aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Visit @ JoeWindish.com
I’m now blogging at The Moderate Voice where I am the Technology Editor. I do still blog on any topic of interest to me. My posts are here. Or please visit my personal site…
Moving on…
On this day five years ago I was on the road headed to my new life here in Georgia. A group of very dear friends had helped me and Doug pack up the Penske and we left in Brooklyn the night before. My nephew, TJ, joined us for the drive down. 
Hopeful as I was, after 28 years in New York City I had no idea how difficult a transition it would be moving to rural Georgia. This blog has made it a whole lot easier. For the past four years it has been my practice and my routine to try to post four times a day. The control panel tells me that adds up to 4,824 posts.
In that time the blogosphere has been completely transformed. And I have, too. Not exactly a southern man, I don’t know that I can rightly claim to be a New Yorker anymore either. So it’s time for a change. I’m moving back to JoeWindish.com.
That site I intend to be a little different. But that will evolve as time goes on. And you’ll see all about that when you get there…
Saturday, July 12, 2008
E.Webscapes is for Dummies: Stay away from Lisa Sabin-Wilson
NOTE: THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY DATED APRIL 13, 2008. I HAVE CHANGED THE DATE TO PERMANENTLY PLACE IT ON THE ARCHIVED HOME PAGE OF THIS SITE. I CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THAT LISA WAS WILLFULLY NEGLIGENT AND SHOULD BE HELD LIABLE FOR HER AWFUL BUSINESS PRACTICES. UNSUSPECTING CUSTOMERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE NO SAFEGUARDS IN PLACE TO PREVENT THE SAME THING FROM HAPPENING AGAIN.
In October of last year I contracted with Lisa Sabin-Wilson and E.Webscapes Blog Design Studio to “tweak” my blog design, move this blog to a new host, and upgrade my blog software. Sabin-Wilson is the author of WordPress for Dummies, and blogs at Just a Girl in the World.
Prior to contracting with Lisa to do the work I read the FAQ posted on the E.Webscapes site, browsed the portfolio, followed her blog, listened to the podcast of a presentation she did at a conference, and contacted one of her blog clients for a reference. I thought I did my due diligence. I thought wrong.
My experience with Lisa was very bad. Very bad. I opened a ticket with E.Webscapes on October 21, 2007. I paid for services on November 3, 2007. I was told to expect a 20-30 business day turn around. I received a full refund (with $50 extra) on March 26, 2008. 
The full story of my business relationship with Lisa Sabin-Wilson and E.Webscapes is contained in the extended entry of this blog post. I am happy to provide detailed documentation to back up my claims upon request. I am posting this reluctantly in order to help stop this kind of thing from happening to other bloggers.
Read the rest of "E.Webscapes is for Dummies: Stay away from Lisa Sabin-Wilson" in the extended entry.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Authors@Google: Dan Ariely
Thursday, July 10, 2008
David Pogue - The iPhone 3G
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Wall-e
I loved it. So did the NYTimes. Brian sees “unfortunate bigotry” in the “shockingly obese” humans on the Axiom. Slate’s Explainer wonders will cockroaches really be the last survivors on Earth? (No.) Here’s the movie’s official site.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
One day more…
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Playground by the Sea
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Links for 2008-07-05
I’m off to the beach again today…
ON TMV TODAY:
Green Screen Challenge: McCain gets interesting, the results come in.
ON TMV YESTERDAY:
Helms dead at 86: a harbinger of things to come, Long live the Millennials!
ON TMV WEDNESDAY
Starbucks fumbles, should be more like Georgia’s Home Depot!
Teach your children well, on blacks and whites raising kids
About ‘Gay’. And some speculation on why the Religious Right insists we’re ‘homosexual’, trotting out that first undergraduate research paper again! (Well it did get an ‘A’)
ON TMV TUESDAY
Study: there aren’t many blog readers in the ideological center, my intuition is wrong. And my own behavior is apparently NOT typical. (I self-identify as liberal-leaning; I’m told I’m center-left-conservative—whatever that means)
Tom Schaller says: The South Will Fall Again, I still say he’s too much of a numbers guy.
OTHER LINKS
Networks exaggerate economic woes, Stossel again. While I don’t entirely agree (I should write a post but I’m going to the beach!!!) he makes some great points. Suffice it to say that in this country we have no ability in the mass media to look at anything beyond the immediate. What were facing now is beyond the immediate.
Off to the beach. Posting will be sporadic at best!
Friday, July 04, 2008
Strike a pose - Happy 4th!
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
We Think Therefore We Are
For more, a UChannel podcast lecture:
In his new book, We-Think , Charlie Leadbeater explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, collaborate and share ideas and information. But participation is not always a good thing: it can just create a cacophony and as the web changes to become more collaborative it leaves users open to invasions of privacy.
Join Charlie Leadbeater at the RSA to consider one of the defining battles of our time – the struggle between people who want to freely share - music, films, ideas, information - and those who want to control this activity, either corporations who want to make money or governments who fear debate and democracy.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Links for 2008-06-30
I’ve gotten behind…
TODAY ON TMV:
- The Murky Evidence For and Against the Death Penalty as Deterrence, Wolfers and Sunstein from an OpEd in the WaPo find that they were misunderstood by the SCOTUS.
- Georgia Supreme Court considers proportionality in sex offender case, we can only hope they’ll do the right thing in this sad story of a young “sex-offender”.
YESTERDAY ON TMV:
- Craig & Vitter co-sponsor marriage protection amendment, Dan Sweeney says, Chutzpah Defined!
- Silent Witnesses provide a “human spiritual firewall” at Central PA LGBT Pride events, my high school friend at last year’s at Hbg pride.
SATURDAY:
- Gay plot for hijacking America uncovered! Pat Boone says gays are like the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the cunning communists.
FRIDAY
- Gay trend watch: wed on vacation, honeymoon at home! Planning for my 10 year anniversary next spring.
- The itch explained, on a type of nerve that is specific for itch.
THURSDAY
- On bans on handheld cellphones while driving, California’s getting a hand-held cellphone ban. I still want automated driving (though it probably isn’t as close as I thought).
WEDNESDAY
- Sunstein’s Nudge, “Choice Architecture”, and Obama, I’m glad Sunstein’s an Obama adviser!
TUESDAY
- Disney’s involuntary contribution to the peaceful evolution in China, pirated DVDSs…
- A rare look inside the Gill Action Fund, this Advocate article got much less attention than it deserved!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The History of the Tivo Remote.
There’s no other remote like it… GIZMODO HAS THE EXCLUSIVE Story of a Peanut: The TiVo Remote’s Untold Past, Present and Future.
By aTypicalJoe
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Spider Man
Monday, June 23, 2008
Links for 2008-06-23
TODAY ON TMV
- No evidence of “pregnancy pact” in Gloucester, it was bad journalism. (Or possibly a principal excited to be talking to Time magazine!)
YESTERDAY ON TMV
- Stop threatening to put kids in jail for sex! A writer in the Savannah Morning News wants the girls in the non-existent pact (see above) thrown in the slammer.
- On Corporate Complicity in the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, more from Douglas A. Blackmon’s “Slavery By Another Name”
SATURDAY ON TMV
- Barack Obama and the Muslim misinformation, some ask why Obama doesn’t attack the central issue in the Internet misinformation game. That is: what’s wrong with being Muslim?
- Solitary not solitary any longer. Now it’s “single-occupancy” just like torture’s not torture!
- On Google and our brains. Smart questions. And Carr’s disappointing answers. The Atlantic article was a missed opportunity. Carr always asks good questions; seldom comes up with good answers.
OTHER LINKS:
- Google Maps meets ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Drive a car around Google Maps.
- Is Kindle the iPod of eBooks? No, no matter that Bezos almost convinces The Philadelphia Inquirer it is. But it helps real book sales, eBooks never sell out (and you can get free previews), and you can change your font size among other features.
He called her a what???
Tape of the actual incident is included in this discussion of a presidential debates:
ALAN SCHROEDER: This year on the campaign trail...John McCain was asked by someone in the audience about an ugly name that he had allegedly called his wife in public.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yes, she was making a joke about his thinning hair?
[OVERTALK]
ALAN SCHROEDER: Yeah.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And he used a four-letter word in reference to her that begins with “c”.
ALAN SCHROEDER: That’s exactly right. And someone in a town hall audience stood up and asked him about that.
MARTY PARRISH: Is it true that you called your wife a [BLEEPING SOUND]?
[CROWD HUBBUB]
JOHN MCCAIN: Now, now, you don’t want to go there—You know, that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t—there’s, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language, so onto the next questioner in the back.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
At the beach last weekend
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Links for 2008-06-21
ON TMV THIS MORNING:
- Douglas A. Blackmon on Bill Moyers Journal - Blackmon’s book, Slavery by Another Name – The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, will be the topic of innumerable posts from me. Painful but unavoidably important.
ON TMV FRIDAY:
- Douglas A. Blackmon on “the age of neo-slavery” - wonderfully articulate, terribly sad, very important. Better, actually, than the ones he did on Open Source or Moyers, and, interestingly, this transcript from the voice of the revolutionary communist party of the USA.
- Georgia on their mind! An InsiderAdvantage poll gives John McCain a single point lead over Sen. Barack Obama in Georgia, putting us very much in the news.
ON TMV THURSDAY:
- What I did on my summer vacation: BRAG 2008, the Doug video already posted here. Actually, on my new Vimeo channel I’ve put higher quality cleaned up versions of all three BRAG videos. Vimeo is terrific!
- Intelligent Design in Louisiana, It’s ba-ack! Dressed up this time as “academic freedom” for the k-12 set.
ON TMV WEDNESDAY
- Obama. Georgia. & Indiana? More on Obama in Georgia. Except for Nate Silver who says not Georgia, Indiana instead!
- Free Use: A Remembrance, includes links to video of me from 1991. My niece tells me I was cute then…
OTHER LINKS
- Obama backs Barrow - I do too, for the same reason (don’t want to lose the seat).
- Back Story on How AP and Drudge Retort Come to Terms - Bob Cox’s side. I have stopped saying anything. Bloggers are in a swarm; I don’t agree with Cox that AP could have accomplished anything more in that atmosphere so I think they did right (though I haven’t read every little bit of it). I’ll write mroe when things cool a bit.
- Accused Treated as Adult in Gay Student’s Killing, I’m sick that this kid is going to be tried as an adult. His hateful act reflected adult bias, not his own.
- Legalize All Drugs by John Stossel. Who is it that said even a stopped clock is right twice a day? Stossel’s first time was on the age of consent. This is his second.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Just keep on riding…
Doug does BRAG 2008 from Joe Windish on Vimeo.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Links for 2008-06-17
I’m on St. Simons, where I came to meet Doug at the end of BRAG. I’m working on the last video of my trilogy—it should be ready soon—and getting some good R&R. So again I’m behind on links…
ON TMV YESTERDAY:
- AP, Blogs, set to get to work on Fair Use, discussing Fair Use guidelines for bloggers with AP.
ON TMV SUNDAY
- Life’s a beach, this & that from the beach (includes a review of the documentary about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy)
ON TMV FRIDAY
- AP comments on Drudge Retort DMCA takedowns, ver batim
- Here we go again: AP Files DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort, the first of my AP posts—AP filed takedown against blogger for copyright infringement.
- Michelle Obama Watch - launched! Dems aren’t gonna take it this time!
ON TMV THURSDAY
- Defending Webb the Confederate, worth defending and worth further exploration. Talk about topics we can’t talk about!!!
BACK TO THE BEACH! Which reminds me… I was bit by a spider so I have a giant welt and am taking Doxycycline. I’m covered from head to toe in sunscreen, I’ve got a huge hat, and I won’t be tanning anytime soon…
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The elitist menace among us
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Links for 2008-06-11
ON TMV TODAY:
- An argument against the perceived benefits of locavore behavior, Stephen J. Dubner v. Michael Pollan.
YESTERDAY
- Economics: Which Way for Obama? behavioral economics is his way! Matt Stoller parses his Raleigh speech.
- Gay relationships offer insights for healthier heterosexual marriages, because our relationships are “far more egalitarian than heterosexual” relationships.
MONDAY
- Our digital fate is better represented by Google than by government, on “white spaces” and why the NAB is lobbying the FCC to keep it from you & me!
- iPhone pre-launch: rumors & Steve’s brain, I quoted the right rumors for the most part this time around.
OTHER LINKS
- I was really bugged by the glee David Brooks seemed to take in trashing Scott McClellan’s “intellectual mediocrity” over and over again as he did the rounds commenting on McClellan’s book. So I took my own small glee watching over and over and over again as everyone took note of Brooks criticizing Obama because “he doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there.”
- Those of us who live in the rural hinterlands know that Applebee’s doesn’t have a salad bar. Here’s my April 1, 2005 post on Applebee’s, which “passes for haute cuisine in our town” and was started in Atlanta by 2 brothers in 1980.
- Stephen Colbert thinks it’s unfair that the Confederate flag has to sit behind the American flag on “the flag bus.” To fight this prejudice against southern heritage, Stephen brings the Pledge of Allegiance into Confederacy-approved compliance.
- Crooks and Liars quotes Stephen’s pledge, “I pledge allegiance to a couple of flags of the United-slash-Confederate States of America, and to the Republic for which they stand (or stand against), one Nation (until further notice), indivisible (for the time being), with liberty and justice for all (or y’all).”
Doug does B.R.A.G. - In The Pampered Zone
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Links for 2008-06-08
I’ve yet to get the hang of this daily links thing. I will yet…
ON TMV TODAY:
- Business Week: Consumer Credit Arbitration — you lose! There’s binding arbitration hidden in your credit card agreements. The arbitrator on 99% of all agreements is one company—a company in cahoots with the credit card companies. The coda is the bleak bankruptcy statistics for this year. :-(
- The implications of Obama’s 50-state campaign in Georgia, I’m still betting against the political pros. But hedging my bets just the same.
- Bill Moyers admits bias, it’s my bias too!
YESTERDAY ON TMV
- Not just great cars. Great advertising too! Cool live Honda skydiving ad.
- Bilderberg meeting attracts prominent pols, media, & business leaders. And conspiracy-minded paranoid speculation. “Paranoid” in the headline probably was unwise…
FRIDAY ON TMV
- Slavery By Another Name Must buy the book. And see the film. There’s also a video.
OTHER LINKS:
- Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link!!!
- Obama’s LGBT outreach call and commitment to the community - the campaign held a blogger conference call… “acknowledged Hillary Clinton voters’ participation and importance in the primary process.”
