99.9% of the time, I don’t miss Twitter. I don’t miss the nonsense and drama and public shaming and ill conceived thoughts.
But something I was acutely aware might happen was that once baseball season started, I’d feel a small void from not being able to live tweet games.
And I felt it when Aaron Judge hit his first HR of the year, in his first at-bat of the season.
I won’t be going back to Twitter for all of the reasons I stated above (I still get news from my Baseball Twitter list thanks to Reader by Readwise), but I might be turning to Mastodon more…at least during baseball season.
Huckberry, my favorite online store for Man things, made a Flask Tie. Fantastic.
Google has released a new Nexus 7, and more excitingly, the Chromecast, a small dongle that let’s you stream from multiple devices to your TV. (via @verge)
People Reacting to Glass. I know I mentioned this one already but now there are quite a few posts (3 per day). Good way to kill some time! Also on Twitter at @glassreactions
What is the Internet? (video): This video has been flying around the Internet all week. One note is that this was in 1994- less than 17 years ago. It’s amazing how much has changed since then.
Shutting Down the Internet (pcmag): There is a bill in Congress that would give the President the same power Egypt has, to kill the Internet is need be. What does Congress have against the Internet? This is a terrible idea and it will be a sad day in America if it’s passed.
Some other news: Â Today is Super Bowl Sunday (go Pack!), as well as Ronald Reagan’s birthday. Also, I worked on a simple Reading List plugin for WordPress this week. You can see it in action on my blog here, though I have made some changes that I will release this week.
Super-Toys Last all Summer Long: Fun that he wrote this 2 days after I bought mine. He’s dead on about sharing though. There needs to be an easier way. Full review from me coming soon.
Nation Disappointed by Great World Series Matchup: Incredibly true. Anyone who’s said this is a bad World Series is clearly only a Yankees or Phillies fan, not a baseball fan. [note: I’m a Yankees fan, but I love good baseball.]
Dribble – Utah: Great designs here. I wish I could do stuff like this.
PHP SOAP Extension: I had to do some work with SOAP this week and found this link to be helpful. I’ll also probably do a full write up on using SOAP with PHP and the problems I ran into.
It’s October! My favorite month, and not just because it’s my birthday this month. Baseball postseason, Football in full swing, the weather is cool, and the leaves are changing. What more can you want? But enough of that. Here are the things that caught my eye during the last week of September.
YouTube Time Machine: A website that catalogs YouTube videos by year, dating all the way back to 1860. This website is great for some nostalgia or a history lesson (and the greatest thing, possibly ever).
6 New Scientific Finding about Facebook Users: I think studies that try to generalize the actions of 500 Million people from all over the world is silly. Also, statistics like this are not scientific.
Busted! Reds Reported after Smoking Victory Cigars in Clubhouse: It upsets me that people at home, not affected by this at all, would take the time to tattle on a team smoking in their own clubhouse because they made the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
Some closing notes: Dexter Season 5 premiered last week: Here’s the full episode from Showtime’s official YouTube page. As far are music goes, I picked up Brandon Flowers’ (of The Killers) new album, Flamingo. It’s pretty good (note: really good. very personal).
Facebook is not worth $33 Billion: So there was this time in the late 1990s when Venture Capitalists invested billions into websites without any strong models to make money. Good thing nothing bad came from that. (also, what ever happened to valuing a company based on the money it makes?)
Think You Know Baseball? No, You Don’t: This is a shining example about why statistics can be used to prove whatever you want. This guy doesn’t actually tell us anything of substance. “A metric called Win Probability Added (WPA) goes plate appearance by plate appearance to see just how much a player helped or hurt his team’s chance of winning. Value is added for big plays at crucial moments.” That is a completely made up, BS stat, probably because the guy doesn’t like Derek Jeter. You know what matters? Wins and Losses.
With no Jobs, Grads ‘Gamble’ on Education: This is pretty interesting. I think it was grad school that made be the developer I am. I was also able to get an assistantship, which meant school from free.
Wait. What Does Your Startup Do?: I get way to many pitches for websites like this. “It’s like a Facebook for orphans.” 37signals said that there is a social network that doesn’t exist today, there is probably a reason. Think about that, because it’s true.
In other news, Facebook was down for the good part of a day and Twitter was hacked. Crazy!
I’m not a Hot Stove blogger by any stretch, but today’s baseball news is too much to pass up!
Possibly the biggest news of the day is the Blue Jays deal Doc Halladay to the Phillies while the Phillies send Cliff Lee to Seattle in a 3-team trade. This is expected to be finalized in the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, John Lackey has been signed by the Boston Red Sox.
The Angels may have lost an Ace pitcher, but they did sign Hideki Matsui to a 1 year deal
Finally, the Yankees lighten their load even more by releasing Ching Ming Wang. Now they are in need of a number 4 guy (they may have been anyway, knowing Wang’s shakiness for the last 2 years). Rumor has it the are looking at Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets, as well as Jason Marquis and Joel Pineiro.
Since the last time the Yankees went to the World Series in 2003 I’ve: Graduated college (MS and BS), started a company, grew my business, and much more. Since the last time they won in 2000 I’ve: graduated high school, started web design, started programming, started driving, and much much more.
This is the Yankees 4th trip to the Fall Classic this decade, and the 7th in my lifetime, winning 4 of them. Some people would said I’m spoiled; that I’m lucky my team has made and won it even once in my lifetime, something a lot of people I know probably can’t say, and definitely couldn’t say by the time they were 11. But I’m a Yankees fan and I thank God for that. I say that because I was born in NY, and my allegiance had to lie within the state. And it just so happens that my grandmother grew up a few blocks away from the stadium. Both my parents are Yankee fan and so am I.
Because of this, I expect more- not because I’m an asshole, but because of our history. With Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Thurmon Munson, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and so many more, how can we not be the best? And this team is the best we’ve had since our record breaking 1998 team. I see a lot of parallels- the camaraderie, the veterans, the great young talent, the raw power, and the drive. It’s not a given that we will win every game, but we don’t count ourselves out and we know that we can win every game- especially now.
So to the Phillies (and their fans) I say bring it on. And to the Yankees and their fans: let’s finish this decade that same way we started it- with a championship.
