information is easier than ever too, thanks in large part to the Internet.

Everything you think you know about privacy in the physical world is meaningless in the virtual world. The rules of the game are completely different.

There is no privacy on the web.

Read: Techmeme

Too bad it isn't Monday

You might think that my wishing for Monday is kind of odd, as most people generally despise Mondays! Normally I’d agree, but not today. Going back to work on a Wednesday after a bunch of time off just isn’t cool. I’ll barely be getting back into the swing of things and the weekend will be here! I don’t buy the whole "easing back into it" argument.

Anyway, happy new year! And to everyone else who had to go to work today – I hope you had a good start to 2008 🙂

Notes for 12/30/2007

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while…too much travelling! I head back to Edmonton tomorrow. Here are my weekly notes:

Here’s an excerpt from a post by Dave Winer that will definitely make you think:

With all possible humility, I’d like to tell you that a few days after I die my entire web presence will likely disappear. My servers require some attention from me from time to time. The first time that happens, poof, there goes 10-plus years of Scripting News, and all the docs for the OPML Editor and the OPML spec, the XML-RPC site, to name just a few. Anyway, within a couple of months it will all certainly disappear, unless someone pays my hosting and DSL bills. Maybe someone will, but isn’t it ridiculous that that’s what it depends on?

Rhetorical, but I’ll answer anyway. Yes, it is ridiculous. What do we do about it? Not sure, but it’s an interesting problem that many people will work on. And the solution probably won’t be easy.

I wish they all could be Apple Stores

Inside the Apple StoreOne of the first places I went in New York after checking into the hotel was the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. I had been looking forward to it for a very long time, and as I wrote that night, I was not disappointed. Sharon and I spent some time wandering around before I bought my iPod touch. The whole experience was really good, save for the cashier not knowing what to do with my Canadian debit card.

I’m not the only one who has been impressed with Apple’s retail experience this year.

Apple now derives 20 percent of its revenue from its physical stores. And the number is growing. In the fourth quarter in 2007, which ended Sept. 30, Apple reported that the retail stores accounted for $1.25 billion of Apple’s $6.2 billion in revenues, a 42 percent increase over the fourth quarter in 2006.

Not only has the company made many of its stores feel like gathering places, but the bright lights and equally bright acoustics create a buzz that makes customers feel more like they are at an event than a retail store.

In a way, I think Apple is "Starbucking" the technology retail experience. More than coffee, Starbucks offers a place to be. By allowing customers to sit and play with iPods and MacBooks, Apple is doing the same thing – selling community. The key phrase from above is "feel like gathering places".

Trust me, once you’ve been to an Apple store you’ll start wishing every retail experience could be so good.

It’s just too bad there aren’t more of them.

Read: NYTimes.com

Txt Msg on New Year's Eve

Post Image This shouldn’t really be a surprise, but apparently text messaging on New Year’s Eve is a big deal for Canadians. According to Virgin Mobile, we send an average of 31.5 million text messages per day.

Canadians are expected to send a record-breaking 50 million text messages on the evening of Dec. 31, according to Virgin Mobile Canada.

Last year’s New Year’s Eve text message tally was around 25 million.

The article goes on to say that those of us aged 18-30 will send an average of four messages each. That seems like a really small number to me, but who knows. It is an average after all. I probably send that many an hour!

So happy new year, and happy texting!

Read: CBC News

What I like about Xmas

The SpreadLike my Dad says, how can you enjoy Christmas if you have to spend the whole day cooking a turkey? You can’t! Much better to go easy on the fancy dinners and just eat as you go. Dad and Kim made us breakfast today (eggs, bacon, hashbrowns) and then late this afternoon we setup "the spread". Snack food! It was so yummy, especially with my favorite – shrimp dip and Triscuits!

So that’s one thing I like about Xmas…the food!

Merry Christmas

I didn’t read much news while I was in New York, which for those of you know me well, is a bit strange. I am something of a newshound, and I read quite a bit on a typical day. I plan to do some catching up this week. After I catch up on some sleep, that is.

The tree is up, and I think Mom is about done wrapping presents. This is the first time in a while that my whole family (Mom, Dad, Kim, Tom) has all been together. Tomorrow will be a day of eating and relaxing in our house. I’m looking forward to it!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Last day in NY

I’m in Yellowknife now, where it is currently minus 22. A little colder than New York, or even Edmonton for that matter! Yesterday was our last day in the big city, though we really only had half a day.

After packing we stopped at Starbucks on our way to Bar Americain, the Bobby Flay restaurant that Sharon had been hyping for weeks. We arrived right at 11:30 for brunch and were seated right away. Bar Americain is pretty fancy, but perhaps not so much as Gramercy. The food was pretty good, but I am not sure it lived up to the high expectations we had for it. I’d probably go back again, but I wouldn’t order orange juice! It was $4.50 per glass!

At Bar Americain NY Trip NY Trip Waldorf Again

We took our time getting back to the hotel, stopping at yet another shoe store! Still no shoes were purchased heh. Eventually we made our way to LaGuardia and had a relatively uneventful trip home, minus a slight delay in Ottawa. We were kinda sad to be back in Canada, but happy we had such a great trip.

I’d definitely go back to Manhattan – it’s my kind of place! All the photos from our trip are here. I have a few more to upload but they’ll have to wait until after Xmas so they don’t give anything away!

NY Day 5

Don’t have much time this morning, so I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet. We’re leaving soon for Bobby Flay’s restaurant Bar Americain. After that, off to the airport 😦

Yesterday we went to Clinton Street Bakery for breakfast. Took us a while to get there, but it was definitely worth it. The blueberry pancakes that Sharon ordered were awesome! After breakfast we basically shopped until late afternoon. We were on fifth avenue during what Sharon claims is the busiest shopping time of the year (2-3 PM on Dec 21st). It was pretty insane.

After dropping all our stuff off at the hotel, we ventured out for a hot dog! Had to order something from a street vendor! We ate them on the way to Wollman skating rink in Central Park. Sharon was pretty terrified, but she did really, really well! It wasn’t too cold, and our timing was perfect (arriving to skate just as the Zamboni was finishing up). I really enjoyed it, and I think Sharon is happy she conquered a fear! Heh.

NY Trip NY Trip NY Trip NY Trip

While skating, I asked Sharon where we were gonna go for dinner. She said Gramercy Tavern, as she had read online that it was good. Cool, I asked her what kind of food they had. She said American, like burgers and stuff, but not like Denny’s. So off we go. And we arrive…at the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to. Turns out Gramercy Tavern is the kind of place where they don’t clear dishes until everyone is done. The kind of place where you tip the person who takes your coat. The kind of place where they serve on the left, clean on the right, and never give you utensils you won’t be using!

Heh, it was actually really very good. I had Bacon Wrapped Trout, and Sharon had the Stuffed Meatball. We did feel somewhat underdressed though. I mean there were other people in jeans, but I still think we looked out of place. Oddly enough, they seated us right by the front of the restaurant, so I guess they didn’t mind that much.

Today is our last half day in NY. I have been seeing Kim’s Facebook updates about YK being -35 degrees, and I’m really not looking forward to that kind of weather! It’s been cold enough as it is here! Heh…okay, gotta go!