Labels

Categories: Food | Travel | Beer | Wine | Boston | Humor | TV | Tech | Pop Culture | Politics | Golf | Video | Photo | Auto
Sponsored: Samsung | Cadillac | Volt | GMC | AT&T | Gear List: Cameras, Lights, Microphones, etc.
More: SteveGarfield.com | Steve Garfield's Video Blog (archived 6/19/2013)
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.” | Mastodon

Sunday, September 30, 2012

68 Percent of Massachusetts Voters Support Death With Dignity

In this Boston Globe article the authors use the opposition's terminology to describe QUESTION 2: Prescribing Medication to End Life, Elizabeth Warren appears to inch ahead of Scott Brown in new Globe poll, 43 - 38:
The Globe poll also shows strong support for two state ballot questions, which require more than 50 percent approval to pass. A full 68 percent of voters, including a majority in both parties, said they support a voter initiative that would make physician-assisted suicide legal for terminally ill patients, compared with 20 percent of respondents who said they ­oppose the measure. Likewise, 69 percent of voters in the poll said they support a measure to make marijuana legal for medical use. That question also registered bipartisan support.
The Globe reporters refer to the ballot question as physician-assisted suicide.

That's not right.

In yesterday's Globe opinion piece, A method for dying with dignity, by Marcia Angell, she says:
This is not a matter of life versus death, but about the timing and manner of an inevitable death. That is why many prefer the term “physician-assisted dying” to “physician-assisted suicide.” In the usual suicide someone with a normal life expectancy chooses death over life. Terminally ill patients don’t have that choice.
Taking a look at the State's Voter Information page, we can see that calling death with dignity physician-assisted suicide is just wrong.

Elections: 2012 Information For Voters. Question 2
Image: Elections: 2012 Information For Voters. Question 2

QUESTION 2: Law Proposed by Initiative Petition

Prescribing Medication to End Life

No where in the question's summary does it refer to suicide.

Only in the Against argument does suicide show up:
AGAINST: Question 2 restricts patients’ choices and control by enabling suicide as a substitute for quality health care.
I'd like to see a correction.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion Removed RSS Feeds from Mail 6.1 How to get them back.


Image: Mac OS X Mail 6.1

What?

BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF RSS
Back in the day, I used to subscribe to HUNDREDS of BLOGS using RSS.

We all loved it.

It was a way to keep up with our friends and business sites to see when a new story was posted.

Everyone had their own favorite RSS Feed Reader.

I used to use BLOGLINES until it was sold and changed to something unrecognizable.

THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE DEATH OF RSS
Over time, Social Media became popular and that's where I found out about the most recent posts.

I follow my friends and see their newest posts, and posts that they think I might be interested in.

It all works out pretty well.

But, there were a few blogs that I wanted to make sure I saw EVERY NEW POST.

STILL HANGING ON TO RSS
So I subscribed to those blogs via RSS using Mac OS X Email.

That set up a folder/mailbox in my mail, where the new posts would flow in to.


YouTube: Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

APPLE KILLED RSS
After upgrading to MAC OS X MOUNTAIN LION 10.8.2, THE RSS FEEDS WENT AWAY!


Image: MAC OS X MOUNTAIN LION 10.8.2

Yup.

Apple removed them with no notice that I can see, and no indication of how to get them back.

GETTING BACK WITH RSS
So I searched online and found some helpful people over on Apple.com.

Gnarlodious showed us how to get our RSS feeds back.


Image: pubsub --client com.apple.mail list | cut -f3

Paste this into terminal to get a list of your RSS feeds:
pubsub --client com.apple.mail list | cut -f3
Here are mine:
http://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cc_chapman
http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/MKuf
http://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml
http://scripting.com/rss.xml
http://abovethecrowd.com/?feed=rss2
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/lostremote
http://geekandsundry.com/feed/
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AllenGannettsBlog
http://www.glennengler.com/feed/
http://buzzmachine.com/feed/
http://bernardlown.wordpress.com/feed/
http://www.eventbrite.com/rss/organizer_list_events/1361499245
http://contentsmagazine.com/feed/
http://tomfishburne.com/feed
Now the decision is, what do you do with all these RSS feeds to keep track of them?

SUBSCRIBING VIA RSS
I don't have a great suggestion, but I fell back to my.Yahoo.com. Showing a little love to Marissa Mayer. ;-)

Here's what my Yahoo! RSS feeds page looks like:



Hope this helps anyone in the same situation as me.

Do you still use an RSS reader? Which one?

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Steve Garfield on RebelMouse. A river of news social media home page.



www.rebelmouse.com/stevegarfield/

[Video] Music videos without music: GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) by PSY




Image: PSY Close Up


Image: Credits


Massachusetts Death with Dignity Act. Question 2. VOTE YES.



A method for dying with dignity - Opinion - The Boston Globe
On Nov. 6, Massachusetts voters will decide whether physicians may provide a dying patient, whose suffering has become unbearable, with medication to bring about an earlier, more peaceful death if the patient chooses and the physician agrees. On the ballot will be a Death with Dignity Act — Question 2 — that is virtually identical to the law that has been in effect in Oregon for nearly 15 years.

Good palliative care is adequate for the great majority of dying patients, but not all. Most pain can be eased, but other symptoms are harder to deal with — weakness, loss of control of bodily functions, shortness of breath, and nausea — and the drugs to treat these symptoms often produce unacceptable side effects. Even worse for many dying patients is the existential suffering. They know their condition is inexorably downhill, and they find it meaningless to soldier on.

This is not a matter of life versus death, but about the timing and manner of an inevitable death. That is why many prefer the term “physician-assisted dying” to “physician-assisted suicide.” In the usual suicide someone with a normal life expectancy chooses death over life. Terminally ill patients don’t have that choice.
Massachusetts Death with Dignity Act — Question 2.

VOTE YES.

Friday, September 28, 2012

How long does a video need to be? For Les Misérables Movie Preview, 4:37.



Boston Globe: ‘Les Miserables’ extended trailer, with interviews with Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman

How long does a video need to be?
This extended look trailer for the new Les Misérables movie is the perfect length. 4:37. ;-)

Totally entertaining.

Left me wanting more.

1,491,138 views as of this posting.

On my earlier question, of how long a video should be, my frined Schlomo Rabinowitz had a good answer over on Google Plus.



Social Media Outposts
les mis socialmedia links

Nice way to display social media outposts for the film in the end credits of the YouTube extended look video.

YouTube Video:
youtu.be/wwgQjfg0hZw

Social Media Outposts:
www.facebook.com/LesMisMovie
twitter.com/lesmiserables
www.lesmiserablesfilm.com

Notice how all the Social Media outposts are explicitly described.

Each page is well designed too:


Image: Facebook


Image: Twitter


Image: Website

One Suggestion: Clickable Links on YouTube Video Description
One way that they can improve would be to add clickable links to their social media outposts to the description field of the YouTube video.



Thursday, September 27, 2012

I used iOS 6 maps to get from Peabody, MA to Boston. It worked great.



I used iOS 6 maps to get from Peabody, MA to Boston. It worked great. I plugged the iPhone into my car stereo AUX port, and had the Maps app guide me while i listened to music.

Just like in an embeded car nav system, the music level was reduced when the navigation instructions were read.

I did think that the speaker was a little soft before plugging into my car's AUX port.

Since I was driving I didn't turn on the alternate views until I got to stop lights in the city.



They maps look great, and on this trip, it got me to where I wanted to go without error.



David Pogue didn't have the same experience: A Map App, as Sleek as iPhone 5, Is Often Off

Join the discussion on my Google Plus page.


[Video] My Job - Obama for America TV Ad



This is great.

Just let Mitt Romney talk, and talk, and talk.

In Barack Obama ads. ;-)

Believe that they are entitled

[Video] "Wake the F**k Up" narrated by Samuel L. Jackson





NSFW. Yikes. Funny.

Elsewhere:

Samuel L. Jackson tells voters to 'wake the f--k up' in new ad

iPhone 5 iOS 6 Camera Panorama Feature

The iPhone 5 iOS 6 Camera Panorama Feature is really good for taking photos to use as your Facebook cover image.

www.facebook.com/stevegarfield



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Natalie Gelman's new EP Streetlamp Musician is out

My good friend Natalie Gelman's new EP Streetlamp Musician is out.



You can get it on iTunes, Amazon.com, and her website.



Note: Amazon Affiliate link

THAT is how you list your social media outposts. Good job @samueladamsbeer

How Long Should Web Video Be? Three Examples: 1 min, 45 sec, 90 sec

How Long Should Web Video Be?

Here are some examples of shorter video:

1 min

Boston College Minute. Going Up 2/2012:



Edited together moments with no narration.

Boston College Minute Archive.

45 sec or less


Link to Video: Pizza Hat restaurant in #Baghdad [Opens in New Window]

Ajeed Kumar from #India slices pies at Pizza Hat restaurant in #Baghdad, #Iraq. #iraqfastfood

Live streamed moments, streamed from WSJ reporters around the world. No edits, no production.

Note to WSJ: Would be nice if you had embed code.

Wall Street Journal WorldStream.

90 sec

CBS This Morning Eye Opener. Your world in 90 seconds 9/26/12:



Captured clips from larger stories.

CBS This Morning on Facebook

Why does web video have a history of being short?
Web video was generally thought that it had to be 10 minutes or less. That's because YouTube had a 10 minute limit for a long time. That limit is now 15 minutes, and is up to 12 hours for certain users.

There are two schools of thought on web video length.

- Make the video as long as it needs to be to tell the story

- Make it short

Both are right.

As Long As It Needs To Be
These days with feature length movies being streaming in HD quality, no one can argue that a movie is too long and needs to be shortened.

Well.. they could argue that if it's a movie like Howard the Duck.

But, if the viewer is interested in the content, the video can be as long as it needs to be.

Short
I consume most of my online video via links on social media from people I trust. That trust gives me an indication that my time is going to be spent on something valuable.

Otherwise, If I come across a link to a video and click play, the first thing I do is check the total run time.

If it's short, I can make the commitment to give it a shot. The video has got 15 seconds or less to get me engaged.

What are your thoughts?

Do you have examples of people who are doing short form video well?

Leave me some links.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

Massachusetts Senatorial Debate 2012: Evaluation


Image: Brown/Warren Senate Debate Courtesy WBZ TV CBS Boston

I got this very interesting Massachusetts Brown/Warren Senatorial Debate analysis from The Speech Improvement Company via email this morning.

It linked to their website and an audio analysis, but there was no blog post that I could link to and share.

I look at emails like this as an opportunity to help, so I dropped them a note and suggested that best thing to do would have the text from the email on the same page as the audio. That would help with SEO.

They replied right away and agreed.

They've let me select parts of the email and post them here.

Here you go:
Massachusetts Senatorial Debate 2012: Evaluation

Dr. Dennis Becker, Laurie Schloff, and Monica Murphy of Brookline, Massachusetts-based The Speech improvement Company evaluated the candidates after watching the Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren Senatorial Debate 2012. During their electionspeakers.com podcast, which is available here, http://speechimprovement.com/pages/masenatedebate2012.php, Dr. Becker, Schloff, and Murphy rated incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and his challenger, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren. 

Dr. Becker gave Senator Brown credit for the way he used the camera. “For example,” Dr. Becker said, “Every time he said ‘Your tax dollars’ or ‘All you union guys,’ he looked right into the camera and pointed. That was an excellent technique, and he used it very well.” He was, however, critical of “the snarky smirking” Scott Brown was doing. Dr. Becker thought that was demeaning to Brown’s opponent and diminished his own credibility by failing to show the proper respect for Warren. 

Murphy awarded Scott Brown a score of 63 (on a scale of 1 to 100). She found Brown’s “smirk” distracting, and “it affected some of my connection level with that speaker during the delivery.”

Schloff, who gave Senator Brown a score of 64 points, concurred with Dr. Becker and Murphy and added, “I’m wondering: Is being snide a useful strategy when your audience is the general public? What’s the goal here? You’re trying to get the independent voter, the swing voter, to vote for you. So did Scott Brown win any points when he was talking about Elizabeth Warren’s looks and he said she doesn’t look like a Cherokee? That felt uncomfortable. That was a terrible way to begin the debate. Does that tone of being negative and accusing the other person of not being truthful something that works?”

Senator Brown’s challenger, Elizabeth Warren, fared slightly better in the electionspeakers.com panelists’ evaluations. Murphy awarded Warren a score of 75 out of 100, and she explained, “I felt that Warren’s facial expression was more relaxing than Brown’s, and it was easier for me to connect with. It wasn’t out of control and over the top, but it seemed to match the intensity of her message.” 

Schloff gave Warren a score of 70, noticing a particular point about Elizabeth Warren: “I think she could use better skills when listening to bad things about herself. I found she had an open mouth, she looked wide-eyed, and sometimes, you could see her gulp.” Dr. Becker agreed, and added, “It seems to me that the best way to look if someone is saying bad things about you is straight at them with intensity, or maybe somewhat shaking your head no.”

All three electionspeakers.com panelists noticed that the candidates were nervous, particularly at the beginning of the debate, and sometimes appeared to forget that the camera was always on – even when the candidates were in the listening mode. Murphy explained, “Viewers are looking at the candidates to see how they’re taking a verbal attack. How are they thinking about their rebuttal yet staying engaged in the conversation? That factors into our positions as listeners.”

Schloff questioned what she perceived to be Senator Brown’s theme, or the one thing he wanted listeners to go away remembering. “Brown said ‘stop scaring women’ three times. That’s a curious phrase because what it implies is that women might need protection from being scared. Would you say stop scaring men?” she asked. She was more impressed with Elizabeth’s Warren’s theme which she heard as, “I’m not a politician. I’m working for the middle class.” 

Murphy, on the other hand, was somewhat distracted by the conflict between the candidates and wasn’t able to tune into the themes either candidate tried to convey. “The ways in which they were making their points felt uncomfortable. It didn’t seem consistent or concise. The language felt a little too aggressive, and I was so drawn by their tone of voice and the words they used that I couldn’t pull together what an exact theme was for either of them.” 

Dr. Becker summarized Elizabeth Warren’s theme in this way: “It would have to be that Scott Brown is running away from his voting record.” He also pointed out that Warren had an interesting debating technique. She said, “Well, let’s be clear” six times, and “Here’s how I see it” four times. Becker explained, “This is an attempt to say I’m easier to communicate with, and I will be clearer with you than the other guy.” Schloff called that strategy an attention getter. “As soon as the listener hears that, the listener tends to listen a little bit more closely to the next sentence,” she concluded.

The electionspeakers.com panelists agree that, because of her attitude and voice tone, Elizabeth Warren may have slightly won the debate as a deliverer. “But we’re not talking about politics,” Dr. Becker emphasized. “We are talking about the process by which these issues are debated.” 
Attribution: The electionspeakers.com podcast series produced by Brookline, Massachusetts-based The Speech Improvement Company

Feedburner is Dead? Not Yet.

Feedburner is dead?

Google killed it without warning?


More:
Google Pulls the Plug on Feedburner by Lynette Young 10:51 AM

Update:

Not Dead Yet!

Known Issue: Subscriber Counts and Stats
Friday, September 21, 2012 | 9:26 AM
Issue: We have been encountering difficulties with our stats production pipeline for data representing Sept 19th and 20th, 2012. We are currently working to resolve the issue.

[Video] Mitt Romney's Video Rom Bomb Video Blog or Vlog (9/20/12)



Great job Jimmy Fallon.

Nice star wipe.


Image: Jimmy Fallon as Mitt Romney

Note:
I saw the YouTube thumbnail AFTER I picked this image. ;-)

BTW, this image is here so that it becomes a thumbnail choice when shared on Facebook or Google Plus.

Here's this post shared on Google Plus.

Also, when I shared this post on Facebook, I took a screenshot of the post and uploaded it as a photo to Facebook so that a large image would show up on people's news feed.


Image: Screen Shot of this blog post for upload to Facebook.

Here's this post on Facebook.

[Video] SNL Mitt Romney Videos - Fox And Friends






Image: Hidden Camera, 47 Percent

Also:
Mitt Romney visits McDonalds
Mitt and Anne Romney in Cash Cab
Mitt Romney in the Shower

Thursday, September 20, 2012

I LOVE this. Mass Information for voters. Vote NO on Question 3.

Did you hear the story about the guy who grabbed to URL for Question 3 BEFORE the Question 3 guys got it.

Hilarious!

I LOVE this. Mass Information for voters.

Click this to see: http://www.votenoonquestion3.org

You can watch CNN Live in your Web browser



I'm watching CNN via Xfinity Comcast.

Had to perform a Silverlight upgrade to get it to work.

When I tried to watch live at CNN I got an error.

Here's a tweet I sent out with the error "NOT PROPER AUTHENTICATION":



Xfinity saw the tweet and helped out:



When I tried to watch on Xfinity, I got a message telling me to upgrade my Silverlight plug-in. CNN didn't have that message.

Thanks Marc.

Note: To watch online, you've got to be a cable subscriber and authenticate with your cable company account username and password.

NEW: Boston Globe Video Series hosted by Dina Rudick - The Back Story

The Backstory

The Back Story - The stories behind the stories, as told by the journalists of The Boston Globe.
Dina Rudick is the host of “The Back Story,” an exclusive BostonGlobe.com video series in which Globe journalists are interviewed about the stories they cover.
Nice to see the Boston Globe get into sharing personal stories via video blogging. ;-)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Undo Facebook Contact Sync Nightmare in iPhone iOS 6

When I updated my iPhone to iOS 6, for some strange reason, all my Facebook contacts were added to my iPhone address book.

Did I want THAT?

Um, no.

So I took to twitter to see what people were saying.

They were not happy.



I'm glad some people can find the humor in this. ;-)

So I enabled Facebook, then went into the settings and shut off Contacts and calendar connect.



I think it undid the damage.

Let me know if it works for you, or if there's a better way to get rid of all these unwanted contacts.

Note: Someone told me to uncheck the Facebook group in my address book on my iPhone. I didn't have one of those.

Click and Drag: The most amazing interactive comic ever



I saw this comic, Click and Drag, at xkcd and then I clicked and dragged.

whoa!

As I clicked and dragged, I saw amazing things.

Like this:

xkcd: Click and Drag - Frame 1

And funny things like this:

xkcd: Click and Drag - Frame 2

Try it.

;-)

via [ Digg ]

Update:

When you're done check the map to see if you missed anywhere.

http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/

My friend Bre Pettis is on the Cover of Wired Magazine

From teacher to video blogger to maker to inventor, now @brepettis has conquered Wired!

The New MakerBot Replicator Might Just Change Your World
BY CHRIS ANDERSONEMAIL 09.19.12


Today he also announced the new Makerbot Replicator 2.

MakerBotIndustries - Makerbot Replicator 2




Image: Replicator 2


And a Makerbot store in NYC.

MakerBotIndustries - Makerbot Store 298 Mulberry Street NYC

Makerbot Retail Store

Now in Open in NYC.
298 Mulberry Street | Mon-Sat 12-7pm | Sun 12-6pm

Disclosure: cmp.ly/I

Update from Bre on the Makerbot blog:

Fixing Misinformation with Information

Question 1: Is the MakerBot Replicator 2 Open Source?

Question 2: Did Thingiverse terms of use change to “steal” people’s things.


[Video] Commonwealth Bank - Vision for 2013. Seen at Dreamforce #DF12



Really great video from Commonwealth Bank.

Saw a clip of it via the Salesforce Dreamforce #df12 live stream.

Worth a view.

So she buys a house without going inside? And her husband is in construction, shouldn't he take a look at the house before they buy it?

Also, love the menu options and restaurant ordering at the end. ;-)



[Video] @JimmyFallon as Mitt Romney Responds To The "47%" Controversy



Brilliant.

Nice job Jimmy!

Alberto VO5 LOL!



Tuesday, September 18, 2012

PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) Parody - Inbound Style



So funny. Love the cameos.

Great edit!

Hubspot parody music videos are back with the best one ever.

Screen Grab PSY - GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) Parody - Inbound Style - YouTube

Learn how to create web video in my book, Get Seen:



See what I did there Hubspot. I learned that at #inbound12.

New Twitter Profile Page: See it on TODAY (@todayshow) on Twitter

http://twitter.com/todayshow


Today Show story: Twitter profiles get a makeover

Twitter official announcement.

Facebook-like image at the top.

I haven't seen it on my page yet. Did you get the new profile page?

Matt Lauer has it.

Ha! Ryan Seacrest has it:

Ryan Seacrest (RyanSeacrest) on Twitter

BreakingNews:

(1) Breaking News (BreakingNews) on Twitter

Let me know in the comments.

Update:



Still rolling out.

For now it seems that you can add a new header on mobile apps:



Update:

Got it!

To see if you've got it, go to twitter, click settings, design.

Twitter: Change Header

I've got to go check on some boiling water in the kitchen, so here's a quick upload for my new header.

Steve Garfield (stevegarfield) on Twitter

See it at @stevegarfield

Update:

DESiGN

When you choose a photo to be your background image, choose one where the lower half is dark, so that hte text shows u.

For the iPhone Twitter App, that doesn't matter as much since the display of your header is show on two pages.

The same header image is shown on each page, but when page two is displayed, the image is darkened so that the text shows up.


Image: Twitter App Banner Display - Page 1


Image: Twitter App Banner Display - Page 2