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Rantings from Seattle4/2/2007 Belize 2007 
6/9/2006 Moral Responsiblity of a CarnivoreLet's first start off that I love eating meat. But in the recent months, I have been introduced to some more vegetarian dishes through some of my friends and dates. This made me really start to think about why we as a society still have a fascination with eating so much meat.
There is the argument that we have survived as a race by being able to eat meat as well as plant life. I don't think anybody could reasonably argue this analysis. In the early ages of man, we were hunters and survived by being able to kill and eat our prey. This was fine and great. However, as the game moved and migrated, so did our ancestors. And as the food supply died out, so did many of our descendants from that branch of evolution.
Next we had the agrarian societies who developed farming crops. This was a much more sustainable way of living and allowed for societies to stay put and become some of the greatest civilizations in at that time. From being able to farm and cultivate wheat, rice, and other essential crops, we moved away from being strictly carnivores and into an omnivore society. This was a great leap in our evolution. However, the pitfalls were still there. Mankind was under the mercy of the weather and their environment. We simply did not possess the power to better control the environment in which our crops grew. Therefore, we had to continue on depending on meat for our survival. During the same period in time, we also became proficient at farming and raising livestock. This was big leap for mankind and we still practice this today.
Now we come to modern society. We as a race have progressed so much in our knowledge of the world around us and are capable of controlling many of the factors that could wipe out crops in the past. Plus we now have the capability to synthesis nutrients and genetically manipulate our fruits and vegetables. With this newfound wisdom, I'm starting to think we need to be more responsible as people and give back to nature. Perhaps we can start eating less meat one day at a time. Perhaps we can be a little more morality responsible for the choices we make in our diets. I'm not saying we can quit cold turkey - I'm not a saint after all. But maybe I can start doing my part by eating one complete vegetarian meal a day... 6/2/2006 Microsoft's Identity CrisisSo as I'm sure most of you know, Microsoft will be launching it's Live! services over the next few months (some products are already out on the market). So what is Microsoft Live? I'm talking about the branding and not so much abou the services. To me, it's just another brand from Microsoft to confuse it's customers. Why does one company have so many brands? Microsoft's competitors stick to one brand name and it makes it esay for customers to associate their products and not have to make a distinction between internal business groups. Yahoo groups all of it's products under Yahoo! Fairly straight forward.
Let's take a look at Messenger clients as an example of how Microsoft can't figure out how to have one product and one brand as not to confuse it's customers. First, there was Windows Messenger. Then MSN has anothe messenger client with a little more robust set of features called MSN Messenger. Same product essentially. And microsoft even has help articles to help customers differentiate between the two even though the article doesn't say what the real difference is other than one is MSN and the other is Windows. Now Microsoft will be rolling out Windows Live Messenger - same product as MSN Messenger but now it will be called Windows Live Messenger. So now this gives the help article writers another help file to write. Great way to use the company's profit if you ask me (very sarcatically said).
So all this naming and re-naming reminds me of a guy I knew in junior high school. As with most kids at that age, he was very self-conscious and not very assure of who he was. In fact, I remember all throughout junior high, he changed his name. First it was James. The second year he went by JJ. Then the last year he went by Jim. He was the same guy, but everyone thought he was very confused and a little strange about trying to change his identity by changing his name every year.
Well, maybe Microsoft's marketting department suffers from the same lack of self-indentity. Instead of changing your name every year. Take a look at yourself (your product in in this case). Work on it, and then grow. No need to try to confuse us with a name change 1/26/2006 Closing The GapFor those of you who know me, you know that I am an avid evangelist of digital media and how digital delivery is so great. However, there has been a new trend that has made me take a step back and think about the reprecussions of moving too fast with digital media delivery.
Historically, films shown on the big screen took an average of a year to nine months to move to DVD. In the last few years, the gap between big screen and dvd release has shrunk to 6 months, 3 months, and now this Friday - immeidately. Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble" will be shown in the theaters, shown on HDNET, and have the dvd release a couple days later. Needless to say, the movie theaters are not happy about this decision. So much so that there will only be 250 theaters that will be showing the film.
This to me opens up the window for things we may see in the not too distant future. It is very plausible to see movies being offered on demand via your cable company on the same day as the theatrical release. Why not have customers be able to purchase and watch the movies online or buy ipod/media player versions? Some people don't care about the theater experience but just want to see the movie.
Obviously, this will be a big bonus to customers as well as the picture companies. Instead of having of relying so much on a dual stage source of income via theater and dvd sales, they (motion picture companies) could capitalize on both at the same time. They would only have to spend money on one marketting campaign instead of two. And if they really push for online/at home content delivery, think how much money in manufacturing and excess stock?
So if this is indeed the future trend, how will the theaters fare? Why not make deals with the theater production companies to distribute dvds and host online movie delivery? And of course, there will always be patrons like myself and many others out there who would still much rather go to the theater and get the whoel experience. 12/30/2005 Photo is in SeattleTimes.comSo I've been submitting photos to the Seattle Times all year. Finally, one of my photos made their travel section. Ironically, it's not one of my favorite photos but hey - it's a start.
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