May 8
When people say, “The tipping point,” they often misunderstand the concept in Malcolm‘s book. They’re actually talking about the flipping point.
The tipping point is the sum total of many individuals buzzing about something. But for an individual to start buzzing, something has to change in that person’s mind. Something flips from boredom or ignorance to excitement or anger.
For participants in the iCenter presentation how-to that I taught today, I’ve uploaded two files:
• Extensive notes, as promised.
Presentation Primer – Notes & Sources.pdf
• My slides. (They’ll only make sense if you were there, naturally.)
Presentation Primer – Slides.pdf
Steve devoted his professional life to giving us (you, me and a billion other people) the most powerful device ever available to an ordinary person. Everything in our world is different because of the device you’re reading this on.What are we going to do with it?
Steve Jobs (again):
Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
In general, I think it’s stupid when pitchers throw at opposing hitters to “send a message” about something that happened earlier in the game or in a previous game. If a guy shows you up by admiring his home run, you should be more embarrassed by the fact that you served up the pitch than you should be by the way the guy watches it leave the park. (I think it’s worse when umpires and announcers make a big deal about it. If no one says anything, then it’s just a bit of private communication between ballplayers. Why make a big deal, cause a brawl, and force MLB to issue fines and suspensions?)
But this in exception.
Ted Lily is pitching for the Dodgers tonight in a meaningless game against the Diamondbacks, the division champs who are playing for playoff seeding. And tonight, I hope Lily sends a message to Ryan Roberts.
Last night, Roberts hit a walk-off grand slam to cap a disastrous (for the Dodgers) bottom-of-the-tenth. With two outs, pitcher Blake Hawksworth forgot to cover the bag on a routine ground ball that should have ended the game. That led to the homer, which was painful but was hardly the worst thing that’s happened in a season that’s been over for weeks now.
Here’s the problem: Roberts didn’t just trot around the bases, and he didn’t even joyously skip around them. He did Gibby’s trot.
I don’t care if Gibson is his manager, or that the man himself approved. That trot is holy, and that moment belongs to the Dodgers. With an owner who’s doing everything he can to flush decades of tradition down the toilet, we cannot abide some uppity, overly-tattooed middle infielder claiming such a sacred moment for his own after winning a mostly meaningless game on a lucky swing against an overworked rookie only closing games because everyone else is injured.
I should also note: In contrast to some of our other NL West competition, I don’t particularly hate the DBacks. Their fans are too fair-weather to be obnoxious, they beat up on the Giants this year, and this year they’re actually a group of scrappy, likeable players managed by a baseball hero. So I don’t begrudge Ryan the right to celebrate, and I wouldn’t care if he’d simply “shown up” the Dodgers… they certainly deserved a bit of shaming after that. But this was over the line. This aggression will not stand.
Stand up for your team, Ted Lily. Teach Ryan Roberts a lesson he won’t forget.
Steve Jobs:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it. They just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Aug 7
In my role as director of congregational learning at Temple Isaiah, I’ve been working on ways to effectively use technology to improve the learning experience in the religious school classroom. This post is the first in a series on ideas to make it happen.
What is it?
Apple TV is a box you connect (via HDMI) to a tv or projector, and you log it onto your wireless network. Once it’s connected, the Apple TV can play YouTube and Vimeo videos and stream Netflix content. Even better: Using a technology called AirPlay, it can play music, videos, and photo slideshows from any computer (Mac or PC, as long as it has iTunes installed) or any iOS Device (iPad, iTouch, iPhone) on the same network. Also, certain iOS apps take advantage of the same technology to have video from the device (like a news video from the CNN app, or a radio segment from the NPR app) display via the Apple TV up on the attached projector/television.
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