Tag: technology (Page 1 of 4)

Cryptocurrency – Here’s What War Is Good For

June 10, 2021 / Scott / 0 Comments

I get the technology. I understand (basically) how the blockchain works. What I don’t understand is how cryptocurrencies represent stores of value.

I’ll give you an alternative definition of a currency–extremely simplified: Something an organization with some level of military power says it will accept as payment for resources/services/products. And they’ll let OTHER PEOPLE use it also.

The military power is a really important piece of this.

If you or your friends (allies) can’t or won’t physically protect my resources and products from being taken by someone else, I won’t have a lot of faith in your currency.

If you or your friends (allies) can’t or won’t physically prevent someone from forcing me to provide services at gunpoint, I don’t have a lot of faith in your currency.

On tougher terms: if you and your friends (allies) don’t have the capacity to take resources from another organization, I don’t have a lot of faith in your currency.

We could debate the question of to what degree the United States government is willing to provide this protection all day. But I don’t see how cryptos can accomplish this at all, unless they are government backed cryptos.

I’m not pro or anti cryptocurrencies–just explaining what I don’t understand about them being a store of value. And I know this can be picked apart–go ahead. It’s simply a mental exercise to try and figure out where these things fit together.

Daily Reading List — October 7th

October 7, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

How Puerto Rico Can Rebuild And Become The Hong Kong Of The West – Not. Bloody. Likely.

Has fitness gone too far? – I’m not saying this can’t be a problem for a small percentage of people. But when I’m out and about, it doesn’t seem to be a front-page issue.

Police Search For ‘Mad Pooper’ Who Dumps And Runs – Pretty sure I know this chick. Didn’t know she moved from Knoxville though.

Health Care Providers Can Use Design Thinking to Improve Patient Experiences – ” In Mary’s case, she couldn’t explain her concerns through the standard patient experience survey, which is initiated after an appointment and which comprises general questions focused on the medical visit. Were it not for the hospital administrator’s initiative to ask Mary what was going on, her concerns may have gone both unnoticed and unaddressed.”

But the box has been checked.

You Can’t Sweat Out Toxins. That Doesn’t Mean Sweating Isn’t Good For You. – I’m healthy as a horse. A lathered horse.

Apple Watch To Be Sold Alongside Aetna Health Insurance Plans – Interesting.

Error 404: A Look At Digital Decay – It’s a little bit like the destruction of the Library at Alexandria; if the Library at Alexandria kept up with what you ate for lunch every day.

How the Heroes and Villains of Game of Thrones Pay (and Dodge) Their Debts – “You accidentally slapped me in the face, so now I get to slap you in the face.” ~My kids. Daily.

Daily Reading List — March 31st

March 31, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

Free download of The BJJ Globetrotter eBook – Read the physical version last year and passed it on to a friend. Was really happy to see I can still have a copy. Fun read!

The Most Offensive Rugby Song Ever? – Wow. I hope these guys never learn the lyrics of some of the songs sang at the bar after the matches–at least in this country. To be fair, the English and the Welsh clubs have guys who can actually sing beautiful songs in beautiful voices.

American rugby clubs are the gangster rappers of rugby music.

Blockchain Will Transform Customer Loyalty Programs – Ripe for disruption!

The Blockchain Will Do to Banks and Law Firms What the Internet Did to Media –

NASA Free Software Catalog – Build, buy, or just use for free since someone else already decided to build instead of buy.

Why the World’s Fittest Navy SEAL Jocko Willink Does Jiu Jitsu –

How to Build a Compost Bin from Pallets – One of the next DIY I have coming up.

Tips for 40 Plus Grapplers to Stay ON the mats – I didn’t start until I was 43, so I feel like I’m playing catch up. I think the best way for me to catch up is to stay healthy and get more days/hours of training in.

Daily Reading List — February 21st

February 21, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

Facebook Phreaks and the Fight to Reclaim Time and Attention – App off the phone is huge. I’m basically down to using FB only so I can grab photos off our BJJ gym’s page to use in my blog posts. 😛

Get Creepy With Yourself Data Selfie – Spreading the word. Hopefully.

How Aligned Is Your Organization? – “Activity is mistaken for progress.”

Cisco snaps up AppDynamics for $3.7B right before its IPO – Dang…was hoping to jump in and buy this low in my stock trading simulator. AppDynamics is good stuff.

Top 10 Free Alternatives to Expensive Software –

Why Does Time Seem to Move Faster as We Grow Older? –

Former Announcer Mike Goldberg Was in the Crowd at UFC Phoenix. This is how the N.W.O. got started. #HeyYo –

How to Talk CB Lingo – You know you’ve been looking for this information since the mid-70s. Dang I love the internet

Microsoft StaffHub – Hospitality, healthcare, restaurants…
Man, this is pretty cool.

Daily Reading List — January 10th

January 10, 2017 / Scott / 0 Comments

AT&T launches IoT starter kits for AWS and Raspberry Pi – As a friend of mine likes to say…
Hmm…Interesting.

How Do You Know If You’re Beautiful? – I like to think you’ll know when the dog chooses YOU to let her out in the middle of the night.

Off-the-beaten-path innovation could rejuvenate Twitter – We need Twitter enabled cookware, plates, and silverware. That way we can automatically know what everyone is having for lunch.

Train Ugly – Random training over perfect reps. Unopposed rugby must die!!!

How to fix agile teams that are notoriously bad at hitting release dates – Looks like a lot of this depends on finishing enough projects, or at least stories, to have a big data set.

To Lead a Digital Transformation, CEOs Must Prioritize – “It’s about creating an agile organization that can detect what type of change is essential and respond quickly with the most competitive solution.”

A Call for a New Strenuous Age – Take the time to read the whole thing. Then start training for a marathon. Or going to cross fit. Or training jiu jitsu. Or playing rugby. Or rock climbing.

Get your ass beat. Often.

Why Is the United States So Divided? Simple, It Was Never United at All. –

Daily Reading List — December 16th

December 16, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

What Health Care Can Learn from the Transformation of Financial Services –

Nike Wants Athletes to Run a Marathon in Under Two Hours, So It’s Rebuilding the Race. And the Runners –

You Can Brew Beer In Your Digestive Tract – Sugar is the devil.

Virginia Schools Ban ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ ‘Huck Finn’ Over Racial Slurs – Was just having a conversation about Huck Finn with my oldest yesterday. We were talking about the fact that on one level it’s just a story, and on another level the story is just a tool Mark Twain used as commentary on the state of the culture at a specific time and place. It led to a conversation about how slavery has existed throughout history, how horrible it is, how there was a change in popular opinion about slavery in this country, whether or not people at our socio-economic level would have owned slaves during the early 1800s, etc.

Um…She’s 9.

You’d think that the fact that these words are so “alarming” to people would make it even easier for them to understand exactly why Huck was able to come to the conclusion that the “civilized” view of Jim’s condition was wrong.

You’d think.

We Survive Because Reality May Be Nothing Like We Think It Is –

Improving On-the-Fly Teamwork in Health Care –

The End Of Empires: Rome Vs. America – I want to read something that tells me how we’re NOT like Rome. Please.

After decades of dreaming, indoor location’s time has come – Fingers crossed on this one.

Daily Reading List — November 17th

November 17, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Touch Surgery Surgical Simulator –

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class – It's important to me that our kids understand that we're multi-generational working class, and that we don't lose sight of that.

That's one reason I drink "Old Man Coffee". "Old Man Coffee" is made in a regular old coffee pot (or press) from a can that is bought in bulk. It doesn't come from a Starbucks or a single serving made-especially-for-me-by-a-machine cup.

"Old Man Coffee" was good enough for my old man. It was good enough for his old man too.

It's good enough for me.

Google Play Music starts using your location & activity to recommend tunes – Needed. Why should I have to search for my "Sunday Morning Coffee" playlist every Sunday morning while I'm making coffee?

Why should I have to search for my "Old Man Rolling" playlist when they know I'm at the gym during jiu jitsu class.

Can't wait!

The Great Fall of Chyna –

Microsoft Flow Is Out of Beta, Ready to Challenge IFTTT’s Automation – Microsoft does its products well. But they always seem to be late. Now I need a reason to switch from IFTTT, and charging me $5/month for something I'm already getting somewhere else for free isn't a good reason to switch.

BTW, this post was bookmarked in Pinboard by me. IFTTT automatically tweeted it with a link to the article on my behalf (without all this commentary), and it also made an appended a draft version of a blog post that continues to grow until x number of entries have been made, then automatically publishes out to my blog, which is where you're probably reading this.

This didn't take very long to set up, but why would I want to bother doing it again?

How To Clean Burnt Stains off Enameled Cookware – Works so great, I wish I'd taken before and after photos. Next time.

Who Wins in the Gig Economy, and Who Loses – "There’s no way to avoid the truth that fundamental changes in the ways we work are here to stay and are creating a new set of winners and losers. But the proliferation of new opportunities in the gig economy to choose how, how much, where, and when to work is one big win for all."

Was listening to Joe Rogan's podcast the other day, and he noted that the whole corporate structured way to work is a pretty new phenomenon. If you look at it over the course of history, it's just a blip. An anomaly.

Says the guy with a full-time job.

The Elimination Of Reason – Vote today with the 2020 election in mind. #MakeAmericaAgain

Daily Reading List — October 24th

October 24, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Entity Framework and Setting Primary Keys on Views – Trickery!

The Rise and Fall of the Army Surplus Store – There was a day when a man could get a good pair of boots and a durable pea coat at a good price at the surplus store.

Resistance Band Training for Jiu Jitsu – That Paloff Press exercise is a dang good 'un.

Build A System To Play Your Rasslin’ Entrance Music When You Walk Into A Room – Oh.
Hell.
Yeah.

Handy tool to scare the crap out of you when a hurricane is on its way. #matthew –

Microsoft is killing Yammer Enterprise plan in January 2017, will start integrating Office 365 Groups first –

If Google buys Twitter, there’s a perfect spot for it in YouTube – I called this for Q2 I believe. Can it happen before the end of Q4?

PODCAST: What the Generational Cycle Theory Can Tell Us About Our Present Age – Added Neil's book to my WishList

Daily Reading List — May 26th

May 26, 2016 / Scott / 0 Comments

Moving a WordPress Site with Cherry Framework: A Little Tip for LESSPHP Errors – So kind to share the solution to this problem!!!

Unstructured Play Is Critical to Child Development – We may lean a little too heavily towards the "unsctructured" side. But at least we don't have to stress about getting some place.

Our approach is, "Learn to love it first, and when you crave the structure and time investment it takes to get better we will give it to you."

Official advice on low-fat diet and cholesterol is wrong, says health charity – It's the sugar people. The sugar.

How Melbourne (FL) could become startup city – Would love to see this. Would love to be a part of this. Wrong that I'm not quite willing to write a check?

TMetric – time tracker for Jira. Link your issues and tasks to time tracking automagically –

If I had a birthday coming up…Best Scotch Whiskies Available For Under $35 –

Connect Bitbucket Cloud to JIRA Cloud applications – Loves it. Connecting Issues to Commits. Big time saver

The Rock Clock Alarm App Keeps You Motivated and Ditches the Snooze Button – Wake up with The Rock is the best feature. The Rock gets up early.

Jobroni.

Daily Reading List — July 15th

July 16, 2015 / Scott / 0 Comments

Money, Sex and Las Vegas Pool Parties – The only surprising thing about this article is that anyone is surprised by what is revealed in this article.

It seems like (almost) everyone likes to be around pretty people and pretty things. And for the most part they expect to pay a premium for that and are ok with it. And I suspect the people who aren’t ok with it simply don’t participate.

So what’s the problem?

The Case For Letting Kids Design Their Own Play – Yesterday we went on a hike, but never made it to our intended destination. We came across a lean-to/tepee someone had built, and the kids wanted to play in it. An hour and a half later, they’d cycled through several characters each and moved countless logs and sticks to create a fire pit with seating to facilitate their story.

Yeah. I’m bragging.

But we also got to relax in the woods at 68 degrees and no humidity while they played. Everybody wins.

Man blames tequila for taking Las Vegas’ Blarney Stone – I want to start a Twitter account for “Vegas Man”. Unfortunately, most of those headlines would involve shootings and pedestrian-on-vehicle incidents.

This is one of the funnier ones.

Sony Pictures: Inside the Hack of the Century – Pretty fascinating read. Not the technical parts so much, but the culture and politics inside a company that create an environment that this kind of damage can be done.

honest toddler: Open Letter To The Child I Hit At The Park – “It’s utterly confounding how possessive adults are about their own belongings whether it be a remote control or wallet, but preach about communal property without even a twinge of guilt over their blatant hypocrisy.”

Exactly. I’m always reminded of the phrase printed on the button Alex P. Keaton gave his little brother Andy to wear at pre-school:

I KNOW WHAT’S MINE.

Disney World will ban selfie-sticks from theme parks – The Disney enthusiast and judgmental/authoritarian/GrumpyOldMan side of me cheers this decision by The Mouse. And I hope this thinking eventually finds its way into our National Parks.

The libertarian side of me wants to use a selfie stick (which I don’t currently own) to take a picture of myself drinking a can of Falls City beer (which I don’t currently drink) I sneaked into SeaWorld.

Just because I can.

And because they won’t care.

The Influence of Fathers on Children – Some of the stuff here is correlation over causation, but it still rings true to me. Being a dad is the most important thing I do. I’m not always the person described in this post, but I sure as hell want to be.

Are dating apps to blame for STD increase in Southern Nevada? – I’m going to throw out a pretty crazy notion here…

I’m not a native, and I’ve only been here a short period of time, but I’m pretty sure Southern Nevada is to blame for the STD increase in Southern Nevada.

[feature photo credit]

Daily Reading List — June 12th

June 12, 2015 / Scott / 0 Comments

Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine? – “A computah too yo’ place Daddy!”
– The American Dream Dusty Rhodes

Chick-fil-A is coming to Nevada – There goes the neighborhood.

The article doesn’t specify how many video poker machines they plan on placing in the children’s play area.

What’s the over/under on how different beers will they have on tap?

Video: Brawl breaks out at Palo Verde graduation – The 702 at its finest. Total shoot fight–not a single Stone Cold Stunner.

The American Dream Has Died – Hard Times –

When is the best time to visit US and Canada’s National Parks? – I’m batting 1.000 on these so far.

Labs And Incubators Fuel Enterprise Innovation –

What Will It Take to Run A 2-Hour Marathon? – 6 packets of GU and some shorts that don’t chafe too badly. I can’t guarantee I could do it even given those things, but I’d have a much better shot.

Happy Vegas Season! – Bring Gifts Please (cash) – These are actually pretty funny ads. Although I think they should include a surgeon general’s warning about the dangers of being a pedestrian here.

It’s also a tough place for people who like to go to bed before 10:00 pm.

Daily Reading List — October 17th

October 17, 2014 / Scott / 0 Comments

"Let’s go around the room" – Dang. Seth Godin has smarts real good. I was in this exact situation a couple of weeks ago. I always feel challenged to make whatever I'm sharing the best…

Or the shortest if I don't think I can pull off being the best.

More than just driverless cars – "Driverless cars are the Ptolemaic Systems of transportation. They’re an over-engineered solution to a relatively simple problem., but because they are compatible with things like existing infrastructure, cultural expectations, and well-established economic and political power structures, they probably have a much better chance of success in areas where public transportation hasn’t already taken hold."

Don't discount those cultural expectations. People love having their own little pod.

4 Ways to Retain Gen Xers – Gawsh. Hewlett has me so pegged. She names the four most important things to me much better than I could for myself. So I guess I'm stereotypical Gen X. And, being Gen X, I'm very irritated that I'm so typical.

I banned email at my company – Hopefully he didn't use email to announce the ban. But stranger things have happened.

Why You Should Hire For Potential, Not Experience – I would add to this that, at least for technology and information systems, much of your experience past the last couple of years is irrelevant to the current environment. But the ability to learn and adapt is a skill that you can take with you into any situation.

IT Departments as Disney Parks–Learn to “Plus” – I think there's a lot of catching up to do here before we can even begin to "Plus". Even as an IT group member, it's frustrating to have so many great tools available to you as a consumer, only to open a hatch and crawl into a time capsule to work in "a-few-years-ago" style.

Big Data May Be Hot, But The Server-Management Tool Puppet Is Hotter – Is that writing I see on the wall?

One thing I think is really interesting with stuff like DevOps and Big Data is that the technology matures faster than the workforce's skills do. I know that I'm constantly trying to keep up, just to be *aware* of what's out there, much less knowledgeable about it.

Technology doesn't seem to be a limiter for anyone. It's the skills that are holding us back.

The renovating Casino Royale is a sliver of independence (and affordability) on the Strip – Hard to believe that Casino Royale can get any better than it already is. The only suggestion I'd make to management would be to bring back $2 craps with 100x odds. This $5/20x stuff is a little high dollar for some of us.

"Make a pass line bet for the price of a footlong!"

And, for the record, I'm not joking or making fun. I <3 this place!

Daily Reading List — September 12th

September 12, 2014 / Scott / 0 Comments

The Launch Meeting – This couldn’t be more pragmatic.

What are the six things most likely to go wrong?

What will lead us to go over budget? Over schedule?

How will we communicate with one another when things are going well, and how will we change that pattern when someone in the room (anyone in the room) realizes that something is stuck?

A Bunch of Kids Adorably Mistook a ‘Game of Thrones’ Character for Elsa From ‘Frozen’ – A really cool addendum to this story…

Carrie is a friend of our niece. When they left the event, she came over to our kids’ birthday party (at a climbing gym). Those little girls were so ecstatic to see “Elsa” walk through the door for their birthday.

Big thanks to Carrie for making their day really special!

4 Unavoidable Steps To Building An Entrepreneurial Organization – That’s it. Just do these four things and you’re done. Can’t argue with any of these, but they are much easier said than done for sure!

The Simple Technology That Accidentally Ruined Baseball – Not sure about this. If enforced at all levels (big “if”) batters will catch up pretty quickly. I actually like the idea of using technology to analyze umpire/referee performance after the fact, but the instant replay stuff during the game is horrid. The call is the call.

The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Your Life – Definitely outsourcing oil changes. But I do most of my own stunts otherwise.

Tweet Activity Analytics – Twitter’s analytics tool is super cool. But…yeah…probably not going to change the way I use Twitter at all.

Kuddle – Kid-safe photo sharing app. We’ve been reading the “Little House” series, along with some biographical information about Laura Ingalls Wilder. My offspring are keen to document their childhoods. Great tool!

Cloud Storage Is Eating The World Alive – Yes please. More please. Faster please.

Daily Reading List — August 20th

August 20, 2014 / Scott / 0 Comments

Underwear Meat Clock – Probably the greatest opening band in the history of the Knoxville music scene. And I was there for several shows.

It wasn’t long before this success led to temptation: an offer to headline a mud-wrestling show at Michael’s on the glittery Kingston Pike strip. Refusing to sell out to their dozen or so fans, Lucky issued this resolute statement to the South Knoxville Shopper: “We won’t headline. It’s pointless. It’s stupid. We open. We open because we like to get drunk after we play.”

The Key To Better Work? Email Less, Flow More – My recommendation is to set up the most aggressive inbox filters you can think of so that you only get notifications on the most important messages from the most important people–the ones that actually pass the filters and make it to your inbox.

A week later, make them even more aggressive.

My favorite filter is the one that sends every message that has me in the cc: field straight to a secondary inbox. I only check this inbox a few times a day. It’s amazing how many issues can get resolved without you having to work yourself up just because someone kept you in the loop.

I have another one just for automated positive notifications from various systems. 99% of the time, I only need the positive notifications to confirm something went ok. Yeah…uh, just notify me if it’s broken, please.

A Trip Through The Land Of Magical Realism – I’ve only been able to see a teeny tiny bit of Colombia (13, 14, 15), and it. is. awsum.

This has me wishing I could do the grand tour!

How Companies Can Unlock Billions With The Value of Code – I think maybe the best advice here is in the “Narrow Your Focus” section. Otherwise, holy Toledo, this stuff is overwhelming.

Beastie Boys Return to Paul’s Boutique – Cool tribute for the Beasties!

They should do something similar at the White Castle where they got thrown out.

Why Nobody Likes To Chew Gum Anymore – I think it’s because we don’t walk as much as we used to. Take away the walking, and you’ve taken away the challenge of gum chewing.

Build Your Own Tech Radar – This would be a great exercise to undertake quarterly as individuals, departments, and entire organization.. Probably well worth the time, and (hopefully not needed) an easy way to reference “I told you sos” later.

16 Cultural Critiques Every Man Should Read – I should spend less time reading blog posts about books I should read, and more time reading books. Too many options. Too many options.

Luckily, I’ve been able to check a couple of these off already.

Daily Reading List — June 5th

June 5, 2014 / Scott / 0 Comments

Android vs. The iPhone: It’s All About The Cloud – Um…yeah. I'm a little shocked to read this epiphany from a tech writer who didn't realize this difference years ago. Am I taking it for granted that people understand the difference between Apple and Google's focus?

4 Habits Of The Most Resilient People – There's actually a 5th habit: Habitually post motivational posters/quotes to social media.

Sharks & Minnows – Punching and kicking on purpose isn't acceptable on the swim–too dangerous for everyone involved. On the other hand, as the guy who once grabbed my ankle and used me to pull himself forward found out the hard way, I ain't no punk either.

The 9 Biggest Reasons to Embrace Solo Running – I'm mostly a solo runner. The only downside to running solo for me is that I'm the only person I get to spend the time with. I don't like myself as much as I do my running partners 100% of the time.

As IT’s industrial age ends, the humanist era begins – Power to the people!

Remember when Mark Zuckerberg gave New Jersey schools $100 million? OOPS!!! – Fortunately for Zuckerberg, all most people are going to remember is that he wrote the check. #ForTheChildren

Roku Remote Stopped Working – Easy Solution – I love the internet on most days. Today is one of those days.

A Bachelor’s Level Computer Science Program Curriculum – If you want to learn it, here you go. Good for review too. And there are countless other resources available as well!!!

Chicago halts Uber try at airport pickups – Translation: taxi companies and airport upset that people don't like price fixing.

Triathlon, Do You Live And Die By It? – Anyone who ever accused me of this isn't aware of my results. Still, I could benefit from a healthy dose of it right about now.

What Ancient Cave Paintings And Teen Spirit Teach Us About Where Social Media Is Going – Of course, everything is alternative. Until it isn't.

Gettin’ After It!