The Georgia fans are sure to notice #34, but did you see the pictures of young #7 (not related to Georgia)?

The soldier with his gun while wearing boxers and flip-flops was my favorite.

People, learn that a cease-and-desist order or a DMCA takedown notice will not quiet the damning story.  Neither will a gag order (that’s an example).  One of my favorite recent examples is the Ralph Lauren scandal involving the photoshopped skinny model and BoingBoing’s response to a DMCA takedown notice:

So, to Ralph Lauren, GreenbergTraurig, and PRL Holdings, Inc: sue and be damned. Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better. And every time you threaten to sue us over stuff like this, we will:

a) Reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it, and;

b) Publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart; and

c) Offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.

Look folks, people notice these things.  Especially in the Internet Age.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (like the ACLU for the internet) has even compiled the “Takedown Hall of Shame.”  And Chilling Effects has a database of takedown orders.

Stop the thought process that says we can make this better by trying to shut someone up.  It doesn’t work and it makes a bigger story.

Here’s a great drink, a blueberry lemonade:

• 1 or 2 parts Blueberry vodka
• 3 parts Lemonade (I use Simply Lemonade)
• Frozen blueberries

Mix in a highball, and add cracked ice. Drink quickly.

This is a great summer drink.

First, I am writing this in version 2.8 of WordPress.  WordPress 2.8 is an incremental improvement on 2.7, but it really rocks.  Here is the post announcing WordPress 2.8 (check out the video for the highlights) and here are some tips and tricks for using WordPress 2.8.

And because of the new WordPress release, I have fixed up a few things around here.  I disabled WP-Super-Cache (this takes a bit of load off the server by generating static HTML pages instead of querying the database ever page load) because it was messing with the Twitter bar on the right (really old tweets were showing up).  I will likely reenable this is traffic every picks up, but for now the site doesn’t need any caching.

I have also changed the byline of this site (again).  It began as Life in Athens, GA, then switched to Life in Lawrence, KS (when I moved to start grad school), then to Life in Jefferson County, CO (again, when I moved to Colorado).  These were all adequate descriptions of the site, but it needed something more.  WordPress includes that byline in the page title, so it shows up when you search on Google.  So I decided to use a more applicable byline for what I’ve been writing about.  Now the page title (and Google) read Chris M. Lindsey: Technology and Social Media in Public Administration.  I’m not completely sure about this, but hopefully it will last for a while.

Now for the links:

• This article from the New York Times introduces the country to a 31-year-old Brian Deese, who is a major player in the automotive industry recovery.  Great article, and great job for Brian.  I hope more young people can make it into positions of influence, because I know we can bring a lot to the table.
• The City of San Francisco is accepting complaints from citizens via Twitter.  I think this is the biggest of all the links, because it shows a city trying to connect with their citizens in the ways they communicate.  And you know what, this probably didn’t take very long or cost much (if any) money to implement.  Here is the Twitter user that is accepting the complaints.  More governments need to be doing this.
• The New York Times says that smartphones are a necessity.  Especially if you are out of a job (sarcasm).  Seriously, why do jobless people need to be spending the money for a smartphone?
• Ars Technica reviews the Palm Pre smartphone.  What I find interesting here is the discussion on the second page about having better contact integration.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be syncing (because who wants to have all of their Facebook friends or Gmail contact listings on their cell phone address book), but you should be able to access the contacts on these services.  And search all of them from one place.
• Time has a great article on whether computer nerds can save old-fashioned journalism.
• Gina Trapani linked to this great article in the New York Times that profiles Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great.  If you’ve read the book, read this profile.
• Last but not least, the Athens-Banner Herald covers an Eagle Scout project.  Paul (a fellow Eagle Scout) sent me this link.  Jamie Jackson of Athens went above and beyond the call of Scouting and created a fish habitat from discarded Christmas trees.  The fish habitat is quite needed at Lake Chapman (in Sandy Creek Park, Athens) because of the way the lake was constructed (pretty much all lakes in Georgia were man-made), it cuts down on natural fish habitats.  Way to go, Jamie Jackson!

That’s it for today.  I hope to be writing more as I get into a more regular schedule with work.

This is the first snowfall I’ve experienced since I’ve moved to Kansas (there was snow on the ground when I got back from Thanksgiving). The storm report says we received 0.7 inches of snow, and there were 54 reported accidents in Douglas County with 5 minor injuries. The driving wasn’t bad (for me), but there was a bit of ice this evening in my parking lot and on some walkways. Now, surviving the rest of the winter will likely be much more difficult.