Adam-Jackson

All photos taken by me this weekend a couple of them are from last year

For just a moment, I’d like to write about my Father. Since I moved to San Francisco, you may notice that most of my personal blog entries mention him at least once as a quote or experience he and I shared. The two of us are extremely close and without sharing details about my childhood, I have to say that many of my decisions and traits are based off things that he has taught me.

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Dad has never told me what to do or even given “advice” as many would define it. He has always answered my question with a story or lesson. One of the most challenging aspects of living in San Francisco is how little I get to talk to him. Prior to moving, he and I lived 5 minutes from each other and I’d spend all weekend with him. He also operates a martial arts school and has since I was 5 years old. My training regiment was 5 days a week and a total of 8 classes, each 2 hours a piece and this schedule has been that way for me since I was only 13. When he and I weren’t teaching students, we were training together and these days, I only talk to him for 1-2 hours a week every Sunday on the telephone and periodically via Email throughout the week. This radical change has certainly been tough for me.

One thing that’s important to note that our relationship isn’t symbiotic or co-dependent. Since I left Florida, Dad promoted my training partner Matt to lead many of the classes and Dad has much more time to spend with my sisters who are 9 & 13 years old. My leaving came at a time when others needed Dad’s guidance and it was time for me to experience and put to use his many teachings.

This weekend, I flew home from San Francisco to Saint Augustine, Florida and as of Wednesday night, I didn’t leave his house until Saturday to teach Aikido with him and then not leaving again until Sunday night to see some friends. Basically, me, Dad and my sisters just hung out for 5 days training, learning and spending time together. It was awesome.

Throughout these 5 days, Dad and I had 4 long talks and it was certainly like old times. One of our talks on Friday night lasted from 7PM to 1AM and each was no less than 4 hours long. Today, we woke up and I did my morning stretches and pushups and then he made some smoothies and we sat outside in the sun talking about the path and wheel of suffering for nearly 3 hours and suddenly realized it was time to grab some sushi and go to the airport.

Our relationship is extremely unique. I made a point to note that it’s not a co-dependent relationship nor is it one-sided. When I left for San Francisco in June of 2008, Dad was talking to a boy about life and concepts that were simply beyond that kid’s comprehension despite the fact that I had been hearing them since I was 5. What made this weekend so unique is that we were two men engaging in conversation that was rich, meaningful and sometimes a bit emotional.

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Throughout our relating on many levels and exploring the inner workings of life, civilization and and end-game, it was clear to me that I had elevated to a new level of living.

There isn’t a single day that goes by where a lesson that Dad taught me 2 to 10 years ago will finally click and make sense. I have Aha moments day after day and while talking to him, especially on Friday night, I came to a few conclusions within myself that my ego and conscious mind was fearful of admitting out loud.

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Sharing these here would be careless and reconstruct the walls I built before so between you and I and without divulging too many details, every decision I’ve made in my adult life has been inspired by this primary factor and Dad didn’t tell me what it was but during our talk, he helped me discover this for myself and I admit that it was very emotional.

What will I be doing about it? Absolutely nothing. I will do nothing yet everything will take care of itself. My readers are starting at their monitors in confusion but Dad is reading this chuckling to himself because I might just have it and get the underlying point and that point is that there is no point. Ha ha!

There are a few things that I’ll be doing differently from here on but externally, you guys won’t be able to tell a difference but my path will be changing slightly. You may have all noticed my recent tweets showing extreme optimism and thankfulness for every experience in my life. Well, this wasn’t directly due to Dad’s lessons but these were aha moments from seeds he had planted years before.

One thing that I am finding difficult is the concept of concepts and the varying levels of communication and how self-fabricated suffering w/ challenges that we create ourselves that ultimately result in getting further from the truth that we all have within ourselves already. If that sentence made no sense, good! My point is, I find it difficult to convey things given what I’ve learned this weekend because conceptually, none of this exists but it does in our own reality. I can’t begin to summarize almost 20 hours of teachings but that’s the point, doing that would take me further from the point

This blog post is mostly rambling but I love to share my experiences with you all. A few members of my family were upset with me this weekend as I haven’t been home since January 21st and while I was here, I spent time with my 6 best friends, my dad and Sisters. My huge family may have felt a bit abandoned like I turned my back on them but last time I was here, running around ultimately caused the value of my time to diminish just like channel surfing. It wasn’t fair so this time I spent the most time with those that matter to me the most (sorry Mom).

Sunday night, I went out for sushi with my 6 best friends. Five of them are guys that I trained with in martial arts for nearly 10 years. John, Dan, Matt, Victor and Ty. I wrote a blog post about friendship a few weeks ago about sharing a “solid cry” with someone shows you their true colors and the value of their friendship. All of these men haven’t seen me cry but they’ve seen and been exposed to my sweat, blood, tears (from being punched again and again) and sometimes, my vomit from training too hard. These 5 guys have tried to stab me with knives, cut me with swords and attack me full speed with four-foot staffs and I’ve reciprocated. For this, these guys are those that I trust the most over anyone else that’s non-family. Once you’ve fought for your life against 2-5 attackers at once, those guys have a different bond with you than others. The 6th person that attended is my friend Natasha. She was the best friend of my first girlfriend, Hope. Hope and I shared a relationship for over 3 years and Tasha was my friend just as much as she was Hope’s friend. After high school, tasha and I remained friends. Eventually, she joined Aikido Class with me and I introduced her to Matt, my training partner and now leader of Dad’s martial arts class. Two months ago, Tasha and Matt got married and now my bond with her is stronger than ever.

The six of us had Sushi, went downtown to visit Victor at his Pizza shop and we were out until late sharing stories and catching up. It was the best night that I’ve had all year. Seven martial artists who’ve been training 10-20 hours a week for the past 10 years were out together for the first time in a year and I’m so proud to have them as my friends.

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I’m the most proud brother in the world. My two sisters are 13 & 9 years old and I took numerous photos of them throughout the weekend. Cheyenne (13) just past week started holding hands with her first boyfriend. Marley (9) has learned how to kick flip on her skateboard and was excited to show me her super sweet surfing shirts and how she can go really fast on the push scooter. Those two girls are beautiful and I was in the hospital room when both of them were born. They truly love their big brother and each of them are growing, learning and exploring the universe in their own way. Both are dramatically different in their personalities but their love of all things in the world and respect for all creatures (living or non-living) is profound and awe-inspiring. I regret that I won’t be there for Cheyenne’s first kiss or Marley’s first broken arm but they know I’m always a phone call away and I know they’re in great hands with a loving Mother and Father. Also, Dad has nearly 15 dedicated full-time Aikido students who would do anything for those two girls. They have a huge support system and I know they’ll always be in good hands despite my absence.

The past year, much of my 23 years of training with Dad has finally been realized. I’ve been in a few fights both physically and intellectual and I’ve had to support myself and a few friends and have used Dad’s teachings to bring everyone I know, including me to another level. I know Dad is proud of me but this weekend, a few things were realized that meant a lot to me.

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On Saturday, I attended both Aikido kid’s classes as an assistant instructor and then helped with the adult class. It was 6 hours of training and it felt as if I had never left. My continued training both mental and physical allowed me to step in and act as if things were the same as they were over a year and a half ago when I moved to San Francisco.

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After class, Dad and I were drinking some green tea and he said some things to me that connected the dots. There were three things mentioned that discussed where I was and where I am now and my interaction with people and leadership skills as well as my skills in conveying the thousands of lessons he’s taught me over the years but finally not just reciting things he’s told me but leading someone to their own conclusions using concepts, analogies and lessons that show them the light switch but allow them to turn it on. The things he told to me were validating and made me smile.

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I strive to live life with no ups or downs and lately, I’ve had some missteps at doing this but, this weekend I was able to do a good job despite the roller coaster of seeing everyone and learning many new lessons from Dad.

One last thing that’s apparent to me is that having a child is truly remarkable and life changing but it’s not something to be taken as the purchase of a new house or car or a marriage. Fatherhood is life changing but only something you undertake if you are truly ready both physically and mentally and you must at least be on the path to ultimate awareness and off the wheel of suffering. Recounting how much time Dad has spent with me and my two sisters and it’s clear that his efforts paid off in so many ways so I am sure that when / if I have children, I’ll alter my life to make the child my #1 priority.

It’s an honor to be a parent and shouldn’t be taken lightly. You are directly contributing to the next generation of people on this Earth. Everything is constantly in motion so you should be as well.

My weekend back home was nothing short of epic and I owe many thanks to be put on this Earth with so many awe inspiring people and with the opportunity to both experience many terrific things but also share them with you via this medium. As always, I thank you all for reading and the time you took to share in my experiences.

Full Photo Set

I generally try to avoid repeating myself on this space mostly because I try to use my time as efficiently as possible and without wasting space for those of you who, for some reason, religiously read each of my blog entries (all 6 of you). So, if you haven’t read these two posts from March and August, I’d like for you to take the time and read them because:

• There’s a lot about this post that won’t make sense if you don’t.
• You won’t truly understand my situation which will only cause you to make assumptions which ultimately leads to me sounding like a crappy story-teller.
• You have nothing better to do than read my confessions that are months old and probably outdated with far more typos than my recent entries.

1. My Thoughts on The Dating Game
2. One Year Older [Personal Reflection]

Now that you’ve spent the past hour catching up on some of the basics that make Adam tick, let’s move forward with an update on how life is as a single man.

Laura and I have been broken up for quite a while now and separated for far less. For the sake of no one’s business, I’ll keep exact dates to myself but trust me when I say that we didn’t break up and the next day I was dating because that would be really crappy and further justify this post that I wrote last week.

In fact, I did wait quite a while before getting back out there and I honestly would say that I’m not dating anyone right now because I view dating differently than every other guy I’ve ever met other than my Father who has influenced my life in more ways that I would have ever imagined. Each day I do something that reminds me of him and I consider that a good thing. Moving forward, I’ve actually focused on building friendships and not “dating” because dating has a few set rules or guidelines especially in the city.

In this fast-paced city life, people hook up all of the time. This doesn’t bother me religiously or philosophically or even physically, it’s just not for me, plain and simple. I’ve had chances in my time to sleep with someone after one date, just meeting or as a weekend / summer fling and I never take the chance because I honestly don’t find it that appealing.

Last week on the phone with my Dad he said this to me. Keep in mind, I’m paraphrasing (sorry Dad):

There is much to experience in life, small moments that will shape your future and some memories that stay bright and colorful for as long as you live but one thing is for certain; when a man is on his deathbed, his last thought won’t be a regret that he didn’t sleep with more women.

I couldn’t agree more. There are so many moments in life that we miss out on and as much as I’m told by my peers to relax, sleep in and be a little more lazy, I can’t help but feel there’s something I’m missing out on by hitting the snooze button and for me, that’s what sex is for most people.

Perhaps I’m just making excuses though regarding sex. I’ve never really cared for it. I would rather spend time with the person I love over a bottle of wine and watch the sun set in her eyes than the blinds closed engaged in a romp. I would rather create and invent and explore than take an hour or two out of my day to engage in a quick fix and temporary endorphin rush that is gone before you even begin to enjoy it. My next comment has nothing to do with any of my ex-girlfriends (all two of them) but my sexual schedule is, on average, once every 45 days. After my first girlfriend, I went 2 years without kissing a woman and even in a steady relationship, 3-4 months might go by between having sex. To me, this is normal because I’m honestly having too much fun to take a break and have sex.

This, ultimately is causing problems now. See, I joined a site to meet new people of the opposite sex. Some may call it a dating site but it’s not, in fact it’s a site where you can find friends and dates. I make things pretty explicitly clear that I’m looking to meet members of the opposite sex strictly for friendship because, as you know after reading my “dating game” post that I enjoy dating for the pure experience of learning more about someone else and peeling back their layers to reveal what makes them tick. It’s not manipulation, it’s utter curiosity for how the human mind works.

In the past 14 days, I’ve gone out with 6 women and 3 of them I’ve gone out with a 2nd or 3rd time. Two of these women I knew previously via my existing social networks and the rest were from this “friends / dating” site that I joined. Overall, the results have been terrific from my vantage point. Terrific because I’ve met some new people, shared and learned and had great experiences cooking with them, finding new lounges to hang out in and exploring the city’s cool spots that I never knew about before. It’s been a great experience but there’s an issue that’s starting to peek its little head out.

Yeah, that was a poor excuse of a sexual innuendo that failed miserably. Please excuse me while I wash my mouth out with soap.

The issue is that I’m not an intimate person. Well, I am. I wasn’t when I met Laura but she taught me how to love and accept being loved and let someone in despite having a very strong mental defense system. Me growing up a an only child for my first 11 years and my family moving almost every year until I was 15 made it where I learned to be very self sufficient and I can hang out all alone for days and not feel like alone at all. So the intimacy isn’t the problem, it’s intimacy as a drug, a crutch and as a minor boost.

My Father has always taught me to live life like a calm lake. Sometimes a leaf will drop and it will cause a small ripple but the lake is calm and serene with little interference. The ocean, although dynamic and full of great power is up and down. so many people go through life with extreme ups and extreme lows and this way of living leads to depression, feelings of failure, abuse of substances and overall unhappiness. There was a while when I began feeling this way but the past 6 weeks, I’ve remembered my roots and practicing what Dad has taught me and what I’ve taught to hundreds of guys who came into our dojo since I was leading the adult class at the age of 12 (practice what you preach comes to mind).

So, in the 2 weeks, 6 women and 11 dates that I’ve been on, I have hugged 3 of the women (50% of them) after 1 or 2 dates, I’ve not held hands, kissed or made any other moves on women that I’ve seen. This statistic, which is completely normal by my standards, is completely alien for the modern dating scene for someone in their mid 20s and furthermore, San Francisco (or big cities in general).

One girl has flat out asked me if I have intimacy issues and another has said over email that I am too old fashioned for her or that I just don’t like her and don’t have the balls to be honest about it. That’s certainly not true and I’m sorry to see her go but it’s for the best as I wasn’t ready to swap spit at this time.

I don’t have intimacy issues at all and I’ll be honest with someone about either us being in the friend’s zone or if they’re someone that I want to date but it’s not that I’m old fashioned, it’s just that I am not up for meaningless sex just for the sake of having sex.

What’s interesting is the similarities of sexual escapades and exploration with both strangers and people you started dating and how it compares drastically to drug and alcohol abuse. Without filling in another 800 words about that, it’s pretty clear that the ups and downs and instant pleasure do share some similarities but further more, some people want to let themselves go to another or the other way around where the guy or girl simply wants to “ravish” or be “ravished” for half an hour because our society as a whole has forgotten some of the most basic animalistic foundations we evolved from.

You know when you’re being looked at right? You get this feeling and you look up and someone is looking at you? This is one of our last senses that still works because we use that sense for sexual procreation. Most of our other senses beyond sight, smell, taste and hearing are gone because we don’t need to hunt, sense rainfall and find shelter or other things we needed a thousand years ago. That’s totally fine to me but I honestly think both sex and business are the last two animalistic qualities of our society. Well, that and ultimate fighter but who watches that crap?

Back to my original post, dating has been interesting after only two weeks and yeah I’m pretty much in the same exact spot that I was back when I was 17 after breaking up with my girlfriend for 3.5 years and embarking on a career in “computer stuff” and deciding after a month of dating that I was just going to stop for 2 years and focus on my career. I met Laura and it was wonderful but she also aligned with how I looked at life and we got along great. Sex wasn’t a part of our relationship (and I’m sure she’ll get pissed off for me writing that) but it wasn’t. Yes it was a “part” but it wasn’t our relationship and no sex didn’t mean we were cranky or pissed off. I haven’t found that in any other person that I’ve been with.

Things haven’t changed. When I was 17, 3 girls after dating them for a while casually were pissed that I didn’t make a move and now, at 23 I’m in the same position with three more women. I know for a fact that telling them I’m not interested in sex will ultimately result in not being able to see them again and that sucks because I’m enjoying spending time with these people.

I very rarely enjoy anonymous cowards who register spoof gmail accounts just to send me hateful BS but I did get an anonymous letter from someone that named three women who I know really well and who I consider “friends” as far as most people use the word meaning I like hanging out with them and catch up with them while at industry events or parties. The letter basically said that one or all of those women were going to try to sleep with me. What the hell? Seriously? Now, I have no idea who sent this letter so it may be BS and I’m not going to point any fingers or bring it up to the named parties but if true (and I guess we’ll find out soon enough), that means that three people who I considered friends are going to use sex to get one up on me or someone else and thus claim their territory.

Sigh.

This game isn’t for me. To those of you that say I’m not living life, shove it because I’m in love with every thing I’m doing right now. I’m happy, healthy and couldn’t be more content with where things are in life. I have amazing friends, a great family and things in the works that are going to really change the world. It sucks that sex is so inter-twined with going out with people of the opposite sex but it is and I guess that’s just life.

I happened to keep this post under 2,000 words (just barely). I still don’t know what I’m going to do but I had to clarify these things for the sake of my sanity and because I really do look at the world differently or maybe I don’t. Maybe there are guys out there like me but I have yet to meet any.

As many of you know, I’ve decided to sell my MacBook Pro [BLOG LINK], [EBAY LINK]. There have been quite a few inquiries as to why I’m selling my nearly new MacBook Pro. Great question!

The MacBook Pro 17″ w/ 3.06Ghz Processor was released the 2nd week of June at WWDC. I bought it on the 25th so it is only 4.5 months old. Apple will, most likely, be updating the MacBook Pro once the christmas shopping season is over and after Macworld Expo in February (which Apple won’t be attending) which puts me around March. Now, at the 5 month mark, the resale value goes from a slow down-tick to a fast plummet and when new models come out, it’s even worse.

I’ve experienced heartache with the wait and see approach before like my last 15″ MacBook Pro at 2.93Ghz got about 20% less than I thought it would because Apple added SD slot and a built-in battery about 2 months after I purchased it and bumped the clock speed up a bit. This change greatly affected the resale value.

Given that the next MacBook Pro is nearly certain to have Core i5 mobile chips (like the iMac does today), this means the resale value will be even lower because not only will they be updated but they’ll have a brand new processor generation (like the jump from CoreDuo to Core2Duo) and after 18 months with the same graphics subsystem, this will see a bump as well.

The iMacs, as you all know already have the Core i7 with a faster front-side bus and glorious beautiful 27″ monitor. The new iMacs will retain their current value at a 2-3% resale value drop each month until around May of 2010. At that point, Apple would have already released a brand new MacBook Pro w/ new processors and yours truly can sell the iMac and switch back to MacBook Pro.

It sounds to you like Adam is wasting a ton of money. No I’m not actually because with extras like AppleCare, a case, some vintage Apple Stickers and some other goodies that will boost the resale price. Without giving away actual numbers, after eBay collects its seller fees and after shipping I always come out even on what I paid for the machine. That’s right. EVEN. Every 6 months I get a new machine and I never invest any money into it except for the rare times when I went from MacBook to MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro 15 to 17 and so on.

Is it worth the trouble? It is for me but in the past 5 years I’ve owned about 13 Apple computers by doing this so yeah it takes work to follow trends but it’s nice having the latest machine especially when I’m not losing a lot of money in the resale transactions.

Last night I realized something. I’ve had only 4 true friends in my lifetime. A friend is someone you trust with anything and everything. A friend is someone who you can rely on to save your life and a best friend is someone who would risk their life for yours. I rarely call anyone a friend because the word has a lot of meaning to me and throwing it around dilutes the true value of it.

How do I know who my true friends are? Because only 4 people in my life that weren’t family have seen me cry. Four people have given me a strong hug, rubbed my back and held me in their arms while I cried. Each of those 4 people are those that I would give anything for and they would be there for me as well.

Of course, it’s not one-sided either. I’ve also held these 4 people as they’ve cried as well and sometimes it was mutual because sometimes, the only way you truly know someone is when you’ve embraced at the moment when you’re both at your weakest.

I find talking with a friend after crying 100 times more enriching than casual pillow talk after sex. With sex, you are showing your best features, posing, flexing and showing off. Tears are always hidden from the world and you each gain an understanding of what you mean to the other person with tears pouring down your face.

To that very small group of 4 out of the thousands of people that I’ve met in my life, you all are my true friends and I will be there for you no matter what always and forever. Thank you for everything.

Photo Credit: Flickr User “Mosky Rock”

Google Auto-Complete has some interesting things to say about me.

So other than the reference to “criminal minds”, everything else is pretty accurate. I’m curious what this will say a year from now.

I posted this heavily clicked review yesterday of retweets and I admitted that it was still pretty incomplete. At the time of writing, I was convinced that retweeting was for the better but, as Twitter notes, it’s still in beta.

Today, I found a flaw in people that are being retweeted. I noticed this in the stream.

The photo in question was this where my friends Drew and Robert Scoble retweeted two accounts that I don’t really care for and don’t want them to show up in my Twitter stream. Here’ a screen grab.

So Dave Winer and the Aflac Duck both show up and were retweeted by friends. At this time, you can only disable disable retweets from a person you’re following. So, I can go to Robert Scoble’s page and disable seeing ALL of the retweets he does of other users. This would be cool if it was someone I follow who retweets CONSTANTLY but this isn’t the killer feature and I think it’s more important that I am able to go to any user’s page and configure that person from never showing up in my stream. I send out this tweet:

But no, if I go to the Aflac Duck’s twitter page, there’s no option that says I never see his tweets in my stream no matter what person retweets him. This is a pretty major flaw as the top 25 celebrities on Twitter has no business showing up on my main stream but with this new feature they will day after day because each of them have millions of followers.

Then, I try this and all is right in the world but it’s simply a band-aid for a larger problem.

Blocking a person on Twitter will prevent their tweets from showing up in my stream no matter who retweets them. Yes, this works but it’s not a good solution because Twitter doesn’t have an active “list” of people you’ve blocked. Instead, you just have to keep a mental note of this and go to their pages specifically to unblock them. All social networks and IM clients have an easy list that you can access of people you’ve blocked but Twitter doesn’t.

I think this is something that will come later and since the product is in beta, there’s no need to stomp my feet and whine. If you see a lot of tweets from Britney Spears in your stream, just remember that you have to block her specifically or she’ll show up every day as friends retweet her.

Once every 3-4 months, I’ll change all of my passwords. You won’t believe how passionate I am about security and since working in IT for a few years, I learned the value of a secure password.

I keep an Adobe PDF that’s password protected with a master password. This PDF is updated every 4 months as I cycle through and change all passwords. At this time, it’s 4 pages long and contains over 50 password credentials to websites, devices, operating systems and other objects that require credentials to gain access.

If you’re on a PC, Please please please try RoboForm. It has a master password, auto-fill of forms and it even manages multiple identities for each website like I have 15 Twitter logins. Finally, it’s completely portable and the encryption is 128-bit. It’s an excellent piece of software and just talking about it makes me want to go back to Windows. Mac users will 1Password is the same but it’s not because I’ve used both.

I just changed all of mine this week and it took about 1 hour total to do it. Seriously, it’s not very hard to do and if you use SugarSync or Box.net, you can access that PDF from your iPhone if on the go and away from your PC. Don’t memorize your passwords because if, for some reason, you’re captured and held for ransom and the guys want access to your PayPal account, you have deniability that you really and honestly don’t know the password.

Ok, that last scenario was mostly a joke. What do I use for all of my passwords?

I use the PCTools Random Password Generator. The default settings are fine but on financial websites, I up that to 12 characters. These randomly generated passwords are hard to remember but fine if you store them in that PDF.

So get serious about security and change your passwords often!

Just a few minutes ago, I logged into Twitter.com to verify something and saw this glorious goodness:

That’s actually not my screengrab, I stole it from this guy but I do now regret not screen-grabbing the feature for later use. I’ve long expressed my “distaste” of the new feature but, as usual, Adam should have kept his mouth shut until actually trying it because now I can see exactly the kind of power RT has now that it’s an official feature. It was well thought out and takes retweeting to the next level in a very logical way.

The Basics:
First of all, I had to go back a page or two to find a tweet that was retweeted by someone else. It turns out Evan Williams retweeted someone named Rael who I’ve seen mentioned by friends here and there. As I scrolled over that tweet, it looks like Twitter has added a “tip” that says, “Wondering who this is?” with some info as to why you’re seeing that person in your stream. This is an excellent way to avoid any “freak-outs” that we’ve seen in the past from a few celebrities that got the feature early on.

I’m writing this assuming you’re a Twitter power user and understand what retweeting is. If you’re not, this blog post should get you started. The retweeting feature of Twitter.com allows you to retweet any interesting tweet you see with 2 clicks. Click “retweet” and confirm that’s what you want to do as Twitter lets you know this will be tweeted to all of your followers. You won’t see the retweet in your main /home page on Twitter. Why? Well, we’ll get to that later. People that are following you that have the new feature enabled will see someone’s  face in their stream that they’re not following and it will say that they were retweeted by you. They can also retweet that person as well but to their followers, it won’t show your name and will just say retweeted by “3 others” up to infinity I’m guessing.

If the person following you does not have the feature yet, they’ll simply see your face like usual with RT and then the tweet and it will look just like it did before the new feature so there’s no weirdness for people following you that don’t have it yet.

Discovery:
I’ve written a lot of lessons about discovery and mindshare and, personally, I found myself taking additional time when scanning the stream of data just to look at tweets that started with RT. The RT means it was retweeted and is something important. My fear was having a new face in my stream would throw me off (thinking I accidentally followed someone) but instead, on Twitter.com they made the UI understandable enough that if you saw the RT logo (a little square stamp) you could, over time, start ignoring them or paying more attention to them just like you did when you saw RT before a tweet before. The image is more recognizable and thus easier to filter as our brain interprets data and catalogs it.

So my first gripe was out and I’m happy about that. The RT will be missed but until Twitter rolls it out site-wide, we’ll be seeing it for a while. Plus, any 3rd party Twitter applications that don’t support Twitter’s ReTweet API, will still do the old fashioned way and since it’s text, Twitter won’t be able to block it. For those of you that prefer the old method, no one is stopping you from simply copying someone’s tweet and putting RT in front of it. Over time, more apps will support the new method.

Discovery is key. RT wasn’t just a way to share someone else’s tweet with your followers; it was a way to give kudos, thanks or a thumbs up to someone. Sharing, re-blogging or quoting is a way to show your appreciation and spread the word to people you follow. Twitter users love being retweeted. The thing about RTs is that I never gained any significant amount of followers from it. I’m sure many followers of people that retweeted me, saw my post or my link but not many clicked through to follow me. That might be changing. I saw this reply today just after using the RT feature and talking about it:

So, Hans-Jörn actually discovered me through a retweet of someone else. This makes complete sense because humans are visual creatures so my face appearing in his timeline (since he has the new retweet feature) triggered an awareness to my content and despite what my message was that was retweeted, he may have a trust with the person who retweeted me so w/ my face, content and “recommendation” from a friend, Hans felt confident enough to click “follow” next to my name. This was never possible prior to the new feature being enabled.

The Finer Details:

I wanted to note a couple of things that were interesting. Another one of my fears was that guys like Ashton Kutcher or websites like TechCrunch that have millions of followers and thus get retweeted hundreds of times would fill my stream. Everytime a new TechCrunch post is tweeted out, dozens of my friends tweet out the link that it’s hard to concentrate. The new retweet feature only enables you to see that status one time. Let me drill down into this a bit more.

I follow @Ev on Twitter. He posts something 10 minutes ago and 10 of my friends retweet it. I’ll never see those retweets because I already saw his tweet (since I’m following him). Sure, there’s a likelihood that I wasn’t looking at Twitter when he posted the update, but Twitter would rather not fill your stream with duplicate tweets. To back up just a bit, it’s important to remember that anyone simply putting, “RT @Ev….” as a text retweet, I’ll still see those because it’s text. This is an example of retweet content that will continue to live on for some time:

The same rule applied to people I’m following. I retweeted a post from @Ev. I refreshed my Twitter.com/home page and saw that my RT wasn’t showing up! The reason is that since I’m following him, it won’t show in the stream but if I navigate to /AdamJackson on Twitter (which is my public profile view), the Retweet does show up. This minor experience decision from Twitter will mean the stream is less spammy and thus solves one of my major gripes about the RT feature.

When a retweeted post says, “retweeted by 21 people” you can’t actually see who those people are. Earlier designs showed a view of Twitter avatars from people who retweeted it but it seems that was scrapped or just temporarily disabled. That’s totally fine because it’s distracting. I’d like to be able to click the number and see a list of people who retweeted. Further expansion on this since Twitter is now organizing the data differently would be to show leader boards by the amount of retweets but I guess I’ll have to stick to TweetMeme for now. Here is what the old retweet method looked like in earlier mockups.

Here’s how it looks now:

You can also now “undo” a retweet. Instead of the option to “delete” a retweet which might serve as confusing since it looks like you’re deleting the original person’s tweet (not technically possible but could be confusing to some), this undo button makes more sense that you’re undoing your retweet.

A final granular feature that I think is extremely important is the time stamp of the person’s original tweet is accurate since Scoble tweeted this out “9 hours ago” that’s the time stamp that is maintained when my followers see his face on my stream. Remember, people that follow him won’t see it. When I hover over the “you” area which is you or whoever retweeted it, I see a timestamp for when I actually retweeted it which was 31 minutes ago.

In Conclusion:
I wanted to mention that this was only after 5-10 minutes of using the new retweet feature. This was a feature I was pretty against when the screen shots first appeared last month but now that it’s being rolled out, I’m very impressed. Let’s keep in mind that this is still in beta and rumors say that it’s only being rolled out to 5% of users but the new feature will work with 3rd party clients via the API and I can expect even more good things from this new implementation as Twitter continues to improve the way it functions. Overall, I’m pleased with it and look forward to seeing where it goes next.

[UPDATED]: The listing is now on eBay. Click here and tell your friends.

In September, I purchased the MacBook Air and it’s become my primary mobile machine right next to the iPhone. I assumed that the MacBook Air would become the equivalent of a netbook and be the machine that I took on trips or grabbed to take to a meeting. I had no idea that its size and performance would make it the perfect notebook. Here’s my review of the MacBook Air.

In late June of this year, after WWDC, I purchased a 17″ MacBook Pro. The machine was excellent. The monitor was gorgeous and compared to many PC conterparts, it’s the thinnest and lightest 17″ notebook I’ve ever used. In fact, it’s lighter and smaller than many 15.4″ PC notebooks from Compaq and HP. The speed is epic and it was an amazing mobile powerhouse. Here’s my review of the MacBook Pro. This was the case until I picked up the MBA and realized that I could deal with 50% less power in an extremely tiny package.

With that said, I’ve decided to simply get an iMac to replace the MacBook Pro. I’ll get a faster machine with more screen real estate because the 17″ MBP never leaves my desk anymore. It just sits there on my Griffin Laptop Stand. Why do I have a $3,000 laptop that I never take anywhere?

With much deliberation, I’ve decided to sell my 17″ MacBook Pro. The specs are below including photos. Please contact me at adam@adam-jackson.net to make an offer.

Retail Pricing on this machine w/ AppleCare is: $3,198.00 (CA Tax is $303.81)

Extras:

• I’m including an Apple Wireless Magic Mouse w/ Case. It’s only 10 days old
• A 17″ MacBook Pro Case from Incase
• A Griffin Elevator Laptop Stand
• Various Software that I won’t publicly disclose but I’ll transfer ownership.

Tech Specs:

MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009)
Introduced: June 2009
Machine ID: MacBookPro5,2
Order Number: MC226LL/A
Initial Price: $2,499 USD
Support Status: Supported
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (T9600, T9900) (“Penryn”)
Number of Cores: 2
Architecture: 64-bit
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Cache: 6 MB on chip shared L2 cache
System Bus: 1066 MHz
Hard Drive:  500 GB (7200-rpm SATA)
Media: 8x Slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Trackpad: Multi-Touch trackpad
Keyboard: Built-in full-size backlit keyboard with 78 (U.S.) or 79 (ISO) keys
Case: Precision aluminum unibody
Weight and Dimensions (US): 6.6 lbs., 0.98″ H x 15.47″ W x 10.51″ D
Weight and Dimensions (Metric): 2.99 kg, 2.5 cm H x 39.3 cm W x 26.7 cm D
Maximum Mac OS: Snow Leopard 10.6.2
Maximum RAM: 8.0 GB
Type of RAM Slots: 2 – 204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT and GeForce 9400M
Graphics Memory: 512 MB (9600M GT) GDDR3 or 256 MB (9400M) DDR3 shared with main memory
Built-in Display: 17-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen, optional antiglare display
Resolutions: 1920 by 1200 (native),
External Resolution: Up to 2560 by 1600 pixels (30″ LCD)
Display Connection: 1 – Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI, or dual-link DVI with adapter)
Camera: Built-in iSight
Expansion Slots: 1 – ExpressCard/34
Expansion Bays: None
Hard Drive Bus: 3.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
Optical Drive Bus: –
Motion Sensor: Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS)
Liquid Sensor: Liquid Submersion Indicator (LSI)
Power Adapter: 85W MagSafe Power Adapter (MA938LL/A)
System Battery: Built-in 95-watt-hour lithium-polymer
Battery Life: Up to 8 hours

AirPort: Built-in AirPort Extreme card (802.11a/b/g/n)
Bluetooth: Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Ethernet: 10/100/1000BASE-T (RJ-45) (support for jumbo frames)
Infrared: 1 – For Apple Remote only
Modem: Optional Apple USB Modem (MA034Z/A)
USB: 3 – 480 MBit/s
FireWire: 1 – 800 MBit/s
Security Slot: 1 – Kensington cable lock
Audio In: 1 – 3.5-mm analog/optical combo jack, 1 – Built-in microphone
Audio Out: 1 – 3.5-mm analog/optical combo jack, 2 – Built-in speakers

Benchmarks:

AppleCare Coverage:

Today, my friend Andrew Mager linked to this video on CNN.com:

I found the video intriguing but I think most people enjoyed it simply because the kid was in the 5th grade and was so well versed on our 1st amendment rights with enough knowledge of our constitutional rights to also answer questions about them on national television. My thoughts on this matter are different because he only is taking the stand for one thing and yes it’s a big thing so I’m not saying he’s on the wrong path. The right to marry shouldn’t be a debate in my eyes but the argument that allowing same-sex couples to marry will harm the sanctity of marriage is pretty in-valid as I’ve written about here before with a few extra thoughts [link].

Despite the kid’s awesome thought process and that he’s taking a stand at such a young age which, in turn, results in him being called a “gay wad” he’s still missing the big picture here. The fact that liberty and justice for all is pretty much flawed simply because we as humans are flawed. When is the last time justice was actually served for anything? The justice system is royally broken and humans in the form of judges and juries and law makers continue to throw in their own life experiences and thoughts into the process which makes everything up for interpretation so you end up with a system that doesn’t really work.

I’m not even going to talk about Liberty. Honestly, the Wikipedia page on liberty is pretty long and yeah I skimmed the whole thing with the intention of reading in depth later. The short end of this is that liberty is non-existent for many of the reasons that the justice system is broken. Humans have opinions based on experiences and learned behavior. There are billions of humans and we all have our own opinion so giving everyone liberty will simply never happen no matter what people try.

I am proud of the kid for taking a stand but our pledge of allegiance is simply flawed in so many ways that I’m surprised it’s still recited in schools. Removing the, “under God.” line back when I was in school was an interesting choice that most schools in America didn’t adhere to anyway because they saw the change as denouncing God and allowing the atheists to win the argument which is completely false. The whole thing just stinks but there’s something a friend said to me on Friday that rang true.

As she, a native of Holland, sat with me in an Italian restaurant said to me, “I love America because the food diversity is so amazing. Letting everyone move here was a smart move!” I thought to myself, yes but it also meant religions, policies, teachings and ideals were brought here as well. I applaud America’s stance in the last 200 years of allowing people from all over to come here as it was the land of opportunity but our constitution wasn’t really designed to support hundreds of religions and to this day, hate crimes are still common in every state and people are judged by their skin color in every way. There is no liberty and justice for all.

To bring my point home, it shouldn’t have been a big deal and so highly publicized that a black man became president and a Latino women was made elected to the supreme court. It was a big deal because it’s so abnormal. People of color and women becoming leaders in any form is still “newsworthy” when it should be normal. It shouldn’t be abnormal at all but it was and this proves why liberty and justice have and always will be flawed. Until we as humans evolve to rid ourselves of hatred for anyone that’s different, this boy will never be able to say the pledge of allegiance.