Cautiously we ventured out into the sun to remember the days of old when we dominated on the black top. Yes, it is time for the dodgeball tournament here at Yahoo! Alas, due to rain, the team that I am on has not had the opportunity to play yet. What we lack in ability, we have made up for in style. Our team, the BarronVonAwesomeBallers brings together the raw athleticism of:

Peanut
Trixie
The Barron
Chi Chi La Che
JC and the Sunshine band
Cupcake
and our team captain, Scotty McScottScott

GOOOooooo Team!

Ray just forwarded me an unsubtle but amusing look at life with a poorly constructed National ID system provided by the ACLU. Flash as an advocacy tool is a nice idea, though I do wish thy had sone something a wee bit more slick.

As a privacy aside, I am ill from hearing the announcement that the CPO of Claria (formerly Gator) is on the privacy advisory board for the deaprtment of homeland security. A department that is being suspiciously watched as the greated threat to the privacy of law-abiding citizens has selected as an advisor someone that represents a company that has no understanding of notice, consent, or even ethics. I’m deeply ashamed of his appointment.

Scott Bilas at Oberon Media has written an interesting white paper on the rationale for using Flash as a platform for casual gaming. I think it is an insteresting article, with some good references and tools mentioned. If you are into building games in Flash, this is a good document to have in hand when convincing clients and/or investors about the merits of Flash as a platform. The unique perspective, is that Scott comes from the traditional gaming industry, rather than just being yet another Flash developer who has realized the incredible power of FLash to make compelling games.

If you would like to download a copy of my entry in the Flash Lite contest, it has been added to the Flash Lite Exchange site. The exchange is overall an excellent place to get free content for phones that have the Flash Lite player on it.

Also, I got the Silk write2File demo this morning, so I can’t wait to play with that!

I just read a great posting about “Dear Cell Phone User” cards. These are cutely-designed cards where you can fill in the topic of conversation that you have overheard and give that special cell phone user a piece of your mind. I love it. Obnoxious, passive-agressive, and far too much fun not to try out.

Cell phone conversations in public spaces have gotten my linguistics side thinking recently. Most of the places where I am annoyed by cell phone conversations are places where I would expect to find people talking already, but with another person that is present. So, what is the part that is sooo grating on my nerves with one person and a phone?

• Is it the volume of the cell phone speaker? My phone seems to have a good mic, so I don’t think I get too loud on the phone (I hope)
• Some other level of the prosidy that seems like agression?given that the speaker is trying to compensate for the lack of visual cues that we rely on in face-to-face communication, there could possibly be some differences.
• Some nosy streak where I am resentful that I can only hear one side of the conversation?

Any thoughts on the subject are welcome. I figure some anthropology or linguistics student has probably already done some concrete research on the subject. Now to finding it!

so our office has had some of those space invader stickers for the wall that you can get at Think Geek. Over the last few weeks, slowly but surely, the invaders have been dissappearing. I can only assume that the wall is winning. Go wall! Woo!