Here’s a How-To article I wrote on how I manage the daily onslaught of disgruntled clients. Click the above link to read the article. If you would like to read more How-To articles I have written, Click here to view my EHow.com profile.

xoxo,
nathaniel

Did Batman foil the Joker’s plot to steal all the chocolate hearts on the 14th?  No, he gave him THIS.

Did Jeff Gordon cry when female NASCAR driver Shawna Robinson rejected his advances on the racetrack? Of course not! Instead, he sent her one of THESE!

You see, this holiday is not just for the betrothed and the beloved.  It is for all the “haters,” too.  If you are feeling bitter this weekend, then I have the perfect gift for you to send to that special someone (or nemesis):  A FREE GREETING CARD!

Click to download free greeting card

Front Cover:  “The Bible says… Love Your Enemies.”
Inside:  “I love you.  Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Download this royalty free greeting card, print as many as you like, and send it to everyone you despise.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  I love you.

xoxo,
Nathaniel

(Not my actual backseat)

While we have learned a lesson in the value of other peoples’ time, we have failed to learn the virtue of cleanliness (which is now above Godliness).  We are both marginally tidy regarding personal affects, but lack the discipline required to collect the elusive paper waste that accumulates on the floorboard.  The result:  a monthly purge.  When one of us finally reaches our tipping point (usually me), we scoop out all the trash to be sorted, recycled, and discarded.  What I find most, however, is junk food wrappers (admittedly mine).

America, the Beautiful
During my teens, my church youth group adopted two portions of highway in our hometown.  This meant that once a quarter, the lot of us donned orange safety vests, rubber gloves, and work clothes and crawled down into the ditch to start cleaning.  Our chain gang filled bag after bag full of soggy refuse from all walks of life.  Save for the occasional flattened armadillo, the overwhelming yield was fast food waste.

Environmental stewardship is the new littering, and it is time for a change in the way we consume.  Most often, if we consider eating fast food, we think about how it will affect our bodily health.  We might also weigh the meal’s impact on our monthly budget.  But do we  the amount of waste that stands between the morsels’ creation and their digestion?   Regardless of the answer, we should start thinking about it.

For a colorful and entertaining online brochure about the American fast food industry’s paper consumption, CLICK HERE.

It looks more like she’s trying to squeeze him for information.

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” – Oscar Wilde

This week, an e-friend of mine, Steve J. Moore, proposed an interesting question: Does the Internet reflect Humanity or vice versa? To start the discussion, we will take a look at life before Internet. Then, we will examine the life after Internet and its impact on the individual.

Information is power
Nikola Tesla began tinkering with the wireless transmission of information in 1891. The first television broadcasts were transmitted in 1928 to mechanical tv sets with horrible picture quality. In the mid thirties to the beginning of the forties, mechanical sets were commercially available for home use, but production soon stopped as manufacturing efforts became focused on World War II. After the war, the technological boom began to pick up speed again. The first full-color set came in 1954 and cost $1,000.  Today, one thousand bucks buys you a 50″ flat screen tv like this.

Figure 1.1

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the availability of information and its value (see Figure 1.1).  In other words, the easier accessing information becomes, the less we are willing to pay for it.  To learn more about this correlation, read Thomas L. Friedman’s book, The World is Flat.  The expansive virtual bank of knowledge has made the world seem much smaller.  Thanks to Mobile 2.0, we expect information to be readily available to us at all times, to the extent that even email is considered an inferior form of communication.  I drew Figure 1.1, photographed it with my phone, sent it to my email address, and uploaded it to the blog in less than one minute.  We want information now, and we want it to be free.

The Shape of (Human) Things
I am twenty three years old.  My first vivid memory involves my father busily working on a thesis under the blue glow of a Tandy 1000 computer screen, my curious finger, and a large red reset button (I’ll post the whole story sometime).  The internet, in a relatively archaic form, already existed.  But even in my youth, when I wanted information for an Earth Science research paper on volcanoes I made photocopies of encyclopedia entries in the school library.  The card catalog was not computerized until I was in high school.  Back in my day, you had to be patient – you had to wait for information to come to you.  Back in my day, you had to be dilligent – you had to spend countless hours scouring tiny print and irrelevant factoids in search of answers.  Back in my day, you had to respect the information you sought.

Today, the quality of content published on the internet spreads from precise, powerful information to pure unsolicited crap.  Because the good stuff can be accessed through the same medium as the bad, it has to be free and effortless.

With regard to the value we assign information, I say that Internet reflects Humanity.  Internet – 1, Humanity – 0.

While perusing his blog, I found a widget for “The Go By Bike Challenge.” It is a campaign that challenges participants to reduce their weekly carbon footprint by changing their transportation habits. Instead of hopping in the car next time you crave some junk food from a nearby convenience store, why not hop on your old two-wheeler and pedal there instead? One of the benefits of converting from automobile to bicycle is burning calories. The challenge’s easy to use mileage calculator shows you the number of calories you will burn weekly by making the switch.

The benefits do not stop at the belly, mind you. For the metabolically gifted, perhaps an incentive to save gas money will entice you? The calculator adds that amount up, too.  Finally, if you just have too much money lying around, pledge to pedal and reduce your carbon footprint.

“But Nathaniel, I don’t have a bicycle.”  No problem.  Go on foot everywhere you can, save up some of that extra gas money, and visit one of your participating bike shops to get started.  I walk to work or ride my bike every day (1 to 2 miles per day) and decided to increase my green mileage.  I signed up through A&B Cycle of Springfield, Missouri through the Go By Bike Challenge calculator.  Check out the calculator on the left sidebar and see how many A&B Cycle customers have pledged to conserve their money, health, and emissions.

Why 12 Seconds? According to the 12Seconds.tv “About” page,

Because anything longer is boring. The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.

Things that Take 12 Seconds
It takes “Swagbot” twelve seconds to say something awesome about unicorns.
It takes “sigveA” twelve seconds to play percussion on a reservoir pipe.
It takes this guy twelve seconds to walk to the bathroom at his office.

This site, like most new social media tools, caters to the tiny attention spans of most internet users. For some insight on the mind and matter of this generation, known as the Net Generation, check out Don Tapscott’s new book, Grown Up Digital. Though 12seconds.tv might still be under Tapscott’s radar, he offers great commentary on the Net Gener’s inner desire to create, broadcast, and memorialize every detail of their existence for future generations to discover. Time capsules are no longer limited to physical artifacts, and these online time capsules will not go away.

Do you have 12 seconds on your hands? Sign up for a free account and this moment will last forever!

Instinctively, I took out my phone…and froze. What arrose next was an internal conflict only a member of the Net Generation (and of future generations, no doubt) would consider: Do I take a picture/video, update my twitter, use google.com to call a local news station, or do I call 911? Fortunately I chose the most appropriate option, which was to alert the emergency authorities of the accident.

Why was that even a dilemma? Five years ago, when cell phones didn’t come with internet, I would have had one option. But yesterday I found myself overwhelmed with options in a moment of crisis. It is safe to say that I am not the only person faced with this problem. If other people encounter dramatic/traumatic events, some are likely to stand by and film the event, rather than take a proactive approach (see: The Seinfeld “Good Samaritan” episode). People post countless clips on YouTube, documenting natural disasters, crimes, and accidental injuries without regard for the fellow human.  Conversely, sometimes shooting a video for YouTube is more efficient than calling 911.  Does our ability to self-publish content hinder compassion or concern for others?

All around the water tank waitin’ for a train
A thousand miles away from home sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said if you’ve got money I’ll see that you don’t walk
Well I haven’t got a nickel not a penny can I show
He said get off you railroad bum and he slammed the boxcar door

Well he put me off in Texas a place I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me the moon and stars above
Nobody seems to want me nor to lend me a helping hand
I’m on my way from Frisco headin’ back to Dixie Land
My pocketbook is empty my heart is willed with pain
I’m a thousand miles away from home just waitin’ for a train

-Johnny Cash:  “Waiting for a Train”

What do you do when disaster strikes?  Drive safely.

Hi

Here it is the shortest day of the year.

About two weeks ago we had the earliest sunset of the year; soon we should see a difference.
About two weeks hence will be the latest sunrise; by then the longer evenings will be noticeable.

Happy Belated Solstice.

But what do you do with personal email you receive by mistake? Like many people, I am guilty of “googling” myself from time to time. The results usually are accurate, and I take quiet pride in being the number one search result. With over six trillion people in the world and counting, I am bound to share my name with someone else. If this rule is true, then it might also be fair to say that more than one Nathaniel Carroll has a Gmail account. And even in a world where computers possess infinite, infallible wisdom, mistakes can be made. I regularly receive detailed emails from people I have never met. Half are intended for this guy: Nathaniel Carroll. The other half, this guy: Nathan Carroll.

The first dozen times these errors occurred, I quickly informed the original author, who usually thought I was their Nathaniel Carroll playing a practical joke. Once the disbelief subsides, however, the message eventually makes it to the right place. Lately, though, I’ve been added to the email list of some other Nathaniel Carroll’s grandfather. It appears he has recently discovered email, and I receive two to three forwards from him each day. Thus far, he sent a humorous picture of dogs dressed up for Halloween, a few knock-knock jokes, an article about Obama’s new energy team, and a letter from Santa Clause.

This guy is the only person who actively forwards messages to me. At the advent of email, most people seemed to exclusively send the mass messages; today, it’s a rarity. Now, these emails are quite refreshing and novel. I anticipate them each time I sign in. I worry when my new eGrandfather is silent for a day.

The Dilemma
These emails are not reaching the right Nathaniel. Somewhere out there, the man’s actual grandchild has an empty inbox, and I’m partly to blame. My dilemma is aesthetics and not of ethics. I know that the right thing to do is to report the error to the original author, but I enjoy the emails.

The Solution
Take a moment to vote in the poll below.  I will solve the problem based upon the results of the poll and update with the results.

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