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Mountain Lion Hunting: Who's the [Kitty] Here?

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:05:24 PST

Let's start with a few facts. I'm from the rural south. I love to hunt, mostly birds, and I eat what I kill. In fact, I don't duck hunt much because I don't like the way ducks taste. I shoot skeet or sporting clays every chance I get. I drive a pickup truck. I have a beard, etc. So even though I'd probably disagree with the typical good ol' boy on a lot of social and political issues, I've been mistaken for a good ol' boy more than a few times. I am not some animal rights extremist. I have crapped all over PETA here and on Twitter for years for being so absurdly extremist that it has completely lost the power to convince.

Oh, and one last fact: the next to last fistfight I got in was after I called some guy a [synonym for kitty] for going to Africa and shooting lions and elephants and whatnot. It was a long time ago after a few beers and one too many great white hunter story. I proved to be a little tougher adversary than some oblivious lion a hundred or so yards away.

So, while I generally identify with the hunter/camper/outdoorsman culture, I draw a very bright line between those animals that are OK to hunt and those that are not. Dove, ducks and deer are one one side of that line. Lions, elephants and bears are on the other. So it really bummed me out today when I saw some dude on a hunting blog I read proudly retelling how some other dudes killed a mountain lion in central Texas. If I saw a mountain lion that wasn't about to eat me or my family, I would be really excited. Honored, actually. What I wouldn't be is inclined to shoot it.

I understand the argument that mountain lions adversely affect the deer population. Well, guess what- so do humans, and I imagine there are a lot more humans out there killing deer than there are mountain lions. I love deer meat and eat it all the time, but I certainly wouldn't kill a mountain lion just to ensure a few more pounds of deer sausage in my refrigerator. And let's not overlook the fact that the only reason most of these folks want to keep the deer from being killed by a mountain lion is so they can kill them themselves.

I have heard- and rejected- the argument that mountain lions are dangerous. The fact is that mountain lion attacks are rare. Dogs kill far more people annually than mountain lions do in a century.

And I understand, even if I don't completely believe, the argument that the mountain lion population is growing, with the decline of pesticides and goat and sheep farming. What I also understand is that in Texas mountain lions are not classified as a game animal, which means anyone can kill as many of them as they can find, any time and without limit. That's messed up. There are only 30,000 mountain lions in the western United States. There are 30 million deer in the United States, with deer population control becoming a major concern in numerous states. So I'm not buying the argument that there aren't enough deer to feed a few mountain lions.

So unless there is evidence that this mountain lion was an immediate danger to persons or expensive property and could not be trapped and relocated despite diligent attempts to do so, those dudes should have let that cat go.

If you are interested in learning about mountain lions- as opposed to just killing them, here's an informative article on their population, age distribution and mortality rates.

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Open Office

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:38:31 PST

Everybody's talking about the office suite for the next decade. Microsoft Office 2010 is in beta. Google is waging a vaporware offensive, trying to convince people that it is about to engage in some much needed alchemy with Google Docs. Meanwhile, Open Office just plugs along. Being just as free as Google Docs, and, at least, just about as good as the ever-bloating Microsoft Office suite.

I'm all about free, and I live in the cloud. There are free and cloudy apps for just about everything. But the choices for word processing applications are slim, which is odd given that today's computers are the offspring of yesterday's typewriters. But fear not. Here's the bottom line on office suites, with an emphasis on word processors.

Google Docs

I have moved my email and calendaring activity to Google Apps, via the standard (e.g., free) version. With Better Gmail 2, Gmail is a great, free and accessible email application. Google Calendar is far superior to the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. On the other hand, Google Docs, Google's word processing app, is- to be kind- not ready for prime time. Sure, it's fine for a light home user who wants to write a letter every now and then. But to try to use it for business purposes is to submit yourself to a digital hell. Among the multitude of problems: no tracked changes feature, which is an absolute must for business users; and formatting chaos when you upload a formatted Word document. In sum, it's a non-starter. Google wants us to believe that this will all change. In the meantime, though, we have work to do.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft has a deep and valuable franchise in the corporate world. One that became a virtual, if not actual, monopoly when WordPerfect committed suicide at the hands of Novell and Corel. IT managers know Word. More importantly, secretaries and administrative personnel know Word. To monkey around with the status quo on the corporate desktop is to move a whole lot of cheese. In sum, inefficiency and rebellion would result.

Nevertheless, Microsoft is trying to open the door for a competitor. No one- and I mean no one- in a corporate office wants the menu structure he or she has used for years to be replaced by some confusing ribbon or whatnot. As Microsoft continues to force old dogs to learn new tricks, the remote odds of meaningful corporate word processing competition get less remote. The name of the game in 2010 will be simple and easy. Not bloated and complicated.

Ugh!

All of which favors the other alternatives.

In fact, for purely home users, I can't think of a single reason to pay for Microsoft Office. Fortunately for Microsoft, however, most home users require the ability to open, read and edit work-related documents from time to time. Documents that were almost certainly created in Microsoft Word. I certainly do, and that has complicated my effort to go completely free and cloudy for word processing.

Open Office

So I find myself uninterested in paying for Microsoft Office and unwilling to put myself through the agony of using Google Docs as my exclusive word processing app. Until recently, Open Office was sort of like Bigfoot. I'd heard of it. Maybe I'd seen a purported picture or two, but I was still a little scared of it. Recently, however, my dilemma caused me to read up a little more on it. Then I took a deep breath, downloaded it, and gave it a spin.

And was pretty impressed.

It feels like a slightly stripped down version of Microsoft Word. It opens Word documents without destroying them. There is a way to show and review document revisions. Shoot, it saves documents in Word format. There's even a plug-in that lets me open from and save to Google Docs.

All the votes aren't in yet, but I'm about ready to call Open Office a winner.

The Face(book) is Familiar

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:07 PST

I've spent lots of blog space and podcast time pooping all over Facebook. Saying how it is for kids, that it's AOL 2.0, that it's the internet kiddie pool. I was right, and I was wrong. Mostly wrong.

Facebook is all of those things, of course, but perhaps in an evolutionary- and not a pejorative- way. More than anything else, Facebook is like Brawndo: it's got what people crave. Over time I have mostly capitulated to Facebook, simply because it's the only path to a lot of people I want to interact with. I create almost all of my content out here on the big, scary web, but I push a lot of it into Facebook. And I visit Facebook several times a week to see what all the non-nerds are talking about. Granted, there's a lot of talking over each other, but there's a little interaction. Which is more than you can say for Twitter.

With all that, I started to wonder just what makes Facebook so popular.

It's partly the ready-made platform to connect with other people. It's partly momentum. It's partly that MySpace sucks so completely.

But mostly I think it's the names. You know, those things beside the users' photographs. One thing Facebook got totally right is the absence of anonymity. Anonymity is like cars- it brings out the inner asshole in people. It has killed before, and given the chance would do so again.

Anonymity, with a helping hand from Google, killed newsgroups. Those of us who have been on the internet long enough to remember when news readers were for reading Usenet posts, as opposed to RSS feeds, miss the days of the old-school newsgroup. It was all kinds of good, until anonymous assholes and spammers killed it. I haven't read a Usenet newsgroup in years, and don't even have a news(group) reader on my computer.

Then came the message boards. For a decade or so, message boards proudly carried the banner of online interactivity. The combination of better technology and community moderation generally kept the spam under control. But a large population of anonymous users first diluted the perceived content value of message board sites to the point that advertisers stopped buying ads, and ultimately destroyed the entire message board culture, via bad information, bad behavior and general mayhem. All of which could be doled out at will without fear of reprisal because of anonymity. Sissies grow giant stones behind the safety of a windshield or a message board handle. It's gotten so bad that I don't even frequent the message board sites I founded. Rather, I create Google alerts or FriendFeed pages for topics I'm interested in. It's not as fun as the old message board days, but it's better than watching a revolving group of anonymous jerks litter my screen with nonsense.

Meanwhile, over at Facebook, people are sharing information under their real names. Sure, you can create a fake identity and set up a Facebook account, but users who are prudent with their Friends lists can easily avoid most screen clutter. You generally know who you are talking to. With a name comes accountability, and there is a direct correlation between accountability and behavior. All of which creates a better experience for the users. Which draws more users and, in turn, more advertisers. Ultimately you have digital high tide that raises all ships.

Which is why I ended up with the rest of the world on Facebook. Even if I still find it vaguely embarrassing.

Delaney's Swim Meet

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:30:07 PST

Delaney has been a competitive swimmer for most of her 8 years. Currently, she swims for Rice Aquatics. She had a swim meet today at the University of Houston. She swam the individual medley, the freestyle and the backstroke, and did great.

Here are her IM and freestyle swims.

Delaney's Swim Meet from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

She ran out of gas a little at the end of the IM, but she still had a great time. She swam a beautiful freestyle.

Google: Partially Cloudy by Design

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:03:03 PST

Larry Dignan at ZDNet says that Google's cloud storage price-break is a big missed opportunity, because Google "can't figure out a lightweight desktop client that would back up your entire computer." I suspect that Google could- and probably secretly has- done that. But by making the storage Gmail and Picasa only, Google stands to steal market share from its competitors. Market share that lands on Gmail and Picasa pages where ads can be displayed.

No one makes money hosting files in the cloud for free or close-to-free. But force more of the herd to the application front-end, and you can serve more ads. That's where the money is. Or, at least, that's where Google and 99% of the rest of the internet believes the money is.

As I noted months ago, I think Google's failure to dominate the cloud storage space is by design, not by inability.

Having said that, I'd love to be proven wrong. But I'm not holding my breath for a full featured GDrive at these prices.

Compute Easily and Cheaply With Cloudy, Free Software Alternatives

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:22:15 PST

My computer was getting a little long in the tooth, so when Windows 7 was released, I decided to buy a new one. I also decided, following my earlier move to Google Apps, to create my application toolbox with as many cloud applications and free software alternatives as reasonably possible. Here's what I did, for those who want to simplify their computer toolbox and put some extra money in their pockets.

The Computer

I bought an HP Pavilion Elite e9280t. I've had good luck with HP computers, both laptops and desktops, so I decided to stay with what was working. Plus, it seems to me that you get more bang for your buck from HP than other PC makers. I went with the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional, because it will give the computer a longer lifespan and I've only rarely had problems getting my software and hardware to work under the 64-bit versions. I also bought 9GB of RAM, because I do a fair amount of video editing and music mixing and the extra memory will make the computer faster at that sort of resource intensive activity.

When the computer arrived, the first thing I did was to remove the bloatware. HP has gotten a lot better about bloatware, but there is still some clean up required. I would rather bathe in computer viruses than use anything Symantec/Norton related, so I immediately uninstalled Norton Internet Security and Norton Online Backup. Rather, I'll use the free Microsoft Security Essentials and my HP MediaSmart server. I was a beta tester for Microsoft Security Essentials, and I think it works very well. Plus, it's free. I deleted the screen litter for eBay (which I use, but I don't need a shortcut on my desktop), and the various online services. Finally, I deleted all those HP games. It's absurd that HP makes you manually check every one separately during the uninstall process. I interpret that to mean that some of these game developers are paying HP to pre-install this junk. Regardless, they're gone.

My Data

Next, I copied over the data I need from my old computer, via an HP Personal Media Drive. Photos, MP3s, videos, in process song mixes, and some, but not all, of decades worth of Word files I have accumulated. My new documents are created via Google Docs, but I have some old documents I want to save, just in case. I like the Libraries feature in Windows 7, which basically lets you use multiple folders for your music, photos, etc.

I saved my old Outlook emails, now uploaded to Gmail, as PST files, and copied them to my new computer's "Old Files" Library, just in case.

Software and Applications

Now for the fun part. Here's what I elected to use in lieu of software I used to pay for.

My first download, of course, was Firefox. A quick install of Xmarks allowed me to import my bookmarks. I'm trying to go relatively light on add-ons. So far I have installed the mandatory Adblock Plus, Better Gmail 2, PhotoBucket Uploader, Read it Later and Xmarks. All of the foregoing are free.

No more Microsoft Office. I now use Google Apps (the "standard" or free version) for my email, calendar and documents. The Gmail interface, with (but not without) Better Gmail 2 is an excellent email application. Google Calendar is far superior to the Outlook calendar. And of course, I can now access all of my data from almost anywhere. And, again, for free.

For my task list, I use Remember the Milk. It works flawlessly within Gmail and Google calendar via a gadget. I have a premium account, but there is a free version.

Next, I installed my beloved Windows Live Writer, for blog posts. Yep, free.

In lieu of the bloated Nero, I installed CDBurnerXP. It works great, and it costs nada.

For photo management, I couldn't decide between Picasa and Windows Live Photo Gallery. So installed both. Both are free.

Photo editing may be a challenge. I use Picnik for basic (read easy) photo editing. I may try Gimp as a Photoshop replacement, but I am a long-time Photoshop user, and I have a license already. So at the end of the day the one expensive software program that finds its way only my computer may be Photoshop. We'll see. If anyone has a recommendation, please send it along via a Comment.

For video editing, I installed Windows Live Movie Maker. I'm a long-time Ulead VideoStudio fan. Corel bought it, though, so it's only a matter of time until it dies a painful, bloated death. Since I have a license for the current version (VSX2), I may install it on my new computer. I doubt, however, that I'll buy any upgrades. Hopefully, Windows Live Movie Maker or some other free or open source program will work for the long haul. If anyone has a recommendation, please send it along via a Comment.

Of course, I installed Evernote. I am a huge Evernote fan, but the developers' failure to add folders- or to even respond to my repeated inquiries about the possibility- are dampening my devotion. Either they need to listen to my good advice or I need to move on. Let me take a moment to digress. I have written about issues with HP and Microsoft products in blog posts, and been contacted within hours with offers of help or information. I have written to Evernote at least twice and asked about the plans, or lack thereof, for folders, and have never received a reply. That is simply bad customer management. For now, there are no better alternatives, but at some point there may be. We'll see, but for now, Evernote remains one of my most used apps.

For FTP, I use FileZilla, which is free and superior to every paid app I have ever tried.

For radio, I use Pandora and Slacker Radio.

Web site development and HTML editing proved to be a problem. I installed the free and wonderful Notepad++, which is great for text editing. I read good things about WYSIWYG editor KompoZer, but I hated the way it reformatted the text in my HTML files when I opened them. I uninstalled it immediately. I may not need a WYSIWYG editor, but if I do, I don't know of a free and powerful option.

The Cloud

For backups and large data storage and redundancy, I use my HP MediaSmart server. While I was immensely frustrated with my old server, the newer models have more memory and a much better GUI. I love the media collector feature, that automatically grabs media files from the various network computers, backs them up and allows network access to them. While I have not done it, you can easily configure your server to allow remote access over the internet. There's even an iPhone app.

For general cloud cover, I use Dropbox for most of my needs. I also have a Box.Net and a DivShare account that I use from time to time. If today's Google news is any indication, all of our cloud needs may eventually float over to Google. I want GDrive and I want it bad.

For online photos, I use Flickr for my family photos, etc., PhotoBucket for other image files I want to save, and Picasa for reference-related graphics (e.g., maps, reference cards, etc.). For online videos, I use YouTube, Qik and Vimeo. All are free, though I pay for a Vimeo premium account so I can upload larger, HD videos.

And of course, I share certain things with friends via Facebook and Twitter. Both free.

The Result

I have a lean, mean new computer with mostly free, web accessible, organized applications. It feels really good- and the change in my pocket jingles when I surf.

Sunday Mashup: Camping, Sporting Clays and Shotgun Shells

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:45:11 PST

This weekend we spent a lot of time outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.

Saturday morning Delaney and I drove north for a little over an hour to attend an Indian Princess campout. Delaney had a blast hanging out with her friends, and I had fun meeting some of the other daddies.

This morning we had breakfast and a closing ceremony, and headed back home.

We got home around 10:30 a.m., so I decided to try to beat the coming rain and shoot some sporting clays.

It was windy and it felt like it was going to start raining any moment- though it didn't. Still, I felt a little rushed, and didn't have my best day. I shot 61 of 72, for an 84% mark. That's a decent percentage, but it was on the easier South Course.

Station 10 killed me, and it's not particularly hard.

If you're wondering (and I guess even if you're not), the iPhone program I use to score sporting clays is ClayTracker (iTunes link). It's a $20 program, which blew my mind at first, until I thought about it. There's probably a pretty small market for a sporting clays scoring app, so if we want developers to write for a niche market, we have to be willing to pay a little more. On the whole I am pleased with ClayTracker. It is well designed and graphically pleasing. If the developers continue to add features, it will remain one of my favorite apps.

Among the features I'd like to see added are:

1. Skeet scoring, which the developers say is coming.

2. A "Notes" feature where you can quickly add notes about the various stations. This would be extremely helpful when you're scouting a new course.

3. More stats, easily accessible. For example, when I arrive at a station I shoot a lot, I'd like to be able to easily access my recent or lifetime stats for that station. Historical graphs would also be helpful. That would let me see my rabbit percentage approaching 30%. OK, 25%.

4. The ability to snap a photo of a station for future reference.

5. An online service, where your stats would be automatically uploaded and available for review or sharing. You could even create and link tutorials on YouTube or some other video repository. It would be cool to be able to access a rabbit tutorial while whiffing at a rabbit station (though miraculously I hit 2 out of 3 rabbit shots today, including the first half of a double).

Afterwards, Delaney and I went to Academy Sports to buy some gun-cleaning patches and a little Hoppe's No. 9. While there, I made an important discovery. As all shooters know, finding cheap shotgun shells is a never-ending quest. Generally, I alternate between Carter Country and Academy, based on who has what on sale. Recently, I have been frustrated at the local Academy to find that the shells I want are not on sale, when other similar shells are. For example, the last two times I have been there I found a big stack of 20 gauge cases on sale, intermingled among the identical cases of 12 gauge shells which were not on sale. Today, after telling Delaney we weren't going to buy any shells because they were too expensive, we wandered over to the camping aisle. There, far away from the hunting and shooting gear, were cases of Remington 12 gauge shells for $59. That's not the best price you can find, but it's close enough. So if you're going to Academy in search of shells, look around. They may have cheap shells in an unusual location. And based on my experience, they may not tell you they're over there.

So I stocked up on shotgun shells, came home and cleaned my guns, and put them away in the (locked) gun cabinet.

With any luck, Cassidy and I can prevail upon the rest of the family to finish off a great weekend with a sushi dinner.

So You Think You Can Ride a Bike?

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:15:54 PST

That's not riding a bike. This is riding a bike.

Awesome.

Sporting Clays, Volume 3

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:32:07 PDT

After shooting Volume 1 and Volume 2 from a behind the shooter, stationary camera, I shot this round with a gun mounted camera. It works OK with high, arching shots where there is a lot of blue sky to provide contrast. It works less well on low, fast shots, where bushes or trees are in the background. I also learned on editing that I need to start shooting only after I have loaded and am ready to shoot. This video is pretty sloppy, but it taught me what I need to know for future videos.

It would also be really, really helpful to have a remote control for my JVC GC-FM1A HD camcorder. That would allow me to easily stop and start between shots while reloading.

I shot OK today, particularly considering that the pull delay wasn't working on several of the stations and I was shooting alone. But I still gave away too many easy points. I should be hitting at least 85% on the south course.

Sporting Clays Vol. 3 from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

It's been slow going on the videos, but I'm getting there.

Presbyterian School's Main Street Choir

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:05:00 PDT

Cassidy's school choir performed two songs at an open house earlier this week for prospective parents. They sang "Woke Up This Morning" and "Lullaby of Broadway." They did great and I am so proud of her.

Cassidy is on the left end of the first row.

Google Reader: Putting Scoble in Time Out

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:49:49 PDT

I like Robert Scoble. I really do. But, like my 8-year old, if I don't watch him like a hawk he gets distracted and starts doing all kinds of crazy shit. Like pooping all over Google Reader, which is really a stand-in for RSS readers in general. I know he doesn't really mean it. It's like the time my 8-year old announced that she was giving up Skittles. It was a radical thought. There was logic to it. Shoot, it made me proud.

But it wasn't real.

Two days later she was back in the grip of her Skittles addiction, insisting that no right-thinking person would choose a granola bar when those colorful, chewy, irresistible sugar pills were just sitting there on the shelf. Our battle over her junk food habit rages on, but I know in my heart that all the wishful thinking in the world won't make a granola bar taste like a Skittle.

So let's put Robert in virtual time out and see if we can get him to behave. One step at a time.

He says Google Reader is slow. I think that's more of a problem with the front end platform that pushes the RSS feeds (e.g., FeedBurner), but I see his point. But as I have said over and over, Skittles are bad for you. Uh, I mean, faster is not always better. I simply don't need to read about some dude's latest Farm Game achievement or Mafia Wars battle in real time. And the flexibility of Google Reader (folders, the ability to rename feeds, archive feeds, search feeds, etc.) outweighs any marginal speed benefit you might get from the other sources (more on those below).

Of course, there's a bigger flaw in that argument. Most Twitter posts are links to other content that got served by. . . RSS feeds or some other platform. The live on the scene Twitterer is the vast exception and not the rule. So even if Twitter is instantaneous, most of the information put on Twitter is not.

And while I'm debunking the speed canard, let's be honest. When we thought that kid was in the balloon flying all over Colorado, we turned on CNN, not Google Reader and certainly not Twitter. For live important news, the internet just ain't the place, and the difference between 5 minutes later and 15 minutes later just isn't that big of a deal.

He says Google Reader's UI is confusing. I agree that all that sharing stuff is unnecessary screen clutter. All we need to get our data out of Google Reader are the newish "Send to" buttons. But Google has gotten caught up in the sharing hysteria like everybody else. When all this sharing nonsense blows over, the internet will be a much more useful and fun place. But come on man, all you have to do is ignore all that crap, just like I do. And if you think Google Reader is confusing, then you must think Facebook is a big, non-intuitive mountain of Rubik's Cubes.

He doesn't like seeing all those unread items. I have a folder of traditional news feeds (CNN, USA Today, etc.) that fills up faster than a cheetah can run. You simply mark the entire folder as "read," with one click. It's not hard. Now trying to actually follow news topics on Twitter, that's hard (more on that below).

Speaking of Twitter, does anyone really go to Twitter to consume content? Be honest. All I see are over there are people pushing unilateral content, like a flea market-cum-mailing list. And social? There's more interaction on top of Mount Everest than there is on Twitter. Seriously, I get the sense that the Twitter hysteria among the general public is fading. If I owned Twitter, I'd sell it. Now, while there are still a lot of greater fools thrashing around with someone else's money to spend.

He says the social network features suck. I would completely agree with this if it was an absolute statement, and not limited to Google Reader. They probably do suck in Google Reader, which is one of it's strongest points. I don't follow (or whatever the right word is) anyone via Google Reader. I just find my content there, and push it from there to my blog, Facebook page, etc. Let's be honest, the social networks aren't all that social, so why does a feed reader have to be social?

About this interaction business. If you want to interact online with real people, the fact is that there is only one place to do it- Facebook. The infrastructure is there. The developers are there. And most importantly, the non-nerds are there. The battle for the mind of the so-called social networker is over, and everyone but Facebook lost. Hell, I did everything I could to stay off of Facebook and I failed. Lots of my real world friends are there, and none of them are on any of these lesser services.

He says he sees most news faster on Twitter than in Google Reader. Uh, OK. That's like saying I got to California faster on a horse than when I walked. The greatest myth in the history of the internet is that Twitter is the place to get news. First of all, you have to separate those who actually know the news and have the desire and ability to accurately describe it from the spammers and nut-jobs. Then you have to wade through the chaos and scrolling pages to find it. At least on the CNN and Google News pages, there is some semblance of an organizational structure that the nut-jobs must adhere to.

He says headline scanning is easier on Twitter. This is simply wrong. Robert, I challenge you to walk me through this and show me how it is easier on Twitter. If I'm wrong, I'll eat my pocket protector. Hell, I'll go one step further- it's impossible to scan headlines on Twitter. Because there are none.

He says the iPhone apps are better for Twitter. I agree with that. Of course they are better, because Twitter has enjoyed a lot of momentum. Like Hanson did at one point, and the Jonas Brothers do now. Pretty soon all the kids will gravitate to the next big thing and Twitter will be relegated to the opening act. Like Isaac, Taylor and Zac.

The only question is who will get rich before that happens.

What do use to get your online content? And why?

About this Google Music Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:21:16 PDT

As we all now know, I have totally capitulated to Google. And I love me some music. So I was interested when I read that my new master was going to release a music search thingy. Until I read more about it. Then it made me sad. Not as sad as the lack of folders in Evernote makes me. But sad.

Partnering up with MySpace? Are you kidding me. Now that Geocites is gone, MySpace rules supreme as the most butt-ugly collection of bad web design on the internet. Lala? What about Tinky Winky and Po? Pandora has been a favorite of mine for years, but even they did their part to screw up the internet recently by letting people litter their Facebook and Twitter feeds with 30-second song clips, and then acting like that was a good thing.

I'd rather hear Edward Scissorhands play a Jonas Brothers song on a chalkboard that listen to a 30-second clip of anything. Is this 2009 or 1995? Rhapsody? It took me a decade to rid my computer of all the Real Networks bloatware. No way am I going to get snared in that net again.

But being a good little Google minion, I had to check out its new baby. So I dutifully searched for my new favorite band, the Wrinkle Neck Mules.

OK, nothing too horrifying there.

I clicked on the play button beside Medicine Bow.

And it played, via Lala. Hmmm. Cool, but I want to hear Lowlight, the biggest of my numerous Mules song-obsessions. So like the internet-savvy cat I am, I clicked on the "More songs" link. I got a list of 61 songs. No Lowlight, but I found the incredibly wonderful Mecklenburg County.

And it played too, not in a pop-up player like before, but in the player at the top of the Lala page.

OK, so what about the little sharing button up there. In the name of all that is sacred, no clips please. Let's send this to my Facebook page and see what happens.

Damn, the song plays right there. Now I'm starting to be impressed. I just know there's a catch. Let's look at the Lala help pages.

OK, now I get it. You can listen once. When I tried to play the song again from my Facebook page, I was confronted with the most horrifying thing.

A 30-second clip. The horror.

Actually, it's not all that bad. If I can let all my Facebook friends hear the entirety of a song once, that's still semi-cool. I don't know that I'll do it a lot, but I may send a song or two along. At the end of the day, this seems like a way for Google to capture a lot of the growing music search market, which it wants for ad-serving purposes, and for Lala and some of the other services to get (or more likely buy) a lot of exposure.

I'm not blown away by any means. But it's probably a worthwhile addition to our music sharing toolbox.

Two Sentence Movie Reviews: Halloween Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:33:40 PDT

Three really good films. 5-point scale. Links to Netflix

Kill, Baby, Kill (4): This 1966 Mario Bava gem is a creepy, semi-gothic ghost story, that proves Italians did horror as well as westerns. It made me an instant Fabienne Dali fan.

Black Sunday (4): Another excellent Bava film (1960), with the great Barbara Steele in a double role as a witch and her look-alike descendant. One of my favorite vintage horror films, with perhaps the most interesting commentary track I've ever watched.

Drag Me to Hell (4; unrated version): A new to DVD, supernatural scare-fest that made me jump a lot, even though it doesn't break any new ground. It's the scariest movie I've seen since The Strangers, and you'll never look at goats the same way again.

Tag: movie review

Going All In With Google Apps

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:01:02 PDT

Why I did, and why you should.

Over the last year or so, my resistance to the Borg-like inevitability of Google has proven futile, as I have moved more and more of my online life into Google applications. First, I started using Google Reader to manage and access my RSS feeds. I have always used Gmail as a spam filter and a means to access my Newsome.Org email online and via my iPhone. I have used Google Docs for podcast and church-related stuff.

But a couple of weeks ago, I went all in.

The cost of upgrading Microsoft Office, my pending move to Windows 7 via a new HP Computer that is frustratingly delayed, and the convenience of one-stop, online accessible apps got me thinking about moving me and my entire family to Google Apps. I took the plunge, and boy am I glad I did. There are some gaping holes in the Google Apps experience (more on that below), but there are also many elegant, useful features that I wasn't aware of until I started to enjoy them.

Making the Move

I have used my Newsome.Org email address, on a dedicated server, for many, many years. I knew changing to a Gmail address was not an option. I wanted to keep my email address, as well as my massive set of personal folders and all the emails and data therein. So the only- and best- option was to move my Newsome.Org email services to Google Apps. Additionally, the move to Google Apps allows you to create a custom calendar site (e.g., calendar.yourdomain.com), a custom Google Docs site (e.g., docs.yourdomain.com), a shared Contacts site (e.g., contacts.yourdomain.com) and more.

Best of all, it's free.

And, believe it or not, really easy.

Rather than recreate the wheel here, I'll direct you to Mark O'Neill's excellent walk-through. Changing the MX records for my domain was really easy via Network Solutions' Domains Management page (don't forget the period at the end of the hostnames ).

And unlike in years past, the changes propagate pretty fast, sometimes within minutes. After I had my mail page set up, I used a similar process to create CName records for my calendar, contacts, Google Docs, and even a short links (Google Short Links) and discussion board (Google Moderator) service.

Note than none of this affects your web site, as you do not modify the www, @none or *(all others) settings. Any host (e.g., www) other than the ones you specifically change as set forth above will continue to point to their current locations.

After maybe an hour's work, I had dedicated, Newsome.Org-branded and web accessible email, calendar, documents and contacts pages for myself and my entire family.

Email

The first thing I did was to create and upload a Newsome.Org Web Apps logo (see above and below) and customize a theme to match the Newsome.Org color scheme. One annoyance that Google should address is that your custom theme only applies to Gmail. There should be a way to cause your theme or custom color scheme to apply across all the various apps. The custom logo appears in all the Google Apps.

As a Firefox user, the next thing I did was install the most excellent Better Gmail add-on. Among many other indispensible features, this add-on lets you create labels- Gmail's folder-substitute- in a nested tree structure, like folders and sub-folders. Since I want to keep my Outlook personal folders, this was a huge help. It also allows you to hide the Chat box and other screen wasting stuff. Then I used Google's Gmail Uploader app to upload my 10 or so years worth of personal folders. I was worried that 10 years of emails would use most of my allocated 7 GB of storage, but happily it only took 472 MB! In a few minutes, I had recreated my personal folders, as well as the primary labels (e.g., folders) I use for email and efficiency management.

Note how the Archive Songs folder expands when I click on it. I also added POP access or forward rules (on those third party email apps, like Yahoo, that don't allow free POP access) to capture my old AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo email. I have a filter set up to archive (e.g., move from my Inbox to the designated folder) that third party email as it arrived.

Next, I went to the Settings tab and added Quick Links (a way to create and save email searches, such as Unread or ones with certain attachments), the Google Calendar gadget, the Remember the Milk gadget (via the Add Any Gadget by URL feature under the Labs tab), and the Google Docs gadget. Now, I can access everything I need.

Note how elegantly the calendar is incorporated into the Gmail sidebar. I mentioned above that there are a lot of unexpected features. One great example is that when you get an email with an address in it, a link to a Google Map appears. Little things like that make the online world go around.

Calendar

I also moved my calendar to Google Calendar. Via the Settings tab, I added some gadgets (World Clock and Jump to Date). I gave and got access to Raina's calendar, and I added US holidays, weather and phases of the moon.

Notice how my custom color scheme doesn't work in Google Calendar

In order to create a centralized calendar, I synch my Office calendar with my Google Calendar via Google Calendar Synch.

Via the Settings tab, you can configure Google calendar to email you an agenda each morning and to notify you via text message and/or email prior to each calendar event. Again, this sort of small, but immensely helpful, feature is what makes these apps so compelling.

Documents

I uploaded my personal letterhead, a few forms I use a lot and some other key documents to my new, Newsome.Org-branded Google Docs page.

Google Docs is probably the weakest link in the application group, if only because word processing is so important in the business world. Tables and complex formatting in Word documents can be lost on the upload. And the addition of a tracked changes feature (or a close equivalent) should be job one for Google if it really wants businesses to use Google Apps. But, warts and all, Google Docs works well enough for me to dump Microsoft Office. I can't believe I just typed that- but it's true.

I don't think Google Docs is the best choice for archiving old documents, pdfs, etc. (though implementation of the oft-rumored GDrive would be a welcome addition). For that I use my other favorite (and free) app- Dropbox (sign up here and we both get extra free space). I happily pay for the premium 50 GB Dropbox plan, which gives me plenty of space for document archives, etc.

Contacts

As I have noted before, Google Contacts is a train wreck, that should be completely rewritten. In the meantime, however, consolidation trumps design, and I imported all of my contacts to Google Contacts.

Online Utopia?

At the end of the process, my entire family has easy, accessible and efficient email, calendar, documents and contacts, all consolidated and branded. It works really well.

But it could be better.

The individual apps still seem too much like individual applications tossed together, as opposed to an integrated suite of apps. The ability to customize the look and feel of the apps should apply uniformly throughout. Some of the apps, in particular Gmail, need to give us much more control over sidebar content, without the need for browser add-ons. I don't want the Chat box, but I do want customized links to my Dropbox and other sites I use a lot.

Google Sites is a really crappy, impossible to use, app. Google Moderator is only marginally better.

Picasa should be integrated into Google Apps, and certainly Google Voice should be. I'd like to see Google Reader integrated as well. There should be a way to create personalized, private and integrated Google Groups. Google Docs needs either GDrive to launch, or the ability to integrate another online storage service into Google Docs for document storage and retrieval.

In sum, Google Apps aren't perfect. But with a tweak here and there, they could be.

Sporting Clays, Volume 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:47:57 PDT

After inadvertently recording Volume 1 in standard definition, I made it a point to shoot in HD today while shooting the South Course with my buddy J.C. MacBarker (known to some as Robert Brannon). I had some camera angle issues, but the higher definition makes the clay visible, which is cool. Things will get much better after today, as my gun camera mount arrived in the mail this afternoon.

Sporting Clays Vol. 2 from Kent Newsome on Vimeo.

We did good on the South Course, other than my continuing difficulty shooting the rabbit. Later, we shot the harder North Course with another buddy. We all did good, but not great, over there. The gun camera mount is going to be handy for calculating some of the harder shot leads. When you're practicing and can take as many shots as you want, it's relatively easy to zero in on most targets. When you're shooting in a competition, it's important to get the lead right from the first shot.

All in all, a beautiful day. And there's no better way to spend a beautiful day than shooting some clays in the country.

Howl-O-Ween 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:24:34 PDT

Cassidy, Delaney, Luke, Lucky Dog and their friends Evie, Aiden and Loossee conceived of, designed (with help from the moms) and wore Wizard of Oz costumes for this year's Howl-O-Ween canine costume contest and dog parade. They won, for the second year in a row.

Here's the story in The Houston Chronicle

Sunday Mashup: JVC Pocket Camcorder & Sporting Clays

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:52:11 PDT

This week I bought a JVC GC-FM1A HD camcorder. Although I am starting to suspect that this camera might suck, other than the complete lameness of the included MediaBrowser LE software, which does not even recognize HD video on the camera, the jury is still out. I do like the fact the camera records onto a flash card, which allows me to remove the card and manipulate the video within Corel VideoStudio 12 (VS 12 users should note that non-HD video is in 4:3 format, to avoid the squished appearance that will result if you set your non-HD video project files to 16:9).

I decided to test the camera by combining two of my favorite things: tech and shotguns. When I went out to shoot some sporting clays today, I took the camera and my spider tripod and filmed a few shots at each station. I inadvertently shot the video in non-HD, so the resulting video is in lower than ideal resolution. One of the features this camera needs is a way to lock the resolution, to avoid accidental resolution changes.

When editing the video footage, it became apparent that my camera placement and, more importantly, the lower resolution made it difficult to see the clays in flight. It is likely that you would need to follow the clays with the camera to get a good shot shot (to coin a phrase). Since I was by myself, that was not an option today. Cassidy and Delaney often go shooting with me, so we'll have to try a moving camera next time. I hope that HD resolution will allow you to see the clays in flight, even with a stationary camera.

I love the fact that HD video cameras are getting smaller. What I would really love would be for the iPhone to shoot HD video. When that happens (and eventually it will), I will be a happy camper. In the meantime, I continue to search for a small, full feature HD camcorder that will let me shoot video and easily upload it to YouTube or Vimeo or download it to my computer for use within an editing application. Suggestions would be appreciated.

As far as the shooting went, I did good with everything in the air, particularly since the pull-delay wasn't working at some of the stations and I was shooting alone, and horrible with the rabbit shots, where the clays bounce along the ground. It's hard to believe I can hit so many of one and so few of the other.

RanchoCast #2

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:51:18 PDT

Here's another good set for your weekend listening pleasure. Willis Alan Ramsey, Travis Tritt, Slobberbone, Mercury Dime, CDB and more.

Newsome.Org #2 by Newsome on Mixcloud

I noticed the glitches in the first song, and am looking into it. It could be a problem with the original rip.

Tag: ranchocast

Could Mixcloud Be the Holy Grail of Music Apps?

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:10:36 PDT

Maybe, if it can just stay in business.

Rather than bore you with a long discussion of what Mixcloud is, I think I'll just show you.

Newsome.Org #1 by Newsome on Mixcloud

That's right. An easy, legal way to create and share playlists.

The only tools you need to easily create your own playlists are a free Mixcloud account and a way to combine some MP3s into a single file. There are lots of options for that, but I use and recommend Merge MP3. It's free, easy and installs on a flash drive so you can take it with you.

In less than 15 minutes, I registered, installed Merge MP3, picked 10 songs, combined them and uploaded our first Mixcloud RanchoCast.

Pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Tag: ranchocast

New Avett Brothers: Hear it Now

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:51:53 PDT

One week from today we'll be blessed with I and Love and You, the new record by The Avett Brothers. If you don't know who I'm talking about, click as fast as you can, buy Live Vol. 2, and prepare to divide your musical life into before and after. If you're a parent, start with A Gift for Melody Anne.

The Avett Brothers are one of the two best American bands still making records (along with the Drive-By Truckers). They play old school, back porch, rural American music.

Best of all? You don't have to wait a week to hear the new record. You can hear it free right now, thanks to NPR. I listened to it tonight. I already love it. As I knew I would.

It makes me profoundly happy that in this era of Disney Channel media creations, there are young people out there making this kind of music.

And, of course, they are from the Carolinas Like lots of good things.

Cassidy and Delaney Shoot Skeet

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:10:27 PDT

Well, sort of.

Cassidy and Delaney went shooting with me today. It was Cassidy's first time to shoot a shotgun and the first time Delaney fired a gun of any kind.

They worked with Jimmy Galindo, who is my shooting coach. I highly recommend Jimmy as an instructor, for shooters of any age.

After shooting, we went to Old Town Spring and had dinner at Wunsche Brothers Cafe & Saloon.

That, friends, is my kind of day.

Grateful Dead: 1/31/70, New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:35:45 PDT

One of my favorite vintage Dead shows.

@Archive.Org (I can't get the archive.org embeddable player to work)

Disc 1 (electric set) 1. Cold Rain & Snow 2. Mama Tried 3. Stage Banter 4. Dire Wolf 5. Big Boss Man 6. Morning Dew 7. Mason's Children 8. Me & My Uncle 9. Hard To Handle	Disc 2 (acoustic set) 1. Stage Banter 2. Long Black Limousine 3. Seasons Of My Heart 4. Saw Mill 5. Bound In Memories 6. The Race Is On 7. Black Peter 8. Little Sadie 9. I've Been All Around This World 10. Katie Mae 11. Cumberland Blues

The Dead performed at The Warehouse for two nights. On January 31, 1970, the local police raided their hotel on Bourbon Street and arrested and charged a total of 19 people with possession of various drugs. This event was later memorialized in the lyrics of the song Truckin'.

How to Make Widescreen, HD, YouTube Ready Videos in Corel VideoStudio

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:26:10 PDT

I've used VideoStudio Pro to make my videos, going back to the Ulead Systems years and continuing after it was, sadly, bought by Corel. Corel hasn't screwed up the application- yet, so it is still a robust, easy to use video editing and creation application. But creating a widescreen, high definition video for use on YouTube can be a little confusing.

Here's a step by step.

After you get your video, audio, titles, etc. in the timeline the way you want them, here are the steps

1. File>Project Properties:

Be sure you have selected MPEG Files in the file format box shown above. Then click the Edit button.

Under the Corel VideoStudio tab, deselect (i.e., no check in the box) "Perform non-square pixel rendering" as shown above.

Under the Compression tab, select MPEG-2 and set the Quality at around 40%, as shown above.

Under the General tab, select 1280x720 as shown above.

Click OK to get back to the application window.

Ignore any cache warnings or notices.

2. The Share Tab:

Click on "Create Video File" and select "Same as Project Settings." Name and save your video. The application will render your video in widescreen HD.

When it's done, you're ready to upload your creation to YouTube. Note that it takes a while for YouTube to process the video after it is uploaded, even after it is viewable. The video quality will improve when the processing is complete.

Here's the result of the project I used as a test case for this post.

Thanks to assasin301 for creating an excellent video tutorial, which taught me the steps I showed you above.

Mac Mini (2008-2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:27:22 PDT

Mr. Mac Mini, 1, of Bellaire, Texas, died September 3, 2009 at home, from unknown causes. Mr. Mini was found sleeping at his desk and could not be revived. Heroic efforts were made by his friend and manager Kent Newsome, who performed immediate emergency surgery on Mr. Mini, to no avail.

Mr. Mini was born in June 2008 in China, and moved to Bellaire, Texas in December, 2008. He was the son of Steve Jobs of Cupertino, California. Following graduation from the Apple Store in 2008, Mr. Mini enlisted in the Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show and appeared semi-regularly during his short life. In early 2009 he partnered with childhood friend Mac the Ripper to rip a few recalcitrant DVDs. Several of his ripped MP4's reside in the Newsome family media library. For his actions Mr. Mini was awarded the distinguished Medal of Mediocrity by leading tech blog Newsome.Org.

Mr. Mini was a life long Macintosh, and worked tirelessly throughout his life to rebut the oft-cited Mac superiority claims by Macintosh fans. From the age of 2 months, he was mute, unable to produce the slightest sound through his tiny little speaker. Thanks to the miracle of modern geekiness, he was kept alive and in operation for almost nine months.

His untimely death was met with great reaction from the technosphere. Steve Wozniak released a statement saying "while I am saddened by Mac's death, when his father and I split up and his father got custody, I knew something like this was going to happen." Noted blogger/photographer Earl Moore said "well, we all know Macs suck, so everyone should save themselves some misery and get a far superior Windows-based computer." Richard Querin noted "since OS X is nothing more than a glorified Linux kernel, what did you expect?" Upon hearing the news, Bill Gates pumped his fist in the air and began to jump up and down briefly before falling to the ground with leg cramps.

Mr. Mini is survived by his father, of Cupertino, California, two brothers (HP, 3 , and Dell, 5), of the home, one sister (IBM, 4), of Houston, Texas, several mice, keyboards and iPods, and one AppleTV.

A private memorial service was held on September 4, 2009, after which Mr. Mini was interred in a trash bag.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Vintage Mac Museum, or the charity of your choice.

Global Warming, Motivated Reasoning and Me

noreply@blogger.com (Kent) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:21:47 PDT

I'm just as certain today that global warming is an immediate and serious threat to our planet as I was in the summer of 1969 that Apollo 11 had actually landed on the moon. And I get just as frustrated today trying to explain global warming to disbelievers as I did that long ago summer trying to convince some of my fellow 9 years olds that their parents and grandparents were full of crap to claim the entire space program was a governmental fabrication.

Which is why I no longer try. I have expanded my growing policy of non-engagement to cover global warming and most other environmental issues.

I've talked a lot here and in the real world about how hard it is to have a reasoned debate with people who are so psychologically bound to their position that the merits take a back seat to world view preservation. The older I get the more willing I am to leave someone's jacked up ideas unchallenged.

Here's why.

There was a very interesting article the other day over at Contexts.Org about a study that found that rather than look for the truth, a lot of people seek out information that confirms what they already believe. It's a concept called motivated reasoning. These theories are similar to the concept of emotional reasoning, which I read about most recently in Mary Pipher's excellent Reviving Ophelia (must reading for parents of little girls), and a first cousin of the basic concept of rationalization.

All of this provides scientific support for, and at least in my mind an ironclad logical defense of, my theory of non-engagement. Nevertheless, I feel strongly about environmental issues and believe that the Idiocracy-worthy policy of placing an extra buck or two now above everything later is going to profoundly affect the quality of lives of our grandchildren, if not our children. A hundred years from now, people will consider our generation who, for all intents and purposes, pillaged the earth for the last quarter of the 20th century and at least the first quarter of the 21st century to be the most selfish, greedy and harmful generation in history. That's a pretty big tumble from the lofty perch that our parents' generation achieved, and for which history will one day give them the credit they deserve.

And from time to time people ask me what I think about global warming.

I end up having to choose between beating my head against the wall or just ignoring the question. Neither of those is satisfactory.

So from now on, I will direct anyone who asks me about global warming to this page. Where they can read how I feel, and find some really good information if they care to read it. But without the ability to ruin my day with illogical denials and half-baked rationalizations.

But first, this post has multimedia. Click play below and proceed.

In hindsight, this song may have
been too optimistic.

Like everything else scientific, let's look to my favorite blog network- ScienceBlogs.

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.

That resource, put together by Coby Beck, is the most important compilation of information on the internet. Bar none.

Let's use that resource to punch some holes in some motivated reasoning.

"There's no evidence of global warming!" This is the argument I hear the most. Coby responds:

Global Warming is not an output of computer models, it is conclusion based on observations of a great many global indicators. By far the most straightforward evidence is the actual surface temperature record. While there are places, in England for example, that have records going back several centuries, the two major global temperature analyses can only go back around 150 years due to their requirements for both quantity and distribution of temperature recording stations.

These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:

NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis

CRU direct surface temperature analysis

Both trends are definitely and significantly up. As well as the direct measurements of surface temperature, there are many other measurements and indicators that support the general direction and magnitude of the change the earth is currently undergoing. The following diverse empirical observations lead us to the same unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:

Satellite Data

Radiosondes

Borehole analysis

Glacial melt observations

Sea ice melt

Sea level rise

Proxy Reconstructions

Permafrost melt

There is simply no room for doubt: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend.

"Antarctic ice is actually growing. So global warming is a myth." I hear this a lot too. Coby's rebuttal:

There are two distinct problems with this argument. First, any argument that tries to use a regional phenomenon to disprove a global trend is simply dead in the water. Anthropogenic global warming theory does not predict uniform warming throughout the globe. We need to assess the balance of the evidence. In the case of this particular region, there is actually very little data about the changes in the ice sheets, and the conclusions we have seen of some growth in the East Antarctic ice sheet is such a small amount, that with the uncertainty, it might be shrinking. But even this weak piece of evidence may no longer be right. Some very recent results from NASA's GRACE experiment, measuring the gravitational pull of the massive Antarctic ice sheets, have indicated that in fact ice mass is on the whole being lost.

Secondly, the phenomenon of thickening of an ice sheet is not by itself inconsistent with warming! Such an increase in ice mass in the face of actual warming would be the result of increasing precipitation and this is fully consistent with the Antarctic in a warming world. The Antarctic is actually one of the most extreme deserts on the planet, and warmer climates tend towards more precipitation. So even if you warmed a whopping 20oC from -50oC, you would still be well below freezing and accumulating snow, not melting in the rain.

While on the subject of ice sheets, Greenland is also growing ice in the centre for the same reasons described above, but it is melting on the exterior regions, on the whole losing approximately 200 km^3 of ice annually, doubled now from just a decade ago. This is a huge amount compared to what the changes may be in the Antarctic, around three orders of magnitude larger. So in terms of sea level rise, any potential mitigation due to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is wiped out many many times over by Greenland's ice sheet.

And finally, "Even scientists disagree about whether global warming is real." Coby has facts that say many of them do agree:

Sure there are plenty of unsolved problems and active debates in climate science. But if you look at the research papers coming out these days, the debates are about things like why model predictions of outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere in tropical latitudes differ from satellite readings or how the size of ice crystals in cirrus clouds affect the amount of incoming shortwave reflected back into space or precisely how much stratospheric cooling can be attributed to ozone depletion rather than an enhanced greenhouse effect. No one in the climate science community is debating whether or not changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations alter the Greenhouse effect or if the current warming trend is outside of the range of natural variability or if sea levels have risen over the last century. This is where there is a consensus.

Specifically, the "consensus" about anthropogenic climate change entails the following:

the climate is undergoing a pronounced warming trend that is beyond the range of natural variability.

the major cause of most of the observed warming is rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2

the rise in CO2 is the result of fossil fuel burning.

if CO2 continues to rise over the next century the warming will continue

a climate change of the projected magnitude over this time frame represents potential danger to human welfare and the environment

While theories and alternate view points in conflict with the above do exist, their proponents are in a very small minority. If one requires unanimity before being confident, well, we can't be sure the earth isn't hollow either.

This consensus is represented in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, Working Group 1 (TAR WG1). This is the most comprehensive compilation and summary of current climate research ever attempted, and is arguably the most thoroughly peer reviewed scientific document in history. While this review was sponsored by the UN, the research it compiled and reviewed was not, and the scientists involved were independent and came from all over the world..

The conclusions reached in this document have been explicitly endorsed by:

Academia Brasiliera de Ci�ncias (Bazil)

Royal Society of Canada

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Academi� des Sciences (France)

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)

Indian National Science Academy

Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)

Science Council of Japan

Russian Academy of Sciences

Royal Society (United Kingdom)

National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)

Australian Academy of Sciences

Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts

Caribbean Academy of Sciences

Indonesian Academy of Sciences

Royal Irish Academy

Academy of Sciences Malaysia

Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

in either one or both of these documents: [PDF] [PDF]

In addition to these national academies, the following institutions specializing in climate, atmosphere, ocean and/or earth sciences have endorsed or published the same conclusions as presented in the TAR report:

NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)

American Geophysical Union (AGU)

American Institute of Physics (AIP)

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

American Meteorological Society (AMS)

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

If this is not a scientific consensus, then what in the world would a consensus look like?

All of the quotes above are directly from How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic, but there are lots more resources there. If you are interested in the topic- and you should be- bookmark that page and read every entry.

Your grandchildren, and mine, will thank you.