I am posting this from my iPhone

Welcome to a whole new world!

Ok…Actually, I am Waiting in Line for the iPhone

I got down to University Village today with the intention of stopping by to visit Andru Edwards & Co. in the iPhone line and then being on my merry way. By then, the line at the Apple Store was way too long. I figured I’ll get one sometime next month. And then I saw the line at the AT&T Store.

At the Apple Store, you can buy two iPhones. But at the AT&T store, you can only buy one. So the line is much, much shorter. I’ve been waiting here since about 5:30 and right now I would estimate that there are 30 people between me and my iPhone.

The problem is, they’re only allowing 10 people inside the store at a time. And you have to give them your name and social security number so that you’re pre-approved credit-wise before you can purchase a phone. According to some people who have already been in and out, the system is really slow because everyone on the West Coast is trying to register their phones right now.

I’m in line with a couple of really cool geeky guys and we’re having quite the conversation over just how much fun Steve Jobs is having right now. I’ll bet he’s sitting behind his desk cackling with glee. Or perhaps it’s an evil belly laugh…

Either way, I definitely didn’t plan on doing this today. Now I am. Sue me.

Why I’m Not in Line for the iPhone

I’ve slept in line for a good many things I really, really wanted: tickets to Star Trek: Generations for example. But I decided that perhaps I would skip the madness and mayhem surrounding the iPhone.

Why? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get one relatively soon regardless of whether I sleep in line. It seems like despite the hype, Apple has stepped up to meet demand for this thing. This isn’t like the Nintendo Wii, where the company didn’t understand the demand for the product until long after it was too late. Apple knows this is a hot item and they’re not going to let it die on the vine by keeping people waiting.

I could be wrong, but I’ll swing by the Apple Store at University Village this afternoon to say hello to my good friends Andru Edwards and Nate True of GearLive Media. I won’t be cutting in line of course. I’ll actually be there to take my girlfriend Megan to a pedicure and lunch for her birthday. But I will check out the situation and report back. And of course, I’ll give Andru a big hero hug. Cuz he’s my hero.

Did Facebook Crash?

I keep trying to get on to Facebook, but all my browser says is “failed to open page because the server stopped responding.”

What’s going on? Can anyone else get on to the system?

Update: Looks like I’m not the only one having this problem. It also looks like I’m not the only geek in the world not standing in line for the iPhone.

Just How Much More Arrogance are We Going to Put Up With from this White House?

Today, the White House sent a letter to Congress invoking the increasingly broad concept of “executive privilege” to explain why they wouldn’t share important documents regarding the firings of several U.S. attorneys.

President Bush has shown a consistent, flagrant, arrogant disregard for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law. His main concern in all of this is partisan politics and he refuses to reach out and seek compromise. His behavior while in office the antithesis of everything our nation’s founders envisioned when they designed the executive branch.

It’s time Congress started playing hardball with this White House. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said that he would consider pursuing contempt citations for those who fail to reply to Congressional subpoenas. I certainly hope Congress is prepared to follow through on that, because I’m sick of watching them back down to a White House that has absolutely not respect for their role as the voice of the American people.

ACT For Change is Stupid, Mistakes Apple for a Democracy, Demands iPhone Be Unlocked

I got an e-mail yesterday from Act for Change, encouraging me to “Tell Steve Jobs: Unlock the iPhone!” They have a petition for me to sign and everything. But they’ve forgotten one teensy thing: Apple is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship ruled with an iron fist by Steve Jobs. And he’s not going to unlock anything.

If they were sending out an appeal to Apple shareholders, their actions would make a bit more sense. But Apple’s shareholders are likely to hold the line with Jobs because it’s in our best financial interest to do so. And American consumers at large are in no position to make demands when it comes to Apple and the iPhone because it’s quite simply the most revolutionary product to hit the market in a very long time. It’s so in demand that even Walt Mossberg likes it and he’s a tough customer.

But even if Apple were a democracy, they still wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. AT&T built a special voicemail infrastructure just for the iPhone. Visual voicemail won’t work on any other network, and that’s one of the iPhone’s coolest features. Plus, Apple has a contract with AT&T that it can’t back out of without facing a lawsuit. The shareholders will never stand for that.

If the hippies over at ACT for Change really want to do something productive with their time, they should be asking people to tell Congress to hold Bush accountable for his lack of regard for the Constitution or even tell Dick Cheney that he’s actually a part of the government.

If I were one of their contributors, I would be pretty pissed that they were spending my money on a meaningless, hopeless campaign to unlock the iPhone.

Cheney Decides Accountability “No Longer Necessary”

Executive Order 12958 requires the National Archives to conduct inspections of the Vice-Presidents office and for the VP’s office to provide data to Information Security Oversight Office on how much information is classified and declassified. Cheney initially responded to this by trying to abolish the Information Security Oversight Office. When this failed, he declared that the Vice-President is not part of the executive branch of government and therefore does not need to meet these requirement. The White House agreed, saying, “Accountability and Oversight are for douchebags.”

House Democrats responded by saying “”Everything we learned in U.S. government class was wrong. Evidently, the Vice President does not consider himself a part of the executive branch, and therefore believes he can obstruct meaningful oversight and avoid being held accountable.” Fully supporting the notion that Cheney should in no way be associated with the US government, they proposed an amendment to remove executive funding from the Vice-President’s office.

More on Facebook, the “Coolest Self” and Why I Still Think Scoble’s Kinda Silly (But in a Good Way)

I’ve been taking some heat for what I wrote about Robert Scoble yesterday and his very well thought-out response. Everyone’s questions and comments have given me the opportunity to question my position and re-think it. So here are a few conclusions I have come to.

First of all, Facebook has changed. A lot. It used to be a site where people could come to build a network of people they actually knew from college and high school. The idea was to build a profile that showed your “coolest self” by sharing photos of you having fun and doing outrageous shit with all your friends. In some ways, it was a way to testify that you were doing just fine in college. That you didn’t miss your mommy, or your friends back home, or your teddy bear. It was also a way to make an ex-lover see that you were doing just fine without them.

If you don’t believe me, just watch this episode of the hilarious show We Need Girlfriends. It’s about MySpace, but the “coolest self” behavior is clearly evident:

Now, to serve the “coolest self” purpose, you’d occasionally need to post a photo that an employer might not find in the best of taste. There are approximately 369 photos of me currently tagged on Facebook and there used to be a LOT more. I took some of them down when I realized that they might be misinterpreted. It’s not truly bad behavior, but there are a lot of photos and videos out there of me and my friends running around in bathing suits, skirts short enough to be headbands, and outrageous Halloween costumes. In short, things that might raise eyebrows in the “real world.”

A number of those photos were strategically taken/posted to cater to a very small group known as “people we used to date.” We all got a secret thrill from knowing that our ex-lovers might be looking at our online photos and wishing they hadn’t been so rash in cheating/breaking our hearts/whatever other wrongs they had perpetrated against us.

Steve Broback and I joke that Facebook’s alternate URL should be doingjustfinewithoutyou.com.

Now, Facebook has become a place where people who know each other in even the most tenuous ways can become friends and share stuff. I think it’s really, really cool. But it means I have to radically re-think how I use the system. It also means that I might have to take down or at the very least un-tag even more of those treasured “coolest self” photos.

That is, of course, unless Facebook creates very, very granular privacy settings that let the user categorize their friends and then decide, photo by photo and video by video, who gets to see what. I’d like to see that happening sooner rather than later, so that I can manage and continue to frame-switch between my college self, my post-college fun self, and my working world self.

Some people say that my dream of super-granular privacy settings is silly. If I want a professional profile, “It’s called LinkedIn.” But I don’t find LinkedIn nearly as fun as Facebook. I’m on Facebook every day, multiple times a day unless I’m rock climbing or on a camping trip. I check LinkedIn maybe twice a week. Facebook is just more addictive and more fun. Plus, does LinkedIn let you import your blog’s RSS feed and display your shared links from Google Reader? Didn’t think so.

Scoble asks, “Anyway, seriously, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, is there? What you all trying to hide?!?”

I would prefer not to hide anything at all. And if I was sure that people wouldn’t judge me, I’d be happy to fling the doors wide open and be myself all the time in front of the whole wide world. But Robert, I say to you again that you’re not a woman. You don’t have to deal with the double standard when it comes to sexuality and professionalism. You don’t have to worry about creepy stalkers. You don’t have to be concerned that professional contacts will see you as a party girl or a lame ditz because you’re young and pretty and own a closet full of micro minis.

I’m smart, and I know it. But will potential employers, clients and colleagues really take the time to find that out once they see the photo of me on Facebook in my junior-year Halloween costume?

I wonder. And that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Robert Scoble Lets Everyone Be His Facebook Friend, Why I Think He’s Silly

I was wasting time on Facebook this weekend, as I am apt to do when I saw that Robert Scoble had updated his Twitter to read:

I’m adding everyone as my Facebook Friend. Join here: http://tinyurl.com/2zcme6

Another one of my friends, Brandon Paddock replied:

@scobleizer, that’s kind of defeating the purpose… Facebook is so great because it’s people you actually know!

I really agree with Brandon on this one, as I wrote on Twitter. But since I’d like to have more than 140 characters to explain why, I’m writing a blog post about it.

Basically, Facebook is wonderful because it creates virtual maps of actual, real-world connections. It’s just like LinkedIn because it assumes that when someone becomes friends with someone else, they are endorsing that person. A friend request is a request for an endorsement. It’s a way to reach out and say, “hey, tell the world that I’m really an OK person.”

Now, that’s not to say that I won’t accept you as a friend if you ping me on Facebook. But if the connection isn’t obvious, you should at least write me a note. I actually friended Stowe Boyd the other day without writing him a note and he wrote back to say, “do I know you?” I felt like such a dimwit.

The real-world nature of the connections on Facebook is about privacy as much as about endorsements. Facebook’s privacy settings are the gold standard for social networks because they are so granular. And even at the most open, there is no way to make your profile visible to every single person.

Those privacy settings enable, rather than inhibit the “social grid” that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talked about in his f8 keynote. A new user on the network adds value for all the users because his presence makes his friends more likely to update their profiles more frequently. This creates a ripple effect across the social grid.

What’s more, Facebook users are actually more likely to update their accounts frequently because they know that only their friends can see what they’ve done. I’m much (MUCH!) more cautious what I put on my MySpace than I am about Facebook. Why? Because I know each and every person on my Facebook. MySpace is a complete crap shoot.

Now, Scoble can use Facebook however the heck he wants. It’s his profile and his life. But if you’re a friend of his and you don’t want a lot of exposure, you might want to change your privacy settings to reflect that you don’t want friends of friends to be able to see your profile.

Lost In The Garden Of Eden

Teresa and I haven’t posted for several days because we’ve been wandering around in the Garden of Eden. It’s officially called the GoldMeyer Hotsprings, but the road up it is actually called Hell Hill. It requires a badass Toyota Tacoma, or you can risk your life in a 30-year-old Suburban. The road closes forever on Wednesday, so we were one of the last people to drive on it.
You can still however, hike up. It’s only about 5 miles. If spending two days in outdoor solid rock hot springs looking over a waterfall sounds like fun to you, I would check it out.

Senate Raises Car Fuel Standards

The Senate voted today to raise fuel standards for automobiles to 35 mpg by 2020, closing the “SUV loophole.” Personally I was hoping for tougher standards (40 mpg), but I’ll settle for 35. American automakers oppose this standard, because they expect gas prices to plummet to $1 per gallon any day now.

President Bush also came out in opposition to the new requirement, although he has not indicated whether or not he will veto the Energy Bill. Bush supports the majority of the aspects of the bill, but is concerned that some parts of it might improve the environment at too high a cost, saying “Jesus is coming soon, so what’s the big deal.”

Bush 2, Science 0

I was a little surprised when Congress did something intelligent this week (I must be getting cynical). The passage of bill easing federal funding restraints on stem cell research just makes sense. Currently, research can only be done on cells that existed before August 9, 2001. The new bill would remove that ridiculously arbitrary date and open up research on all existing cells. Before any conservatives get upset about the destruction of potential life, I’d like to point out that all of these cells will be destroyed anyway, or put in a freezer until we run out of electricity.

However, President Bush has other plans for these stem cells. He hopes they will be adopted some day and become real boys and girls. After all, we need more people in this country (just not hard-working Mexicans or Iraqi refugees, apparently). So he vetoed the bill. Take THAT science.

“If Your Power Lines Keep Sizzling In A Few Days, Give Us Another Call.”

This is what the power company told my parents after they called to complain that they heard the power lines outside our house sizzling. A few days later, they were still sizzling, so they called again, and were met with the same response.

Last night, around 3AM, my mother awoke to a lovely green glow outside her window. It seems that sizzling noise was a prelude to the power lines catching on FIRE. They burned up pretty brightly for a while, so my parents called the power company. They were told that they were fixing other problems, but would get over there as soon as they could.

Now bear in mind that my parents live in Utah. In the mountains. And its June. Which means that its hot, dry, and pretty much everything catches on fire really easily. So you can see how power lines shooting off sparks and occasionally bursting into flames might be a cause for some concern.

The power company finally came by around 6:30AM, after the second time my parents called to say, “By the way, our power lines are STILL bursting into flames every so often.” They replaced the lines, and fortunately, nothing too horrible happened.

Still, it seems to me that when someone’s power lines are sizzling, that would be the time to fix them, rather than two weeks later when they catch on fire. It’s just common sense. But it would appear that after seven years, the Bush Doctrine is growing rather popular in our society, “If it’s aint broke (to the point where its on fire or completely flooded), don’t fix it.” Worked for the levees, works for power lines. Hey, I bet it will work for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Immigration, Iraq, Public Education, and the National Debt.

Introducing…Mark Melief

My good friend Mark is relatively new to the blogging scene, so he’s got approximately 23 years of bottled up opinions to share. He’s doing it (well, I might add) over at “From the Dark Recesses of Mark’s Mind.” Today, he’s got a great post up about how he’s sick of negativity in politics. I’m with you there, bud.

Mark is also the newest hire at LexBlog, a blogging services company. CEO Kevin O’Keefe is a frequent speaker at The Blog Business Summit and someone I admire very much.

He told me not to link to him until he got the ball rolling on his blog, but I think he’s definitely ready for wider readership. I think you all will really enjoy reading what he has to say. So yeah, go check him out!

Campaign Finance Needs Hardcore Reform

When historians look back on America in the early 21st century, I speculate that they will see a society marked by declining critical thinking skills and ballooning intellectual passivity. And when they look at the politics of our era, they will see the rise of money power and corruption.

As the fundraising for the 2008 presidential election takes off, the question of campaign finance reform once again comes to the fore. I once heard someone say that politics is the only business in the world where you must take money from strangers and then pretend you owe them nothing. Indeed, our national legislative priorities are for sale to the highest bidder.

It would be wonderful if we could cut right to the source of all this corruption: the lobbyists. An all-out ban on lobbying of any kind would cut to the heart of the dangerous alliance between money and political power. Unfortunately, most congressmen are so beholden to lobbyists for campaign funds that they would never throw down that most necessary of gauntlets.

So, in the absence of a ban on the real villains of politics, what is our solution?

It’s simple really, no campaign finance at all. All political campaigns should receive the same amount of Federal dollars. Campaigns will have to be short and to the point. Candidates will have to rely on good, well-articulated ideas than showmanship and manipulation.

Until we see effective campaign finance reform, there can be no free and fair elections in this country. Indeed, what we have now is a mere mockery of democracy.

I’m So Proud of My Little Brother!

He used to be a little curly-headed boy that tagged along behind me and my friends and occasionally did stuff for the sheer pleasure of annoying me. Now, he’s a grown man with a high school diploma on his way to college in the fall.

So here’s a shout-out to my little brother, Devon. He graduated from Nathan Hale High School today along with some of his good buddies. Here are the photos from graduation, check out the great photo I got of the streaker!!!

Congress Officially Declares Openness, Transparency, and Honesty to be “Totally For Losers”

Last year, Congress passed a record 29 billion dollars in “earmarked” spending. This is the practice where Congressmen get to allot money to pet projects without having to say who asked to send money where until after the bill is passed. Everyone on the Hill gets into a secret room and gives our hard-earned money back to their biggest donors (I know I normally exaggerate for effect, but that is in fact EXACTLY what happens).

The newly elected Democratic leadership promised more “openness and transparency.” It pledged to pass a new law requiring lawmakers to disclose which earmarks they had sponsored, or at the very least to voluntarily disclose them. Personally I think even this gesture was weak; cutting out our all earmarking spending would be better, but at least this would be a start.

So far however, I am appalled at the failure of Congress to even accomplish this most basic goal. Forget balancing the budget, improving public education, ameliorating the War in Iraq, securing our borders, or anything else important. They can’t even be honest about who’s bilking us.

Not only have no laws been passed to require lawmakers to disclose their own earmarkers, but of the 435 members of Congress, only 31 were willing to disclose their earmarkers voluntarily. That’s less than 10 percent! “As long as we are not required to release them, we’re not going to,” said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana (If you reading this in Lousiana’s 4th District, please do not vote for Rep. Jim McCrery next November).

A bill requiring lawmakers to post their earmarkers on the internet, so we know who to vote out of office, has passed the Senate. However, it has yet to pass the House due to some deliberating about the budget for Homeland Security. In other words, the House is stalling. I don’t know about you, but when have an important project due, I get in done. On time. Even if means I have to work past 5. Or show up on Friday. Is that so much to ask of our leaders?

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