Internet, Go To Work: Help My Friend Become The Official Blogger For the United Nations' World Environment Day

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My friend and co-worker, Maggie Comstock is in a competition over at the United Nations Environment Programme, where she currently sits at third place. If she wins first place, she wins a trip to Rio to be the official blogger for World Environment Day, pretty cool The current first and second place contestants sit at around 1800 votes. Maggie is in third place with ~1360 votes. Internet, you know what to do. You can vote on it here and she has a second post as well, which you can also vote on. Live status of the current voting for the competition. Below is a snippet of one of her posts: Maggie Comstock, at the UN Environment Program, writes "The Top Three Reasons Rio+20 Will Change The World:

Though two months away, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development’s Earth Summit, better known as Rio+20, has already been labeled vital, momentous and historic. And while delegates, students and activists have yet to arrive in Brazil, we already know that Rio+20 has the potential to be a “big deal.” It all begs the question, can the people engaging in Rio+20, in-person or remotely, really change the world? My sage and inspiration for answering this question is Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Simply, Rio+20 is about being part of that thoughtful group committed to "getting it right" for future generations. The outcome and commitments of the Conference will affect us all, from the farmer in Iowa to the IT specialist in India, and whether you attend the conference or not, your voice can and needs to be heard. The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 wasn’t a quiet affair by any means. An estimated 172 governments (108 heads of state), 2,400 NGO representatives and 17,000 attendees of the parallel Global Forum participated in the original Earth Summit. Additionally, the 1992 conference yielded vital, momentous and historic gains, including Agenda 21 (the action plan supporting sustainable development goals through government engagement at all levels), the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from which all of our climate negotiations stem. Rio+20 is estimated to eclipse the original Earth Summit in both size and breadth. The actual conference, which will take place June 20-22, will be preceded by over a week of civil society days and pre-conference events. In addition to buy-in from governments, industry and non-governmental organizations, Earth Summit 2.0 is posed to make an even bigger splash than the original.

Rachel Gilmore's 100 MPH Fastball

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Andy Ihnatko, at Andy's Ihnatko's Celestial Waste of Bandwidth. He writes about a topic I seldom care about, Opera, but makes me care about this story:

Kim, an elite professional, accelerates through every curve. She seems to have no limitations; every note she sings is a conscious choice and she’s in full control of her instrument throughout. And keep in mind that as impressive as this performance was, it was all in a day’s work for her. She would do it again and again and again throughout the show’s run. So. One night, Kim got sick and Rachele Gilmore was forced to make her Met stage debut on just three hours’ notice. You must read his article, and watch the two videos embedded within it.

Technology & Related Concepts That Need To Die

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Joel's Technology Hit List

Monday Morning Rant, 26 March, 2012
  1. Skeumorphism in design
  2. Adobe Flash
  3. Adobe Air
  4. The concept of "write once, deploy everywhere" code (web standards being the exception, of course)
  5. QR codes
  6. Comic Sans and Marker Felt
  7. WPTouch WordPress plugin. Just don't.
  8. Websites serving up a "get our app!" splash page to iOS users prior to serving the requested page
  9. Websites refusing to serve page requests and insisting you get their app
  10. Websites who serve up a mobile version, but when you switch to the "full version" it forwards you to the homepage
  11. Websites serving up mobile versions only to iPads
  12. Using Powerpoint to make documents that should have been made in Word/Pages/Plain Text.
  13. Using Powerpoint to send images as if it were a zip file.
  14. Having www. in front of your domain name. I will add to this list over time. If you have any further suggestions, please let me know.

Ode To The "Computer Guy/Gal"

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Internet friend, Michele Catalano on asking someone you know who "works with computers" to "fix" your own computer:

And really, most of the time he doesn’t mind. He likes you. He wants to help you. Then you call and say “Gee, I really want to get this fixed right away. Can’t you come over on your way home from work?” and he just spent all day in front of a computer and all he wants to do is go home and eat dinner and NOT sit in front of the computer. But he does it anyhow. He does it on a Saturday when we should be kicking back. He does it on a holiday when everyone is in your backyard enjoying a barbecue and you dragged him into the house to show him how your AOL doesn’t load up. On behalf of my boyfriend, and all other people who “work with computers” and get asked day after day to fix things for free, here’s a few guidelines. Be thankful. If he spent three hours at your house fixing something you fucked up that would have cost you $200 to get fixed by the Geek Squad, show your appreciation. Offer him a 50. Offer him dinner. Send him a damn thank you card or something. Don’t just say thanks and promise to call him again next time something screws up. Go read all of it. Send this to your friends. Send this to your family. JUST READ IT. This post is basically the description of what it has been like to work on anyone's computer…friends, family, co-workers, in-laws, ANYONE for the past 18 years or so of my life. Thankfully, I now do much more complicated (and get paid to do so) things for work than just "fixing printers" anymore. It also takes a lot of self-control on my part to not jump in when I see our own help desk people performing a task in a way that I consider insufficient, but I have to stop and tell myself. No. You hate this. This isn't your job anymore. Also, it helps that I tell family that I refuse to work on any machine anymore that isn't made by the Apple Corporation.

Ditching My DSLR On Vacation

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A week ago my wife and I went on vacation to Disney World in Flordia. The main purpose of the trip was for Steffanie to run in Disney's Princess ½ Marathon. While packing for the trip, I dutifully packed up my Canon 40D and my two lenses, a Tamron 28-300mm that I now regret buying, and my beloved Canon 50mm f/1.4. After arriving in Florida, however, it never left my bag. I thought about whether I should take it with me each morning as we were preparing to leave our hotel rooms, and each day I decided to just take my iPhone 4. I was quite happy with how a lot of the photos below turned out. When taking photos I primarily used the very excellent Pro HDR app which I picked up years ago at the recommendation of Merlin Mann. Below are some of the best photos I took using my iPhone 4 with this app. We stayed here: We saw this: And this: And even though this one didn't come out as well as I would have liked, I feel compelled to include this one: Check out the collection on Flickr of the various sets from this trip.