I hold a deep passion for martial arts. Many people may not know that in a previous life I studied to be a black belt for about 5 years. I’m not too keen on American style boxing so much, but more bushido, jujitsu, tae kwon do and the such.
Below is an amazing compilation of Mixed Martial Arts upsets from the past year.
NOTE: If you don’t want to watch the whole video, scrub to the 7:50 mark and watch it from there.
Five years ago, after numerous consecutive Phish tours across the country, a large group of friends and I traveled to Coventry Vermont where Phish last broke things off. The music sucked and the atmosphere was concrete depression mixed with a little bit of suicide.
The grounds were muddy, the band was sad, people were broke, and it rained so much in the days before the festival, that what seemed like Army forces had to be brought in to help the masses get through those 3 days.
But now, five long years after leaving us in a cold, wet and dirty swamp in North Coventry Vermont, when the economy is in the dumps and our unemployment numbers have skyrocketed past 4.2 million people without jobs, Phish decides it’d be a good time to hit the road again. And best of all, to kick things off at Hampton Coliseum on Friday, March 6th 2009 – they opened with a juggernaut… Fluffhead.
Sometimes when Nya and Ryu (my dogs, photos on the right) dream, they get kind of rowdy and kick around while fake running. Usually, I obsess about them… But, after seeing the video below I no longer feel the necessity to obsess about it…. at all.
Thanx to my friend Seth Weintraub, author of 9to5mac and writer at Computerworld for sending this my way.
As you may have seen with my entry about Tarsiers, I have become rather interested in unique creatures that somewhat scare the shit out of me. What you see below is a Giant Japanese Hornet, and from the looks of things, you never want to meet one.
These hornets live right outside Tokyo, can fly upwards of 50 miles a day, and presumably kill around 40 people each year.
Image Credit to Muenster
I am possibly one of the last people around without a Facebook account. Seriously. Next time you’re at a stoplight, look around. Chances are, more than 50% of the people you see have a Facebook account. Don’t believe me? Ask them.
Now, when people find out that I don’t have a facebook account, they often times react with “wow” and “huh?” Sometimes I’ll get a chuckle and a “well, that’s just weird,” but for the most part I let it slide without feeling the need to explain my thoughts.
Aside from Facebook.com being a corporation that when squinting at looks like a small Microsoft replica, the entire thought that under no circumstance do I own my own content makes me cringe. I am not sure most people understand, but EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF CONTENT that you put on Facebook… They own. Every photo, every tag, every image, every word, every comment, every link, every click, every shared anything, every poke, every single thing. But you can just delete your account right? NO! Even when you delete your account… YES! EVEN WHEN YOU DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT !!! They own your content forever. This is makes me far too uncomfortable.
These are personal photos, letters, discussions, comments, that Facebook owns. These are people and system administrators working on the application itself that can, and most likely do browse your information unsolicited. Humans by nature will do things they are not supposed to do. If you put a big fat “don’t click” this in front of someone, they most likely will. And out of those 150+ people working at Facebook, you can be sure at least a few of them have illegally browsed some photos, comments and discussions. The only thing is, in a way… It’s not illegal. As the Consumerist intelligently points out, Facebook’s new Terms of Service agreement ever so slightly states that “even when you delete your account, they still own your content… forever.”
Here is the new Terms of Service agreement: As you can see it looks fine, but there are two important sentences missing from the end of this agreement.
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
And here are the two lines from the end of that paragraph, which happen to be missing now: As expected, they directly explain that you could at one time remove your content… Now, you cannot… Ever.
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
And, just for good measure, the agreement explicitly states what remains their property… forever.
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
I have accounts with Twitter, Vimeo, and of course Gmail. I have my contacts inside Adium, and I use my personal blog to express myself online. I will never join Facebook, and the slight moments of insanity when I consider it, the sheer thought of Facebook being able to peer into my life without any control over my digital content makes me realize that eventually this will backfire. Whether it be in a corporate shake-down where Facebook implodes while distributing your content to advertisers for direct targeting, or whether it be because Facebook employees were illegally learning about future employers, employees and competition to get a leg up. How it happens is yet to be determined, but at some point, Facebook’s intentions as a whole will emerge. And they’re not about “connecting to your friends.”
Facebook and ConnectU have been going through an incredibly futile legal over the last few years. The classic scenario: ConnectU’s founders claim that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea and turned it into “The Facebook” in 2004.
Hat-tip to Valleywag’s Owen Thomas for nailing this situation. HIs facts are clear and there’s no fluff. In a nutshell, ConnectU’s founders come from a large pile of money, have the funds to keep this case going, and out of the $65 Million they’ve one, have about $2.7 million left. Ouch.
Valleywag: Lawyers for ConnectU are bragging about winning a $65 million settlement for their clients from Facebook. But what did Divya Narendra and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss really get from Mark Zuckerberg? Almost nothing.
The Winklevosses and Narendra, Harvard classmates of Zuckerberg, sued him after he launched Facebook, claiming he had done work for their project and then stolen code from it to start Facebook. They reached a settlement last summer in which Facebook agreed to acquire ConnectU for cash and stock — $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares of Facebook. But then they fired their former lawyers, Quinn Emanuel, amid a contest over legal fees, the value of the settelement, and new evidence they said they’d discovered.
Based on the price Microsoft paid for its 1.6 percent stake in Facebook in the fall of 2007, the stock component of that settlement was worth $45 million. Quinn Emanuel is seeking $13 million in a contingency fee — 20 percent of the total take, which is $65 million as far as ConnectU’s former lawyers are concerned.
But the appraised value of the stock last summer was far less — $11 million, based on a valuation Facebook sought for its own stock-option plan. That’s $34 million of $65 million gone.
Just watch the video: Read More…
This is really pretty insane. Read More…
Posted in Insanity at January 27th, 2009. 3 Comments.
A little introduction: Over at Think Brilliant, we use a suite of web-based applications to manage our company’s communication, directly reach our clients and partners, and generally stay organized. It’s been developed by a great company based out of Chicago called 37 Signals, and for the most part we have no complaints.
But… The one feature missing from a crucial piece of the puzzle is becoming a nasty liability. One too risky for us to keep avoiding. We’ve tried to keep our mouth shut for months because we know there’s a wall around 37 Signals and they don’t like listening or taking requests for new features. But, we are long time partners who are deeply entangled with our BaseCamp centralization. By this feature being missing, we are considering doing the unthinkable, well until now… and leaving 37 signals.
37 Signals makes 4 pieces of software that can be grouped and used together, or one by one, depending on a particular person or company’s needs. The products are called Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack and Campfire. In this post, I’m talking about Campfire.
Posted in Insanity, Opinions, SimplyStaggering, Think Brilliant, Ze-awwn-line-inter-toob at January 22nd, 2009. Comments Off.
On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect it is having on our society as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director, Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”), documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade, to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.
The trailer is a deep look into the psychological aspects the internet and technology has played on our culture. It’s more than just another film about what we’re doing and where we’re going. It may entirely be a prediction that becomes reality if we’re not careful.
During a news conference in Iraq on December 14, 2008, an angry Iraqi journalist stood up and threw his shoes at George W. Bush. Bush completely dodged out of the way so both shoes missed hitting him completely. Read More…
It was December 8, 1980. Exactly 28 years ago that John Winston Lennon was shot dead in New York City. There aren’t many words that can describe how big of a tragedy this was for the world, so perhaps just a moment to remember would be best.
You will always be remembered. Your vision, your soul, and your never-ending message of love and unity. In these times especially, your words remain timeless. With undying love, may you forever rest in peace. Read about John Lennon and his tragic death at Wikipedia.
Jerry Yang is no longer Yahoo’s CEO. Read More…
The world is obsessed with technology. Recycling? Not so much.
(CBS) 60 Minutes is going to take you to one of the most toxic places on Earth – a place government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see. It’s a town in China where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.
It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling – about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.
Passion = Jim Cramer. Even though his track record hasn’t been stellar lately, the economy is trashed, nobody has really been on the ball as of late. In case you haven’t seen the clip below… Watch it. Read More…
About me
Founder of @thinkbrilliant Lucky to share my life with two Aussies and a Cattle Dog. Phish fanatic, lover of the great outdoors.
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Think Brilliant- Elevation Dock Pre-Orders Now Available February 20, 2012Missed our record-breaking Kickstarter campaign? You can pre-order the Elevation Dock here. We expect to be shipping in late April with the rest of the Kickstarter orders. -Casey […]
- Elevation Dock Pre-Orders Now Available February 20, 2012
