How I Became Accidentally Green

I don't think I could ever convince anyone that I'm a fundamental, granola-loving hippie. Let me step in front of the oncoming alternative-fuel bus and just say, yeah, I turn off lights, I recycle, but I don't really go out of my way to be a beacon for all things green.

Why? Well, for one thing, I like having a charge on my phone, so I keep it plugged in (oh no, phantom power!). I like the way physical books and newspapers feel as I read them.

I'm all for a good environment (it sure as hell beats a bad one), but to be massively diligent on controlled consumption is, well, time consuming.

I came across two pieces this week to think about. I was reminded of an old post on Micropersuasion about going "Media Green," where downloads of books, music, e-mail and information get filtered directly to digital forms and exist there only. I look at it, nod a little and go, "Yeah, I guess I'm doing that sort of stuff." I print a little more than zero, but I do carry a briefcase just so I have something to put my iPod and lunch in on the metro ride in (seriously). I'm not really printing *that* much.

So, pat myself on the back. I don't need birkenstocks, but, hey, what do you know, it doesn't have to be a burden to be green. I'm contributing!

Then, I came across this today at WebWorkerDaily:

8. Web work can help save the planet. Corporations are shouting from the tops of their skyscrapers that they are going green. Want an easy success story in this area that you can use to make stakeholders feel good about you? Save fossil fuels by implementing telecommuting and remote work processes. Corporate workers care about saving the planet, too.

I'm a Metro-er (as well documented here), but let's not worry about the commuting stuff for a moment. There is clearly a different driving force here. Limit the paper by going digital all you want, but demonstrating a smaller footprint (wow, Hippie-ism alert) is apparently a CSR tactic, especially in the energy-good, big-business-bad world.

Looks like now we're monetizing planet-saving. Awesome.

Cut Back on Phantom Power [Treehugger]
Simple Ways to Go Media Green [Micropersuasion]
14 Things Corporations Can Learn from Seasoned Web Workers [WebWorkerDaily]

Why I Love the MLB All-Star Game

This post was originally a column that was written while being a radio host/writer at WZBC (Boston College's home for sports) in 2005. I have left it unedited (for the most part). The funniest part about this is that, for the most part, it stands the test of the last three years. Even funnier is that my thoughts on Bonds and Clemens stay the same.

The Classic

30 years before the NBA was founded. Before the Pro Bowl. Before the Super Bowl for that matter. It was somewhere in between the time when Canada discovered hockey, lost all of its teams to Snowbird cities like Miami and Phoenix, and everyone forgot about the NHL. It's what happened in 1933 when, on the afternoon of July the 6th, when the All-Stars first got together to play for no one other than the fans.

Before there was the WNBA. Before the Coney Island Hot Dog Show Down. Before Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France (what was that, like, 1950 or something?). July has been marked by one event for over three quarters of a century. The Mid-Summer Classic does not apply to the new season of the Real World (Austin? Are they serious?) or that point when we realize we are already sick of Barry Bonds (He's not even playing this year and I've had enough).

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has, without doubt, more weight than any of the other major sports mid-season (or post-season) Superstar Exhibition 'Blockbusters.' In leagues like the NHL or the NBA, the most entertaining times of "All Star Weekend" are the skills competitions. Players get way more into the slam-dunk contest and Slap-Shot-Sharp-Shooting than the games, due to the potential of injury. Even still, these events can get boring (save last years Josh Smith/Amare Stoudemire show in Denver for the Dunks), and they miss prime time with Saturday afternoon scheduling. Nothing else in this vein of Superstar Sports generates the interest that the All-Star Break garnishes.

Each day on either side of All-Star Tuesday is literally devoid of any other sports competitions in almost everything (middle stages of the Tour de Lance seem to be the only exclusion). The Home Run Derby on Monday night is less a skills contest than it is a reenactment of every backyard in America from the last day of school until September 1st. Where will I be the beginning of next week? I'll be glued to the TV for two straight nights of fantastic entertainment. I love watching the players at the Home Run Derby, because they act exactly like those aforementioned to kids.

Sitting on the baselines, regardless of whether or not they are one of the eight in the derby, chumming it up with everyone. There's been a lot of things that have ruined the purity of the All-Star game is recent years, but that will never change the fact that these players are just the result of years of backyard "bottom-of-the-9th-two-out-bases-loaded-down-by-two" fantasies. There's a good reason that the theme to the 2003 contest in Chicago was "Boys of Summer," (even if it was the Ataris cover of it, although I appreciate the Don Henley version more) because these guys are just a bunch of kids.

I will try as hard as I can to drown out the recent travesties (Ties? There haven't been ties in baseball since we invented electric stadium lights back in the dark ages. Bud, you better watch yourself) with some of the great memories of the past. Some of my favorite moments include Ripken sliding over to his natural position, Pudge's double into the pads, Clemens getting shelacked last year in Houston. These are some of the great moments of history.

Before there was Interleague, this was the only chance to watch the AL and NL battle. Legend speaks of that first game at Comiskey back in '33. The American League crowd wanted to see him, but so did the National League team. And, no matter how old the Babe was, he still garnered respect. The first home run in All-Star history was put in the right field bleachers by none other than Ruth, and it led the Americans to a 4-2 victory. What's more impressive, though, is that the players on both teams revered the chance to play with the others.

I am an fan of Interleague play, I like how it has worked in the last few years. Yes, I'm sick of reporters whining about meaningless match-ups and uneven schedules, but, they are also trying significantly hard to find a story in every series (which, during regular play, as we know, isn't necessarily true either). Then again, it has made the All-Star game less pristine.

The one change which is infuriating is the "This Time It Counts" mentality of a reward to the winner of the game. Home Field Advantage for the World Series is absolutely crucial (ask the Diamondbacks and Angels). If that hangs in balance over this, an exhibition game, it takes away some of merit associated with HFA. While alternating possession of the honor may not necessarily be fair either, if it is going to be based on any objective measure, it should be season performance. The marketing boost is nice, and, while it does change the tone of the game just a tad, it still is just a gimmick with real consequences.

It's the halfway point of the season, and, I could sit and write about my MVP favorites (Tejada and Lee) or Cy Young Candidates (Halladay and Willis), but the All-Star break is about the long ball and the lazy days of summer. Everything comes back full circle next week and it'll be time to start talking about World Series matchups, second half flops and the Wild Card, so, for just one week, enjoy the boys of summer.

Was this the face that launched 2.0-thousand ships?

I fired through my google reader and e-mail late yesterday afternoon and I had picked up an e-mail from a friend about songs she thought I would like and should learn. Quickly, I trotted to iTunes, found the various artists and tunes she mentioned, and started researching through the songwriters.

Ten years ago it wasn't this easy.

I sort my music by the date it was added to my library. The first songs I downloaded, way back in 1998, they are all still there. We're coming up on a pretty remarkable anniversary in the next few months. 10 years ago, MP3s went from being back-traded on geek channels like mIRC and ICQ to mainstream forms of music.

Say what you want about web content growing, the anyone's-a-developer blog revolution, and the transition away from print media. We are nowhere near Web 2.0 (or what point-oh we are at these days) without the growth of music distribution through the internet.

Think about it this way. What did MP3s do? Within the gray-lines of the DMCA, we took massive files of music that were seemingly tethered down, and made them digestible quantities of only a couple of megs (true geek moment here: at the average 128 kbps, the 3 minutes song clocks in pretty close to the 4 mb range. In wav or cd formats, that's about 45 megs), and started figuring out we could pass them back and forth.

When Peer-2-Peer sharing went to the masses, it changed the internet. Napster did that. It broke down the geek barrier of entry. The normal internet consumer realized they could become each others content providers. That was the tipping point.

The first ever social media was music. It went from record store conversations to consumable bits that anyone could pass around their own channels.

Blogs are just technology. But until we realized that we could provide each other with valid content, the vehicle wouldn't be necessary.

Napster gave us the first sign, in 1999, that the users could reach each other across the Internet, without a middle man. Without the understanding that we could share, we wouldn't. That to me is what makes Web 2.0.