Where Is Joel?

how people use twitter is totally the new complaining about people complaining about how people use twitter.  Imma go ahead and get this started right here right now.

First there was twitter. Which is this thing that I’m not convinced anyone still knows what to do with that I, as well some number of people smaller than  the number of people who build farm based empires on facebook, use.  People started using this “twitter” to talk about what they were doing, talk to celebrities, promote their products and stalk people they wanted to have sex with.

This gave rise to a whole wave of social media “consultants”.  These were people whos favourite thing to do was complain about how people were using twitter wrong. They would often make comments like “Your supposed to interact with your followers” or “Build better personal brand identity using synergy in your social network connections.”  These were people complaining about how people use twitter.

Then the third phase. People were mad other people were telling yet other people how to use twitter. Why should some random 45 year old fat guy from Omaha (Which I’m sure is “really wonderful” place) be able to tell me how to use twitter they said?  And they all started blogging about how people shouldn’t complain about how people use twitter. These people were complaining about people complaining about how people use twitter.

I’d like to be the first to get part 4 underway by saying “Stop telling people how to use the internet”. If they want to complain about how people use twitter they may. You guys are being hypocrites!

But wait…  Now I’m complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter use. So you know what me, stop complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter, you’re being a jerk. … …

Oh no. Look Joel, I just saw you complain about people complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter, stop that!

And while you’re at it stop complaining about people complai…

Ctrl-C

3 years ago me and my roommate, James Robert (aka Jim Bob) Bacon made an unwise bet. Jimmy (aka James) bet me that by summer he would have a more cut six pack than me. He was on and the loser would have to try and eat 25000 calories (or about 110 mars bars) in one day.  Jimbo (aka Jimmy) lost.

The next year James (aka Jimmy Rob…  ok, I’ll stop this. James, you have a silly name) once again proposed we make a bet. Though I was reticent James insisted and we went ahead. The loser had to shave half of his head for 2 weeks.  Once again James lost.

Last weekend I was in Calgary visiting the Fam and some friends and James yet *again* proposed we have another bet.  I have to admit, I’m getting a bit tired of them. During the time they are one I’m not really able to eat what I want and constantly fret about abs making me that vain idiot everyone loves to hate who is constantly checking out their tummy in the mirror. The whole experience is generally negative. To add insult to injury the loser this year has to get a belly button piercing.  After enough pestering however I gave in and said I’d do the bet again this year.  …

…

So on June 21st if all does not go well I’ll have a belly button ring. … I’m pretty sure belly button rings are the piercing equivalent of a guy getting a tramp stamp. I think this might be because the only way to expose either of these body modifications to the world is to wear a midriff revealing shirt, which is not particularly cool for guys to do.  This guy seems to pull it off though (Granted he’s like 3 years old and probably Japanese, where everything is weird) which gives me a little hope for the loser.Wish me luck all!!

Joel Out.

Have you ever called Edmonton Transit bus link to find a stop times???  It’s pretty much a huge pain.

• Step 1: Navigate stupid voice menu system
• Step 2: “What is your bus number?” (Entering bus number)
• Step 3: “You have entered bus stop number XXXX … … … … … … … At 109 st…. … … … ..And etc.”

Overall sucky. So it’s been made better.  Just txt your bus stop number to (858) 779-4952 and get the next 6 buses stopping at your stop. No stupid menus.  Of course if you happen to be on Rogers/Fido they will charge you 25 cents because they are jerks (Ok,  it’s because *for now* we have an american #. But they’re still jerks because Telus/Bell won’t bother you), so try our twitter interface.  Tweet your bus stop # to @etsinfo and we’ll get right back to you. Sorry buslink, but we’re breaking up.

Sean wrote a more informative description of what we built here.  Happy busing, and don’t be too harsh, it’s just in beta!

Joel

ps. 100 posts!

On occasion I have been known to leave my student card in the gym.  For those of you who are unaware, in Edmonton, at U of A, this means that I have to pay for transit, which I generally do with whatever coins I happen to find lying around.  It’s not optimal that I spend an extra 10$ per month getting around, but I live with it.  What drives me insane however is when the train is arriving right as I walk into the terminal and I still need to buy a ticket.

Buying tickets is obviously a necessary evil, but how come I need to navigate through a ridiculous menu system to buy a ticket??  I am the 98% scenario, an adult traveling not during a special event.  Why can’t I just put money in and get my ticket??  Just in case I overspend on a kids ticket?  Poor.  Drives me insane.

Joel out

Obviously everyone in Canada is flipping out about this right now. Apparently something ludicrous like 50% of all Canadians watched this hockey game. It may as well have been our Super Bowl.  And we lost. And everyone was stunned. One of the people I was watching the game with mentioned after the first period “I thought we’d be up 3-0 by now”.What I don’t get is why is everyone so surprised? Does Canada have a better roster than the Americans?  Yeah, obviously. Do the San Jose sharks have a better roster than the Edmonton Oilers.  Yes. But no one ever says “It’s absolutely stunning that the oilers beat the sharks”. Even on ice Canada was obviously the more talented squad. They dominated in time on attack, and embarrassingly outshot the Americans.  But Miller made Brodeur look like a rookie who didn’t understand the game of hockey and the Americans capitalized on their opportunities.  That’s it.  The fact of the matter is in one game elimination tournaments variance plays a huge role and the best team doesn’t always win.

So Canada, yeah, our team is stacked, but don’t count on anything.

1) You drive the whole way in the lefthand lane. The lefthand lane is actually known as a “passing lane”. This is not because they ran out of names for lanes that did not involve the word passing, it’s actually a description of what the intended use of the lane is. If you were unaware of this fact you may in fact be illiterately stupid. If this is the case try sounding the word out P-A-S-S-I-N-G. Now consider what you were doing in the lane the entire time.

Corollary 1a) People keep passing you on the right.  Yeah, those people are probably jerks as well, or at least some of them.  The fact of the matter is that you are clearly not paying attention to what is going on around you.  Is that big pickup zooming up behind you at a mind-blowing 4 kilometers an hour over the speed limit.  Maybe you should move over and *let them pass*.  Novel concept.

Corollary 1b) You keep passing people on the right.  Yeah, I get it.  Apparently you are the only one aware of the fact that the speed limit is 63% too low.  It’s clear that when this highway was designed no one whatsoever gave any thought to what a safe driving speed should actually be and the speed limit was totally arbitrary.  It’s a good thing you’ve come along to enlighten us all.

2) You leave your high beams on all the time in traffic.  …  Ok, seriously.  There is a big long line of cars in front of you. A long snake of red lights you can follow that will show you where all the turns are.  If you can’t see that line of cars without your high beams you are too blind ti be driving.  Which coincidentally is what the person in front of you is going to be any time now if you don’t start behaving like a respectable human being.

3) You drive at 70 km/hr on the 110 km/hr road because it is dark out and there is a little bit of snow on the road. Yeah, I know, you feel safe at 70 km/hr.  You feel all nice warm and cozy, like maybe you won’t go careening off the highway.  This is true. You know when else you wouldn’t go careening off the highway? Stopped.  Please don’t tell me you think it is a good idea to sit stopped in the middle of a highway in sub-optimal driving conditions??  It’s also not safe to go unreasonably slow.

I’ve for the last several years worked on events team for a campaign promoting positive nightlife in Calgary and Edmonton. Working on this events team has caused me to spend some time reflecting what a good nightlife scene and attitude can offer a city.

The obvious thing people always say is that bars economically benefit a city via providing jobs and profitable businesses. …  Yawn…  Yeah, that’s true, but seriously it’s unexciting and I think in this respect the contribution of nightlife to a city is marginal.  Many of the employees are students and would otherwise just get some other job like Starbucks and seriously, a lot of the employees who are not students should probably consider moving on with their lives anyway. I have no evidence for this but I would be surprised if the amount of wealth generation by nightclubs and bars in general was that great. (Feel free to call me out on this. I am actually quite curious.)

Nightlife contributes to cities in another way which I actually consider to be more important. It makes a city “cool”. Consider being in a city like San Diego. The city is not significantly more populated than Edmonton or Calgary.  Yes the population density is higher than Edmonton or Calgary, but it’s not nearly on the order of Metropolises like New York or London and it’s actually roughly the same as Regina. So what makes San Diego (one of my favourite citys) stand out when you are there. Yes, there is the fact that the weather is awesome. There is the fact you are close to the ocean. Seattle has both of those but does not come off as nearly as attractive of a city. San Diego makes you feel cool. When you go to a bar the bar is cool. The people around you seem cool. You feel kind of like a rock star. This makes a city both more attractive as a tourist destination (See Las Vegas) and as somewhere to live.

Next comes another way nightlife *can* contribute to a city which is does not in Alberta due to what I consider to be an attitude problem we have in this province.  When people go to bars in Alberta the primary goal for a large portion of the bar going population is to get wasted and for a large portion of the bar going population is to hook up. What this means is that the bar really isn’t a positive social atmosphere. When I go to talk to women about nightlife issues they always respond in a “Must evaluate this guy hitting on me to see if he’s worthwhile” way and guys are defensive because if I’m not gay then I am officially another guy hanging with them thereby reducing their chances of having sex. (Not that being gay would be any better…  Then I’d be “hitting on them” which they would probably also not like.)  What this does is reduces people’s ability to meet people they have no sexual interest in but who may interest them in other ways in bars.

Meeting people with common interests is the foundation of building vibrant communities in a city and it is communities within a city that make it successful. Take for example the bay area. Companies like Twitter can become successful because the technology community there not only provides support for new companies, but also an initial user base for new products. As an example of how nightlife can be successful two of my friends met at the Black Dog in Edmonton and they now collaborate on several projects including a company one of them is starting.  This however is rare. Guys out there, when was the last time you met a guy at a bar you ever talked to again? Also for those looking to have a one night stands decreasing the sexual nature of interactions makes it easier to meet people.

So in summary I think with a change in nightlife attitude nightlife can be a more positive influence on our cities.  And I gotta run.

Every year the U of A seems to have some kind anti-drinking campaign. They often are based around some kind of questionable social norming. AKA. “The average number of drinks a student has on a night out is 4.6.” or something. Usually the number presented is so laughable that you know there is something fishy about the statistics.

This year though the campaign is the worst. There are several posters involving the outcome of the evening as you drink more. And in every case they involve worse and worse outcomes as you drink more until you reach the “worst” outcome, which is always something ridiculous, but can also often be construes as the best possible outcome.

Poor advertising

Here at the most drinks the outcome is “walk of shame”.  This is college!  For many college students the best possible outcome for the night is walk of shame.  Basically the message this poster sends is if you are too drunk and having a shitty night drink more and something good will happen.  Not that I actually believe these posters really ever accomplish their goals, but still.  This is horrible.

Something you may or may not have all noticed of late is that the new cool thing for girls to wear this year is tights. (Leggings??? I’m not really sure…) There are girls running around everywhere in knee high boots, leggings and a tee shirt. Wearing this around two years ago would have looked ridiculous and totally out of place. Then 3 years ago girls were wearing around those pregnancy shirts which would have looked ridiculous two years before and…. Well you get it.

For men however there are no such similar rapid paradigm shifts in what we wear. One year big lapels are in, the next year small. One year big ties are in the next year small. Nothing game changing. Why is it that women’s fashion changes so much faster and more dramatically than men’s?

A while ago I read a study about the effects of clothing on male and female perception of the opposite sex. What it boiled down to was that how attractive men found women was primarily correlated to the woman they were looking at regardless of what she was wearing. How attractive women found men was strongly correlated to what the men were wearing and how they were groomed. Men can tell if a woman is good looking even if she is disheveled and wearing sweats and can tell they don’t find a woman attractive even when she is dressed to the nines. A below average looking man can, however, look very attractive by wearing properly fitting nice clothes and doing their hair. This puts moderately attractive women at a greater reproductive disadvantage with respect to their more attractive peers than moderately attractive men.

When a rapid paradigm shift in fashion occurs for a short period of time men are exposed to clothes on women they have not experienced in a long time or ever and are thus unable to evaluate how attractive a woman wearing the new clothes are. Women who are fairly attractive might then be evaluated by a man as being extremely attractive thereby closing the gap caused by men’s ability to generally to evaluate a woman’s attractiveness irrespective of what she is wearing. Because of this for all but the most attractive women it is reproductively favourable to frequently cause rapid fashion changes in order to break down the borders between them and the most attractive women. For men this need does not exist as we can already increase our attractiveness without having to break through social stigma of totally new clothes.

…
Just a theory, but I think it’s because of the way men and women react to how each other are dressed.

I received another interesting blog comment the other day:

“I’m going to be doing some anal on my site, just for you.”

Ok, this seems like pretty standard porn spam. What makes the comment interesting is that it links back to what actually looks like some kind of russian design blog. What a weird way to advertise your blog!