Lent Day 41 (Wednesday)

Exercise: None (Rest/Weather).  Wednesdays are one of the days that this summer I'm expecting that I'll use as personal training time.  Pick a route, go out and work on my form or just get base exercise/miles in.  That said, the weather is still below average right now, and after 3 months of cold enough weather, having to layer up and deal with being cold on the bike isn't making getting on the road very easy.  

Verse:

Mark 13:3-8
New King James Version (NKJV)
The Signs of the Times and the End of the Age
3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?”
5 And Jesus, answering them, began to say: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 6 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and will deceive many. 7 But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles.[a] These are the beginnings of sorrows.

Thoughts:  There was a time when I would look at a rant, or a flame war, and believe that I could "win".  That I could somehow be so methodical, so fluent in my thoughts and my wordsmithing, that I would "teach someone" a lesson.  What I've learned, primarly the hard way, is that there are no winners in these contests.  They are a contest of pure will, and much like a peacock presents his plumage to show is dominance publicly, these displays are nothing more than a visual show for the author's own benefit.  In the end all parties involved walk away believing "I showed them, and maybe I opened up their eyes to the 'truth'."  Neither side is actually interested in knowing the real truth, they believe they already know it.  Facts no longer matter, because the views are already established. In the end, the reality is that it's just a train wreck for others to feast upon, set on the stage of public opinion.

I can't say that I don't delve into these issues anymore.  I attempt to know better, and to stay away from them.  They "disturb my calm", to butcher quote a character from the TV Show Firefly.  They do not add any real positive to my day, and they do not help me to be more productive to anyone that I have to interact with on a regular basis.  

This begs the question of "why should I even interact with these people at all?"  This is a sticky question for me, and I do ponder this every so often.  The reality is that I am not called to only be around like minded people.  I am called to bear witness, and to testify to the Truth.  That isn't to say that I'm going to start preaching on the streets of Greenville.  What it means is that there will be times in my life where the situation will be presented to me where I'm expected to use my talents to help another person with their struggles by sharing the Gospel.  It may be received, it may not be.  I cannot force someone to be saved, free will allows them to chose their own path, destructive as it may be.  I am likewise not called to judge them, or to mock them.  If I actively drive them away, not only am I not following my calling, but I may be forcing them to stumble by not being where I'm supposed to be.  

Does this mean I need to be surrounded by people that are actively attacking my belief system in the name of "equality", looking to judge me by my faith?  I don't believe that this is the case.  People will enter and exit my life at God's chosing.  I have to be humble and aware of what His calling is for those interactions, and prepared to do his will at those intersections.   Whether it's in times to be quiet, times to speak out, or times to be there because they are in need.  I just need to remember that when I speak out, I do not just speak out with my own voice, but those that are not saved are hearing me as a representative of Christ.  My words, and my actions, are thereby held to a different standard than someone that is following the laws of Man.  I cannot believe that engaging in any level of flame war furthers the Kingdom of God.  I am called to love that person, and know that Sin is the enemy, not my neighbor.  It's not an easy calling, and I can say with impunity that I am not an expert in walking this path.  But it's a path that I should be focused on following.

Lent Day 35 (Wednesday)

Exercise: Cycling 19 miles.  Either my heart rate monitor didn't work real well, or I actually managed to ride with my heart rate constantly in Zone 2/3.  I managed to somehow leave the car without putting my gloves on, but it really wasn't a major factor in the ride overall.  Between the weather on Thursday (it's supposed to be chilly again) and the planned training ride Saturday (75 miles including a big climb on Green River Cove!), this is my last ride for a couple of days.  Glad I didn't make excuses.

Verse:

Jeremiah 17:7-8
New King James Version (NKJV)
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear[a] when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

Thoughts: Last week at work we had a meeting to discuss the company's Net Promoter Score, often times referred to as NPS.  For companies it's a way to determine what their customer's opinion of them, and the overall strength of the brand.  In a nutshell it compares the number of people that love their service (called promoters) versus the number of people that despise it (the detractors).  You cannot please everyone, but the overall object is to have more people that will recommend your products to others than folks that will recommend that you don't use the company.  This concept, on a general level, is relevant not just for large companies, but for individuals and small businesses as well.  

What reminded me of this outside of the corporate scenario was going through my social media feeds.  There are folks out there that live on their brand, like actors, comedians, and independent artists.  These people are "always on":  if they pull a bone-head maneuver it can make or break future deals.  Some of them make a living by the negative hype, as it creates a brand for themselves that a certain number of people will gravitate to.  Others, who I believe are truly more Internet and Tech savvy  have developed their "brand" online and made sure that their communications on all social media always project the brand and image that they wish to portray.  Some of these artists just attempt to "be themselves" as they are marketing their product, but the danger is they are always one rant away from converting a promoter to a detractor.  They need to be sensitive, and ultimately aware, of their actions.

That said, even in our non-online interactions we create promoters and detractors in our personal lives.  Whether it's with my co-workers, folks I ride with, or just friends that I keep in touch with over various mediums (including social media), what I say and how I say it determine the course of my personal life.  I am the first to admit that I've made ill-informed comments on subjects that I really should have just kept out of, or smiled and nodded.  There are many topics that I'm very passionate about, but as I get more informed I've had to completely re-think my stance.  My best example on this is in regards to cycling:  The more I've been involved in the scene, the more I've understood all of the nuances that I simply couldn't have understood before.  It's not that I wasn't aware of the laws, or that wasn't really informed on the issues per se.  It's that experience and tolerance is critical to making a truly informed stance.   I have seen some of the comments I made years ago, and look at them and go "wow, I was a real dufus".   It's hard to realize that the uninformed idiot that was potentially ruining something that I now love, was myself.  In this case specifically I could have, and probably did, create detractors from my own personal "brand" based on my stances on something that I now really love to do. 

The danger here is twofold:  First is that I do not wish to spend the energy to engineer my own "brand" that I have to sell in my personal and professional life.  I specifically mean engineer in the same aspect that a self-employed artist like I mentioned above has to create a brand.  Their image ends up being their life;  they have to leave their face in a jar by the door all the time.  Second is that whether I like it or not, I am create a brand with every interaction that I make.  My verbal and non-verbal communications with people directly influence their opinion of me as a person and as a professional.  I need to be acutely aware of how my actions impact other people and make sure that my overall actions are creating a person that I wish to portray to the world.  My goal should always be to be a reflection of Christ.   

Newsboys - Take Me to Your Leader

They don't know why we care
They don't know what's out there
They don't know how it's done
Let's take 'em to our leader son

They see we've got the joy
They see us live it, oi
It's real, it's free, it's fun
Let's take 'em to our leader son

Over-Stimulated

So, after having my 360 for almost a year now, I have amassed a pretty decent collection of games. The one thing that I've noticed, is that a large majority of them are rated "M" (for Mature). When you look at the commercials on TV for games, most of them state "Rated 'M' for Mature" in the commercial, while they are showing cool graphics and/or cutscenes. The question to me doesn't become are we creating a society where women are beaten and children are killing chilren - we've had that for decades now. The question is what are we glorifying to our kids throughout ALL of society.

Now, I'm not saying I will buy GTA IV or whatever, but I really have reservations with Glenn Beck's comments that it is creating a better killer. I think the research was solid, the facts pretty straight, but the premise was failing. Because GTA makes you press a button on a controller and watch in third person the reaction, instead of making you fire a realistic weapon in first person, I'm not sure I can buy into his strangely anti-military, right wing fear of Big Brother concept that video gaming is making our kids to be killers. Better tacticians, maybe.

Whether we want to believe it or not, video gaming really is more of a litmus test of our society than an actual change mechanic. How many of the top selling games that come out each month are inappropriate for someone 8-14? How many movies are PG-13 or higher? How many of the "glamorous" TV shows are TV-MA? How many books on the shelf are to the literary level of a street worker, and become NYTimes best sellers or whatever?

We as a society want to wage wars on so many things, but we spend way too little time wanting to spend time looking at our own self indulgence. Video games aren't the evil of the world, neither is TV or movies. A "Big Mac" isn't going to kill you. Having 37 of 'em in a month might, though.

Maybe if we'd spend more time diversifying ourselves, instead of indulging on the mental mush candy fed to us as a whole, we'd be a much different society. But then again, who ever said that the Enemy ever wanted us to be spiritually and mentally fed? It's like Hanzel and Gretel at a spiritual and cosmic level...

Job Abandonment

Going to be brief on this, mostly because it has me worked up enough to babble but not enough to really rant fully on. I really don't get why folks would want to abandon their job, and at least not do the right thing and at the very least email someone (HR, their boss, a friend in the company) that they are leaving.

By leaving with no notice, and leaving clues that folks have to figure out the person that is hurt the most in the end is really yourself. Friends you had can be put off that you just left, past employers wouldn't re-hire you or give out a good reference to a new job. When a new employer checks with HR at the old job, they'll find out you were terminated for job abandonment, and may pass over hiring you.

It definitely feels like to me that it must be a personality thing or something. Guess it's one of those neurosis I can be glad I don't have.

The problem with DRM

Okay, there is no one "problem with DRM", besides that it is DRM. The problem with DRM is that the way it exists is really worthless.

Let's take an example of a system that I think is awesome, but flawed - Amazon Unbox. The biggest issue with DRM is that it cannot handle exceptions that happen in real life. I personally have an unbox account, and I had it linked to a system where the HD is now longer viable, I cannot load the operating system such to "uninstall" my copy of unbox and release the license. Thus I have content that I cannot use on one of my allowed machines, because that machine is no longer viable.

The second is the thought of $1.99 for broadcast shows. Why in the world has no-one thought about adding in-show adds to these, and requiring you to re-download new adds every number of views to continue watching the shows? I mean, it's a great concept to be able to get the ultimate "on demand" for shows you like, but I'm not going to honestly pay $1.99 to watch something I can DVR technically for "free". If I really wanted to watch that old episode of Babylon 5, for example, I'd rather just buy the DVD and not have to deal with download DRM in the mix.

At some point the content providers need to find a better way to provide their content to bring about new revenue models, instead of trying to shove unproven and ineffective ways to bring folks to content down the consumers throat, while having the old models be painless and relatively simple to keep using.

Camera Angles

It's been over 10 years since the advent of 3-dimensional gaming. Games like Tomb Raider "redefined gaming" back in the day. Since those times the concept of the camera angle has plagued me. I personally hated "Tomb Raider", because I could never get the camera where I felt that I had a good view of the obstacle and could work with it. These games were early in the genre of 3D gaming, so a little bit of that has to be allowed. Some experiments work, some do not.

Now that it's 2008, I would expect that "modern" games would have been able to take what works, and make it work better. But it seems that most of the games lately that I really enjoy end up being plauged by the "camera angle" monster. Games like Lego Star Wars - one of my current favorite games to play - is horrific with it. In Co-Op it can become frustrating enough to make you not want to play anymore at times, when you get locked in an area because your partner and you are running in opposite directions. Crackdown is a lot of fun, but every so often the camera moves to an impossible angle and trying to jump, move the camera, and position your guy so he lands on a 2" wide pipe so you can get through a rooftop race is.. frustrating (not to mention requires you to use extra appendages somehow).

In years before the birth of "3D gaming", the camera angle was generally fixed - you had top scrolling and side scrolling, or top down, or mostly top down views of the field, and they were relatively static. Sometimes the angle kinda sucked, but it was what it was, and you dealt with it. Now you have a roving camera that is following you, it dynamically changes what the field of vision looks like and how you are looking at an obstacle while you are trying to get around it. Sometimes just being "too close" to the focal point can make the rest of the field almost obscured to the player. Star Trek Legacy is plagued by this issue.

It seems that the 2D games came out of infancy rather quickly, and had AAA titles to the point where they were cliche. 3D games are still trying to find the camera angle to properly view what a AAA title can really be.

Club Live scam...

I'm not even sure how to post this one up, I'm so angry right now. Back in July I was surfing around and found out about Microsoft's "Club Live" offering, where you could play word puzzles and win tickets that can be used to "purchase" Microsoft products, including copies of Vista, a Zune or maybe even a xbox360!

Needless to say, I was excited. I already had my sites on a 360, and this was a great way to "earn" one without plunking down what was then almost $400 for the pro set, plus this came with a few games. My wife and I both were playing, so our household would only use one account (and follow the EULA), and we were working towards the goal of getting a 360. Christy spent more time than me working on it, actually; she figured she's get it for me as a Birthday present. She was 10 times faster than me playing the games, and she really liked the word puzzles in general.

Fast forward to mid-August. We've gone through all the puzzles on the games we liked to play, everything else was just not fun for us to play. I also started evaluating the value of the packages, and came to the realization that I really wanted the 360 elite, with it's 120gig drive, instead of the pro. So I settled on getting a wireless controller and a few games from the reward list. Figured, "at least I got something worthwhile and enjoyable from my time"; all good. The order status says it takes 30-60 days to review the order and fulfill it, and I get a confirmation that my order should ship on Oct 12. Fine, Fine.. I can wait.

Slow motion to November. No fulfillment; no emails; nothing. I email support for a status, in return I receive an auto-responder with answers to "frequently asked questions"; I sent a response (as the email states I should), and receive no responses from my queries. Re-check the information, and I guess in September they started saying it would be 120 days to get prizes. 120 days is mid-November, only a few weeks away. Already have my 360, looking forward to the 2nd controller; figure I can wait.

All but stop until Monday. Original date and 120-day period that is now mentioned in the T&C long gone. Decided to send an email over to CNET, since they cover all sorts of things Microsoft related. Got a great response from Elinor Mills, saying that the Microsoft PR contact she had would like my account name so he can have someone research it. Good, good.. maybe finally I'll get somewhere with this order.

Leap up to today. I get an email at 12:30am today saying they are reviewing my order with fulfillment to see what the status is. Good, good. Then this afternoon I get the following email -

"Dear Live Search Club Participant:

Thank you for your patience while our Technical Support Team has further reviewed and re-evaluated the game play history on your account. Upon review of your account, it appears that a number of the games played meet our criteria of unfair game play and violates our terms and conditions (http://club.live.com/TermsAndConditions.htm) resulting in a cancellation of your order.

Best Regards,

Live Search Club Customer Support"

Now, the terms and conditions they speak of state -

"You must comply with the Terms and Rules, as determined by Microsoft, to receive a Ticket or Reward. You must not use any bot, cheat code or other automated way to do an Activity or participate in the Program. You may not use more than one user account to avoid caps or other restrictions on Activities and Tickets you can earn."

Best I can figure, I broke it because both Christy and I played on the same account. But, if we played on our own accounts we would have broken the "You may not use more than one user account" clause, since we are in the same household.

This smells, sounds and acts like a scam to me. The way the T&C is written it's clear they can just cancel all the orders done, because if you play the games "too fast", you must be cheating. If you have folks in your "Household" play on one account, you are cheating. If you each have your own account, you are "cheating".

All of this over 3 xbox360 games and a wireless controller. I'm very disappointed in Microsoft, and how they are handling this service. 180 days with no way for the customer to be in contact with them, and then claim they are cheating. No way to spin around this; it really makes me question Microsoft's ethics.

The sad thing is, I love my 360... but if I had gotten this treatment before I got the 360, I wouldn't have bought one. Makes me really question all future Microsoft products, too.

Money for nothing, Clips for free

I'm realizing that I don't post up all that much on here these days, but right now I wanted to just write up my feelings on something - free content.

In the age of the Internet, the concept of free has been horridly warped. I don't care if it's movies, music, or video games. I don't care if your are 15 or 55, the problem is the same: folks think that everything on the Internet should be free.

Free television to me is what you get from broadcast signals, and is paid for by the advertisements that you watch. You pay for a cable version of this programming simply because you want to be able to watch a clearer signal, or have more channels available. These stations still have commercials on them, because the channel gets paid by you watching commercials. The costs of distribution are covered, for the most part, in your cable access. Not the production of the shows, or the folks that put together the programming schedule. The cable company gives you a conduit to additional programming that you pay for, but you still pay for the content by commercials.

Radio is free, because you listen to commercials. There are premium radio, where you have more selection and it's commercial-free (well, except for commercials for themselves it seems), but you pay for that expanded selection.

The Internet is NOT free, there is no "broadcast" method to gain access to it for free. What you are paying that $20-50 a month for is the ability to connect into the large web of networks. That gives you no entitlement for anything and everything that is available on the Internet. It gives you a conduit to the world. Why is it that people do not want to understand that the content providers aren't paid by their internet host, but rather that the content has to make money somehow?

Downloading movies, music, television and video games without any level of compensation is illegal: it's no less illegal than you shoplifting from Best Buy a DVD or CD. Yet folks feel entitled because it's the Internet, and everything should be free on the Internet! There are plenty of incredible things that are free on the internet (this blog site is just an example), but not everything is free.

Jr High School

At 32 years of age, I'm realizing that all I needed to know in order to survive in the business world I learned in Junior High. Now, depending on the size of the school, the lessons are adaptive. In a smaller environment it seems that the interpersonal requirements change as you are forced to do more things and interact with the cliques you don't like on a regular basis. If you happen to be in a really big school, however, the rules definitely change some. People can hide behind reasons that don't make sense, you can not like someone just for who they hang out with or because they like Transformers instead of GI Joe. And I don't mean "I'm not going to hang out with you" type of dislike, I mean decide that the person deserves a wedgie every afternoon at 4. The level of drama seems to be exponential to the number of people in the organization.

You would think that people would have figured out well before their 30's that this type of behavior is disrupting and counter productive in a business environment where it's supposed to be "all about the customer". I guess I learn what happens when I think...

Club Live cheating

Recently, I found out about Club Live by Microsoft. This is a service that by playing word games that utilize Microsoft's Live Search service you earn up tickets. With those tickets you can get various rewards, including the top reward being an xbox360. Now, I've wanted a 360 for a while, but the price tag has always been a deterant for the amount of enjoyment that I predicted I'd have with it. See, I have a Wii, original xbox, Dreamcast, Saturn, GameCube... well, you get the idea. Another game console is always a bit of a harsh decision at this point, but I really like the concept of the 360 and what it brings to the table. So I start playing, and I've earned up 13,000 "tickets". Now I'm doing some research as I'm running out of games to play (both the Chicktionary and Flexicon games are locked out to me -- seems I've played all the possible puzzles), and I find that folks have been using cheat programs in order to gain multiple copies of the same reward for whatever reason.

So.. because of these cheaters the costs of the rewards have gone up, but the number of puzzles haven't. Thus the people that are actually doing the puzzles to get the rewards are faced with an issue -- some of the rewards may not be attainable. This cheeses me off. The fact that cheaters are ruining the experience for the regular players is something that always upsets me, and this is no exception. Thus, I'm writing the following to Microsoft's Help service, the head of the Live Search Division, Steve Balhmer, and whoever else I can find to send it to. Hopefully I'll get some level of response.

There seems to be a lot of concern in various forums about the cheating that
seems to have occured inside of Club Live, and the impact that it is having on
the players that are playing the games and not using outside programs "cheat"
for them.

My main question is this - is it currently possible to earn
enough points to actually get the xbox 360 bundle reward? I've earned up over
13,000 points, but the games I'm enjoying are telling me that no more puzzles
are available. I'm trying out the new games you have provided, but it seems at
least according to the leader board that you have up there, that the number of
tickets that are required to get the 360 package is unattainable.

I can
fully appreciate the problems that you are experiencing with the service, and I
think that this system is an awesome idea by Microsoft to get traction in
markets where you have recently been struggling. My concern is that the
"cheaters" are going to cost you the folks that are helping out your market
strategy.

I'd suggest that you consider some of the following concepts
that several of us that use the games legitimately have come up with -

1
- impose a rule on the rewards where you can only get a single type of reward
per physical mailing address. In a quick "Live Search" on the topic, I found
numerous message boards where folks are openly stating that they used outside
programs to complete the ticket requirement, and have ordered multiple rewards
to the same address. This includes copies of Windows, Office and Zunes.

2 - impose either shipping & handling or sales tax for the item.
Personally, I would have no issue with paying only the sales tax and/or a
shipping and handling charge for my reward, but for cheaters looking to 'resale'
the item, it would become some level of deterrant.

I'm sure there are
other concepts that you or your loyal customers can come up with that can help
twart these folks that are really ruining the concept of this service, without
having the service itself be disrupted (like it has recently).

Thanks!

--bl