My mother recently sent me an article from the February 4th Omaha World Herald entitled Omaha: Creative, but intolerant. Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and other related books was the keynote speaker at Omaha’s first Young Professionals Summit. It turns out that while Omaha ranks 11th on the midsize city Creativity Index, and has a “strong technology base” (what?), Omaha ranks 155th on the tolerance scale of midsize cities. Florida(the author)’s research indicates that cities that rank high in technology, talent, and tolerance lead in innovation, and Nebraska’s being the first state to ban gay marriage doesn’t help Omaha out with that third “T.” Business leaders present and future gathered to hear what they could do about this problem.
Archive for Society
Does anyone else feel like maybe grocery shopping is overrated? Since the big move, I have done real, old-fashioned, grab-a-cart-and-fill-it-up-with-all-of-the-stuff-you-think-you’ll-need-for-the-next-two-weeks (as well as everything else that catches your eye) grocery shopping a grand total of once. I have simply eaten out for every meal, or grabbed take-out from a place in the neighborhood. I have more time to work on the things that I’m good at and passionate about, I’ve been eating more rounded meals with all of those fruits and vegetables I had been hearing so much about, and I’m more apt to spend quality time with friends by virtue of wanting dining company. Now, I haven’t done a cent-for-cent analysis of the financial implications of this strategy, as my religion forbids it, but since I’m not making impulse buys, not eating unnecessary snacks, and not letting gigantic jars of pickles spoil in my fridge, I’d have to say I’m spending somewhere near the same amount of money on food, and I’m much happier not having to worry about cooking, or the phthalates being leeched into my preservative-ridden food by my TV dinner tray. And from an economic standpoint, I imagine a restaurant is far more efficient in utilizing its inventory and producing quality meals for cheap than I could ever hope (or care) to be.
I recognize that this philosophy is a bit single-with-cooking-skills-of-Ted-Kaczynski-centric, but dangitt, I really like life without grocery shopping. Anyone else tried it?
Contrary to what I had expected, I was, in fact, chosen for a jury. I was called in three times, and was chosen for a jury the third (and final for my month of service) time, thus maximizing the portion of my life dedicated to serving jury duty. At least it was an interesting case.
Have you ever wanted to start your own suburban development, but just couldn’t think of what to name it? Behold the Suburban Development Name Generator (v.1.0). It can provide you with dozens of creative names such as Quail Run, Eagle Run, Huntington Park, Whispering Ridge, Shadow Ridge and many more!
I was recently summoned to serve as a juror in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, in the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Courthouse here in Omaha. I was originally scheduled to start on April 4th, but earlier this week, they called me and said that the judge wanted to get the case underway and wanted us to come in early (April 1). Rather than the response I should have given (”Sorry, I have already scheduled something for that day, had I known that was the day I would need to start, I could have kept my schedule open”), I agreed to come in. Here is what the experience was like.
I came across an article where Robert Maltbie explains that despite an Amnesty International report about Tasers causing deaths, the company that manufactures them is still a good company to invest in. I haven’t investigated enough to comment on whether investing in a company like Taser is ethically or morally right, but I couldn’t help but notice how removed Maltbie is from those considerations, especially when referring to the drop in TASR’s stock price after the report was released:
Here are a few points that I think many investors did not notice. The company has no acquisition targets; it’s a clear leader in its market; its balance sheet can self-finance up to three times its capacity…
…blah blah. Think about what a company does before you invest in them.
It amazes me that people face with such incredulity, findings such as that temperature has an effect on aggression and violent crime, and daylighting enhances learning. Pardon the childish sarcasm, but gee, imagine that…our behavior is affected by our environment.
Computer lingo is full of metaphors for the physical world. You have a “desktop,” “trash,” “wallpaper,” “folders” and you “surf” the “web.” We have created a world which mimics the physical world to make the transition to computer use easier.
But sometimes, excessive computer use can have us doing strange things when we’re in the “real” world. Merlin Mann of 43 Folders is experiencing this problem. Apparently, he uses Markdown, which enables him to write his posts in a unique sort of textual shorthand that converts into valid XHTML. He uses it so much, that when he is writing in the physical world, he is now making asterisks instead of dots when writing a bulleted list, among other less-efficient annoyances.
This reminded me of some frightening symptoms of Techfluenza I have had in the past. The first time I experienced this problem, I was organizing a file cabinet for CDs of Architectural project images. They were stacking units, and I wanted my Inbox to stay on top, so as I was writing the label for the Inbox, I began to place an exclamation point before “Inbox” so it would read “!Inbox” (for those unfamiliar with this practice, placing an exclamation point at the beginning of a file or folder name will ensure that it will remain at the top of the list of your file browser). Another time I was struck with Techfluenza, was when I was building my carpet sample rug. I was trying different configurations, and changed the tiles around, but decided I wanted them back the way they were before. So, as I summoned my “undo” command, I embarrassingly (if you can be embarrassed when you’re alone) realized I was not in Photoshop.
I don’t spend enough time in the physical world to have more examples. Do you have any?
I just ran across an article on blogs in the Omaha World Herald (this link will be dead within few weeks, a testament to the tech-savviness of the OWH).
They define a blog as “An online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on the Web; also called Weblog, Web log” and make no mention of the benefits of blogging for businesses, self promotion, just how RSS allows one to “read entries from several different blogs on one site,” how blogs help power popular search engines such as Google, or how blogs are turning marketing and advertising upside down. I know newspapers are written at the third-grade level, but this is ridiculous.
The article explains how to set up a weblog like this: “Anybody can do it. If you’re technically savvy, you can create a Web page for your blog that’s based in your own machine. It’s not easy - there aren’t any places to click or windows to open, just long strings of computer commands.” Huh? In all fairness, they do go on to mention blogger.com.
Then there is the blogs that they link to in the article. I get the feeling they didn’t spend very much time scouring the internet for the best in Omaha blogs. Kenneth Ross’s blog is a pretty decent representation of what a blog is, but Cathie English’s blog hasn’t been updated in over nine months! Jitterblogs.org opens to an excessively prominent disclaimer, which links to another page, which links to five blogs, two of which have zero posts, one that has one post (from five months ago), and another that also hasn’t been updated in five months. Certainly, simply by clicking on “Omaha” in someone’s blogger profile, they would have stumbled upon the hub of Omaha-based blogging.
Maybe they don’t want to generate too much interest in blogs, seeing as how blogs and technology such as RSS threaten to make newspapers, and the old method of advertising that powers them, extinct.
I recently got a new laptop, and I have to admit, I have been spending a disturbing portion of my time on the couch. I’m not a big TV watcher, so prior to acquiring my laptop, I spent the majority of my time at my desk, which I guess should be even more disturbing.
Having a laptop is great, though. I got Airport Express, so now I am wireless, and can even play music through my speakers via AirTunes. I can even take it to bed with me, do some blog reading before bed, put it on my nightstand, and then check my e-mail before I even get out of bed (”oh, a computer in bed…the porn jokes I could comment with”…don’t bother). Maybe I’ll slowly devolve from never leaving my desk, to never leaving my couch, to never leaving my bed.
I’m sure I will spend some time on my deck once, if, the weather is ever nice again. It just snowed 14 inches here in Omaha, and every time this happens it makes me wonder why people aren’t nomadic anymore. Oh, that’s right, because we have so much stuff.
