The South Beach Heart Diet

Is the “plumbing model” for heart disease all wrong? Famed South Beach Diet guru, Dr. Agatston thinks so. The MSNBC article is interesting. I don’t have a lot to add about it, other than I’ve seen South Beach work pretty well and Agatston seems to know what he’s talking about. So maybe his model and his plea for prevention is a better solution than the current one of drugs and repair?

Crowds Are Stupid? You Don’t Say!

Who would have thought that the movie Men In Black is a source of great wisdom? As Tommy Lee Jones, Agent K, so eloquently put it to Will Smith, Agent J, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” For the same reason that it would be bad for everyone to know if aliens are living among us, techies need to make sure the focus isn’t on collaboration of one project, but the co-existence of many projects that spawn new ideas. Creating Passionate Users has a great article up about the difference between Collective Intelligence and the “Dumbness of Crowds.”

I won’t waste time repeating what Kathy Sierra has already said over there. In fact, if nothing else check out her explanation of the 20Q game and its relation to collective intelligence. That little 20Q ball is smarter than you, even if you think a dolphin is a fish, it still guesses correctly!

My thoughts about the Dumbness of Crowds is applied directly to the Open Source Community. I’m struggling with learning Linux right now for a couple of reasons. I’m not particularly great with online courses, but since they are the most cost effective, as a boss, I stick with them when I can. A good mentor would be a better situation, but I don’t have any of those around (for Linux). On top of that, I’ve played with Windows for years, so it just makes sense to me.

What does that have to do with Open Source? Well, Linux is one of their crown jewels, right? You’d think that after years of development with all of the brain power that’s been thrown into that operating system that it would be easy for me to understand it. Right? Wrong. First, the guys that have the knowledge tend to be uber-geeks, who know their stuff, but think I should do everything from a command line. I like my GUIs and I should be able to do almost anything from a GUI that I can do from the command line. If I can’t, to me, that’s a huge design error. Ultimately Linux still wants me to use programs from the command line combined with a laundry list of -a -x -whatever in order to be quickly done with a project. Throw in the fact that companies like Red Hat are looking for ways to make money on “open source” and I’m really not impressed.
My other issue is when the personalities in a crowd win out and you see an open source project die. That’s my biggest fear when looking at products. Would I love to replace Microsoft Office at work? Totally. Is it feasible? Perhaps, but what happens if development on OpenOffice suddenly died? I’m up a creek without a paddle. And on top of that, a ton of Open Source projects lack good documentation, so what was saved in costs up front, ends up being charged to an employee’s time.

I digress. Back to the original point of the Dumbness of Crowds. I’ve seen it in action firsthand throughout my life. Just watch when a coach asks a team what they’d like to do. You get 20 different answers, none of which actually work. But when you allow a couple of older players pull aside their younger counterparts and transfer their knowledge, it’s Collective Intelligence at it’s finest. Come back a couple of seasons later and see how much more is transferred to the next generation.

Weird, maybe we should just look for the Autobot Matrix of Leadership?

My Wish: Joel’s Bionic Office

Yes, Joel’s post on the Bionic Office is over three years old, but it has had staying power in my mind since I first read it. On a daily basis, I live in a cube like many of us. On top of that, my cube is certainly no Dilbert Ultimate Cube. So if I was granted just one wish by the office genie, it would be that every office I ever work in from now until death has a setup similar to Joel’s Bionic Office. Joel believes that IT workers their own private offices to make a home where they can be most productive.

Think about it. Why do you like going home each day? Because it has your creature comforts and it’s a place where you want to be. Home is whatever you’d like it to be. Many of you out there spend more time at work than at home, so it needs to be comfortable. Not lay back and take a nap comfortable (although I really think naps would help a lot of workers), but the work environment should be customizable to the person and how they accomplish tasks.

After I read the article, I focused on two points. The Private Offices, which I’ve touched on already and Pair Programming. What’s pair programming? Exactly what it sounds like, two people sit at one terminal and program together. I used to program, and I’m around programmers now, along with the assortment of IT staff. I’ll go one step further than Joel and say that every station for ALL IT staff should have two monitors and plenty of leg room. Why? It makes collaboration a hell of a lot easier. Work areas that accommodate two workers are conducive to learning. A little bit of learning each day is far better than having to soak it all up at once at a training session. Judging from my 5+ years in the IT workforce, collaboration happens when it’s easy, and not so much when it’s not.

Why do you think everyone wants an Easy Button?

Bribes For Bloggers

I wandered over to JoelOnSoftware.com (as I have once in a while ever since his Bionic Office article, which I’ll talk about in a later post, as an IT admin I couldn’t agree more) and his article on companies that are “bribing” bloggers to get good reviews. He’s taking a stand against the companies and his fellow bloggers, because he feels that it’s unethical to take a “gift” from a company and then review that product. He points out that the most trusted name in reviewing, Consumer Reports (get yourself an online subscription, it’s $26 for the year) buys their products at retail stores, in order to get exactly what your or I would buy. CR can fairly judge the product and write about it accordingly.

Joel’s quick to point out that his hands aren’t clean. He has taken some freebies over the years, but then again, who hasn’t? Well, me, but that’s because I haven’t had the opportunity. Even with the small, but growing, success of ScalpEm.com, I was contacted to promote a Home Depot contest that involved the FSU / UF Rivalry game. I promoted it, freely, because I thought it was fun and it was local to Tallahassee. When the marketers came back wanting me to post about a contest where winners would go “Behind The Scenes With College Gameday” I declined. If they want that kind of advertising, they can buy an ad on the site. I don’t charge much!

What I don’t agree with is that disclosure doesn’t work. Maybe I’m just too brutally honest, or maybe I believe that I can be less biased on a freebie than most people, but if a review is upfront about where they got the product, then that’s enough. We can try, but blogging isn’t ever going to be as credible as the traditional media (their credibility is in question many times though) since you have 10 abandoned junk blogs for each readable one. Blog is a dirty word, it will continue to be a dirty word for the next 10 years until enough of the technology generation is running companies. The other fact that I think Joel is forgetting about is that not all of us have the luxury of going out there and purchasing a brand new laptop and reviewing Vista on it. It must be nice!

My main point in all of this is that we’re all tuned to the same radio station WIFM. What’s In it For Me? Money. Money. Money. It’s all about money. While I love writing about the Seminoles and my intention is to cover my hosting expenses with Google Ads, am I really going to complain if I ever make more than that? No. If Nike comes by and asks me to review a product that they are going to provide me, will I review it honestly? Yes, and I’ll disclose that Nike gave it to me, but I do believe readers are smart enough to figure out what is an honest review and what is not.

Facts About President Gerald Ford

President Ford was before my time, but his death got me interested in his life. So I did a quick Google Search and came up with some interesting facts that most people my age wouldn’t know.

Ford was an Eagle Scout.

Among his first jobs, mowing lawns, handling concessions at an amusement park and flipping burgers at a restaurant.

He turned down the NFL (Packers and Lions).

He was the only president never elected to the presidency or the vice-presidency. (The president fact I knew, but I didn’t think about the fact that he replaced Spiro Agnew.)

His favorite meal was pot roast and red cabbage — followed by a dessert of butter pecan ice cream.

Ford pardoned Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974, for any crime he may have committed in office, an act that stunned the nation and stirred enduring controversy. He denied making any deal with Nixon.

He survived two assassination attempts on President Ford, both by women.

Ivan Drago: Justice Enforcer!

So the guys over at DannyFordIsGod.com made me wet my pants with delight the other day when they posted an online game called Ivan Drago: Justice Enforcer. You remember Ivan, the evil Russian that Rocky had to fight. Well he’s back to clean up America. See if you can get through this 80’s-style arcade game. I can make it through all of the levels, but I always need the continue.

Check out a couple of screen shots:

Book Review: Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World by Jim Cramer

People love or hate Jim Cramer. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground on the guy. Either Mad Money is the greatest show on earth, or it’s horrible. It reminds me of the sentiment fans had for Dale Earnhardt, Sr., Bobby Knight or Hillary Clinton, there’s just nobody out there with a “eh, he’s okay” opinion of Cramer. Put me in the Cramer camp. Although I’m not a regular watcher of Mad Money, I do enjoy it when I catch it. Cramer makes finances fun, which is tough to do for most people. He’s also one of the most honest financial people that I’ve read and watched. Seriously, watching a guy throw a chair across the room before talking stocks is entertaining. If I can learn something while being entertained, even better.

In the interest of keeping my sanity, I’m going to do all of my book reviews within three paragraphs. What the book was about, why I didn’t like it and why I liked it. Simple enough.

The gist of it - Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World is Jim Cramer’s second book, but the first book where he actually discusses the techniques of making money in the stock market. Just a warning though, this book is for people that want to take an interest in investing. If you can’t or won’t do an hour of homework per stock, per week then Cramer is happy to show you the Mutual Fund door. He teaches the basics of stocks and shows how to make a decision when buying or selling. (It’s all about the homework.)

Why I didn’t like it - It’s tough to pick negatives, since I really enjoyed the book. However, Cramer focuses on Buy & Homework instead of Buy & Hold. That might be a better definition of how the average trader should look at things, but he fails to point out there are other reasons for investing in stocks, like reaping the cash benefits of dividends. He also claims that $2,500 will get you started, but if you follow his diversifying advise, you really need closer to $10,000 to start a portfolio.

Why I liked it - Jim Cramer has a knack for putting financial terms into plain English. For the first time, I understood how and why stocks behave like they do. In fact, I felt a bit stupid for not understanding the concepts sooner, but I thank Jim. He also is the first “stock guy” that has flat out said that a lot of stocks on a daily basis, and especially securities, are exactly the same as gambling. That puts the risk into perspective for people that have been taught that everything is fine as long as they buy and hold.

I look forward to reading his newest book, Mad Money: Watch TV Get Rich.

Resolutions

This is a better spot for my New Year’s Resolutions than ScalpEm, but here we go anyway.

My New Year’s Resolutions for 2007 

1. Exercise more / eat right. (Yeah… I think a lot of us make this resolution. This time I mean it… really. Tailgates be darned.)

2. Clean out the house. (I despise shredding, but there is a lot of paperwork that needs to go and I have some stuff that I need to get out of here and take to Goodwill).

3. Grow ScalpEm.com’s writing base and readership. (I don’t have a plan for this other than my goal is to have 7-10 consistent contributers to the site, and we’ll see where it goes from there.)

Boise State’s Miracle Fiesta Bowl Victory

I ended up watching the entire Boise State / Oklahoma game last night. Miraculously, the Broncos won the game with an unusual Hook ‘N’ Ladder to tie the game and a Statue of Liberty play to win it with a 2 point conversion. The Broncos won the Fiesta Bowl 43-42 in overtime. I’ve been a fan of the boys that play on the Smurf Turf for a couple of seasons, so I’m quite pleased. And Fox even taught me a few things last night, like BSU is the first school to win a Junior College National Championship and a Division I-AA Title. Boise State gets to add BCS Bowl win to that list of achievements.

If you happened to miss the ending, I’m sure this game will be playing on ESPN Classic all week. Watch it and enjoy it and ponder how the university presidents can’t act and have an NCAA sanctioned playoff that involves the current bowl system. I just can’t believe that there isn’t the same or money in a scenario like that.

BSU 13-0, with nowhere to go.

Welcome To My New Site

If anybody out there is reading, I just wanted to say, “Hello.” This is NoleCC, owner of ScalpEm.com and ScalpEm.info.  EmptyNotebook.com is my personal blog, where I’ll yap about everything other than FSU Athletics!