What I find most interesting about Using People is the layout. Typically, books will follow a certain layout and if they include pictures, it’ll be slightly altered. This book has a completely different layout that suits Aileen’s writing style completely. The pictures compliment and add meaning to her words.
Another thing I liked was the short “chapters.” She covered a lot of ground by keeping things short and concise. Her use of personal examples gave a warmth as if she was right in the room talking to you. This book felt very personal, rather than being a grandiose production, it felt intimate.
It’s a short read, and maybe that’s a good thing. Often times writers try to cram too much knowledge or storyline into one book and it becomes bloated. Using People has a nice rhythm and tone that I’m sure a wide range of people can appreciate.
All in all I enjoyed Using People and it’s definitely a book I would recommend to anyone that is trying to discover more about themselves and how they deal with people.
A very Beach Boysesque harmony opens the album on “Aria” followed by Mader musing on how long it has been. A delicate opener for a rock record to say the least. This is followed by the breezy summer anthem: “People want to be happy.” I had heard this track earlier in the year and decided it would be the question of the summer “are ya coming home in the summertime?” A collage of 60s and 70s rock sounds emanate from my tiny laptop speakers. It almost seems a crime to listen music this way, but the songs still sparkle in full stereo fidelity.
“Miniature Day Parade” starts with a bang including experimental noises. A lot of harmony on this record, with strains of banjo coming through on this particular track. “Panthers” opens with a Blackbird-like intro leading into a song that sounds more like The Walkmen. The boys have really hit their stride this time around. The arrangements are complex and swirling but raw enough to call rock and roll. The transition from “Begs me not to beg” to “God Save the Thieves” was so well done I barely knew it was a new song. God save is more reminiscent of a Wilco jam, but with a southern twist. Saturated in gravy and reverb, it swells the same way a shotgun house in uptown New Orleans would in the dog days of summer.
The banjo returns for “maybe it’s not me” (now the recent press photos make a lot more sense) with Jonny taking the lead vocals. A wise arrangement choice as his vocal stylings are conducive to this track. “Strangers” marks the lead vocals debut of Peter Dehart. Melancholy and haunting, “Strangers” laments a lost love. Mader returns to vocals on Bums on the Radios, managing to drop an F bomb just for the hell of it.
Pop Mission comes out the gate like a freight train. Dirty overdriven bass tone and unforgiving drums, this song rocks like a punk anthem. This is followed by the album’s closer: “Farmers” — an introspective ballad. Surprising for a record that packs a punch to be bookended by relatively slow songs.
Overall this is a great record filled with emotion, laments, introspection, and rock power. The psychedelia, rock, and southern sensibilities combine for a unique and fresh sound that is rarely heard in a backyard as small as Lafayette, LA. Brass Bed continues to make music that is uplifting, thoughtful, and danceworthy.
My last piece was more reporting, this is my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of any organization I represent.
BP is screwing us. All over again.
I just saw on the news how they haven’t responded to area companies trying to sell them booms to protect the coast from the imminent oil slick hitting land. This is unacceptable. They made this mess they should NOT be in charge of cleaning it up because clearly they cut corners at every possible opportunity. A $500,000 part and thorough maintenance could have prevented this disaster however negligence and lack of strict regulation got us in this mess.
An independent company or the government should be in charge of all cleanup efforts and send the bill to BP. The legislation drafted Post-Valdez is obviously out of date and needs to be revised before more damage is done. If BP could focus all of their efforts in capping the wellhead maybe the disaster wouldn’t be as epic as it is now.
What are we going to tell our children? When they ask us why there isn’t shrimp, oyster, or crabs for dinner. What are we going to tell them when we say “no you can’t swim in the gulf, it’s contaminated.” Are we really going to sit idly while a british company reaps in profits and rapes our coast? Unacceptable. Thousands of people will be out of work because of this disaster, and BP will pay out settlements sure, but they’ve taken away a way of life. The downfall of the Louisiana culture.
And what brought us here? Crooked politicians and businessmen. Who care more about the dollars and cents than the people affected by this. If Cheney hadn’t put in his cronies to revise the laws maybe BP wouldn’t be allowed to drill without the proper safety regulations in place. But that’s not the way it is, and it probably won’t be for as long as we live. Corruption is prevalent in that industry and will continue to be that way because no one progressive is going to champion the fight. Everything being done now is short term. They’re going to clean up as much as they can now and make a bunch of empty promises to the citizens of the Gulf Coast, then return to business as usual as if nothing had ever happened.
Disgusting. And all we can do is donate hair for booms and buy a ticket for a benefit concert. Unacceptable. Be more involved. Listen to what’s going on, talk about it, then do something about it. Myself, I plan to visit the affected communities soon and report to whoever will listen. Their story must be heard. We must not forget about our brothers and sisters who have lost their livelihood thanks to BP and lack of government regulation.
I just came back from New Orleans where they had a rally for the Gulf Coast this afternoon, and I wanted to share with you what I saw and heard…
My journey began at 8:45 this morning as we departed Lafayette for Baton Rouge to pick up more people in a large charter bus. There were only 5 of us at first including myself. A mother with her daughter sat in front of me and I listened to her talk about how important it is to voice your opinion when so much is at stake like this. The trip organizer (a representative from the Sierra Club) was friendly and had snacks and juice boxes for us as we all discussed how this was going to affect not only us but the generations to come after.
When we got to Baton Rouge there were not many people standing around, but soon people started coming out of the woodwork and we were 17 – 18 people strong. College students, concerned couples, all heading to New Orleans in an act of solidarity with those affected by the oil spill.
Finally we arrived at Lafayette Square where the rally was already underway. Two ladies were singing very politically charged songs about ending drilling in the gulf and how it was destroying our environment. A couple more musicians played as people walked around in shirts that read “Clean it up” with a picture of a gushing oil well. Other representatives of the Sierra Club asked people to sign petition cards to President Obama to encourage him to “engage every resource available to address the immediate cleanup and recovery needs of Gulf Coast residents, businesses, wildlife, and marine life.”
There was probably around 100 or so people walking around and listening to the music, with small card tables setup on the outskirts of the park with various organizations trying to mobilize volunteers to help clean up the gulf. Then different speakers came up, mostly focusing on how the spill has affected fishermen. Vietnamese fishermen in communities such as Venice beach that had immigrated to America long ago, now found themselves without jobs. Another fisherman told us that the dispersant being used currently is the same one that was used after the Valdez spill and that it has sickened and killed people involved in the cleanup effort. It is also responsible for the sterility of marine wildlife that came into contact with it. He warned that our estuaries are in grave danger, especially in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita which made the estuaries extremely fragile.
Jonathan Carpenter, a biology student at LSU spoke about his organization (scholar?) which is also working on the problems that this will cause. A state representative from Orleans Parish also spoke about how government should be working to regulate and have more oversight so that this never happens again. The press was abound at the event, I counted at least 4 or 5 HVX200s, 2 News crews, and members of the newspaper press. Speakers and participants alike were giving interviews about the day’s events and what causes they stood for.
Some of the participants were carrying signs voicing their displeasure for offshore drilling, and British Petroleum. Although everyone seemed to agree that something had to be done about the current situation, I didn’t feel there was a powerful call to action to help solve this debacle. I tip my hat to the Sierra Club and everyone else involved in making today’s rally happen, and hope to see more action in the future.
Whew! Where to begin with the amazing discussions that transpired at the March NetSquared New Orleans meeting. There were two presentations with two radically different approaches to the same thing: employing the creative workforce.
The first presentation was from Kurt Weigle with the New Orleans Downtown Development District. The main focus was bringing and keeping the creative class in New Orleans. He had several justifications: quality of life/cultural uniqueness, lower cost of living, and opportunity for progressive growth. He introduced the idea of place based economics, which means workers are now choosing where they want to live not because the job is there, but because they enjoy the location and how easy it is now to telecommute. Digital industries are developing in New Orleans for a few reasons. The first being the newly instituted tax break incentives offered to companies that establish and sustain business in Louisiana. The second reason is that the cost of living is 40 – 70 % lower as compared to major creative meccas (example: New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, etc). The major cities have effectively driven out the creative class because it has become too expensive for the workers to live there. It is important for New Orleans to embrace the new digital industries because it will help the city to move forward and decrease its dependance on the oil/gas & hospitality industries.
Chris Schultz’s discussion was radically different and on the surface almost contradictory to Kurt’s presentation. His topic was Outsourcing 2.0. Understandably this is a sensitive and controversial business practice that invokes mixed emotions. What made Chris’ approach unique is that he believes outsourcing can go both ways. A client could be in London but the contract workers are in New Orleans. So in that way, you’re actually contributing to the local economy as well as the global economy. With higher global education standards and the maturity of the internet, it’s possible to work or hire workers anywhere in the globe. Concerns were voiced from the audience about the quality of code (when it came to software development) and Chris explained that all code is put through rigorous standards that are checked by other programs and everything is commented in English. Another benefit of outsourcing is the ability to find skilled workers to complete a project on tight deadlines that wouldn’t be possible on a local scale. He realizes this model will not work for all industries, in fact he has referred potential clients to local businesses because it made more sense for them to work locally. Chris’ perspective is unique and I personally hope that more people can learn to embrace this business model instead of perceiving it as a threat to local jobs.
Overall, it was a great discussion and another successful NetSquared meeting. If you’re a citizen of Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans or the surrounding areas I highly recommend you attend these meetings. The topics and presenters are always interesting and there’s even free drinks! It’s held every first Tuesday of month at the Bridge Lounge (1201 Magazine St) and you can become a member by joining the meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/net2no/ you can also find out more information on their website at http://www.net2no.com/
A friend of mine recently purchased an iPhone and was asking for application recommendations. I’ve had the iPhone 3G since day one so by now I’ve accumulated quite a collection (5 pages! That amounts to about 1 GB!!) As I was writing my recommendations I realized others might find it useful so here they are (no particular order, I was thumbing through the pages)..
[also, assume that all the apps are free unless I say the price]
Say Who – Voice dialing at it’s finest. Press the button, say the name, wait a few seconds and it’s dialing. Great tool when you’re driving or multitasking.
Twitterific – An obvious one, it’s free with minimal ads and has a clean interface and plenty of functions. Especially great because of its integration with twitpic
Facebook – Very easy way to access Facebook, upload pictures, change your status. Great time killer app!
Sportacular – Easy way to check the up to the minute sports scores and standings.
Datacase (pay app) – turns your iPhone into a thumbdrive! Instead of using docking cable it uses a WiFi connection. You can also setup an adhoc network on your computer if there isn’t a nearby router.
iTalk – great voice/sound recording application. Incredible quality and easy to use.
Wikipanion – Need to look something up in wikipedia very fast? Look no further!
Pandora – Streaming radio on the go! Sounds great with 3G, iPod like interface, great app if you want to listen to music that isn’t on your iPhone.
WunderRadio (pay app) – Mad that the iPhone doesn’t have a FM tuner? Well turn that frown upside down because with WunderRadio you can listen to thousands of online streaming radio stations as well as police/fire/EMT scanners!
The Weather Channel (TWC) – A little bit more accurate than Weather.app also gives video forecast updated daily based on your geographical location.
RotaryDialer – Ok, this app isn’t that useful but it is cool looking. Allows you to make phone calls with a rotary dial.
Fring – Skype and other chat services on the go. For skype it’s chat only on 3G/EDGE but WiFi allows phone calls. Great for when WiFi reception > cell phone reception or calling long distance.
Light – Very simple app, turns the screen white. Very useful when it’s dark.
TouchMines – Mobile version of the windows classic Minesweeper.
Backgrounds – Tired of the same background? Download tons of stock images to spice your background up. Sol Free – Mobile Solitare! Another great time killer.
PAC -MAN lite – Pac man on the go! w00t!
Tiltsnake -anyone who owned a Nokia phone back in the day can appreciate this updated version of Snake
Google Earth – Just like the google app but on the go!
Shazam – Ever heard a song and wondered what it was or who it was by? Wonder no more. Simply let Shazam record 10 seconds of music, allow it to process, and you should have an answer shortly. Great for settling bets on who sang that song.
Remote – Remotely control an iTunes library, great for changing the songs if the computer is in the other room.
SnapTell – Ever wanted to get more info about a CD, DVD, or piece of software but didn’t want to type in the information? SnapTell allows you to take a picture of the item and it will give links to amazon as well other retailers to get comparison prices and description. Also a great app for making a wishlist as it will save the last items you snapped.
AroundMe – Great app for finding points of interest in a city. Maybe you’re travelling and want to know the nearest sushi restaurant. AroundMe takes your GPS location and compares it to their database and gives you the information you need.
PhotoSwap – Bored? Want to see what life is like for other iPhone users? With this app you can literally swap pictures! Take a photo and submit it, after you have submitted it you will get a photo in return, you can choose to reply to the photographer or keep taking pictures. Very cool app for seeing what it’s like around the world.
Lightsaber – turns your iPhone into a motion sensitive lightsaber, nerdtastic!
Last.fm – like Pandora but also scrobbles (check out last.fm’s site to find out more about scrobbling) your streaming station. Disadvantage: longer buffering times.
MochaVNC – VNC client to control computers while away from the desk. Not particularly fast but works if you’re in a pinch.
TouchTerm – SSH client for the iPhone, great for checking stats or running commands while away from the servers.
Echochops (pay app) – Takes your ambient sound and allows you to put a delay and effect the distortion of it, very interesting experiment in sound.
Units – Great app to convert units of measurement, area, currency, speed, etc.
More Cowbell – because everyone needs more cowbell in their life!
Flixster – check on movie listings and the latest DVD titles
Brain Tuner – Bored again? Want to sharpen your brain a little bit? This app is a lot like the math portion of Brain Age. See how fast you can complete the problems.
iSlots – Want to play some slots but don’t want to lose all your money? Look no further!
Scribble – Paint for iPhone. ’nuff said…
iBowl – Bowling for the iPhone, similar to Wii Sport’s implementation, just make sure to hang onto your iPhone!
Drinks Free – Want to look up a drink recipe quickly? Drinks Free has thousands of drinks so you can look up the ingredients you need while at a store shopping for cocktail ingredients.
Hope this helps! If you have any apps to recommend, send me a link to them: mike (at) mikebaldwin (dot) org
Haven’t posted in awhile, I’ve been busy working on an Ubuntu server named Squiggle. Squiggle is currently running Drupal, and a few monitoring/administration apps. The plan is to start backing up our Administrative server, and then transfer the duties to Squiggle to be the PDC as well as our internal Drupal server.
I met a few people at the Acadiana Open Source meeting the other night and one of the guys recommended I check out this site: http://drupaltherapy.com
They have a lot of great resources that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of. Of course Google is also an amazing tool for research and information gathering. I can’t forget to mention Kris Wotipka and Adam Melancon who have been incredibly helpful in getting the server online, much props guys.
What else? Still learning Visual Basic, and a bit of general computer troubleshooting in school. AT&T should be shipping me my DSL modem very soon (ie Tomorrow!) so I’ll have internet at the house again…That’s all for now, if I think of anything else I’ll edit the post.
In short, nowhere new. Just school and work, haven’t had a lot to blog about. ACL was a blast, big props to Chris H. for letting me crash at his place in Austin I had waaay too much fun.
Today was CampFiber here in LFT, in short I think it was a success and I really hope to see more events like it in the near future. It almost inspired me to become a developer but I think I’d be showing up a little late to the party with little to offer. I trust the local brains to do what’s right for the community. If it looks like they’re not going in the direction they should be I’d step in but I doubt it.
To see Terry Huval conversing with local developers about potential uses of the fiber network is pretty inspiring to me. You don’t see that kind of thing normally. Certainly Verizon would never send their CEO and members of the team to some town in South Louisiana to talk about settop boxes, fiber rollout, etc. So that in itself was pretty cool. It was also cool to see developers share their applications and talk about the industry as it exists now and will be in the future.
Didn’t really meet too many new people, a couple on twitter but I never got as far as to saying Hello. Had to jet out early, work and such, but very inspirational nonetheless, props to Geoff Daily, Abacus, and LUS for putting it on.
So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted…Sorry…Haven’t had much to write about.
I started to write about Cafe Culture a couple weeks ago, but I haven’t been inspired to finish it.
School starts tomorrow, work has been going well, I’ve been doing a lot more work in Linux on MySQL, PHP, and other web technologies. I’m currently alpha testing PHPMotion (youtube clone) on the server right now. FFMPEG is giving me some problems so uploading of videos isn’t working too well. It’s also not loading all of the images correctly so I’ll have to work on that this week.
Edit: I started this post much earlier than when I’m posting it, so now it’s like sunday evening thoughts…So overall life is good, can’t complain, just working and now starting school again. Anywho I’ll update this again later…