The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

Too Much Analysis of an Overextended College Student Dwelling in a Capitol City

Archive for category My Thoughts

Riding Out the Snowpocalypse

Feb 7

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Washington DC | No Comments

Warning: I don’t really know where I’m going with this blog post, so bear with me. But I do know that I wanted to get one out, so here goes.

I lived through my first ever snowfall last December. Washington, DC had its first snow of the season on Saturday, December 5, and I actually got to be out in it–while the snow was falling–for the first time in my life. It was certainly an interesting experience, as I watched from my dorm room and trekked out in it briefly.

I flew home for Winter Break on Tuesday, December 15, rather late considering that my final final was the Friday before. But just three days later the huge nor’easter became the big news, hitting DC with a blizzard that dumped a foot to a foot and a half of snow on DC, crippling the Metro, canceling flights, etc. And thus my primary line of winter break smalltalk became about how lucky I was to make it out of DC unscathed before the storm hit.

Turns out that storm was just a warm-up act. In what has been dubbed as either the “snowpocalypse” or “snowmageddon” (I prefer the format, President Obama apparently prefers the latter), American University received 27.5 inches of the white stuff, compared with just 16 inches during the mid-December storm. This in addition to the 6 inches we had already received last Saturday (1/30) and about two inches we received overnight on Tuesday (2/2).

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow last Tuesday and I’m going to begrudgingly give him some credit this time around.
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My First Amendment to Social Journalism

Sep 8

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, State/National/World Issues, Technology | 3 Comments

This post is actually a first draft of a research-based essay that I am writing for English class. Since I didn’t really know how to start off this essay with research, I decided to approach the first draft as though it were one of my blog posts, and would hold off on integrating other sources until later revisions (and some initial feedback from my professor). Certainly if you have any constructive criticism, feel free to comment, as it can only help me to produce a stronger final product. Even then, it’s still nice to get my thoughts on this subject out in the open without being constrained by any requirements whatsoever.

Welcome to the end of another decade in American history. That’s right. With all of this “change” stuff sweeping the country this year, perhaps you forgot that the 2010s will be sweeping in in just a few months’ time. Looking back at the 2000s, the “golden millennial decade” (I actually just made that term up), it’s painstakingly obvious that a whole lot has changed in this country in the past ten years. But probably nothing else has changed as dramatically as the media.

Think about it. When the 2000 presidential election came down to a great big mess in Florida, or when the 9/11 attacks happened, how did those stories spread across the country? You most likely heard about those on the TV news, or if you were a bit on the slower side, you read about them in the newspaper. Nouns such as “blogs,” “podcasts,” or “tweets” weren’t even a part of our consciousness yet. Now fast forward to this year. The January 2009 plane landing in the Hudson River first broke on Twitter. This summer, journalists who were barred from covering the controversy and protests following the Iranian elections turned to the internet and social networks to find news postings and online videos from people who were on the ground in Iran. Newspapers across the country are shutting down every week or converting into online-only reporting. People get their news not just from television, radio, and newspapers, but now they also get their news from blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, aggregated news sources via Google, and a whole host of other sources. Not only can they get their news whenever they want from wherever they are, but they now have the power to choose the news they’ll use, and even make it themselves.

“Traditional” news media has realized this, and has attempted to catch up to the trend by trying to get “hip” to this new social media realm, with CNN arguably leading the charge. In 2006, they introduced their “iReport” feature, inviting anyone to submit videos, photos, or just text that they considered newsworthy. CNN would then identify certain iReports that they deemed newsworthy (and claimed to have “vetted” for factual accuracy) to air on their network. Late in the 2008 presidential campaign, CNN also took the lead in broadening out to incorporating existing social networks as well, most notably Twitter, and to a lesser extent, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. These moves have definitely been popular, as CNN’s competitors have also hopped on board with their own iReport-equivalents, along with their own use of blogs and social networks. Many people, especially in the tech world (like in this article from Mashable) have praised the networks for adopting and pushing social media forward. But is this big move to social media really pushing journalism and freedom of speech forward? Or is it just using Web 2.0 as a fad to add entertainment value to the news? Or furthermore, is it trading actual, experienced, vetted journalism for cheap crowd-sourced anecdotes?
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the University

Aug 26

Posted by Douglas Bell in College Life, My Thoughts, Personal | 2 Comments

Well, it’s been about eleven days now here at AU. I’m not entirely settled yet (still working on it), but I am now pretty much used to the timezone, actually getting used to the warmer temperatures (just wait until winter comes around), and some of the habits of living here. The craziness of Welcome Week is over and classes have started, and I’ll hopefully get used to that soon. Nevertheless, here are some observations that I’ve made after my first week and a half here.
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Why I AM Using Twitter

Jul 14

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Technology | Comments off

A friend of mine, Daniel Brusilovsky, wrote a piece for TechCrunch yesterday called Why Teens Aren’t Using Twitter. And while it’s definitely a well-written post, a good read, and I’m sure the facts about teens being a relatively small number when it comes to Twitter, I personally fall on a different side of the aisle.

Daniel spends a good portion of his post comparing teens’ opinions on Twitter to those of Facebook and MySpace. And granted, there is no dispute that those sites (mainly Facebook, these days) are more popular in the eyes of high school/college-aged teens. But I just don’t fit in the same category. Facebook still feels very foreign to me when I try to use it, yet Twitter is something I practically can’t live without these days, and I’ve been Twittering for two and a half years now. Heck, I now consider my tweets equal in importance to my blog posts, which is why they get equal billing on the home page of my new site. So in response to Daniel’s article, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss why I am using Twitter and prefer it over the more traditional social networking sites.
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WWDC Reactions Part 2: Mac Announcements

Jun 14

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Technology | Comments off

Two days late, two dollars short, but oh well. I still would be remiss if I didn’t finish my reactions to last Monday’s WWDC keynote, this time looking at the announcements made in the Mac realm.

MacBooks Refresh
Man, even six days later, I’m still trying to reconcile the name “MacBook Pro” with the 13″ label. Nevertheless, I’d say that Apple’s decision to make the 13″ aluminum MacBook a MacBook Pro is smart, and makes a lot more sense. Plus, it gives them an excuse to bring back FireWire (yay), make the backlit keyboard standard (yay), and really unify the whole lineup. And finally, the white MacBook can be the only “MacBook” again, rather than being listed on Apple’s site as the “MacBook White,” thus providing some more significant distinction between the “MacBook” and “MacBook Pro.” Not to mention that the latest refresh of the white MacBook actually made it faster than the aluminum MacBook at a cheaper price. And then Apple brought the prices of all of their laptops down, while bumping specs–again a smart move. So overall, can’t complain. Not that it matters to me, my 2 GHz white MacBook from April 2007 is still doing plenty well and I’ll stick with this thing until it drops. And unless I start doing more intensive tasks on here, that won’t be anytime soon.
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WWDC Reactions Part 1: iPhone Announcements

Jun 11

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Technology | Comments off

So, Apple’s WWDC happened this past week, and of course, the only part that any non-developer cares about is the big WWDC Keynote that happens on Monday morning. (And maybe, to a lesser extent, the Apple Design Awards. But I digress.) This year’s delivery from WWDC was quite massive, primarily divided into Mac announcements and iPhone announcements. Today, I’ll dwell with my thoughts on the iPhone announcements; my Mac thoughts will be showing up tomorrow.
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More College Admissions Thoughts

Apr 2

Posted by Douglas Bell in College Life, My Thoughts | Comments off

How about this article from Stanford’s website? Apparently the admission rate for the class of 2013 was the most competitive ever. They received 30,428 applications, a 20% increase over their anticipated number, and only accepted 2,300 of them, a 7.6% acceptance rate, their lowest acceptance rate ever.

Brown and Yale had even lower acceptance rates according to the counselor at my school: hovering around the 5.5% mark.

Heck, she shared that one of our valedictorians (she didn’t say which one), whose own father was a Brown alumni, didn’t get in to Brown, but just two years ago she would likely have gotten in with her eyes closed.

The whole college admissions pool gets more competitive every year, and this year it has apparently reached the point of insanity. All privates are much harder to get into, and as such, more and more students are opting to go for the UC and CSU schools. But at the same time as UCs and CSUs are feeling increased application demands, they’re also facing significant budget cuts because California is broke and screwed, and as such, those schools are also turning away many students that could have easily gotten in just two years ago. My counselor is already starting to write appeal letters for students who were denied to some UC schools; something that hasn’t really had to happen much before.

So, if I had been a part of the class of 2007 and applied to the same ten schools, I probably would have had more than four acceptances. I should probably be glad that I’ve been accepted to the four places that I have to choose from. As for Brown, Stanford, Yale, and the like, I have absolutely no disappointment now for not getting into them. So I’m not a part of the top 6% of students in the country. That doesn’t bug me one bit.

Walmart Worker Trampled to Death on Black Friday

Nov 29

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, State/National/World Issues | 1 Comment

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

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How has our consumerist society gotten to the point where people go to stores at 5 AM to save a little bit of money on Chinese-imported goods and literally run on top of people, breaking down store doors and jumping over barricades to do so? Not only was this worker killed, but fellow officers and employees to tried to give him CPR were stepped on, and even when police tried to evacuate the store afterwards, the people refused to leave and kept shopping!

How cruel is our society to allow such an act to take place? We need to take a hard look at ourselves. Taking a worker’s life is no excuse for trying to save $20 on a TV. If this is what we can expect from ourselves, then this whole ritual of Black Friday sales needs to end. Now.

Or at the very least, try opening your doors at a decent time in the morning. And that’s coming from someone who wakes up at 5 AM practically everyday.

Another Sarcastically “Great” Idea: The iPhone Gift Card

Nov 26

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Technology | Comments off

So tell me, how do you give a gift to someone that requires that person to be with you at the store when you buy it for them? Like, say, the iPhone 3G, which stupidly requires the person using (and paying for the service plan for) the phone to be physically at the store where they get the device?

Well, here’s what some genius at Apple came up with: the iPhone Gift Card. Of course, rather than just get the device yourself and give the physical device to the recipient so that they can immediately open it and start using it while they’re still in their PJs under the tree, how about we give them a gift card that may or may not be for the full value of the gift and force them to leave the house, find a nearby Apple Store (if they have one nearby since this card apparently doesn’t count at AT&T stores), make them wait in the inevitable line for their phone to get activated, and make them have to pay for their own service plan for the next two years?

It gets even crazier when you can consider that you could just get them an Apple Store Gift Card to do the same thing. (Or that, quite frankly, the iPhone Gift Card can be used for anything else in the store, so it might as well be an Apple Store Gift Card anyway!) Oh, and the thing can be loaded with up to $2500–that’s your choice of either, um, twelve and a half iPhones (or ten iPhones if you include sales tax), or it could be enough to pay for that iPhone and all of the cost of the two-year contract. Oh wait, the gift card can’t count towards that contract–man, that might have actually made it worth it.

Wouldn’t it have just been easier to go back to the way it was with the original iPhone where someone could buy you the physical device, wrap it up, and then when you unwrapped it, you could go onto iTunes and activate it by yourself on your own time in your own PJs? (Never mind that iTunes was slower than molasses on Christmas Day last year.)

So, here’s to the latest Sarcastically “Great” Idea: the iPhone Gift Card. May your wallet have mercy on your soul.

Early Impressions with WordPress 2.7 Beta

Nov 18

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Technology | 1 Comment

There has been an incredible amount of hype circulating around the WordPress community during the past few weeks regarding the up-and-coming release of WordPress 2.7. 2.7 should most definitely take the cake for the most-hyped release of WordPress, thanks to the brand new administration panel that will be coming along with the new release–the first major administration panel redesign since… the end of last March.

Indeed, it hasn’t even been eight months yet since the release of WordPress 2.5, which came billed as having a radically newer, cleaner, and less cluttered administration panel and Dashboard. However, as I mentioned in my WordPress 2.5 review, its administration panel really wasn’t that different, other than having a newer theme that was much brighter on the eyes, compared to the blue colors of WP 2.0-2.3.

And so, apparently, the good folks at WordPress went back to the drawing board this summer to look at how to further improve the WordPress admin interface, but this time, they came up with a codename for the new project called Crazyhorse (though I don’t get what’s so crazy about making software better), and this time, they claimed to use lasers in their testing. Great. (Actually, they apparently talked all about it at a WordCamp SF 2008 session that I missed because I had to leave early.) And since then, the hype has been alive and well on the WordPress Development Blog. They’ve been doing surveys since September to get feedback on what the interface should be like, showing off videos and stuff about what the new Dashboard looks like, and for Pete’s sake, they’ve even announced each beta release of 2.7 on their development blog, something that they’ve never done before! (It might be smart if they put a warning in their beta release posts about some of the possible problems inherent with running a beta for those crazy people out there who upgrade and then find something screwing up…)

I have given the latest Beta 3 of WordPress 2.7 a try, on a separate testing installation. (All of my live blogs are still using 2.6 and I won’t be updating until 2.7 is final.) While I am going to save a complete review until after it goes final and I’ve had a chance to give it a try on my REAL blogs, I will say that the new layout is quite impressive once you start to figure it out–the transition takes awhile to adjust to. The navigation has fundamentally changed (gone are the “Write”/”Manage” verbs that used to be part of the navigation and in their place are nouns like “Posts”, “Pages”, “Media”, and “Links”), and there’s a lot more AJAX inserted into useful spots. Many of the screens are now a lot easier to rearrange and customize to your liking, and satisfy a number of qualms about things that I felt should have been in WordPress 2.5. There are a couple of unexpected glitches that randomly pop-up, particularly in the drop-down navigation menus, so it is going to take awhile for me to fully adapt. But then again, it took me awhile to fully adapt to WordPress 2.5 as well, but I did.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the eventual release of WordPress 2.7, which will definitely help make WordPress a more attractive option for bloggers and content creators. Quite frankly, I think it would serve it more justice to make it WordPress 3.0, but I don’t really have much say in that now, do I?