Michael Vick is either a liar or a masochist

Michael Vick is lying to us. But pleading "not guilty" to charges of being associated with dog fighting is not his lie. Instead his lie came in the form of a written statement his lawyer read aloud to reporters today. Here's the quote, which I will paste below and bold out the part that is a fib

Today in court, I pleaded innocent to the allegations made against me. I take these charges very seriously and look forward to clearing my name. I respectfully ask you all to hold your judgment until all the facts are shown. Above all, I'm sorry my mom has to go through this most trying time and the pain it has caused my family. I also want to apologize to my Falcon teammates for not being with them today at the beginning of training. There is nowhere I'd rather be today than in camp with my team.

So either Michael Vick has proven himself as a blatant liar, or perhaps he is just a masochist - because no man, unless he enjoys self-torture and masochism, would ever make a comment like Vick made today and be truthful about it. Training camps are hell, and there is something seriously wrong with you if you can't think of a better place to be than in a training camp.

NBC reckons file-sharing should be stopped entirely for.... corn farmers

Before I start my work day, I figure I'd share this quick tidbit from Ars Technica.

Despite the overwhelming subsidies corn farmers are receiving these days for producing ethanol, NBC reckons peer to peer file sharing (and other types of 'illegal' downloading of content) should be stopped wholesale by content filters as central locations (ISP's for example) and justify their stance by stating that corn farmers are suffering because popcorn isn't being bought in the theater.

Are you kidding me?

Transfer at 15Gbps over wireless

From TFA Dr. Dobbs article:

Georgia Tech scientists have demonstrated extremely high data transfer speeds with a wireless technology utilizing an ultra-high-frequency part of the spectrum, near 60 GHz. The transmission works only over short distances, with 15 Gbps transfers at 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters, and 5 Gbps at 5 meters. This sort of data rate would allow for the transmission of an entire DVD in seconds.

How neat is that? I typically don't get very excited over hardware and networking type things, nor do I know a great deal about them, but that has amazing potential.

I thought this why we all own personal computers in the first place.

Here is how the new One Laptop per Child initiative is starting off.

Another Great Buddhist Quote

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.

- T.S. Eliot

The secret to relieving anxiety is...

Weightlifting. I've recently discovered for about the 30th time in my life that it's a bit hard to let your mind drift off and dwell on things that get you down while at the same time attempting to handle a 225-lb bar bouncing up and down off of your chest, which never goes more than 3 more feet away from your neck. Not to mention getting "the pump", as Arnold so eloquently describes here:

Playing with the big kids

I was waiting on an elevator yesterday to take me up to the 15th floor for my normal lunch+research work routine where I overheard a conversation between a more than middle-aged man and a younger Asian woman. Both looked fantastically well to do.

In this conversation I was subjected to overhear the conversation whether I wanted to or not, and it turns out I actually didn't mind. The middle-aged man was playing the role of the wise mentor with the younger lady playing the role of the learner - well, she was at least nodding her head a lot and agreeing.

I couldn't gather much about the context as I only eavesdropped on the conversation for approximately 2 minutes, but it sounded like the woman was on a tough assignment at work, had a bad meeting, or was just discouraged for whatever reason. So the older man was off sharing the wisdom, trying to encourage her.

So as lame as this picture sounds painted, I heard something profound come out. The man began by trying to explain sports analogies and how sports can relate to everything in life. I've only heard that whole bit a million times from my football days, but he continued on talking about little kids playing sports. He said (paraphrased), "you know how the kids who are good in sports become good in sports? It's not by playing constantly, although it helps. It's by playing constantly and also playing with all of the older kids. You see when you play with the kids who are already bigger, faster, and stronger than you, it forces you to play that much harder and to focus that much more to even be on a level playing ground. But over time, your skill accelerates and you catch up to the older kids in skill and you will be miles ahead of your direct peers. The same is true in everyday life. If you want to get better, then play with the kids who already further ahead in the game than you".

There are so many parallels here for me, I 'd have trouble listing them all. For example everyday I walk in to work here feeling a bit overwhelmed by the talent and brains of those who work around me. But to put it in perspective, I can learn from them, learn how they think, what they study, how they approach problems etc. etc. And that thought, and I've had it several times before, keeps me going despite my own personal complexes of not being good enough. But now I have a great sports analogy to explain it by, relate to it, and share with others.

Smokeless Bars

I've discovered very quickly that one of the neatest things about California are the smokeless bars. Bars have typically been a loathsome place for me - places filled with loud, obnoxious smoking alcoholics who infect the place with nicotine laden clouds. So much to my surprise, the same is true not on this side of the country. California prohibits smoking in any public building (iirc) and thus there is no smoking in the bars. What this seems to translate into is a) a much more pleasant experience of actually having a clean place to hang out and drink a little booze, and b) the attraction of more 'normal' folks in the bar (read, people who wouldn't normally populate a bar due to the aforementioned reasons I used to hate them). And as a result, I am now someone who doesn't mind hanging out in a bar.

Phone Based Spin on Social Networking

Here's a new site that is attempting to bring social networking to the phone: Ccube.

For an overview of what it is about, here's the transcript of a Marketplace piece covering Ccube.

Neat concept - but I don't see this flying for three reasons.

First, it's not free. Yeah, it's only 7$ for some 250 minutes of talk time and there's some sort of free trial... but again, you are actually having to shell out some dough for the service. Part of the reason MySpace and Facebook succeed is that they are free and rely upon advertising revenue as their business model. By charging for the service, a critical mass will not be gained, which is necessary for a social network to succeed as a business model.

Secondly, this spin on social networking relies on finding people with similar interest, but who will be complete strangers. Again, in this contrasts MySpace and Facebook, which are mostly built from connections to friends who already know each other and then some FoF's (friends of friends). Sure there is "cold-calling" in these social networks, but the result of a cold-call in the web based social networks is just an email message from "RndmGuy123". However, this service is going to have your personal phone ringing with actual calls from whoever "RndmGuy123" and no one else. Empirical observation of how discriminating most folks are with having random people call them leads me to believe this model will not work well.

Thirdly, it won't lead to anything viral. Because connections are made through the phone and not through a computer system, it will be difficult to propagate things across a wide network. So you can kiss those viral marketing techniques that work so well on MySpace good-bye for this service - which means little to no ad revenue for Ccube. Here's a quick bit on viral marketing if that last sentence didn't make much sense.

Buddhist Daily Mediation

Courtesy of amidabuddha.org's Daily Meditation, I give you a very profound Buddhist thought of the day:

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes