Joe Duck

Global Warming – what’s to come?

JoeDuck — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:44:19 +0000

Today’s report on the IPCC “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” suggests that although the science is now clear, the politics are getting in the way of the credibility of the IPCC and climate science in general. Unfortunately in my view we are not debating the important items about warming, which relate not so much to the science (that proves there is warming and suggests strongly that it’s caused by humans), but relate to whether we can do anything about this and how dangerous the warming will be for humanity. In my view there is little to do now regardless of how dangerous the warming is to humanity, but it’s also unlikely the dangers are anything like they have been advertised by many in the activist community.

So I’m hoping to explore each of the following talking points in the coming months:

Climate change Impacts from NATURE CONSERVANCY:

Impact: Higher temperatures
Impact: Changing landscapes
Impact: Wildlife at risk
Impact: Rising seas
Impact: Increased risk of drought, fire and floods
Impact: Stronger storms and increased storm damage
Impact: More heat-related illness and disease
Impact: Economic losses

It should be clear to everybody that the earth has warmed a bit over the past century – most scientists believe about 0.8 degrees. It’s also *fairly* clear now that humans are almost certainly responsible for most of that warming, although there is more intelligent criticism of that idea than many believe (climateaudit.org is the best source for the “smart skeptic” POV).

But far more relevant that those two issues are the following two issues:

1. How will this affect us?

2. What can we do about warming?

…. to be continued …

Got Dead?

JoeDuck — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:16:26 +0000

One of the biggest legitimate beefs with the media and our own silly perceptions of the way the world works is how foolish we are with the math of death. Breathless news reports talk about a death here or a few deaths there, ignoring the fact that death….happens a lot. Only by a good review of the statistics can we begin to understand the significance – or in many case the insignificance – of reports of violence and death. We tend to confuse “unusual” or “interesting” events with significant ones, and I think this is getting worse as the media increasingly depends on keeping the prurient interest of mathematically inept viewers.

From Centers for Disease Control – 2007 stats:

Mortality experience in 2007

•

In 2007, a total of 2,423,712 resident deaths were registered in the United States.

•

The age-adjusted death rate, which takes the aging of the population into account, was 760.2 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population.

•

Life expectancy at birth was 77.9 years.

•

The 15 leading causes of death in 2007 were:

Diseases of heart (heart disease)

Malignant neoplasms (cancer)

Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)

Chronic lower respiratory diseases

Accidents (unintentional injuries)

Alzheimer’s disease

Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)

Influenza and pneumonia

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)

10.

Septicemia

11.

Intentional self-harm (suicide)

12.

Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis

13.

Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)

14.

Parkinson’s disease

15.

Assault (homicide)

•

In 2007, the infant mortality rate was 6.75 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Here are the numbers for the top 10 (also from CDC for 2007)

Heart disease: 616,067
Cancer: 562,875
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,924
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 123,706
Alzheimer’s disease: 74,632
Diabetes: 71,382
Influenza and Pneumonia: 52,717
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 46,448
Septicemia: 34,828

HD TV Hookup Tips and links. Plasma TV, LCD TV, and LED TVs

JoeDuck — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:23:46 +0000

Although many others could do a much better job offering these tips, I’m doing it out of the great sense of frustration I’ve had during the transition to High Definition broadcasting and the plethora of new TVs and video options. Please add links via the comments if you have a good source of hookup information.

For the folks out there who are easily frustrated and don’t like setting things up I’d encourage using your Cable folks or ”Geek squad” or other services to set up systems rather than working on them yourself, as the number of options has become so great it’s hard to “get it all right”.

HD TV Primer from “HowStuffWorks” | HD TV Primer from Wikipedia:

HD TV Hookup Help:

Generally you’ll want to follow the diagrams included with your cable box and/or TV set since individual items can vary. Try to visualize the “ins and outs” as best you can, recognizing that there are basically either audio or video signals coming in and out of each component. Sometimes these run on separate cables (as in the old style AV jacks), sometimes they run on the same cable (as in HDMI). You will generally only use a few of the total connection points available on a new device, so don’t get overwhelmed by the many options – most are simply different ways to skin the audio / video cat.

OLD Article with good summary of some issues

Why NON HD programs can have worse picture quality on your fancy new TV: http://forums.soundandvisionmag.com/showthread.php?75220-Non-HDTV-content-on-HDTV-worse-than-on-SDTV

I’m floored by how many people do not think this is an important and frustrating issue as we transition to “all HD all the time”. In general terms your expensive new TV will give you INFERIOR picture for standard TV. Eventually SD TV signals will go away but that’s not the case yet.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: Play with your TV Video display options via the TV setup screen to see if you can improve the standard picture. For people with “mostly HD” channels this may not be important, but if you only get a handful of HD channels you may be frustrated with the new TV.

Hookup your OLD VCR to NEW TV: http://www.ehow.com/how_5783352_attach-vcr-new-lcd-tv.html

In general you’ll want to consider getting new DVD player (and perhaps “surround sound” audio equipment with your new TV. Even $150 will get you a decent HD disk player with a modest audio “surround sound” setup that offers a great movie experience. However if you have a lot of old video tapes you may want a combination DVD Video player.

TO BE CONTINUED …

Yosemite2010 134

JoeDuck — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:09:57 +0000

Yosemite2010 134

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

The Clouds Rest hike in Yosemite was fantastic – one of the best hikes I’ve ever done in terms of scenery, modest difficulty, and drama as you ascend the last portion to some of the best views in the park (which, in the case of Yosemite, means some of the best views …. on earth…

We camped at Sunrise Lakes, a very steep hike of about 3 miles, then up to Clouds Rest the next day. It’s 10 miles round trip but the elevation gain from the lakes – which are at about 9200 feet – was just moderate.

At the top of Clouds Rest you can see most of Yosemite, with magnificent viewing for the entire 360 degrees. Especially spectacular is the look down Tenaya Canyon into Yosemite Valley far below. Half Dome hikers are visible with binoculars making their way up the cables that cover the last few hundred yards of the Half Dome hike.

The Half Dome hike offers great views and a huge sense of accomplishment when you make the top, but I’d say Clouds Rest is even more scenic.

Yosemite – what a great American Masterpiece!

Vietnam’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites

JoeDuck — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:44:51 +0000

Vietnam’s UNESCO World Heritage List

Cultural

Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long – Hanoi (2010)
Complex of Hué Monuments (1993)
Hoi An Ancient Town (1999)
My Son Sanctuary (1999)

Natural

Ha Long Bay (1994)
Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park (2003)

I’m planning the 2011 trip to Vietnam, taking a look at all the great places which I’ll have to narrow down to the ten or so I’ll be able to visit in my trip of about 3 weeks which is also going to include Angor Wat in Cambodia. Hanoi, nearby Ha Long Bay, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and Historic Hoi An are already “must sees” for me.

Vernazza in Cinque Terre Italy 317

JoeDuck — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:52:49 +0000

Vernazza in the Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, National Park, and very cool place in Italy.

Cinque Terre Italy 317

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

I may have posted this already here at Joe Duck but I was reviewing the Europe Trip photos and could not resist. This was a great place, and as I recall the highlights of our 8 country adventure I would put the Cinque Terre at the very top. Spectacular and cozy, historic and charming, this is a wonderful place.

www.TravelandHistory.com

Got Travel? Travel Blogs and Travel Bloggers, Unite!

JoeDuck — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:12:48 +0000

For some time (100,000 years in internet dog years), I’ve wanted to collect *all* the travel blogs in one spot and organize them by destination. That’s not happening … yet … but I’m very happy to see so many great folks online blogging travel now as well as many lists of bloggers popping up.

An interesting issue in finding the holy grail of travel information is whether people would rather hear from *travelers* or from *locals*. I used to lean to the former – ie I wanted to hear from other folks who had visited a place to get the best information, but it’s become clear to me now that the best source for travel information are well informed local folks – ideally those who are in the travel industry and therefore familiar with a lot of attractions, hotels, restaurants, history, customs, etc. An example for Oregon is … me.

I worked in the travel industry for many years and I know a *lot* about Oregon, especially Southern Oregon. Unfortunately there are not very many people blogging “local travel” from a local perspective. Ironically pretty much all the travel writing blog folks (including me) are so busy talking about their own trips out and about, they are not writing much about their local places – the kind of information that would be simply wonderful if you were to visit a place.

So … my challenge to travel bloggers is to write a few posts about things to see and do in your own neck of the woods. Let me know if you do and I’ll be happy to feature it prominently at our heavy traffic site ”Travel and History”. Please include a bit of history in the travelogue if you can.

Here are some from some cool traveling folks:

Blogs/ Travelers list from Traveling Teri:

Blogroll from Travel Answer Man John Van Kirk:

From Elliot.org

Alaska TravelGram
Almost Fearless
Anders Meanders
Arthur Frommer
Brave New Traveler
Consumerist
Evan Sparks
Everett Potter
ExpertCruiser
Flight Wisdom
Gadling
Hidden Travel Gems
Hotel Blogs by Guillaume Thevenot
HotelChatter
Intelligent Travel
Jaunted
Jeanne Leblanc
LLWorldTour
Marriott on the Move
MaxaBlog
Online Travel Review
Peter Greenberg
PlaneBuzz
Rick Seaney
Roads Less Traveled
Safe Cruise
Ship Critic blog
Southwest Airlines
T2Impact
The BOOT
The Cruise Log
The Daily Traveler
The Practical Nomad
This Just In…..
Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations
Towers and Tarmacs
Travel Babel
Travel Gear Blog
Travel Log
Travel Maven blog
Travel Post
Travel Rants
Traveler 2.0
Traveler’s Check
Tripinator – Travel 2.0
Tripso
Upgrade: travel better
USA Today’s Hotel Hotsheet
World Hum
WSJ.com: The Middle Seat Terminal

Flickr to PS3 slide show troubleshooting. Name bar right click for “Date Picture Taken”

JoeDuck — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:26:11 +0000

Wow, I sure had a remarkably difficult time getting my pictures from Flickr to a flash drive to a slide show on our high def TV using the PS3. Seems like it should have been a snap, but here are some troubleshooting tips if you find yourself with the same challenge (Why bother? Because slide shows on big TVs are so nice compared to having people cluster around your computer screen!)

* Bulkr is a great Flickr backup tool – it worked beautifully and pulled my Flickr pictures onto my hard drive.

* Note that you may need to right click on the “name” bar in the folders as you work with them – the taskbar that has the file names – and tell it to display the “date picture taken” data. For slide shows it is often important to have “date picture taken” information so you can order the shots in the same sequence that you took them (assuming you kept up the time and date stamps on the camera – a very important thing to do although Flickr will let you bulk modify those if needed).

* If pictures are not showing up, try loading them into a folder named “pictures”.

* Using your PS3 controller, go to the “Photos” section and select the option for the flash drive / removable drive. Using the triangle button you should be able to display the contents of the flash drive, though inconsistencies here have been one of the problems for me.

….. to be continued …. maybe…..

Hardbat Classic Las Vegas – Please Bring it Back Budweiser!

JoeDuck — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:10:12 +0000

Hardbat Classic Las Vegas – Eric Owens and Wally Green

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

As a table tennis enthusiast I’m hoping Bud Light brings back the Big Money Hard Bat Classic Hard Bat Table Tennis Tournament they had last year across the country, with a great finale tournament in Las Vegas and then shown on ESPN.

As a marketing guy I’m sensitive to the fact this may not have had the return on investment Bud had hoped for – probably because the early promotion was too spotty. Bud may not even have realized that offering 100,000 in first prize money *alone* would bring a huge number of excellent players into the mix even as they did realize that the severe handicapping and restricted paddles would pretty much guarantee that the winner would NOT be a great player, just a “good” one. [with apologies to Jack Baker, a tennis guy with a very good game who won the tournament because he was spotted up to 17 points in matches against better players].

I think the handicapping is a great idea, though I’d recommend Bud have *two* tournaments next time – one with handicaps and one with regular paddles and rules. “Real” Table Tennis is an amazing sport, and I think part of the reason the Hardbat Classic seemed to fail to attract as much attention as it should have was that the event worked hard to perpetuate the notion that it’s a “goofy” sport. I’m not too sensitive about this (and surprisingly even many of the greats in Table Tennis are very modest about their remarkable ability) , but the two-track approach would work better where you showcased “basement style” hardbat along with the blazing spin and speed of quality sponge rubber play. The $120,000 in prize money was chump change to Bud even as it was *by far* the largest prize in US Table Tennis history and one of the largest purses in the world for this low-money sport.

Summary for Bud Light’s Marketing Benefit:

* Hold another Hardbat Classic

* Begin promotions *now* via bars and Bud regional distributors, making sure their participation matched the size and scope of the venue. Last year I think many regionals opted out due to expense, so the Vegas event was “bigger” than the collective national events. Keep Vegas the same (it was great), but make sure the national scope is much bigger than last year, even if that takes more time to promote. If necessary cut costs by halving the Las Vegas convention venue and limiting the number of “free trips” – or perhaps initiate a modest “buy in” for participants. It’s cheap to get to Las Vegas and often cheap to stay there, so the impact of this does not require a large number of free trips for players. More prize money would probably have a higher ROI than free trips. Venue could have been half that size – I never saw all the tables in action and games could have been started and run much earlier.

* Change the online marketing to be a viral, social media rather than the centralized, very weak website with limited information as before.

* Enlist the help of the many Table Tennis clubs throughout the USA, perhaps with modest stipends to help promote / run the bar tournaments. Few players in California and Oregon (areas I know pretty well) knew about this tournament, and very few bars seemed very enthusiastic about an event that – if properly promoted – would bring them some business.

* HAVE TWO tournament tracks – Hardbat Classic’s “Ping Pong” and an open division with regular paddles and players from all over the world. Bud’s big in China now, so use this as a way to promote the brand there. Even a modest first prize of 25,000 in the elite division will bring players from all over the world and provide much better chance to bring in a lot more spectator / players who are going to be interested in seeing world class play.

WordPress Publishing Problems with Flickr or other programs?

JoeDuck — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:22:57 +0000

Another reminder (because I’ve needed this many times) that you must enable WordPresses “Remote Publishing” protocols if you want to blog photos directly from Flickr (a fantastic feature – I wish more people could do this but it remains a little tricky to set up both at Flickr and at WP unless you know this is needed (defaults have these boxes UNchecked). I think you only need the XML-RPC after correct configuration at Flickr, but do both so you have more ways to publish to your WP blog:

Remote Publishing

To post to WordPress from a desktop blogging client or remote website that uses the Atom Publishing Protocol or one of the XML-RPC publishing interfaces you must enable them below.

Atom Publishing Protocol	Atom Publishing Protocol Enable the Atom Publishing Protocol.
XML-RPC	XML-RPC Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.