Another reason Groupon is in trouble

Since I originally wrote about Groupon (see here), I read yet another interesting article courtesy of Wired.  Between the interesting legal risks mentioned in this article, competition from additional big name competitors like Google and Facebook, and a questionable business strategy, I fear this could be a big blemish on the recent tech IPO boom

You mean teachers are real people with their own opinions?

Seeing as I have so many teacher friends, here is an interesting read definitely worth checking out.  In the world of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, and almost an unlimited amount of other communication tools available (most with permanent retention), it's pretty scary what some school communities are firing teachers for. With that  said, I had this image as a kid of my teachers doing nothing but going home and reading books and correcting my homework.  I certainly didn't picture them as other people who live normal lives, never mind "crazy" stuff like drinking an alcoholic beverage or going to a rock concert.  Seeing so many of my friends who are teachers now and still living normal lives is something I still haven't adjusted to.

Putting breasts to an interesting use

I think a sign you are reading a good magazine is when you continuously read articles that surprise you, are relevant to everyday life, and are about topics that have not been otherwise publicized or discussed (and that you've never once given any thought to).  Wired magazine never seems to disappoint me in that regard. This evening I read a really interesting article about a growing community of woman that are selling their own breast milk to other mothers.  I'm so conflicted on this one;  on one hand I understand the tremendous benefits of feeding breast milk to infants and the general market need.  On the other hand, the idea of buying very expensive breast milk from some random woman on the internet who could be inflicted with one of many infectious diseases or sustaining herself on nothing but beer and cigarettes scares the daylights out of me.

What amazes me about the world in general is how wide the gap can be between people about a certain topic and how strongly they can feel about their particular stance.  I mean, on one extreme parents are feeding their newborn bodily fluids from a perfect stranger with no testing, pasteurization, or really any other systematic precautions.  On the other extreme, parents are refusing to give their children vaccines that have been around for many years and have been proven over time to have more or less eliminated diseases that used to plague infants (read another great Wired article here from 2009).  And yet, despite the passion of the two extremes, infant mortality keeps decreasing and the average lifespan continues to grow higher.

For now, I'm going to keep worrying about more relevant issues (and less stressful), like do I choose to go golfing or bike riding this coming weekend.

Semi-Finalist in a photo contest!

I found out today that this photo was selected as a semi-finalist in the "Nature" category at my company's annual photo contest.  The competition is pretty stiff (I'm impressed each year at the photos that people have taken), but win or lose I still think it looks pretty great hanging on the wall of my condo