stupid

  • September 26, 2010

    Links Round Up for 09/26/10

    • 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.
    • Degrees that Hiring Managers Want: Toping the list is heath care/nursing. IT is also on there.
    • What it Means when You say ‘Literally’: Wrote about this a while ago. This drives me insane….not literally.
    • 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!

    And for music…The Gaslight Anthem. I recommend it all, but if you’re only choosing one, The ’59 Sound is the best.

  • August 15, 2010

    Links Round Up for 08/15/10

  • March 11, 2009

    iPod Shuffle: So Small, So Complex

    Image courtesy of Apple
    Image courtesy of Apple

    With all the news in politics happening lately, I’ve almost forgotten why I started this blog: to talk tech. It’s what I know best. Well, here you go: My thoughts on Apple’s newest iteration of the iPod Shuffle.

    I’ve posted thoughts on Apple and their precious iPod before, but this is pretty baffling. This shuffle is the smallest it’s ever been at 1.8″ tall and 0.3″ in thickness. That’s smaller than a key, which is pretty cool. However, when you need a guide to controlling the thing, there is a problem. 1 click to play/pause, 2 clicks to go forward, 3 clicks to go back. Other controls to traverse through playlists. I mean it’s cool that it talks to you and all since there is no screen on the device, but there is actually nothing on the device.

    Right- the controller is actually on the headphones, and that is where my main problem lies. This new shuffle is limiting you to using Apple’s proprietary headphones or paying extra to buy an adapter to use your own. You need an adapter to use different headphones for your own mp3 player.

    Apple touts all of this as innovative- small because it should be small; convenient, easy-to-use controls. But nixing a back and forward button is not innovative- it’s making something overly complicated and saying it’s innovative because no one has done it. And believe me, there is a reason.

  • February 22, 2009

    The 2000’s Rock Style

    nickelback

    The other day I was thinking about this: What band shaped music this decade the same way Nirvana did for the 1990’s? There is no denying that Nirvana inspired possibly hundreds of bands, and rock music for a decade. If they didn’t invent grunge, they certainly made it cool. But grunge as the 90’s knew it died out. Rock music has certainly changed (and NOT for the better). And that’s when I realized it. Nickelback (a band I loathe), shaped rock music for this decade.

    Nickelback was around in the 90’s but hit the mainstream with their song, “How You Remind Me” in 2001, which is early enough in the decade to inspire other bands. If you’ll remember, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana came out 10 years eariler, in 1991.  Since Nickelback hit the scene, lots of other similar (read: exactly the same) bands started popping up. Here is just a short list:

    • Hinder
    • Buckcherry
    • Breaking Benjamin
    • Thrice
    • Three Days Grace
    • Puddle of Mudd

    My next question was Why? Well, much like Nirvana, there isn’t a lot of talent in Nickelback. Say what you will about either band, but their music is not hard to play, nor do/did they have any singing ability. It’s easy to imitate and a lot of bands probably figured if Nickelback can play and make it big, so can they. And then they do.

    SO if you are sick of all these crappy sounding bands that all sound exactly the same on the radio, you have Nickelback to thank for it. Comments are open.

  • January 3, 2009

    Pink Bothers Me

    When she wrote, “Dear Mr. President” it pissed me off mainly because she didn’t make a single good point. Now she has a new song out called, “Sober,” where she sings, “How do I feel this good sober.” Oh Pink. You’re so deep. And no one will take your lyrics the wrong way. Good thing her target audience isn’t the 13-17 crowd.

  • July 28, 2008

    Cuil: First Impression

    Cuil Result for Joe Casabona

    The buzz today has been about Cuil, a new search engine that is challenging the current champion of the interwebs, Google. Pronounced “cool,” Cuil makes the claim to have indexed more pages than Google, and in a better way too! That’s quite the claim, and IMHO, Cuil needs to heat up a bit (sorry).

    Even though I am pretty biased towards Google, if you’re going to challenge them, you better come up big. Cuil certainly does not. My first search was my name, Joe Casabona. The first five results that came up were comments I made on sites, or my name mentioned on another page. The next one was finally my personal site and Google’s first result, Casabona.Org. But as you can see by the pic on the right, they botched that too. The photo with the result, while it kinda sorta looks like me, is not me. I don’t even host that picture. In a Google Image Search of my name, that pic isn’t in the first three pages. What gives?

    The design isn’t that great either. My eyes bounce back and forth between the columns of results, making it difficult to easily find what I’m looking for. And the site is pretty slow. I understand maybe you’re getting more traffic than you expected, but I’m holding you to the fact that you’re claiming to be better than Google.

    Over all, I didn’t have a great experience with Cuil. Besides, since they are ‘changing search,’ what does that mean for my current sites and the way I Search Engine Optimize?

  • August 20, 2007

    Quote of the Day

    [If China started] making, say, toys without lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production will go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the US will go up too.

    Erin Burnett of CNBC