Tom Drapeau’s Blog

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the best book I’ve ever read on the intersection of anthropology and the internet. Shirky has tremendous powers of observation, and his text is unencumbered by societal norms and restrictions. As is written on the front book cover, “Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technology, it happens when society adopts new behaviors.”

The book tackles several coordination, cooperation and publish then filter scenarios via in depth analysis of real world events. And as with the profound statement on revolution from the book cover, the examples lead with the interpersonal aspects; the tools (Wikipedia, Flickr, Linux, Livejournal, Facebook) are shown, sometimes to show how they supported the interpersonal aspects, sometimes to show how they enabled them to happen in the first place.

I thoroughly enjoyed this enlightening, if sometimes a bit dense text. The updated epilogue talks about how unincorporated groups in today’s society are still somewhat powerless when compared to businesses, and suggests that the coming months and years will see experimentation on bridging that gap.

If you work on the internet, or are interested in the digital age and its tools, or even anthropology regardless of its intersection with technology, this book is worth a read.

View all my reviews.

tdrapeau Books Book Review, Clay Shirky, Online Communities, Web 2.0

It seems like just yesterday I was wearing the paper hospital outfit, staring at the clock, waiting until I could go into the operating room and see KidWonder for the very first time. Now he’s all grown up! Here’s a pic of the boy and his MomWonder, at his restaurant of choice, the local Applebees:

Most of the meal consisted of KW laughing hysterically at the idea of being itchy. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a toddler crack himself up–he laughed so hard he fell off his booster seat!

A good time was had by all. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

tdrapeau KidWonder Applebee's, Birthday, French Fries, itchy, KidWonder

My friend Travis reminded me not too long ago that you should never try anything that isn’t at least version 3.0. Well, if each new recipe is another major version of the Tom cooking machine, we are finally in the money! Today’s attempt was at Chicken Alfredo over Biscuits, a nice comfort food dish from Betty Crockers Quick & Easy Cookbook.

I have to say, this one was quick and easy. I didn’t have as much of the frozen vegetables as I wanted (recipe called for 1 pound, I had 10 ounces), but I didn’t notice an imbalance in the finished product. It was very, very tasty. I cut the chicken first, then put the biscuits in the oven. After that, there were 3 steps to the recipe, and I was done within 20 minutes. I would definitely make this recipe again.

Here is the result:

tdrapeau Food Alfredo, betty crocker, chicken, cooking

Posted via email from Tom’s posterous

tdrapeau Wedding KidWonder, Wedding

I tried my hand at another Betty Crocker dish last night, a Pan-Fried Ravioli in Vodka Sauce. Some notes on getting the ingredients and prep: I couldn’t find the exact right proportions at the local A&P for this… I got a 20oz bag of beef ravioli (recipe calls for 25oz), also I got the Emeril brand vodka sauce, since it was lighter (110 calories per 1/2 cup, vs. the 150 for the others.) Couldn’t find Asiago cheese, and mistakenly used Mozzarella cheese instead of their option B (shredded Parmesan).

Also, did not read the instructions closely enough on the prep, and ended up having to dice the plum tomatoes while the ravioli was frying–made for a bit of an uncomfortable rush while cooking. Next time I will definitely dice the tomatoes before beginning to fry the ravioli.

Unanswered question: Are diced plum tomatoes really any different from diced beefsteak tomatoes? It would seem to me that instead of scouring the vegetable aisle for 3 plum tomatoes, I could have diced a single beefsteak tomato and had the same effect. Untrue?

Anyhoo, it came out great. I’m eager to try it again with the right cheese. It made a bit much for us (makes 6 servings, although I cut down 5oz on ravioli so it was more like 5), so I might cut down on the proportions a bit more next time.

Here’s how I did:

tdrapeau Food betty crocker, cooking, Pan-Fried, Ravioli

The morning after @ShayWade and I got married, we set off for Port Canaveral to board the Carnival Sensation, bound for Freeport and Nassau. Although I am a big fan of traveling, this was my first cruise.

My first impressions: even though it is smallish compared to the other boats in Carnival’s 21 boat fleet, it is an enormous floating city. There are 14 decks in total, including the main deck, sleeping quarters, restaurants, a swimming pool, hot tubs–you name it, the Sensation has it.

If you only have a few days, want to supremely relax and eat good food, and visit a few islands briefly, a cruise is a good bet. We stopped in Freeport for 7 hours, and Nassau for 24 hours, so for those that want Carnival’s Excursion desk to take care of your port activities, then you’ll be well served. The food is excellent, and for those who want photo memories of your trip, as long as you don’t mind Carnival branding on your photos, there are many, many opportunities for professional pictures to be taken throughout the cruise. Here we are on the gangway leading to Nassau:

Also, Carnival does some smart things with customer relations. They give you comment cards the last night of the cruise, on which they ask you to rate your head waiter and maid, amongst others. To entice you to actually fill them out, your comment card is entered into a raffle and the winner gets a free cruise. Also, Carnival employees are rated largely on the comment cards, and promotions are given out to those who are singled out by customers–therefore, your trip is virtually guaranteed to have genuine, excellent service. Having been on a cruise now, I can attest that this strategy absolutely works and creates a friendly atmosphere for all.

We did an “Island Bus Tour” in Freeport, which was OK. We were the last ones on the bus, so got the extremely bumpy back row of the bus. We stopped 3 times, twice for shopping and once at Taino Beach, and we were pretty much on the clock each time. 15-20 minutes is not a lot of time to spend at a stop. The beach was nice, but Freeport as a whole feels more like an industrial power plant than a resort city.

Nassau, on the other hand, was gorgeous all around. We did a bit of shopping in the morning, followed by a visit to the Trump monstrosity, called Atlantis. I heard that it was previously owned by Merv Griffin, under the name Paradise Island Resort. Maybe in Merv’s day, you didn’t have to pay $60 just to walk on the private beach just for pictures.

After a siesta, we headed to Señor Frog’s, a restaurant and bar located a stone’s throw from the port. We drank and were merry until the early morning [pictures redacted].

Back aboard the boat, we spent a nice day at sea, and before we knew it, we were off the boat, headed back to cooler New York. Overall it was a great time. I didn’t know if I would like a cruise vacation, since I’m more of an off the beaten path kind of traveler. It turned out that I liked the cruise a lot. A word to the wise: Don’t attempt to hold to a diet while on a cruise.

And I can’t forget to thank my Mom and Dad for staying in our house and watching KidWonder. Thank you guys–you let us be kids for a few days, and we really appreciate it! Love you Mom and Dad!

tdrapeau Travel Bahamas, Carnival, Cruise, Freeport, Nassau, Señor Frog's, Sensation

For those following my Twitter feed, you already knew that @ShayWade and I got married last weekend. But since it was such a Big Day in my life, I thought I would record more of it here than just “Married!“.

Everyone’s definition of a big wedding is different. For us, even though we had less than 100 people, we still went through all of the planning exercises of a wedding twice the size. And its a strange feeling, an event you have been planning for a year really ends (with the ceremony) in less than a half hour. Then once you’ve posed for photos, and you sit down at your reception table, there is this hush where you wonder what you should be worrying about next. After so many weeks and months of worry, the wedding happened perfectly and now its done.

But more on the wedding: KidWonder was amazingly well behaved. He ran up to me right as my groomsmen and I were about to walk down the aisle, breathless: “Daddy! Daddy!” “What?” “Flower!” pointing at the flower pinned to his tux. That sort of thing brings you right down to earth.

KidWonder, looking dapper and with flower:

It was great to see that so much family that could make the trip. MomWonder and I live in New York, and our families mostly live in Massachusetts and Missouri. It was really nice of so many folks to go out of their way to share our Big Day with us.

A funny moment for us came when our emcee was concluding the ceremony. He was reading from a piece of paper he had folded to be of a more discreet size, and due to the folding, skipped over the “i now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss the bride”. (we immediately corrected that error, and kissed a few times to make sure!)

The reception went well, if a bit fast. We spent most of it getting pictures taken (most of which we haven’t seen yet), then going through some traditional reception stuff (cake cutting, bouquet throwing, garter throwing, etc). Apparently I didn’t take off the garter in an alluring fashion, so was asked to do it again, which I obliged (some people!)

All in all it was a great day. It is an amazing feeling when you look around a big room and know that everyone came because they know YOU. A parting shot from the happy couple:

We’ll be sure to post more pictures when they are available.

tdrapeau Wedding KidWonder, MomWonder, Wedding

Hello Food Fans, here’s another installment in the “Tom learns how to cook” series. Today was Barbecue Chicken and Vegetables. I love one pot meals :-), so easy. I thought the recipe needed refrigerated potato wedges instead of frozen potato wedges, so I put them in hot water while I cooked the chicken. The green beans were OK to be frozen going in, said the recipe, so I just let them be.

The result was a good dish, although the beans needed a bit more. The chicken was delicious and the potatoes were good. All in all, a success. Take a look (just like the book!):

tdrapeau Food Barbecue Chicken and Vegetable Supper, betty crocker, chicken, vegetables

Call Me Ted by Ted Turner

My review

  rating: 4 of 5 stars
I sat on this book for a while. I’m just not the type to really get into biographies. It’s just some guys life, you know? I’m glad I finally decided to read this book. Ted Turner is an extraordinary man, who is still somewhat humble about life while being a great showman and businessman.

I thought the book to be well organized, with each chapter taking a clear break from the previous and delving into a new aspect of his life. His troubles with family life disappointed me, as I’m big on family life myself.

Reading about the beginning of the Cable News Network (CNN) was the most interesting part of the book for me. To hear just how many doubters there were towards a 24-hour news channel, how much they had to struggle, it was inspirational to see the section on the Desert Storm coverage and the validation of Ted’s vision for CNN.

The latter stages of the book, his divorce from Jane Fonda, being pushed out of Time Warner, were a bit depressing, although the Time Warner piece intrigued me b/c I happen to work for Time Warner’s AOL division. Here is an interesting quote that hits close to home for me, in a “Ted Story” (writings by others that know Ted somehow, placed throughout the book) by Jeff Bewkes, pp303-304:

“For his part, Ted remained unusually quiet until the very end. As Jerry [Levin:] was wrapping things up by stressing the importance of the company moving aggressively in all these areas and as people were literally getting ready to get up from their chairs, Ted suddenly spoke up. “So, are you telling us we need to move aggressively to put all our content on the Internet, is that what you’re saying?” to which Rich [Bressler:] and Jerry agreed.

“So, that would include putting material from our magazines on the Internet free of charge, right?” When he got agreement again, Ted turned to Don Logan and asked, “Don, what are you charging for Time magazine?”

Don responded, “What do you mean, the cover price?”

And Ted said, “Yeah, it’s like a buck-fifty, right? And for People it’s something like two dollars, right? So you make millions and millions of dollars from magazine subscriptions now but we’re going to put it all online free of charge?” Ted then waited a beat and said, “So we’re going to put ourselves out of business?” It was hilarious, and typical Ted Turner. After a three-hour presentation on a topic he’s supposed to know nothing about he puts his finger right on the center of the problem.”

An extraordinary guy. Well worth the read just to see into his thought processes and experience all of his amazing accomplishments.

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Testing out the Posterous service, which allows you to send blog posts/images/videos via email which get distributed to all of your social networks.
 
Cool.

Posted via email from Tom’s posterous

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