Kyle A Koch › Comments

It's not the age of the man that bothers me, it's the age of his ideas. Even my 80 yo mother can surf the internet, skype and email. - Sally Church

Hysterically funny, but Borowitz usually is. - Warner Crocker

Sally: even his advisers are frustrated that McCain's inner circle doesn't get this. Obama's advisers tell me they are going to make this a big deal during the election cycle. - Robert Scoble

Robert, wow. Sometimes it is moments like that where you realise that time has moved on. - Sally Church

Sally: here's a note from Kevin Werbach "Technology Matters:" http://www.circleid.com/posts... - Robert Scoble

i know a president could successfully run our country without ever touching a computer, but the fact that he doesn't understand them at all... i just wish these politicians would have a skills draft or something and pick influential people from all areas to help their cause. - Kyle A Koch

Couldn't get mapquest to work??? 5 days to figure out on line shopping. This is a mistake, he should have just let it go. - Victor Ryden

What is scary about this is the lack of *CURIOSITY* about the world, the mental rigidity. Dangerous traits for an American president. - Sean McBride

Victor: the article is a joke. But the sentiment behind it is not. McCain doesn't feel he needs to learn about technology and doesn't feel he needs to have a serious technology policy. All the congressmen/women I interviewed felt it was important to have a national policy toward broadband, network neutrality, advertising and privacy, child protection, and a host of other issues. Will someone who rarely is online, or who only understands what's happening on the Internet from other people be able to lead? - Robert Scoble

Robert - McCain doesn't feel the need or urge to learn about anything -- it's not just the Internet. Thus the endless stream of "gaffes" (ignorant misunderstandings about the world), McCain has a few core beliefs, fanatically held; empirical data matter not a whit to him. - Sean McBride

Robert - Wow, that's a relief (I think), I had already saw a couple of comments so when I went to the article I didn't look carefully at the context. I agree that the most important issue is going to be his choice of advisors. - Victor Ryden

Permit me to speculate that some of McCain's top advisers may actively hate the Internet -- it represents a threat to their monopoly control over public discussion through the traditional MSM. The Internet is blowing the MSM to smithereens, and the owners and controllers of the MSM are not happy campers. - Sean McBride

I hear he is very excited about Geocities... - Johnny Worthington

Robert, from your sources, is "Victory Co-chair" Carly Fiorinna more than window-dressing? Surely she has Something to say about tech policy. Maybe she can propose a tech country for US to acquire...the way HP acquired Compaq - Michael Markman

For me, this issue isn't just about tech and the internet per se, but also about wider issues of how technology now affects our everyday lives in science, medicine, education etc. The impact of science and technology is becoming increasingly complex; sometimes I wonder how much many of the baby boomers in Congress really understand and grasp the mettle. How can you have and implement policies on stem cells or genetic testing, for example, if you don't even understand the basics, never mind the big picture? - Sally Church

If Obama gets all of the geek vote, he'll only need 49.899% of the rest to be elected. - eggsy

Obama is likely to get the vote of all those who are worried that a grumpy and angry old man is going to embroil Americans in another trillion-dollar disaster like the Iraq War. Last I checked, that was a solid majority. - Sean McBride

Perhaps this is really about communication through technology... I've been impressed with the way Obama's staff are active on Soc Nets and answer questions via pm's or forums etc, even though I'm for less government. Many Gen Y are active on FB, grew up with technology and being able to communicate online. How many of those new new voters showed up in the primaries? - Sally Church

am torn: congress is/should be the major actor in most tech considerations VS but the president has a much larger bully pulpit to generate issue support; the next president will have much more important and immediate issues to deal with VS tech will continue to grow in importance; u can't know everything, this is what advisers are for VS tech will continue to increase in importance - at the end of the day I totally understand why this issue resonates but its far from a voting issue for me - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

this has nothing to do with technology. this has everything to do with elitism. ...and that is nothing new for tyranny of the left. Robert Scoble... you and your elitist private feed friends wouldn't know innovation if it slapped you in the face. http://simonstudiotheatre.blogspot.com/2007... - Noah David Simon

@noah - i'm not sure it is in this case - I think it is a reverse example of the power of these tools - usually they allow us to find points of commonality and understanding of one another through the mutual sharing of an array of little pieces of information - those connections impact the way we process one another's information - we are more likely to give the thoughts of someone we have something in common with the ben. of the doubt. Tech is a passion of most here, mccain has indicated he doesnt share it - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

I don't care if he can buy a book at Amazon or not but not having first hand experience of the Web culture is a huge deficit, imo. - Tom Guarriello

Funny how the dirty slurs of politics morph over time. How did "elitist" become the slur du jour? And how did it come to label people who question an enviornment that protects the wealth of the super rich at the expense of the middle class? That's just screwy. We had a class warfare. the rich won. (and they call the losers "elitists"): http://snurl.com/32t96 - Michael Markman

elitists are the people who live off of hierarchy. the rich don't give a damn about the hierarchy, cuz they are already rich. it is the nouveau rich that back stab their way up. Regardless, ur idea of what tech is betrays your ignorance when you think web dialog is high tech. Most high tech people are not big dialogers. Tech folks tend to not be into argument. I went to Carnegie Mellon.... more... - Noah David Simon

friendfeed is a forum... like a coffee shop on the left bank of paris. this isn't a bunch of mechanic geeks tooling around. The tech stuff is mostly consumer based. I'm not buying the pretensions. yes folks.. wake up and smell the coffee... you are elitists. it might not be a bad thing if there were more transparency within the forum, but most of your agendas are hidden behind your... more... - Noah David Simon

It doesn't bother me when politicians don't use computers, because they are in such an old school meatspace business. politicians do their work in person. not their staffs, but the candidates for sure. what bothers me is that the internet is not like anything but itself. metaphors don't work. so if you don't have it as part of your life, you have no idea what it is and you aren't qualified to make policy related to it. - Lucas Gonze

I'm not sure how useful it is to corral people according to so-called "generations", as it may well be a form of ageism, and as the doctator indicated, all isms are de facto proofs of the presence of dire evil. Not really, but it could happen. Blogging is like reading or writing or speaking...a basic skill that knows no age, no cohort. On your other point, there is certainly a shift toward microblogging, and fingers everywhere are rejoicing. - david beckwith

Richard, what a typical response from someone of your generation ;-) - Sprague D

There's decent research that suggests that your generation has more effect on your consumer behavior, workplace satisfaction, preferred modes of work, etc., than your ethnicity, race, and gender combined. So whether or not "is gen X the blog generation" is the right question, there are definitely big questions to be asked about generations. - J-P Voillequé

I'm having trouble locating fan-blogs about Matock. - stretta from twhirl

I thought Gen X came a little before blogging times. You might be referring to Gen Y - Lindsey is Fierce!

i can never really figure out which gen x and y refer to... or where i fall amongst them - Kyle A Koch

Aren't we on to gen.Z yet? - Slippy "Threadsbane" Lane

gen y is definitely too information overloaded to blog with much seriousness. - mjc

it was always too easy for me to jump to the page of each choice before making my decision though - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Yes, these were one of my fav. styles of books too. ;) - Czar

These books were awesome! - orionstarr

I had some with Mario Bros - €€€€€€€€

I had a few - my son loves them, would love to find a place to find them! - Les Zaldor

I was such a total nerd that I used to graph the decision tree. - Chuck LeDuc Díaz

I would dog-ear the major decision making pages so I could come back and find out what happened if I went to page 45 instead of 83 - Kyle A Koch

After reading them correctly a couple times, I loved reading them straight through like a normal book. Piecing together the entire possible story is just a lot fo fun. - Jordan Hofker

Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy FTW! - David Young

found out they re-launched them and one of the OG authors has a blog http://cyoa.typepad.com/ - Tac Anderson

I just gave my nephew, 7, some, in hopes that it'd get him into reading, it did in a way, he's more into the Archie comics. Choose Your ADventures were kind of disappointing in the end, for me. - anna sauce

Lens below 1.3, and they do make them are very expensive, whatever you hace open it up, and use a high ISO - Michael Fidler from twhirl

Canon 50mm 1.4 IS lens ~ $1k I think. - Elliott Ng

I tried to see what camera you use, on your Flickr feed. No help. Anyway, you need to get one of the famed 50mm, 1.8 lenses. - Trevor Carpenter

Nikon and Canon make them for about $100. That should serve you well, in low light. - Trevor Carpenter

Ah, just saw your earlier tweet. OK, so you're a Canon guy. Cool. - Trevor Carpenter

If the subject is still, You can use a tripod and open the shutter longer, collecting more light. Combo of 3 should work - Michael Fidler from twhirl

I use a Nikon 50mm 1.4f and, as I replied to the last tweet, never use the flash. - Akiva Moskovitz

TWIp has a atutorial on how to photograph fireworks. http://twipphoto.com/archive... I imagine its the same for stars. - Roberto Bonini

If you don't care about staying with Canon, the Leica M8 is amazing. See Joi's photos for some examples of what it can do in low light... http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Personally, I'm looking at the Nikon D90 that was just announced and will probably start with just a fast prime (fixed) lens. - Darius Dunlap

Roberto, Jason's Taurus and Fondue are dogs, not stars. I agree with 50mm suggestion. I have 1.8f and it works very well, but a 1.4f would be even better. - Gregory Pittman

I was kind of curious about cannons lens after seeing the other posts, and the 50 at 1.8 is right. along with the tripod, high ISO, and aperature stoped down to 1.8 - Michael Fidler from twhirl

50mm 1.8 is good and I like using it, but I'd probably go with the 28mm 1.8...that is the next lens I am getting. - Brad Butner from twhirl

i love my 50mm 1.4 great for pics of the dogs and my boy inside with lowlight. amazing results outside. check out my flickr. - Kyle A Koch

is Jason reading this? - Travis Parsons

porobly not. - Percival

I am curious can you think of another company that created something this groundbreaking and then failed to profit from it. I heard on NPR this morning thye have less than 7% of the market thanks to cable companies giving the machines away free. - R. Ferguson

the problem is that cable companies make it so easy to just deal with the crappy boxes they provide for less than 10$ a month, as opposed to using tivo and getting a cable card installed. I have time warner though, and they recently "updated" their boxes with a slower interface that feels like syrup. the show names actually disappear as you scroll through the guide - Kyle A Koch

AT&T required me to purchase their TV service which includes a DVR in order to get their UVerse fiber internet service. I think it's going to be harder and harder for TiVo to compete when AT&T and others pursue practices like this. - Thomas Hawk

@Thomas Hawk: That sounds like an anti-trust case in the making. - xero

And it takes too long for ALL the apps to launch. Even PDF files - Mona Nomura

Oh, and Air? Do Not Want :) - Mona Nomura

FoxitPDF :) - Michael W. May

I love Adobe Air applications. Photoshop and Illustrator also rawks. I hate acrobat, bridge, and the stupid updater. - Alan Le

Photoshop and Illustrator DO rule, I just hate how it takes a bajillion years to open!! - Mona Nomura

Like RoboHelp. Hate the updater. - Nine

the updater is very annoying. I find the only time I actually update something is once the current quarter is over so I know that if something goes wrong I have sufficient time to fix it before the next big project is due... in reality I could probably never update my adobe apps - Kyle A Koch

Visa - Arthur Guy

McDonald's, Phelps - Craig Eddy

Home Depot - Mike Reynolds

bolt - mike "glemak" dunn

Barack Obama - DJ Lein

Kellog's Corn Flakes - Shannon

Michael Phelps. Usain Bolt - john conroy

Puma - Shey, Jamaican of FF

AT&T - Michael W. May from twhirl

Rona, VISA, McDonald's - tamera

li ning - Anatol from twhirl

Canon. - Yolanda

Coca Cola - Lisa Creech Bledsoe from twhirl

Lee Kum Kee - imabonehead

Coca Cola - Alan Le

Lenovo - Kevin C. Tofel

NBC and VISA - Adam

Shawn Johnston, Nastia Liukin, Lenovo, Li Ning brand ambush of Adidas - Elliott Ng

coke mcdonalds sprite puma - Kyle A Koch

Coke, Visa - Morgan

Michael Phelps. I don't notice the consumer brands - Sally Church

Cisco - jcunwired

Michael Phelps - Dave Wirsching from twhirl

NBC - Czar

nike vs adidas - Lee Kent

usane bolt - Jay

Coke. And Li Ning (apparently the Chinese Nike) - Ryan Kuder

Speedo - Cyndy

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Here in Canada we were subjected to the "Mr. Muffin" ad during CBC coverage WAY too many times. http://www.youtube.com/watch.... - Andrew Codrington

Puma and Nike. - Steve Garfield from twhirl

i feel like it *should* be lenovo, but i think of visa - Amanda from twhirl

nike - Dan McCall from twhirl

audi - Paul Whitaker

Lenovo - Sue Radd

China - Fons Tuinstra

Visa - Melanie Reed

Totally agree. Don't even bother replying or acknowledging the communication. Thats one of the greatest benefits of the web and electronic communication. - Adam Helweh

Damn, very scary indeed... - George The Writer

I hope this will end. Scary Sh*t... - ※Fu※

Creepy. - Ray Grieselhuber

Louis, you are crazybrave going public with this. The one thing Stalkers thrive on is attention. You're always better off ignoring them then recognizing them publicly. - Duncan Riley

I vote crazy, Duncan. As mentioned before, I felt it was time to use this as an example. I did what I could to take their name out, and they're not visible enough that most will figure out who it is. It's a case of an otherwise good person who probably gets most things right taking this to an extreme. - Louis Gray

Definitely long past time to ignore in every way/shape/form. Hopefully they start taking their meds and you don't hear from them again. - cjmart

Should definitely been more of a hardass with him. There's a fine line between some 14 year old in a chat room and an entrepreneur these days. You should have said about 3 interactions in, "If you contact me again my lawyer will be in contact" and when they did get the lawyer to deal. No benefit in being nice guy to wackos. Really. Or send Scoble round to his house via N95/Qik. - ben barren

Very disturbing behavior indeed. The Borderline Personality disorder is probably quite an accurate assessment. That just gave me the creeps, but thank you for sharing, veronicaromm - veronicaromm

It's a valuable cautionary tale. Hopefully this individual will give you some peace now. - Mark Dykeman

I think Louis reached breaking point .. thats why he posted. Firstly, he's post is like letting steam off on this engagement. secondly, theres a lesson for ALL of us in that post. All that glitter is not gold. On the Net every1 a dog. The real questions which ones are the nice puppy dawgs and which ones are the real vicious ones :)- - Peter Dawson

bloody hell... way past the line. - Scott Lockhart

Damn. I guess this means my guest blogging stint is over. :( - Cyndy

He must believe every Louis Gray Fact is true. - Shawn Farner

I guess my mother was right when she told me not to talk to strangers :-/ - LouCypher

That was very creepy behavior. I can't believe it went on so long. I couldn't have been that nice. - Bryan Clark

Cyndy, having it be you would have been a delight. :-) (Hi, Jason) - Louis Gray

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago -- but this is really intense. persistant and weird. I feel creeped out just seeing your post -- can't imagine how you must feel -- though writing it all down must have some positive cleansing effect - Brian Sullivan

:-( - j1m

now this is a stalker story - http://fallingfarfromthetree.b... - Peter Dawson

huh, kind of eery, since i use "I hope all is well." in most messages i send to friends i haven't spoken with lately... this reminds me of an issue a teacher of mine had in high school with a female student. He ended up printing out each and every correspondance from her, which filled a binder, whereas his responses barely needed a folder. It put an extreme amount of stress on him and... more... - Kyle A Koch

I route the phone through GrandCentral to remove that possibility and then send addresses to blacklists. Now Facebook? I hardly go there anymore - Chris Miller

i hope all is well, louis, but after further consideration i've decided not to offer you the position. sorry. - Deva Hazarika

That is just too weird, really weird - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Wow, that is totally crazy and scary. Definitely the darker side of the social web right there. YIKES. Sorry to hear about that. - Sarah Perez

Kyle brings up the crazy student-teacher interactions and why high school teachers are sometimes staying off Facebook. When I was a head teaching assistant at UCLA, here are two tidbits. (1) Most professors marry former students (2) One student sued a school, not because the teacher was harrassing her, but because of "unfair treatment" because the teacher was dating another student. - Mitchell Tsai

My teacher friends have had students "stalk" them. One may have lost his high school job because the student who was rejected then claimed harrassment - he won in court, but the school still fired him - Unfair! I've been on the receiving end of too much attention... and I had a male college dean sexually pressure me (Didn't realize it at first... Then threatened not to approve an official request of mine to drop a class). - Mitchell Tsai

I made the mistake of publishing similar "logs" (experience) I had with "stalkers" and it only made things worst... - Czar

Are you taking volunteers for a new stalker? I guess I can step up if you don't get any better offers. - Bryan Clark

wow, split-personality disorder is creepy online... - Morgan

@Chris yeah, the stalker is typically looking for more attention - any communications are seen as an offer for that person to continue to "reopen communications" between him/herself and Louis. Publicizing the communications may actually lead to an elevated level of harassment. What you really need to do is cut off all contact as early as possible. Don't respond to anything, because they really are looking for attention. The authoritative work on this subject is The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. - Steve Lynch

Wow, I just read about your experience--sorry. I think it serves as a good reminder for everyone to be at least slightly guarded. Inappropriate boundaries and people are certainly present in all forms of communication. - Anna Haro

You're a lucky man, Louis. I miss mine being little...but my gosh is it fun as they grow up. - Bradley McSpinn

She won't be teensy long! - Chris Baskind

You guys are so fast. These pics always rate about 2 likes a minute in the first five minutes. :-) - Louis Gray

Still small... still SO cute!!! - Lisa L. Seifert

So adorable and tiny, but with Pete potty-training? I now wouldn't go back. I'm looking SO forward to a world without diapers. - Cyndy

How old is she now? I remember when owen was that tiny... its so sad when i find his cute onesies that don't fit anymore :( - Kyle A Koch

@Kyle, six weeks today. - Louis Gray

At first, it's hard to believe that they will walk and talk (and hopefully do laundry), and then later it's hard to believe they were ever so small. Sigh. - Jody Reale

a worried papa! or as French people say a papa-poule! Your girl is so cute and normal-sized don't worry :) - directeur from NoiseRiver

She's so lovely. And teeny. :) - Ayşe E.

she's huge - my son was born at 2 lbs 2 ounces! - Morgan

Morgan: Are you calling her fat??!?!?!? :) - Justin Korn

@justin - i guess "she's huge" is never a good word choice! ;) - Morgan

You could try CafePress.com - Her Lindsay-ness

i did a google search last night and looked at a couple of the top results - they all use the exact same design interface - price isn't too bad (around $26 for an American Apparel t with printing on the front and back) but I would rather not punch in my CC info until I hear from someone else that they have used them and were satisfied. - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

I've used VistaPrint and was very pleased. About $9.25/shirt for two shirts with my own graphic. Pretty quick too, if I recall correctly. - Dave Roth

Take a look at Zazzle, they are pretty great as far as quality is concerned. - Steve Spalding

u all rule! - Marco(aureliusmaximus)

Best part of my day so far: I earned a "favorite" from Thomas Hawk for one of my Flickr photos! The day can only get better from here. :) - Kevin C. Tofel

thomas, i'm still confused why you enjoyed the first picture i took with my cardboard iphone scanner so much... - Kyle A Koch

Kyle, great minimalism. :) - Thomas Hawk

beautiful, thanks to friendfeed to allow this fact: I suscribed to Robert Scoble, and I can see these beautiful photos! lol - Marc Dahan

Marc, you should probably just subscribe to Thomas, too. :-) - Jordan Hofker

this could certainly be useful for designers as they create pages that are usable for everyone, including those who are color blind. even just for those who arer curious, this is kind of interesting - Kyle A Koch

I'm part of the color-blind population so those logos look extra strange to me. - Kyle Hebert

I didn't know that, Kyle. Are you saying the logos in this post look weirder than normal for you? - Jason Toney

Sony Reader to me has a better user experience. Easier to hold, navigate, and has great page clarity. Kindle is a bit clunky, feels like cheap plastic, and you basically can't help but accidently press a button on it. If the Sony Reader had EVDO built in. Wow. - Gary Bacon II

This is great news. I hope this will lead to better support for Mac users. Right now, you're out of luck without a Windows box. - Chris Baskind

I am DYING for a mobile bookreader to read the gigs of PDF medical/science texts *I already have*. I am not interested in making another version (and subsequent loss) for a proprietary format. I heard Sony's PDF native capabilities abysmal, but that may have changed in a firmware update, not sure. There are so many media players out there--why so few edocument readers? I'd love the... more... - Enrico C. from twhirl

The first reader to have strong support for PDF and CHM files gets my support. - Alvin Ashcraft

The sony reader looks really nice. Form is important, especially if it is really bad. The Kindle reminded me of some of my kids toys. It is hard to be taken seriously with that type of perception. - Rob Diana

Enrico: same here, a PDF reader is just what I need for my job reading scientific papers easily. The Kimdle is too plasticky for me it looks like an Etch-a-sketch toy - Sally Church from fftogo

i'mwaiting to see the second kindle, and hoping the design changes a bit - Kyle A Koch

I'm also anxiously waiting for Kindle 2 to come out, supposedly around October. - imabonehead