smallchou.com/blog

The best part of the Stanford-Cal game tonight? The “Just Like Foot-Ball” chant at the end of the game.

Go Stanford.

Pretty good NFL blog from some guys at ESPN: Hashmarks

Last week I purchased one of those Apple Nike + iPod sport kits from a coworker (she didn’t have the right iPod for it). I took it out for a spin for the first time today. You take the little dock item and plug it into your iPod Nano. And then you put the sensor on your shoe (somehow). And then you run.

So far it’s been pretty cool: it tracks the length of your workout and your distance traveled. When you plug your iPod in after the run, it uploads the info to Nike+ (http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/) and you have a nice Flash interface to track and view your run. Here’s an example of :

A couple of immediate complaints:

• Inaccuracy: as much as I’d like to believe that I just ran 6.4 miles in 48 minutes, I think that’s probably a little much considering my mediocre shape, the big hill out behind Google, and those stoplights that held me back. I think the run’s actually a little under 6 miles. The good news is that you can calibrate the sensor though, so I’ll probably trek out to the LAHS track tomorrow to fix that.
• Sensor Positioning: several times during the run I had to stop and readjust the sensor so it didn’t go flying out from under my laces. I don’t have one of those overpriced Nike+ shoes, so I can’t actually fit it in my shoe’s sole. Luckily there are some third-party companies that sell little pouches to attach the sensor to your non-Nike shoe. The fact that I have to pay $5 extra to do that? Kind of lame (trying to lock in your customers just is never a good idea).

Other than that, the whole system seems good so far. I think there are some community type features (linking up to friends), but I haven’t checked that out yet. More later.

Ever since Ivy told me last week about this Edison Chen sex photo scandal that was all over Asian news (and has finally hit the English-speaking world), I’ve been thinking: “This guy’s just working in the wrong country. If this fella was in America, his career would really be taking off right now.” And I’m not even saying that because he’s a mid- to late-20’s Asian male.

I mean, honestly, the guy had a bunch of lewd photos of him and numerous attractive Asian celebrity actresses/models/singers make their way onto the Internet. Doesn’t that sound like a prerequisite to becoming a celebrity in the United States? I mean, he actually had a real career before this fiasco too. Didn’t Kevin Federline build a career in entertainment off of getting with a celebrity pop star? And it’s not even like he was caught with a prostitute (Hugh Grant), somebody underage (R. Kelly) or a supermodel after dumping his pregnant girlfriend (Tom Brady). And I mean, photos? In America, still images just don’t really do it – anything short of video just isn’t interesting I guess (Paris Hilton, R. Kelly, Colin Farrell, etc.).

I’ll give the guy credit, he does seem pretty genuinely broken up about it – I don’t think R. Kelly ever apologized, and his video was a FELONY. Chen probably needs to bring his career to the United States. At least we could get him on The Bachelor or make him Flava Flav’s sidekick.

I saw my first real Facebook ‘Social Ad’ today in the wild on my news feed. For those of you that don’t know what it is, Facebook takes your friends’ actions on other sites (Blockbuster, Yelp, etc.) and connects them with advertising in your news feed. Here’s a picture of the ad I saw:

A friend added a movie to her queue on Blockbuster and they married it with an ad for the Blockbuster service. It’s a somewhat interesting idea, though I feel like this one ad really fails on the fact that the movie advertised isn’t even the movie my friend added (is it?).

I do give Facebook credit for trying something different – clearly there’s a play to be made around commercial implicit endorsements by friends. Honestly though, this isn’t it. Maybe if it said my friend added the movie to her queue, watched it, and loved it, (and, oh by the way, would you like to sign up for Blockbuster by Mail to watch it?).

In any case, I clicked on the little question mark, interested to see how Facebook would be explaining this, and was greeted by a little bit of an affront:

For those of you that can’t read the text, the one line I was alarmed by was:

Social Ads mean advertisements become more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends.

I have a couple of problems with this:

1. The sentence is more of a statement than a suggestion, but unfortunately Facebook isn’t the one who gets to say whether something is more interesting to me. It’s a bit of arrogance that’s slightly nauseating. The implication is clearly: “Don’t be alarmed, we know what’s good for you. We will tell you what is more interesting.”
2. The ad is NOT more interesting to me or, really, more tailored to me. It’s just not. *Shrug*.

It’s a small little thing, but I think there’s a certain humility that is lacking here. It’s a similar humility that is lacking from most of the choices that Facebook seems to make. When they announced the news feed, people were freaked out (probably unjustifiably so), but the official Facebook response was “Everyone calm down. You’ll get over it.” When people were freaked out by the opt-out nature of Beacon, the response was similar (and didn’t change until advertisers started getting worried).

I have a feeling it’s embedded in the culture of the company, because it seems to pop up continuously: “Don’t worry, we know what’s best for you, and we’ll let you know when we’ve decided what that is.”

Congratulations, New England Patriots! You’re the greatest football team ever that couldn’t win a Super Bowl! Of all the losers in the history of football, you’re the best loser! Loser!

Good luck next year, you f___ing losers.