https://www.gofundme.com/send-the-skittleworms-to-globals
I met Frank and his son a month ago. He has sacrificed so much and the workings of our country's adoption and immigration systems have hung him out to dry. He deserves the opportunity to provide for his son. A friend of mine put together this petition to help Frank out:
Please take a minute to sign the petition. Then, please take some time to market the petition as well. Share it, tweet it, email it, blog it, reddit it, pin it, market it! Frank needs all the help he can get here, including your family, friends, and social graph.
Frank Magori came to this country legally, and he paid taxes on what little income he’s earned. The Government came to Frank and asked him to adopt an infant and provide a loving home for a US citizen with serious health problems. He accepted the request, which forced him to leave school rendering his student visa obsolete. For eight years the Government has denied him the work authorization necessary to allow him to earn an income and provide for his son. As a result, Frank and his son were evicted from their home and are forced to live in a hotel using food stamps at taxpayer expense.
I have been trying to learn a little bit about setting up a nice wiki, but the project has not kept my interest as much as I had hoped. The main thrust of this project has been figuring out how to get the Navbox template working on a wiki at my office, so most of my research has centered on that.
. So I voiced my opinion over twitter:
The grotesque self promotion of @jeffjarvis was pretty thick on TWIG 7! We get it, you wrote a book. Talk about something else! #twitI import my tweets into Facebook, plus I wasn't sure I had gotten my point across in that tweet (140 characters is very limiting), so I clarified what I wanted:
I want to see if @jeffjarvis can go the entire episode of TWIG tomorrow without saying "WWGD" a single time. I bet he can't do it. #twitI then felt a little bad shouting out into space about someone I barely knew and who probably wouldn't have the chance to defend himself (plus he had just undergone surgery for prostate cancer). So I tweeted:
Lest you think I'm a hater: I actually like a lot of the ideas @jeffjarvis shares and am glad his surgery went well http://bit.ly/2UZpCNWhile I knew it was a possibility he'd read it, I did not think he would respond. Well, he did read it and he did respond. I do not have his response saved, but here is what I said in answer to his response:
@jeffjarvis Sure. I would normally expect a little self promotion. I just think you went overboard with it this last week.I also said:
@jeffjarvis It was probably just a function of @leolaporte mentioning @audible_com saying to plug other books besides yoursHe then responded saying the more complaints he received, the more he would keep on doing it. So I said:
@jeffjarvis Doh! I better stop complaining.During the next week's episode, Jeff did not mention his book title at all. Not even once. Leo did it for him when he found out Jeff wasn't going to, but Jeff did not do it any that week and was much better about it in the future. So I ate crow:
Finally got around to listening to TWIG. Props to @jeffjarvis for not plugging his book any this week! #twit
@jeffjarvis Any suggestions for good reading on the "ethic of the permalink?" #TWiG #TWiTI thought that lightning would not strike twice, but it did! He responded. I do not have his response, but he sent me the references to two articles which I retweeted:
@jeffjarvis Excellent articles. Thanks for the response. RT: http://bit.ly/2uxxqk http://bit.ly/3uFcOo
Not really a big fan of @karaswisher on TWIT. She's obviously good at what she does, I just think she doesn't mesh with the TWIT feel well.Kara co-hosts and co-produces The D Conference, which basically makes her a journalistic goddess in the tech industry. This is one of the reasons I was confused by both my dislike of her on TWiT and her response to my tweet:
@ncooprider hmm, not in love with tech enough?First off, why would she even bother responding to me, a lowly software engineer on the other side of the country? Second, what the heck did she mean? My first instinct was that she was making fun of me by saying I was not in love with tech enough. My wife's first instinct was that she was referring to herself. At first I found this laughable. However, I thought about it some more. I responded to her again, but the conversation really had no legs and she did not bother to answer my second tweet:
@karaswisher I've been trying to put my finger on what I think is off. Maybe you are just different and come on less often, so it is jarringI did eventually figure out the difference. I think most panelists on TWiT are nerds and geeks first and journalists somewhere after that. Kara, on the other hand, seems like a professional journalist first, and she covers nerds and geeks. It makes her less of a "buddy" on the show.
. I think the theme of that movie applies to my experiences with Jeff and Kara. We tend to put these people up on a pedestal and consider them other-worldly. However, they really are normal people. Sometimes they read our tweets. Sometimes they respond. Even though they are normal people, it still made my day every time.
Earlier today I came across Veronica Belmont's post on EpicWin. I have been flirting with wanting an iPod Touch (3rd gen, no camera) in order to help keep myself organized. EpicWin seems like just the type of task manager I would want. Of course, it would be awesome if it had a desktop client as well, and it would also be awesome if it integrated with Google Tasks. Since I do not even have an iPod Touch or an iPhone it does not really matter. I am toying with trying out Chore Wars, but I have a feeling that it would only be fun/cool as part of a guild. Here's hoping family will try it out!
I thought it was interesting that an aquaintance of mine, Seth Holloway shared this article on Google Reader today. The article talks about behavioral psychology motivating us to be better people. Okay, it does not phrase it this way, but any follower of Skinner would see the connection. While I don't think behavioral psychology is the answer to all life's problems, I do think we could apply it in many ways through video games and augmented reality to actually help us meet meaningful goals.
For example, nothing can help one stick with a diet better than knowing all your twitter followers and facebook friends will see your weight. I have to admit that I kind of want one of those too (but not as much as an iPod Touch, and I'm not even sure I want that).
I think it is a must-have for parents of little girls. The is living independently in a castle, tames a dragon, rejects a self-absorbed prince, redeems a witch, and starts a band (with the dragon and the witch). Definitely a lot cooler and positive than the typical "I'm a helpless princess who needs saving" stereotype.
So go get it. It is available on a charity CD, "he proceeds of which benefit the Haitian People’s Support Project. It’s an amazing list of artists." The whole CD is kid's music, but if you want to just buy the Coulton song then you can find it here.
So found a way to add rounded corners and played around with them until they looked close to right. There are still a few places where the spacing is less than ideal, but I do not know CSS and adjustments were mostly trial and lots of error. I kept the black text on a white background, but then I framed everything in BYU-blue. I made a nice (and correctly sized) banner and drastically limited my clutter with widgets. I still hand-changed the template to have the sidebars on the right like I wanted them. You may not believe it, but I did exercise much restraint. In the end I had something that looked decent.
Apparently I did this two months too soon. On March 11, Blogger announced the Template Designer in Blogger draft. You can read about it in the Blogger in Draft blog or the Blogger Buzz blog. Basically, all the blind bumbling I did in CSS can be eliminated by using one of these templates.
My favorite right now is the Picture Window by Josh Peterson, although there are several templates available that look really sharp. I thought about and even tried moving my blog over to one of these templates, but there were some things that didn't look like I wanted and I liked being the master of my own template. If you are starting from scratch, I would completely recommend using one of the new templates.
Please sign up! Go to the ESPN tournament challenge website, log in, create an entry, and join the Yankee Hacker group. I always think it is interesting to see who shows up. Feel free to advertise the group, invite whoever, and see what will happen!
