Haynes.tv

The recent release (June 19) of the Apple iPhone 3GS (I’m sure we have all seen the commercials and advertisements for Apple’s newly updated version of the iPhone) has an innumerable amount of what the iPhone calls “apps” (features). The various apps allow you to perform different functions such as listening to music, recording videos, going on the internet, using e-mail, looking at maps, taking photos, and a number of other functions. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it is also supposed to work as a phone.

Apple introduced the original iPhone on June 29, 2007, after a very long and hyped up wait. With Apple’s recent widespread successes in selling both computers and iPods, Apple decided to expand upon it’s already popular name by venturing into a business that was growing perhaps even faster than Apple’s bank itself, the cell phone industry. The iPhone was to go farther and be better than any other phone before. It was to combine music, internet, e-mail, camera, and verbal communication into a singular device. It was to be a multitude of devices all fit into one. However, there is one question to be asked. When does it all become too excessive?

We appear to have an American society that is becoming more fast-pace and technologically advanced than ever before. This advancement is not unexpected, given the fact that society is always progressing forward and inventing new gadgets and devices in order to move ahead. But are we becoming too obsessed and infatuated with objects such as iPhones and other similar devices. The iPhone allows us to do so many things right out of our own pockets, but is their an actual need to be able to constantly go on the internet or message your buddy whilst enjoying a picnic, taking a hike, watching a sporting event, or driving. I believe personally that it has extended far beyond the definition of superfluous (useless or needless). How can one possibly enjoy what they may be doing when half of their attention is focused on watching a surfing dog on youtube or messaging their friend about the weather.

Let’s use going to the beach as an example. One might visit the beach to enjoy the water, spend time with other people, go surfing or bodyboarding, meet other people, play a particular sport such as volleyball or Frisbee, or just take in the natural beauty of the coastline. There are many reasons why one might enjoy going to a beach, but the list does not include playing solitaire on your phone, or text messaging your friend about how good you thought a movie was. Perhaps you may want to take pictures at the beach, and if that is the case then there is still no need for a multi-functional device, rather you could bring a camera which will give you much better quality anyway.

If you are going to taste the splendors of the natural world and places such as a beach then there is no reason to spend the entire time focused on a phone. If one wants to spend a day watching videos on their phone or text messaging their friend, then one can easily do all of these things at home. If you really want to be social with one of your friends then get together with them rather than glue your eyes to a touch screen keyboard (iPhone feature) all day. Enjoy the beach for what the beach is, not as a place where you can sit and play with your phone.

If you have a phone that has an infinite amount of features than please don’t let it become an interference when you are doing other things. If you want to watch Youtube videos than watch them at home on your computer, not on a camping trip. There is much more to this world than iPhones. Remember, there were other things to do before playing virtual soccer on a little phone screen, there was playing actual soccer itself.

Zach Seites-Rundlett

Virtual Soccer

Actual Soccer

I am currently attending a Focus Marketing Seminars event in DC and really enjoying the DC area. I am learning some useful information, but much of it is very familiar such as the fact that bad news sells. So for bad part there have been a number of speakers selling things, which I simply have no money for or am not really interested in. To be honest for many of the products the cost is simply prohibitive for me. However, if I do not listen then I will lose my chance to win money; I learned this the hard when my name was drawn before I returned from lunch, and I lost some sheet money from the Bureau of Engraving. This was despite the fact that I was back within exactly 1 hour, which was the original amount of time lunch was going to be. Normally I can eat in 15 minutes, but when you need to go three blocks in the DC underground to find food it takes time. On the plus side I am getting some little tit bits of information and hopefully some ideas on how to seriously improve my online marketing. Nonetheless, the best part is the fact that I get to form connections with people from all over the world through networking and hopefully find some new photography clients and/or maybe move into some advertising business. Focus Marketing Seminars has really grown, with Pat Lovell and Sean Roach announcing a UK event for Focus Marketing Seminars just the other day. Last night was very interesting going to a Hibachi restaurant three blocks away from the Crystal City Marriott with a 17 other people all involved in traffic exchanges and so forth. If you see me ask me for a password to view the photographs from the event on our RIPhoto.com website here

I hope that your 7/7/7 is going well and I just wanted to leave you with a special list related to the number seven:

We all know of the world’s greatest source of information, Wikipedia. Students begin (and sometimes end) all research on Wikipedia. Any one with a medical disorder goes to the site to get their prognoses. If you want to know what a Billiken is you go to Wikipedia. (Go search what a Billiken is anyway, it will blow your mind. I am planning on starting a Billiken fan club. Tell me if you want to join. Maybe I should change my name to Billiken S-R) If you want to learn the science from apples to zip ties, you can find a comprehensive 97% accurate article on the subject. In fact, a good amount (more like 99%) of my Haynes.TV research is done on Wikipedia. However with such an extensive library of random information and a cult following of confused individuals, can anyone possibly challenge the dominance of Wikipedia?

Citizendium (Citizens’ Compendium) began testing in November 2006. It already has over 1000 articles in its possession. It was created by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia. Sanger’s goal is to inject some intelligent expert advice into the wiki encyclopedia. He will do this through a hierarchy of expertise and responsibility. Authors must submit their full name. They will then be subject to constables that can ban irresponsible or “stupid” authors from contributing. Constables must be at least 25 and hold a bachelors degree. The authors will then be supervised by editors. Editors choose which material makes it to the site. Editors require an academic background in a specific area of expertise. The system of authors and constables should prevent the free roam of false information that plagues Wikipedia. Wikipedia has seen complaints for Internet “vandalism” from subjects that have had articles falsely written about them. Also, an interesting fact, Stephen Colbert has been banned from Wikipedia for his abuse of the site, having his viewers alter comments in an immature (0r hilarious) way.

However, I don’t see Citizendium making it too far. While the stages of revision will prevent inappropriate and inaccurate information from reaching the site, it will restrict the sites growth. The appeal of Wikipedia is that there are so many articles, one can find almost any tidbit of information on their site. They can change with popular culture, politics, and the economy. Citizendium will be restricted by a limited pool of authors. Wikipedia seems to grow exponentially, while I see Citizendium growing in a line at best, most likely plateauing in a few years. Maybe Citizendium’s 820 authors and 126 editors should spend their time making Wikipedia a better site. At least 5 of them should contribute Billiken articles any. Wikipedia is too large and powerful to mess with. They almost define popular knowledge. Any other wiki encyclopedia is just wasting its time.

I believe flip flopping is just a natural result of the passage of time and the maturing of a candidate. Everyone makes mistakes, and as people mature it is reasonable that they may change their mind. For example, all those that voted for the war prior on the basis of WMD’s could claim that by learning the fact that there was no serious fact they may now feel opposed to this war. This is a flip-flop, but not an opportunistic flip-flop. opportunistic flip flops do exist, and they are a problem. However I don’t believe a voter should get too mad over opportunistic flip-floppers. There is no evidence that modern politicians are more prone to make a flip flop than in past years. In fact, since the beginning of politics, politicians have been parts to large organizations, whether religions, industrial, or social, very seldom was a politician truly independent, a large percent of the time his actions are representative the organization the politician stands for. Voters need to accept that politicians will flip flop, however it is no reason to lose faith in a candidate or become a political hermit. It is necessary to look at the backing of the candidate and decide where their interests lie and where your interests lie, by doing this you can choose the right candidate. A voter can look at the unions, businesses, and other major social/cultural institutions that support and more importantly, fund the candidate. The heart lies within the wallet. If your interests overlap with those of several organizations supporting the candidate than that may be a good vote for you. For instance, if you are against the war, a politician funded by businesses that want an end to war, or social organization seeking the end to war, than it is relatively safe to assume the candidate will end the war as soon as logistically possible.

The biggest problem with flip-floppers is the adverse effect they have on the psyche of the modern voters. Voters, especially new voters become overwhelmed by the politicians and their ideologies. They come to distrust the process because they feel betrayed by the actions of politicians. Upon this happening, undeserved pressure is placed on the candidate to remain steady, or else suffer the consequences. A politician at that point is dominated by his contingency in a bad way. The voters should control their candidates, but they should not prevent the politician from following his/her natural course. Because once a politician become an artificial puppet of fear, we can no longer trust his/her future action and when he/she may change. The population could consistently reelect a politician only to learn that he may not side with their majority opinions. It is necessary to learn when a politician has done this so the population can elect a new representative. However the pressure they place on the system to follow certain taboo rules prevents the population from knowing has the politicians views change and develop. For as stated in the beginning, a person matures and his opinions will change. Therefore it is necessary to know those changes and how frequently the politician may change, so we can better make our choices. By putting this pressure to remain behind one position we cannot know the true character of the politician.

This post is about flip-flopping in general and does not specifically relate to any one person or situation. The example about the Iraq war is just an example and does not represent any specific opinion. Leave a comment with your opinion, and I shall present mine to the extent required to answer.

You heard right You are indeed time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Now that you know you may be wondering how you are Time Magazine’s Person of The Year. This year time decided that no one person had the greatest influence upon society, although they acknowledged all these influential people such as President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the president of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), ruler of North Korea (Kim Jong-il), and even China with their growing world economy. They decided that we had a larger influence through our blogs, myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, etc. Either that or they decided that they would sell more magazines by going with the us instead of someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, because they know how we like to hear about ourselves. Also we were probably the only people they though they could put a positive spin on since Time seems to agree with many of the antiwar critics, stories of the President would have had a negative spin, and we all know that these other rules are negative influences and although China is bringing us cheap goods we also know that China’s growth could really threaten our access to resources. So time decided to go with the only postive story they could think of you!

My eyes are gettin’ weary,
My back is gettin’ tight,
I’m sittin’ here in traffic,
On the Queensborough bridge tonight,
But I don’t care cuz all I wanna do,
Is cash my check and drive right home to you,
Cuz baby all my life I will be driving home to you.

These immortal words live the hearts of all great Americans, well just plain great people in general. I actually found the song and lyrics on “Die Deutsche (German) Fansite zu King of Queens.” Everybody love Doug, Carrie and Arthur, unless you’re not a person of course.

However, a great tragedy had befallen the wonderful people of this planet I like to call Earth. King of Queens has disappeared. On the night of Monday September 18 around, lets say 7:58 pm, I was lying on my couch half asleep from Jeopardy, and half awake from a bowl of ice cream in my mouth. And in the daze I call life, I realized that it was almost 8:00 and my best friend was about to join me. Everything after that was a blur, all I remember is that by 8:01 I was on the floor crying.

Apparently the King of Queens was not coming on that night. CBS had decided to air a piece of trash they call the Class. A little piece of me died that night, and I blame the ba@!*#ds at CBS for show slaughter in the first degree. They knew what they were doing, they didn’t care about our country, our passion, our lives.

However there is good news. The heads of CBS have decided to go into rehab in November, and new episodes of King of Queens are expected some time in January. Until then I shall shed a single tear at 8:00 every Monday night, for the only great thing left in this world.

Update 8/12/06
Stop and Shop carries ground buffalo for $4.29 a pound

Beef has increasingly become a less than ideal choice these days with worries of mad cow disease and fears stemming from added hormones and chemical in cattle feed. Bison meat however carries none of these concerns: because one Bison have little need for extra protein in their diet:

There have been no known cases of mad cow disease in bison, and the animals’ natural characteristics make it useless for ranchers to give them extra protein from animal byproducts

said Martin Marchello, an animal sciences professor at North Dakota State University.

The animal just doesn’t do well with a real high-protein feed, so there’s less tendency to even want to move in the direction of supplementing feed,

In addition to the peace of mind this brings the animals can be traced much more easily, with the bison industry being so small if a problem does happen to spring up they could easily pinpoint the source. Not to mention Bison has all the delicious flavor of beef yet 70% less fat and 43% fewer calories than regular ground beef! Bison is higher in Iron than beef, has no problems with E-Coli in and even has less cholesterol than chicken or fish.
The meat is bright brick red and, as one wit said,

the he-man hunk of beast flesh is so obviously a carnivore’s delight, it can stun a vegetarian at 20 paces.

However, on the downside it is hard to find and usually expensive when you do. I have never seen it in any supermarkets and believe it is pretty much only available online. Although I do know of one national chain restaurant that offer Bison, that being Ruby Tuesday. In addition I have seen Beefalo on the menu in a steak house in New York. A Beefalo can have up to 3/8 Bison genetics with the other 5/8 of the genetics coming from virtually any of the domestic breeds of cattle (Angus, Limousin, Hereford, etc.) or from any of the newer composite breeds (Beefmaster, Santa Gertrudis, etc.). Beefalo meat also offers many of the same benefits as Bison.

99% of our lives today are dominated by advertising (source, my little brother). 5 year old kids are being sold like DVD rentals to advertising companies who parade them around places where five year olds hang out (Disney world, Mickey D’s, basements of forty year old men). TV shows have way too many sponsors. “Olympia Sports presents the Nike Burger King tournament of Odor Eaters Bank of America Championship at the Met Life Golf Course built by Goodyear. Closed Captioning by Walden Books.” I know people have to make money, like this site
Haynes.TV
for Example uses advetising for support

but I mean come on. We’re not hitting you with 50 pop ups per second (pups) trying to get you to buy anything from anti-wedgie cream to Japanese slaves. We’re just trying to make sure Mr. Haynes can pay off his Wal*Mart bill. But, these large corporations seem to be more interested in buying every second of our lives than on improving their product. Movie producers will spend more than half of their budget on advertising. I say they should more guns, bigger explosions, better stunt doubles, free popcorn for us all. But that will never happen, instead they will paint MI4 on some fat guy’s back for fifty bucks.

Despite the large, grotesque volume of advertising in the modern world, the most aggravating aspect the the evil world is suicidal advertising. Ads so annoying they can bring a depressed person to the edge of death, if they don’t bring the company there first. For example the head on commercials. Head-on apply directly to the forehead. Head-on apply directly to the forehead. Head-on apply directly to the, what was it, oh yeah forehead. This one commercial had brought hours of pain and agony to me and Mr. Haynes. I want to know who came up with that commercial. Do they teach in advertising school that if you say a product’s name repeatedly the consumer will either buy the product of donate their TV to a homeless person (I perfer the latter). I don’t even know what Head-on does, and since my doctor tells me I have a perfect forehead, I will never buy the item. And to take it a step further I want the ad pulled, fearing it will lead to a generation of americans that will associate their foreheads with emotional trauma (if you would like to join the noble fight leave a commment).

A reveiw of Head-On from EPinions.com

“I tried HeadOn headache relief for the first time. I used it according to the directions and within a few minutes the skin on my forehead began to become irritated. It was “cold” and “burning” at the same time! I tried to wash it off with soap and water but the irritation only got worse. After about 20 or 30 minutes the burning sensation stopped. It didn’t seem to do much for my headache either. I’m not at all impressed with this product.”

To conclude, the rich have money. The rest of us have to work hard. However, if you like the content provided here and would like to help make sure Mr. Haynes can pay off his Wal*Mart bill make a donation using paypal:

Who invented the word “yo”? Who knows? Who cares? I do. Yo is one of the most versatile words in our modern English language. It can be used as a friendly greeting, “Yo, whats up my . . . “, to answer a question in a positive way, “yo, for real,” and in a negative way, “yo, what you talking ’bout,” and with the exception of baby, it is the most common word in contemporary music. All these facts make this word very appealing to a bored, middle class white guy. So I decided to to some research.

The 2006 Merriam-Webster dictionary defined yo as an interjection used especially to draw attention or express affirmation. While this may be what some old professor may interpret the meaning of the word to be, it is not a proper definition of what a yo response may indicate. This definition equates yo to words such as “hey”, and “yes”, but it obviously has a more important meaning to the world. MTV did not reach out to a generation and an era by saying “Hey we rap”, they simply said “Yo MTV Raps”, and by doing so they reached millions of Americans.

An online etymology(the study of the origins of linguistic styles) dictionary gave this response,
“as a greeting, 1859, but the word is attested as a sailor’s or huntsman’s utterance since c.1420. Modern popularity dates from World War II (when, it is said, it was a common response at roll calls) and seems to have been most intense in Philadelphia. ” So I decided to do some research. Why did philadelphians say yo so frequently, and why were sailors and “huntsmen” uttering the word in the 15th century.

The answer to the second question exists in the Greek language. Apparently the Greek word “loa” was used in the same context as our beloved yo. And apparently when English folk heard the word they anglicanized it by changing the “L” sound to a similar “Y” and came up with yo. And as mentioned, this translation is credited with occurring in the 15th century. I still don’t know why the definition credits sailors and huntsman, perhaps sailor commonly sailed to Greece, and picked up the word in that manner. And maybe huntsman just wanted to sound cool.

In the Military sense the word comes from the danish word for yes “yo” which rapidly became slang for here during role call. Its likely the word was picked up by the British who came to the aid of Denmark and Norway when the Nazis invaded in 1940.

However the American word yo is documented as originating in Philadelphia due to a large Italian and African American population that contracted the words you and your to simply yo. Its first documented use was, as mentioned, during role calls in the military. However it did not rise in popularity until the 1970s when Rocky Balboa famously declared, “Yo! Adrian.” Since then the word received common use, and with the popularity of hip hop it has become one of the most recognizable words on earth.