Vy Blog

Portland Stormhoek Geek Event

Ray and I hosted the Portland version of Stormhoek's and Hugh's 100 Dinners in 100 Days at his house last night.  We had a great turnout -- half marketers and half wiki enthusiasts.  Probably 25 people total.

Ray had a good idea for an opening -- we organized into a circle for introductions, and as you made an intro, you took a picture of the person next to you.  We'll post it all up on Flickr or something later.  Everyone talked about their backgrounds and why they were interested in collaboration, as it applies to development or marketing.  It set a solid context for the event.

After getting food (which was fabulous) and a glass of wine, I gave an abbreviated opening presentation about collaborative marketing, followed by a demo by Ray of the use of wikis in the world today.  They were good interactive sessions with ideas and questions flying around the room.  Afterward, we stuck around, meeting new people and exchanging notes.  It was very positive and productive.  And we all took away a signed print from Hugh as a way to remember the evening.

And Erika Polmar was there and shared pics from her Mt. Hood climb.  She summitted early Sunday and met her fundraising goal (a buck per foot, so that's $11,235 plus) for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.  Well done.

Thanks for a great idea, Hugh, and Sam, thanks for the great wine.  See you next time.

Bacon

I have a number of friends with whom I share a working assumption:  Want to improve any meal?  Add bacon.  Yes.  Bacon.

And now we have bacon snack bars.

Interesting stuff

USA Today is publishing a study it conducted on deaths related to activity on college campuses.  It is very interesting reading.  There's also a sidebar about what some schools are trying to do to head similar problems off at the pass.

One paragraph in the story particularly struck me:

These students "have the rubric of being legal adults, and yet they are not completely independent or completely capable of making adult decisions," says Johnson, author of Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send the Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years. "Kids today have been more supervised and controlled than any other generation. It means they are ill-equipped to handle the responsibility and consequences of independent life."

It struck me because I can imagine that being true.  God help me when my own kids are that age -- hopefully we will have helped equip them to make good decisions.  I want them to be able to recognize and avoid the behavior I see from some (not all) teens, which is sort of a constant sense of entitlement and zero consequences -- good and bad -- from decisions. 

It's not just teens, either -- my generation has the same problem.  Maybe we're all just too fat and happy and aren't put in a position to really appreciate college and other privileges we enjoy.  I remember my grandfather, who worked in a gas station to pay his tuition, wondering why college was a "throwaway" for so many people.  To him, it was an opportunity he couldn't believe he actually had.  No similar perspective today.

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Exactly half the stories in GigaLaw today are about privacy.  I can't imagine this issue will go away; far from it, in fact.  I expect it to become a dominant public policy issue and front and center in many political campaigns for some time to come.

All good reading:

Google Agrees to Censor Search Results in China

Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market.  The Mountain View, Calif.-based company planned to roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix ".cn".

BBC Accuses Iran of Blocking Its Website

The BBC accused Tehran of blocking its Farsi-language Web site, which it describes as one of the most influential sources of news in Iran.  The BBC says its Farsi site, BBCpersian.com, normally receives 30 million page views a month, making it the British broadcaster's most popular foreign-language site.

Internet Users Lack Privacy in Subscriber Info, Judge Says

Internet users surrender any privacy rights they have to their subscriber information when they sign up for online service, a new Haven Superior Court judge has ruled in a matter of first impression in Connecticut.  The decision by Judge Nicola E. Rubinow rejects a motion to suppress evidence that was brought by a Southbury family whose computer was seized by police investigating an alleged online harassment of a Quinnipiac University student.

More People Interested in Having Anonymity Online

Interest in software that allows people to send e-mail messages that cannot be traced to their source or to maintain anonymous blogs has quietly incresed over the last few years, say experts who monitor Internet security and privacy.  "People in the world are more interested in anonymity now than they were in the 1990's," when the popularity of the Internet first surged, said Chris Palmer, technology manager at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group in San Francisco dedicated to protecting issues like free speech on the Web.

Rice Junkies

Hey, what happened to Rice Junkies?  Kjel and I went for lunch last week and the place was locked up.

I'm still upset.  One of my favorite spots.

Tina's

Dinner tonight at Tina's in Dundee.  We haven't been here for some time, but it's actually one of my favorite spots.  The menu is simple -- probably fewer than ten entrees, balanced between fresh seafood and beef, pork, chicken, etc.  All very nicely prepared.  And, of course, a wonderful wine list -- plenty from Willamette Valley vintners.  Looking forward to this.

Missouri wine

I'm a Missouri native but never have been a big fan of its wines.  What I've known for a while -- that the state is a high-volume producer of wines you don't typically find on the coasts -- is profiled in this article, which is a nice review of what the region offers.

I don't care for the sweet varietals, which is most of what's produced here, but the wines are gaining respect.  I do like Les Bourgois' premium claret, though it's overpriced.  If you look at some of the sites from the wineries profiled, you can see the German influence on the region just from the names of the wineries alone.  The grapes, too, produce some German-ish wines that remind me of sweet rieslings or gewruztraminer.

I still prefer the Oregon and California varietals, but that's just my taste.  In my experience, John Held (owner of Stone Hill) is right when he says the Midwestern palate likes the sweet varietals.  Some of these folks wouldn't blink at drinking syrupy wines.  Not my taste but I can't really begrudge theirs.

What I do begrudge is the a-hole behavior around Octoberfest in this region, which used to be a relaxed, enjoyable series of weekends of food and wine but in recent years has turned into another reason for Midwesterners to get knee-walking drunk.  Nice job, ruining another good thing.

I would love to see Missouri wines continue to grow into respectability.  I don't know much about wine production, but it seems like what's needed is 1) more education about the grapes and the wines produced from them, 2) more understanding about how these wines pair with foods outside the Midwest, 3) some drinkable, low-priced "everyday" wines that would encourage people to stock more rather than go for Two-Buck Chuck, 4) winning some national and international competitions.

Oh, and lest you think I'm a wine snob, which I'm not and I hope I don't sound like, take my advice and use this response when anyone asks you about a wine you're tasting and you have nothing intelligent to offer:  "I find it assertive without being arrogant."