Published works: Next great Internet revolution is coming
Feature story I wrote for the fair & balanced dept. of Fox News: Next great Internet revolution is coming, AOL founder says
I run this joint. Don’t know where to start? Let me show you around:
Feature story I wrote for the fair & balanced dept. of Fox News: Next great Internet revolution is coming, AOL founder says
My wife and I went to a screening of Unfortunate Brothers last night. It’s an affecting documentary by Dodge Billingsley about the political, economic, and cultural divide of North and South Korea.
The film is touching, insightful, and kept me engaged for 55 minutes. It also made me sympathize with the plight of North Koreans.
The only problem: The movie was screened to a group of eggheads at BYU, my alma mater, and all the academic and naive student types that congregate there. And not just any kind of academics—the “international relations” kind that like to talk political theory, solve other country’s problems from afar, and use big words to make themselves feel like they’re contributing to society.
For example: After the screening, an expert panel of three pleasant fellows including the filmmaker fielded questions from about 80-100 attendees. The second “question” came from an assumed student that liked to hear himself talk. He talked about how the movie “moved” him. In between lengthy pontifications, he said, “I guess my question is” three times. He talked a lot. He was the opposite of concise. Continue reading…
With a little help from her mother and I, our second child learned to ride a bike last week.
As she darted ahead of me into the horizon, I thought to myself, “She’s beautiful. The world is in good hands. This little gipper is gonna be alright.”
That all changes in teenage years, I’m told. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to fight for her innocence as long as I can, then treat her like an adult as soon as she is mentally able. (I’ll be on my best guardian behavior, world—I swear it.)
But I digress. The experience reminded me of other sappy moments that have defined my short stint as a father. The first time your child smiles at you or says your name. Their first wobbly steps, subsequent hard fall, and immediate resolve in getting back up. The first time they excitedly greet you at the door. The first time you read a book in their class or celebrate an award they won on their own merit without any prodding or helicoptering by you.
Their first dance recital. The look on their face when they solve basic math. The first time they read a book, let loose on the dance floor, or help a younger sibling or child without being asked. The time my toddler son grabbed a twig to mimic my fishing the Provo River.
The list goes on. And I don’t even have a child older than eight, or a boy older than two. I can only imagine what wonderful things they’ll do as the years go on. I can only imagine how young at heart they’ll keep me.
For any parents in the room, what are your favorite childhood milestones?
See also: 10 reasons my Dad is awesome
If there’s one certainty I’ve observed in life, it is this: Rather than just eating more produce, less meat, and smaller portions of food, humans will vilify something in an effort to simplify complex food choices. Instead of accepting a “moderation in all things” approach to life — which limits superiority complexes and indulgence — they insist on inventing artificial food guidelines to live by.
For example: In the ’80s, butter and natual sugar was bad, so Americans (at least) ate lots of margarine and artificial sweeteners. But those turned out to be worse, so now butter and sugar are back on the menu. In the ’90s, it was the low-fat diet, which in many ways still influences our culture, although not to the extent the diet did in its hey day. In the 2000s, it was low-carbs: Atkin’s diet, South Beach, and other variations. Nowadays, popular grains like wheat bread, oats, and barley are suddenly the enemy. Even though we’ve been eating gluten for thousands of years, it’s just as bad for us as other fad diets. Which is to say it’s not.
Hey, you. Yeah, you—the one reading this. The one that says ignorant things like “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” “I’m busier than you,” or “I only require 3-4 hours of sleep.”
This research by Harvard obviously doesn’t apply to you, because you’re the exception in life. You’re superhuman.
For the rest of us, the study is a convincing reminder of mortality. Not only convincing, but alarming.
2013 might be to the ’10s what 1991 was to the ’90s — a monstrous year for name brand music.
Phoenix already released their 4-star keeper. Vampire Weekend releases their third album next week to rave reviews (and another really great song). An all analog Daft Punk album follows a week later, which is also garnering favorable reviews and has a catchy summer single.
Then, Empire of the Sun, makers of one of my favorite albums of 2008, releases their second album in June. The first single is good stuff (and shot, by the way, in Bryce Canyon, Utah). And if the first five months are any indication, even more good vibes could crop up in the second half of the year.
As someone who likes to sing, dance, and play air guitar, I’m excited by the prospects. Calendar years are more memorable with good music.
I’m a cheese lover. I’ve sampled some of the finest from three different continents. In fact, I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, except for Colby. (Yuck!)
My absolute favorite varient of cheese, however, is Cabot’s Seriously Sharp Cheddar. It comes from grass-fed cows in Vermont that sleep on warm blankets and are often whispered words of encouragement by loving humans. It’s gluten-free, low-carb, 100% organic, and makes your bowel movements smell like cinnamon. It’s aged for 24 hours, helps save the planet, and will even impress your sycophant friends.
Not really. But Seriously Sharp is the most pungent and satisfying cheese I’ve ever tasted. It’s perfectly textured—slightly crumbly without being overly dry. Dense and mouthwatering. It’s so delectable, I often sink in my chair after savoring the final slice.
Goes well with red grapes, almonds, crackers, french bread and salami, strawberries, cantaloup, and white sauces. I buy it at Walmart right after doorbell ditching struggling mom-and-pop grocers.
Enjoy.
Some small search-outfit announced today that they’re bringing Google Fiber to Provo later this year, pending the city’s no-brainer approval next week.
This is really great news for my home town. It means free 5 mbps internet for every household, free 1000 mbps Internet for 25 public institutions, and $70/mo. 1000 mbps Internet for anyone who wants it. For reference, I pay $50/mo. for 15-20 mbps from Comcast. From a math perspective, we see that 1000 is a lot better than 15-20.
From a consumer perspective, it’s the most coveted internet in the nation. Provo will be just the third U.S. city to offer Google Fiber, in addition to Kansas City and Austin, Texas.
Here they are:
They didn’t always look that way. Like most smartphone users, I used to set all my alerts to interrupt my life the second anything came in. Voice calls. Emails. Texts. Software alerts. Website comments. RSS updates. (Keep in mind this was before social media, so things have gotten worse.)
These distractions understandably drove my wife crazy because I was, in essence, having an affair with my phone. White lies were told when asked, “Blake, what were you doing?” Often times I’d leave the room – or wherever it was we were vacationing – for “a quickie” to avoid sideways glances that accurately accused me of being elsewhere in thought, priority, and identity.
I did this for a couple of years until it drove me crazy. I had formed a love/hate disorder with my phone. I liked it for the conveniences it did then (and now), but I knew I was unable to have a personal life with my leash-phone around. So I began purposefully leaving it behind on nights and weekends. Continue reading…
Random Access Memories, the fourth album by Daft Punk, coming May 21.
A friend and I have been discussing touring band members and studio musicians today. After I complimented Phoenix’s rockin’ touring drummer, my buddy emailed this:
“I always have mixed feelings about the use of utility musicians in live performances. While I appreciate Phoenix having them all clearly visible on stage, it drives me a little spare to see The Killers or Muse bury their spare fellas off behind some speakers. And then you have Green Day, who have had a second guitarist helping them out for over ten years, but he still isn’t a member of the band.”
Here was my reply: Continue reading…
Amazon has been my favorite store (and website) for nearly a decade.
As I’ve said many times before, they are the greatest store known to man. They have saved me thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time spent shopping. They do unto customers as they would do unto themselves. They are my movie store. My book store. My music store that auto syncs with iTunes. They are a treasure trove of user data, helping me reach for products that are consumer approved and well rated so I get burned less often. They ship free and often return free.
Plus it’s just fun getting brown cardboard boxes wrapped up in shipping tape. Heck, their boxes even have a smile on them. For that, I unabashedly love Amazon.
And then they go and do something like this, as if I needed any more reason to shout my love for them from the rooftops with free word of mouth advertising: Continue reading…
I heard an advance preview of Phoenix’s upcoming album, Bankrupt. It does not disappoint. Overall, it rivals the must-own quality of their last three albums, and runs circles around their forgettable debut album.
While Bankrupt doesn’t charter new territory, it’s undeniably fun. It will make you want to dance and sing. It’s like eating a perfectly ripe peach in August after waiting a really long time to indulge in the familiar sweetness.
For all the people with good taste who plan on adding this album to their library, here are five essential tracks I suspect you’ll be humming most: Continue reading…
My wife looked at me with bright amber eyes the other day and laughed in my face. “Is no hobby off limits for you?” she mused.
We were cleaning our attic and going through an old box of mine. It was a veritable time capsule of previous hobbies I once held dear. The one that made Lindsey laugh most were my magic tricks.
“How much did you spend on these?” she asked. “A few hundred,” I responded. “Let me guess, you only played with them for a few weeks,” she countered.
Probably.
You see, I lose interest in hobbies as quickly as I discover them. I do have lifelong passions—music and sports chief among them. But most of my hobbies are fleeting. I get what I need and then move on to new hobbies. The old ones remain as slice of my former self; a talking point with anyone who has shared my enthusiasm for x, y, or z.
But it’s not out of boredom that I lose interest in hobbies. It’s out of a desire to experience as many things as I can. Someday I’ll list a comprehensive set of passions that I chased in this life. But for now, here are personal hobbies I’m particularly keen on at the moment: Continue reading…
Six years ago, I wrote about 10 things that scare me. Since then, I’ve overcome many of those fears and have adopted new ones, so I think it’s time I updated my list. Here it is: 10 things that intimidate or otherwise worry me at this point in my life:
Describing someone’s current state as “emotional” is about as helpful as saying someone is human. Let me explain.
Whenever someone wins something on camera, they often cry as a result and describe their state of being as “emotional.” Athletes do this. Celebrities do this. People that feel blessed do this.
But it’s a vague adjective in the temporary sense of the verb “to be” (i.e. estar in Latin). Of course these people are emotional. The audience can obviously see that. What these victors and fortunate people on camera should really be saying is that they are overjoyed, elated, incredibly happy, deeply thankful; anything to more accurately describe what they’re feeling rather than the cliche, diluted, and catch-all “emotional.”
That said, emotional succeeds as a permanent descriptor of the verb “to be” (ser for any Spanish or Portuguese readers out there).
For example, I’m an emotional guy (right Lindsey!?), which means I cry more than most men, I’m enthusiastic, I’m impulsive, I’m responsive, I’m romantic, and I feel like a jerk after making even minor mistakes.
So next time you’re feeling an intense feeling, try to describe what it is you’re actually feeling. You’ll make a better impression, learn more about yourself, and enjoy the moment even more.
(Note: When reading the below spoiler, it works best if received as Bane would deliver it. Got it? Good. Here’s how it’ll go down.)
White-collar workers will burnout, inspiration will wither. Compulsive disorders will rise, productivity, focus, and attention spans will fall.
Loved ones, friends, and family will be ignored. Mental and physical health will be depleted, and cast out as a deafening level of self-importance surrounds us.
Passions will die. Joy will with it.
But it doesn’t have to end that way. It’s why I’m writing a book on the subject. With guts, discipline, and offline identity, “we will endure.” We’ll eventually put these online devices in their rightful place and be better for it.
But act II of the story will be crucial in getting to the end. I’ll tell you that part later this year.
“I’d rather be provocative and well read than politically correct and ignored.”—Blake Snow, Feb. 5, 2013, in response to readers taking issue with his loudmouth style while referring to himself in the third-person
For example, his recent profile on Michael Jordan turning 50 goes to a place few sportswriters go: Deep thoughts.
Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia. Most people live anonymous lives, and when they grow old and die, any record of their existence is blown away. They’re forgotten, some more slowly than others, but eventually it happens to virtually everyone. Yet for the few people in each generation who reach the very pinnacle of fame and achievement, a mirage flickers: immortality. They come to believe in it. Even after Jordan is gone, he knows people will remember him. Here lies the greatest basketball player of all time. That’s his epitaph. When he walked off the court for the last time, he must have believed that nothing could ever diminish what he’d done. That knowledge would be his shield against aging.
Beautiful. More here.
Hey, you there. Yeah, you. Let’s play chess. It’s my new favorite pastime. Here’s how we can play each other:
Although I prefer playing in person, digital chess is better than no chess.
What a game.
Thanks to Josh Rhine for making this my favorite app.
I don’t know the scientific name, but I’m one of the lucky creatures that possesses an insatiable curiosity. As such, I use the Internet not only for work-related and entertainment purposes; I use it to satisfy every conceivable whim I encounter within my immediate environment on any given day.
For example, I often ask myself, “I like this song—I wonder where this band is from?” Or, “What other films has this director made?” Within seconds, Wikipedia has the answer. Last week, I overheard someone mention the country of Chad—a mystical place in west Africa. “Why haven’t I ever heard of this place?” I thought to myself. An hour later—thanks to Google—I was entrenched in all things Chad and was prepared to write an introductory discourse on the republic to attentive undergrads.
But as with all things in life, too much of anything is unhealthy. Except for maybe air guitar, chocolate cake, and dancing. But I digress. The trouble is we’ve reached a point with personal technology that it is so accessible, so immediately gratifying, and so demanding that digital indulgence is no longer just affecting information junkies like me. It’s affecting everyone. Continue reading…
Dr. Howard Reichman,
Five years ago, you sliced me up, exposed my spine, and were centimeters away from paralyzing me. All standard procedure for a neurological discectomy, of course. But I appreciate your steady hand and medical confidence as much today as I did then.
After you fixed my ruptured disc, I ran two marathons, got myself in the best shape of my life, reared more children, become a better husband, and picked up a lot of new adventurous hobbies. No longer am I the boring, unbalanced, and self-centered work-a-holic I used to be.
I couldn’t have done much of that without a healthy back.
Thank you.
Words to sell by.
When Return of the Rentals released, I was sixteen. I instantly fell in love.
Not only was it a five star album then, it’s a five star one today. To put my money where my mouth is, I think it’s aged as well as Weezer’s seminal Blue Album, something not a lot of ’90s albums can say. (Anyone tried to listen to Nevermind lately? Yikes!)
The reason The Rentals debut still speaks to me is because I like playfulness, groovy synths, classical music, catchy melodies, and ’70s hard rock. That and it makes me want to dance. It makes me want to play air guitar, head bang, and sing aloud. It makes me want to start a band again, even though I never will. It’s like looking at an old photo of yourself and liking what you see. That’s a beautiful thing.
And just like it did when I was 16, the song “Move On” quells any desire I have to run away from my problems. Just singing the words is relief enough to face them. That’s why I love this album.
If you’ve never listened to it, or if you haven’t in years, I highly recommend a spin. You friends with P.?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLjwkamp3lI[/youtube]
As part of her piano lessons, my 7 year-old studies one piece of classical music each week, hand-picked by her teacher.
Consequently, our entire family has been exposed to wonderful music, stuff well beyond the popular Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven pieces. It’s like we’re getting a personal classical music DJ or curator, in addition to professional lessons. Score!
I plan to make a compilation of our favorite new discoveries. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this playful, beautiful, and surprising dandy by Haydn, which was the study assignment for this week.
Enjoy.
… you like poetry, melody making, love songs, and stripped down but moving production. Listen on Spotify first. Then buy it on Amazon for $4 if you haven’t already.
This F-minus comic is good stuff.
Smooth Harold reader Tod from Nashville emailed this last week:
I’ve just started to enjoy your website. I was wondering if you have (or would consider adding) an “archives” link that shows the title of each post you’ve done. It seems like you have a lot of content. A feature like this would allow your users to find articles of interest more quickly in a browsing fashion. I did notice that you have an archives section by month that includes the content, but I’m referring to more a list of titles.
Here you go, Tod. Thanks for whipping my usability into shape.
(CNN) — From Airbnb to GasBuddy to shopkick, lots of apps and websites help consumers save money.
But how do we spend less on technology itself — that digital drug we can’t seem to get enough of? How can we save money on electronic gadgets and services … so that we can buy more gadgets?
Here are 10 ways to stretch your tech budget this year: Continue reading…
Editor’s note: The Anti-Technologist is a new column by Blake Snow. It advocates late adoption of consumer technology (if at all) and expels the wonders of finding offline balance in an online world.
When I said last month to ditch your smartphone, I did so with tongue firmly in cheek. I was being provocative.
After all, I own a smartphone. (It’s the kind that half of you love and the other half hate.) But I dumb it down by keeping it on a tight work leash, leaving my text messages on silent, and not subscribing to a data plan.
I also hold most the apps for my phone in contempt. Why? Because the words, “This app has made me a happier person,” has never been uttered. By anyone.
No, no. I can’t stand (most) apps. They’re distracting, fleeting, gimmicky, and largely first world junk. Digital versions of something you’d find at the dollar store. Continue reading…
I finished reading A River Runs Through It last week. The prose — written by Norman Maclean in his ’70s — is so powerful and poetic, it halted me on several occasions. The ending made me cry.
Among other things, Maclean dishes advice on faking it until you make it: “Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to be perfect,” he writes. Or as his brother Paul often said, “Gentleman, you can’t catch fish with flies in the air.”
Maclean also takes aim at modernization: “What a beautiful world it was once… You could leave beer to cool in the river, and it would be so cold when you got back it wouldn’t foam much. It would be a beer made in the next town if the town were ten thousand or over. So it was either Kessler Beer made in Helena or Highlander Beer made in Missoula… What a wonderful world it was once when all the beer was not made in Milwaukee, Minneapolis or St. Louis.” (NOTE: You can replace the word “beer” with just about anything. Nostalgic.)
But my favorite passage was this: Continue reading…
Such a good ad, even if the thing it depicts will tear up your innards.
Oh, and I don’t eat McDonald’s because I’m better than you.
This tiny house which was converted from a garage. Photos here.
When Lindsey and I send off all the kids, I’d consider living in something similar, only with slightly bigger commons area for the grandkids.
As for overnight guests, they can get a hotel. 🙂
As a newly wed, this used to drive my wife crazy. And since her good habits have rubbed off on me, now it would drive me crazy.
This formula, from the ’70s of all decades, is elegantly simple:
frequency of lovemaking – frequency of quarrels = marriage success
Not sure if it’s causation or correlation, but it certainly mirrors the ups and downs of my marriage. Oh, la la!
Quotes are a curious thing. They’re presented entirely out of context, so most of them go unnoticed. In the right state of mind, however, they can have a reaffirming or insightful impact on the reader.
Here are five quotes that connected and resonated with me most this year:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXRj89cWa0[/youtube]
I’ve grown up with Nike. I’ve watched them stir emotion with their commercials for decades.
The above ad — broadcast during the summer Olympics — is the latest in a long line of powerful advertising. It transcends mere sales and results in the thought of: “I like the company that made this commercial.” Of course, that ultimately leads to increased sales.
Brilliant.
Doubly so coming from the global goliath of sports apparel that has acutely managed to stay cool for all these years, largely due to great copywriting.
Although I enjoyed all of the below from front to back without hitting skip, not all of them are great albums. So in order of most spins to fewest spins, most impressive to least impressive, and overall great to good, the top 10 albums of 2012 are as follows:
I’m tired of seeing art like this in museums. Last year at my local MOA, someone staged an entire room with nothing but lighting and black pebbles on the floor against an undecorated wall.
My take: Mediocre art like this doesn’t deserve to be in museums. It’s a clunky, cliche, and thoughtless attempt to challenge the definition of art.
We get it. Art can be anything. Pollack and Warhol said so decades ago. Many others before them did the same.
Now stop displaying gimmicky art, museum curators. You’re keeping wall space from more talented and original art.
Snob rant, over and out.
Read it here: Life after smartphones—What’s next?
Media often paints the shuttering of retail stores in a negative light, as if said stores are not being replaced and restaffed by online stores and digital goods (which many are) or creating entirely new workforces (which many are, too).
Economic impact aside, however, the shuttering of brick and mortar stores has actually improved my family’s life. Let me count the ways:
That said, there is a price we pay in closing so many retail stores. Our communities, social interactions, and face time will inevitably take a hit. That’s the most legitimate challenge I think we’ll face as stores continue to consolidate and evolve.
But overall, my consumer life is better thanks to online shopping. So is my posterity’s lives. And so are the remaining offline stores that have gotten stronger and better, too. So other than the above, I really don’t see any direct downsides. Do you?
I finished One Man’s Wilderness recently and enjoyed its simple prose and short stories. It’s a 200 page book about one man building a log cabin in an isolated part of Alaska and living alone for sixteen months.
It’s similar to Walden, although more adventurous. It’ll compel you to visit Alaska and encourage a new appreciation for hard work and minimalism. Three stars out of four. Some of my favorite passages were:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N2LwP5X2Z4[/youtube]
Just watching this reminds me of Turk Malloy’s comment, “I think you’d dig Provo. You could do well there.”
It’s been 10 years since I moved to Provo. After seeing it from almost every angle, it still stops me in its tracks. This short video is no different.
I think that’s what happens when you find a place you truly fall in love with, wherever that may be.
The recent trend of making movies into trilogies — or better yet, four part trilogies where the third movie is bifurcated into two even more drawn out movies — is really the best thing to happen to cinema since at least technicolor, at most sound.
In fact, I think audiences have really missed out on a lot of epic, multi-part stories. I mean, mini series were big in the ’80s, for crying out loud! Couldn’t Hollywood see the writing on the wall? Skate to the puck a little sooner?
Even better, they should have started making trilogies a half a century earlier. Can’t you just imagine the possibilities? No?
Let me help. Continue reading…
If you’re happy with your health, nutrition and self-image, skip to the next post. If not, read on.
In nine years of marriage, Lindsey and I have never owned a weight scale. Not one.
Why? Because they’re superficial, largely meaningless, and a lousy motivator of long-term health. Continue reading…
Reporting for Fair & Balanced. 🙂
Thanks to cut-rate pricing and high user praise, Google?’s new Chromebooks have finally struck a nerve with savvy consumers. But they may go unnoticed this holiday as tablets still dominate wishlists. Continue reading…
Editor’s note: The Anti-Technologist is a new column by Blake Snow. It advocates late adoption of consumer technology until proven useful, and dishes advice from Snow’s forthcoming book, Finding Offline Balance in an Online World.
In 2009, I had a radical idea. “What if I canceled my phone’s data plan?” This was undoubtedly a first-world problem—I get it. But for someone who had previously spent 1,300 consecutive days attached to a Blackberry or iPhone from wake until sleep, it mattered.
The catalyst behind the idea: A weeklong trip in a remote Montana cabin with family and friends. No cellphone coverage. No internet. Just a landline, a moose lick, a horseshoe pit, and a river running through it.
Although initially apprehensive about the trip—”How am I suppose to continue my affair with work while on vacation now!?”— I was molded by it within a matter of days. As my wife said at the time, “With no online distractions, the social aspect had dramatically improved.” Continue reading…
Since wrapping up this project, I’ve recently recovered an additional 5-10 hours per week of billable time. That leaves me with two options: 1) watch more YouTube videos, or 2) fill the opening with a new challenge or assignment, alongside my existing workload.
After several minutes of deliberation, I’ve opted for the latter. So if you know of any organizations that might be a good fit, please email me. In other words, referral if you got ’em!
And it came to pass, that rock ‘n’ roll was born. All across the land, every rockin’ band was blowing up a storm.
The guitar man got famous. The businessman got rich. And in every bar there was a super star with a seven year itch.
There were fifteen million fingers, learning how to play. And you could hear the fingers picking, and this is what they had to say: Let there be light. Sound. Drums. Guitar.
OOOOOOHHHHHHH, LET THERE BE ROCK!!!—Brian Johnson
I listen to this song often while working on my body. It never fails to get me going.
