Baseball is doomed if it loses people like me

I am a huge baseball fan.  In some ways my baseball fandom has been a defining trait.  Its long seasons and requirement that you take a nuanced view of the game always appealed to me.  This year baseball lost me.   I didn't participate in a live fantasy baseball league,  I didn't buy and read any pre  or post season baseball analysis or anything like that.  The game simply slipped away and I didn't miss it.  Why and how did this happen?

Couple of reasons come to mind.  One,  nuanced and statistical view of the game is now accepted.  That was the one thing that got me excited about the game, now everyone views the game, that way. Two, having folks to talk to regularly about the game. I used to go to the same bar week after week and talk about the game.  Without the constant need to catch up, the drive to be informed has waned.  Third,  the game itself has changed.  Most of my deep fandom seasons came during the "steroid era" offense was big and pitchers were bad.  My entire understanding of the game was based around offense.  This is no longer the case.  That shift has cause so much of my game understanding to shift.  Third,  fatigue and lack of intrigue.  Fundamentally,  the best team in town,  the Yankees, are boring.  I'm tired of the narrative.  Without the Red Sox as their "Cowboy up!" foil they simply aren't interesting.  The team has taken on Derek Jeter's personality - boring, buttoned down, with no personality. 

Lastly,  other sports have taken up my brain space.  The NBA has been outstanding the last few years - the decison, the hated Miami Heat, and Lebron in general is a better story.  The Premier League - the great game is so good, that just watching it for a couple of weeks gets you hooked. It has the passion of college football,  with the atleticism of basketball and poetry of baseball.  (Plus Manchester City's Mario Balotelli is the most captivating sportsmen on the Planet - an African Italian,  with a blond mohawk he is just as likely to kick a guy in the face as score a goal!)  It seems I don't have the patience for the pace of baseball anymore.

You will catch me on Saturdays watching Premier League football and not watching Sunday night baseball.

Keep learning, keep reading, keep writing.

 

I was going to post about how hard writing is but it was too hard so I didn't.  Instead I started reading a book, Running Lean.  Running Lean is just another in the long lines of business books I read to keep up.  For me, reading ALWAYS leads to writing.  A sentence here, or a word there inspires me, and I just have to write.  Everything flows from reading.

All that shit they told you in school is true.  The more you read, the more you know, the more you read the better you write, the better you write the better you are at expressing your thoughts, the better you are at expressing your thoughts the better you are at your job, the better you re at your job the more opportunities come your way.... you see where this is going.  (Maybe they didn't tell you this in school?)

If you're an avid reader, stop sitting on the side lines.  Start writing.  It can be done.  If you are a regular writer,  read more!  The two go hand in hand.

Break some goddamn windows! Change won't come without breaking some eggs.

I am all for peaceful protest and I mostly believe it works.  However,  for change to come,  real change,  eggs have to be broken.  In the United States the authorities have gotten very smart.  They learned from the turbulent 1960's that beating the shit out of protestors doesn't work.  So now,  they just wait use the law and apathy ( see Occupy Movement).

Its time for the protestors of the world to change their strategy.  Its time (if you really think things are that bad) to break glass. Got beef with the banks?  Smash the windows!  Got beef with a brand? Deface their ads. Yes,  I am advocating radicalism,  I understand that - but really,  I am advocating action.  If things are that bad.  Do something.  Sitting peacfully isn't working, the man is wise to it.
If we have a real issue with guns, people should drive down south and destroy the stores!  

The mob has power.  People fear the mob, the rabble and anarchists,  You will get peoples attention when you start breaking shit. 

No change ever occurred without some sort of violence.  We're not that far evolved. (you can look it up)

When things  are bad, breaking a few eggs is sometimes necessary. 

The hurdles that go undisccused

If you read business books or productivity books they very rarely have any context written into them.  I assume they are written for white-middle-aged-middle-managers.  Which would make sense,  these are the types who read these books trying to justify their existence.  But what about everyone else?  What about the specific context of the urban poor?
How do you make a business or get thing done book for a 20 year old with a 3 year old kid who is struggling to survive? 
Where is the "How to survive the ghetto in 10 easy steps" book? 
Where is the "How to get straight A's while you have to take care of your siblings" book?
How about "How to get ahead in with a junkie parent in 20 days"
How to survive the ghetto for dummies - (short book, dummies don't survive)
Where is the "How to keep your dignity when you're wear your brothers shoes (that you wore last year too)"
Or even better "How to feel great about yourself when everything smells like piss in your building"?

Where is this information?  Where are these how to and easy steps books for the urban poor?  I guess hip hop is the only medium that describes the life?  Are they blue prints for survival though?  They are what we have so I suppose we should be thankful we have it.   I just wish there was more. 
You know what my system was?  Get out and don't come back.  Hold it inside and pretend it didn't all happen.

The origin of MeowSplash - feels quaint now.

I pulled this from the original about page of the first incarnation of MeowSplash.  It was my first personally host WordPress site.  (Thanks Willis Lambert) I set it up in my brothers study and just thought I would be a jerk about the world and capture my general snark.  It's not serving that purpose anymore (that's what this blog is for)  

So without further ado - from December 17th, 2008.

 Meow Splash?  WTF is meowsplash?  Iḿ still trying to figure it out but I know where it comes from.  Meowsplash is a term that I came up with when yelling at a whiny co-worker who was complaining about having to spend $5,000 to save his cat. My thought was was ¨Fuck!  That is a hell of a lot of cash to save and old cat.” He of course said ¨You don´t know my cat - heś awesome”

I have a problem with that.  Your cat isn´t $5,000 awesome.  Shit IḾ not $5,000 awesome.  I blew a gasket and said for $100k you can get a herd of cats an find and new awesome one!  I may have in the middle of the rant mentioned that we could throw the old one in theGowanus Canal and go ¨MeowSplash”  Someone picked up on the term ¨meow-splash¨ and itś been a legend ever since.

Meowsplash.com is the FIRST UR: I have ever purchased and I am damn proud of it.Oh right,  the about should be about me.  My hope is that youĺl figure it out as you move through some of the posts.

If you want to know about me,  you can find out here:http://twitter.com/gamesdotcom

here: http://blog.games.com.

Any questions?  No?  Good.

Lots of ideas no focus....

I've got this list of blog post ideas I've been keeping that just grows.  Sure, some have become posts,  but not all.   Writing is hard.   I'm only writing this because all the other things I do on the subway have run out of content (Read tweets, read RSS).  I'm not up for reading after 12 hours of work and class.  
I'm just a little a little fried but I promised I'd write so I am.  
Some questions:
What do you eat when you are tired?
Is there a non caffeinated energy booster?
Why don't I like baseball any more?
Who invented the term "hanging curve ball"? (My favorite baseball thing)

Are you busy? Really? Do you need to be?

In the last few years there has been a lot of psychological work done on the brain and how it functions.  One of the items coming out of all the wonderful work being done is the need for rest.  Both physical and mental rest are as necessary as breathing.  Being tired can impair you as much as being drunk or distract you as much as texting!

For me, busyness is part of this epidemic.  It seems we are judged on our level of busy.  Oh they are busy, they must be vital!  Oh their calendar is full they must be busy.   I don't see it that way.  Folks who are busy all the time are usually  using just the surface of their minds.  They are shuffling from here to there checking off lists because they can't remember anything because they are so busy.  If let people slow down,  focus at their most important tasks and do less multitasking we might get better and smarter work out of people.   Think of it this way... would you rather have someone shuffling three projects/ideas eight hours a day for three weeks or have them work on one thing for one week with a new project each week.   Just makes sense to work in serial through-puts.  Get one thing completely done and complete.

I think the obsession with busyness is specifically American.  We judge Europeans on this weird notion of production, per capita GDP.  What does that even mean?  Its a math equation that has no bearing on the quality of that persons life or the quality of the work.  We put our historical Puritanical notions on work - "... the devil will find work for idle hands".  Maybe weare wrong?  Maybe all the work we're doing is killing us?

Take a nap.... take a day off.... sit at your desk do nothing.... see what happens.... see what comes into your mind... you might be surprised.

Size does matter - my life with 7 inches of Nexus.

So I am that nerd who has a Google Nexus 7, the iPad competitor tablet.  The iPad is a different beast entirely.  The differences crop up because of size.   In an era of touch interfaces with phones and tablets, the screen size changes the experience.  If every millimeter and fraction of an inch can be interacted with then it makes sense the the six of the interaction surface would change everything?

The Nexus fits between the handy snack-sized usage of a mobile 4 inch screen and the relaxed on the couch usage of a the iPad sized 10 inch screens. A 10 inch device can be cumbersome and heavy in a daily commute situation, the Nexus is handy and light.   It allows for the snappy, quick actions of the iPad, without the horrible sluggishness of the Kindle Fire or weight of both. With a screen size that is large enough,  banging out emails and writing is possible. That's really what comes through, the ability to actually write something while in transit is invaluable.  I can hold the Nexus in my hands on the train, not look conspicuous or awkward. 

Another big advantage to the size is the portability.  Amazon illustrated the value of the paper back sized device.  The Nexus fits in the back pocket of my jeans (no I would not sit on it) and would likely fit nicely in a purse.  Essentially if you are comfortable with the original Kindles then the Nexus will feel familiar (except that it has the power of an iPad) .

If are drawbacks, its that it is a WiFi only device without a tremendous amount of storage.  If you are an app junkie and download movies, you are going to run out of space in a hurry. 

So can you tell I like it?  I would recommend it heartily, especially for the heavy Google ecosystem person.   I am looking forward to the Apple entry and wonder how that audience will take to the 7 inch form factor.

MeowSplash no more - confessions of a cat owner

So my cat,  The Colonel, has been sick.  A little pee problem,  now he has some sort of cold.  It is very troubling.  Your animal, that you take care of, acts one way, then he doesn't and you have nothing to go on.

The unknown is what is so troubling.  If he could just say "Don't sweat it, its just a little cold" it would be much easier.  So I sit around looking at the cat guessing at signs of health. A stare here, a swagger away there all in an effort to guess at his health  All I'm left with is searching the web and reading the panicked questions of people online.  He'll be fine but the worrying is unnerving. 

So to my cat owning or pet owning pals who know the story of the MeowSplash brand -  I get it.  

Eulogy for a street corner kid - I miss you all.

I just read David Simon's obituary for DeAndre McCullough (1977-2012).

Please read it now.

.

.

.

Are you done yet?

Good.

I couldn't finish it.  I was too moved by the story and too moved thinking about all the people in East Harlem that I saw every day that had the same story.  I didn't know them,  I didn't hang out on the corners with them but they are all a part of me.  The people you see every day are a part of your life whether you speak to them or not.  The kids I grew up with and the junkies seemingly holding up lamp posts forever are a part of me.  Every last one of them seared into my experience.  They live forever tucked into my memory banks.  When I read something that talks about them,  the memories flood back in.  Every single kid who hung out in the "D" in Washington Houses,  every heroin-dance-zombie and every single face-scratching crackhead pour out.  

DeAndre's eulogy is the eulogy for every single person who doesn't make it.  For every kid who deals and does.  For every junkie and for every smart kid you knew that simply vanished into the ether of either prison or death.  They all vanish and are forgotten.  These people have always exisited. Whether they be drunks on the Bowery,  heroin addicts on the Lower East Side or crackheads in Harlem - the underclass always exist and always struggle.  We pretend that we're making it better.... but we aren't.  Occasionlly they are made into fables when ONE of them makes it out by writing a memoir every or when someone like David Simon depicts their lives on his monumental televsion show "The Wire".  Fundamentally,  we don't care - if we did as society we'd make raising all boats a priority. 

What struck me is how we are all completely aware of these worlds and lauds them.  Every hipster on Bedford Avenue wears his "I watch 'The Wire'" badge as a sign of enlightenment. Like they are somehow down.  News flash... you aren't down.  You will never be down and you shouldn't want to be down.  No one wants to feel the feelings that the underclass feel.  No one wants to really know, REALLY know the pain that goes on. Being part of the ghetto and the no-hope-no-way-out-why-should-I-give-fuck-about-anything class is awful.  The struggles aren't just survival they are deeper and psychological. You struggle with: Am I worth anything?  Do I matter?  If I disappeared would anyone give a shit?  Who really cares if I live or die?  Why should I go to school?  Why should I get a job?  There are real and difficult hurdles to over come - aside from the addiction, violence, depression and poverty.

I don't have the answer - I don't know how to be a part of the solution... I am still just as scared as I always was - happy to have made it. Happy to have said --- hey?  I don't have to be a loser? Wow! I'm still struggling and feeling the feelings that every ghetto kid feels but I'm faking it until I make it.

Rest in peace DeAndre... rest in peace all of you.

 

Eulogy for a street corner kid - I miss you all.

I just read David Simon's obituary for DeAndre McCullough (1977-2012).

Please read it now.

.

.

.

Are you done yet?

Good.

I couldn't finish it.  I was too moved by the story and too moved thinking about all the people in East Harlem that I saw every day that had the same story.  I didn't know them,  I didn't hang out on the corners with them but they are all a part of me.  The people you see every day are a part of your life whether you speak to them or not.  The kids I grew up with and the junkies seemingly holding up lamp posts forever are a part of me.  Every last one of them seared into my experience.  They live forever tucked into my memory banks.  When I read something that talks about them,  the memories flood back in.  Every single kid who hung out in the "D" in Washington Houses,  every heroin-dance-zombie and every single face-scratching crackhead pour out.  

DeAndre's eulogy is the eulogy for every single person who doesn't make it.  For every kid who deals and does.  For every junkie and for every smart kid you knew that simply vanished into the ether of either prison or death.  They all vanish and are forgotten.  These people have always exisited. Whether they be drunks on the Bowery,  heroin addicts on the Lower East Side or crackheads in Harlem - the underclass always exist and always struggle.  We pretend that we're making it better.... but we aren't.  Occasionlly they are made into fables when ONE of them makes it out by writing a memoir every or when someone like David Simon depicts their lives on his monumental televsion show "The Wire".  Fundamentally,  we don't care - if we did as society we'd make raising all boats a priority. 

What struck me is how we are all completely aware of these worlds and lauds them.  Every hipster on Bedford Avenue wears his "I watch 'The Wire'" badge as a sign of enlightenment. Like they are somehow down.  News flash... you aren't down.  You will never be down and you shouldn't want to be down.  No one wants to feel the feelings that the underclass feel.  No one wants to really know, REALLY know the pain that goes on. Being part of the ghetto and the no-hope-no-way-out-why-should-I-give-fuck-about-anything class is awful.  The struggles aren't just survival they are deeper and psychological. You struggle with: Am I worth anything?  Do I matter?  If I disappeared would anyone give a shit?  Who really cares if I live or die?  Why should I go to school?  Why should I get a job?  There are real and difficult hurdles to over come - aside from the addiction, violence, depression and poverty.

I don't have the answer - I don't know how to be a part of the solution... I am still just as scared as I always was - happy to have made it. Happy to have said --- hey?  I don't have to be a loser? Wow! I'm still struggling and feeling the feelings that every ghetto kid feels but I'm faking it until I make it.

Rest in peace DeAndre... rest in peace all of you.

 

Fear and anxiety are not real - Then why are we so afraid?

We live an orderly society with the rule of law, we have food in massive abundance, there are not beasts trying to kills us,  there is no threat of a neighbor coming over and trying to kill you and steal your wife or children and yet... many of us live in constant fear and anxiety. 

Why?  We are afraid because we are designed to be.  Fear and anxiety have tremendous value when you are living on the plains of the Serengeti, in the jungles of the Amazon or medieval Europe.  Fear is a defense mechanism to keep you alive when times are tough, food is scarce and people or animals are trying to kill you.  Speaking in front of tens of your coworkers? Not life and death - yet we feel the same feeling as if we were being hunted by a lion.  Our brains are using their survival system and applying them to modern life - where it just doesn’t jive.

We feel the same fears because human life has evolved a million times faster than our brains biology.  In the thousands of years humans have been on Earth fear served us well, in the last 100 years? Not so much.  Your boss, even the worst boss, is not going to kill you.  Even in the worst recession, you won't starve, even in the coldest winter you won't freeze to death.  

What can you do?  You can't control the natural fear you have, but you can at least be aware of it. We civilized world humans, we have it good.  Try to quite the fear that your million year old brain systems have created and recognize,  even at the worst,  you have it really, really easy compared to the poor fearful bastards who huddled at night, were amazed by fire and happy they made it through the night.

Take it easy, life is good, I mean really good.  There aren’t saber-toothed tigers after you!

PS.  This is in no way meant to minimize the real and debilitating fears people have.  I know they are there.  I have them. But recognizing they come from a biological place deep in the brain can help us to navigate our modern fears.

 

The product manager as maestro - Orchestras are like groups of engineers.

I've formally been a product manager for just over a year and had the duties of product manager for at least three.  What I have learned is that the product manager job most resembles being the conductor of an orchestra. 

Like a conductor,  you choose the work the orchestra is going to play - the product that will be built.
Like a conductor,  you choose the feel and vision of the piece or product. 
Like a conductor you have to deal with players themselves - some virtuoso soloists or workmen like 3rd oboes - the engineers and operations folks. Like a conductor you have to deal with all the personalities and needs of the players - engineers have a way about them just like musicians.
Like a conductor you have to understand the business of the hall and that you may be beholden to the donors-  product managers are beholden to business stakeholders just the same way.  Make money and play the songs I want to hear the way I want to hear them.
Like a conductor timing is everything - having work sequenced and flowing is paramount.

Lastly,  conductors and product managers don't actually do the playing of the piece or the development of the work.  We work to help everything run smoothly to get the horns to play when they are supposed to or bring in designs when our developers need them. 
We're both looking for unity and flow within a larger group. Our job is to build trust so our players can play without the fear of making a mistake.  A good product manager like a conductor makes the individual pieces move as one - we make the sum greater than the individual parts.

Sometimes it can come out like beautiful music or a dissonant mess!

Mobile technology - its not the about the money

My brother once again popped by for lunch and we had our normal, very loud conversations

He likes to give me blog post ideas by giving me one or two sentences of what's on his mind. Its on me to decide how to capture his intent.

His last two suggestions involve mobile technology and the poor.  His first suggestion was that I write about the urban poor of the United States (which I did) and his second is the cultural effect globally that mobile technologies will have on the world.

Mobile technologies are an extension of the 35 year era we are in of personal computing.  The first wave based around the home computer touched the wealthy nations and the rising BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) with the BRIC's just catching the tail end of the personal computing evolution. 

The next wave of personal computing will be mobile, much more broad and leveling.  Mobile technologies need far less infrastructure than PC's. Just a satellite, a radio tower and a smart phone and you are go to go.

What does that mean?  It means that every one in the World could potentially be connected to the web... Read that again.... everyone worldwide could be connected to one another.  The social and cultural implications cannot be understood right now.  We've already seen the minor ramifications of connected people in the Arab Spring.  We're starting to see markets previously never available in Africa to open up.  The idea of a kid in Nairobi using a smartphone to connect the internet and access the worlds information cannot be understated.  It is a such a massive change that its power can't be defined by some talking head in the moment.  History will mark the late 2000's as when life as we knew it changed.

We should all be studying the effect rail had on culture for our best  guess for the societal change that is coming.  Ideas spread faster,  goods and services moved faster,  whole areas became inhabited.  The isolated got pulled in.  Cities exploded in population.

Why wouldn't a computer in everyone's hands have similar effect?

Get your ass to Mars - why Mars matters

On the same weekend that a remake of "Total Recall" (the original was based on Mars with Schwartzenegger in the lead role)  was released in theaters NASA landed a new craft, Curiosity on Mars.   With lots of hoopla and a live stream of the landing (it can be done, NBC) NASA triumphantly gave us interesting black and white stills pictures from Mars. 

Very cool,  but why is it important?  Are we going to colonize Mars?  Will we find a new oil deposit?  Are the rocks and barren wasteland of Mars going reveal something so amazing that our minds will be blown?  Probably not.
Its important because of the dream of Mars.  Its important because it is government funded education.  Its important because of the number of children who watch the video of the landing on YouTube and go "I'm doing that!"

Going to Mars is great and all but what's really important is the training of the engineers needed to go to Mars.  So many problems come up when you send shit into space with a remote control that you are bound to discover great stuff along the way.  Our NASA programs were never about going to the Moon or beating the Soviets.  It was about training thousands of engineers.  Thousands of people who had the dream of solving problems and building new things.

Going to Mars just for the sake of doing it is something only the government can do.  There is no ROI involved. The value is measured in decades not quarters.   If the US wants to lead the world we need the thousands of engineers that it takes to go to Mars and beyond.

So... get your ass to Mars indeed!

Zynga is doomed and we all should have known it

This won't be a long post.   A recent post on Gamasutra detailed why Zynga is crashing and burning.  Its a  straight forward post and well worth the read. Read it here http://t.co/1ZISL7d0
What strikes me is how no one saw this coming?

My view is that it all stems from the Zynga culture which comes down from Mark Piincus.  Everything I have read is that he is nasty, mean and was driven by revenue and narcissism. He seems to believe he is owed greatness.  It shows in the games.  Game play is sacrificed for the sake of revenue.  Players are treated the same as the virtual cattle they shuffle around.  There are accounts of fraudulent reporting of numbers.  From the numbers of players to amount of money being made. Zynga"s culture is one of largesse. From  the flagrant cloning of IP to the inability to succeed at any of the games with inflating friend counts all smell of corrupt culture.  Zynga's demise was telegraphed by anyone paying attention.

While I admire the amazing success that Zynga has had,  I just don't see how it is sustainable with a culture that relies on some level of deceit and fraud.  
Zynga really is the embodiment of game studio as hedge fund.  Management driven by profit and revenue alone.

Am I wrong?  Gone to far?  What say you!

You will be counted, and counted and counted.

So there is this idea of "big data" out there in the world.  Big data is this, big data is that.  It seems to be everywhere.  Big data as I understand it is the umbrella term used to cover the massive terabits (or more) of information that is being stored, categorized and analyzed.  Big data is the application of all the data we!re generating.

  Last week I read about the idea of big data in the realm of Hunan resource.  What does that mean?  It means that everything you do,  every meeting you take, every email you send, every progress report you submit could be analyzed,  digested and understood.  The trends in the work generated by all employees will be consumed and how you are graded at work will be based on an algorithm.

Potentially,  the human work you do will be boiled down to machine analysis.  Whether you get a raise,  a promotion, fired or hired could potentially be determined by big data processing.  It is both exhilarating and petrifying.  Companies may find out that anyone who surfs ESPN, Deadspin and CBS sportsline within a week will always lose massive amounts of productivity during football season.  There may be correlation between people who spend half their time in meetings and actual productivity.  Or that people who read twitter two hours a week are the most innovative etc. 

Using all the data generated on a typical work day could indeed answer some of the basic human resource question:   Should I hire or fie this person?

What do you think?  Are you ready to be judged by just the numbers?