In August, we mourned the loss of Teddy Kennedy who had led of for so long. Today, 56% of Massachusetts citizens pissed on his grave and everything he stood for. We will be the unraveling of any health reform and will have set the entire nation backward two steps where we should have moved forward five.

Brown already sickens me. I caught a few minutes of his speech this evening on NPR to catch his party-line rhetoric describing how the US Constitution only applies to US Citizens and that we should afford no rights to people we capture in battle. While I feel harsh penalties should be in store for those that are truly guilty of wishing to harm the citizens of the US- we should always base our justice system on solid evidence and not single sided arguments in a Salem Witch Trial manner.

As someone pointed out tonight, the conservative party always has the upper hand on most things for a simple reason- they are the party that is ‘against’ progress. To create progress, you sometimes end up with split ideas and have to figure things out. It is easy to be at the top of the hill defending the status quo.

Fellow citizens of Massachusetts- today you did not vote for ‘moderate’. You didn’t just give the finger to the State House, or to Washington. You didn’t vote for change. You took your foot and you shot it, then shot the other one to make sure the job was done right.

The American government will not do anything to rock the boat for dozens of political and economic reasons. US companies (with the exception of some like Google) will not do anything because it might damage profits.

Yet maybe, just maybe you can do something to send them a message. Pledge a period of time that you won’t buy anything from China. It can be a day, a week, a month or a year. Make all best attempts to not acquire anything made in China.

Doing it for more than a day may be very difficult, but it is possible. Keep in mind:

• Clothing
• Packaging (plastic grocery bags too)
• Toys
• Electronics (most electronics are made in China)
• Furniture
• Automotive components

You’ll probably find that some items are exceedingly difficult to find ones not made in China. When that happens you have a decision. Either you break your attempt to stay ‘Made in China free’ (fail), or ask the company why they partner with China for business.

Overall, don’t just try to buy in somewhere that isn’t China, but try to buy local when possible. You’ll pay more likely, but you support your local economy and lower your carbon footprint.

If the US government and companies won’t stand up to China? Who will? Maybe that someone can be you.

After being laid off from GamerDNA I took a few months to acquire some new skills and thought a lot. There were many meetings, many times the bank account getting too close to zero, and much help from friends.

I got into programming Ruby. Programming again, which I haven’t done much since C++ in high school and some Perl/CGI in 2001, feels amazing and I feel like I can offer more to any technology based team now. It really opens up so many possibilities and I’m not sure why I abandoned it in the first place. Probably to focus on music and other things.

Post ROFLThing and a few Internet Super Highway meetings, Tim Hwang pulled me into a newly forming research group studying social networks. I know thats an overly broad description, but we’re really doing a wide range of things. I’m mainly doing database administration, datamining programming, business development and project management. Other people are doing the writing, analysis and visualization. Actually, perhaps I’m doing a lot with it. I have this weird self sufficiency in my head that I’ve adopted with music. I need to be able to do it all, or I don’t feel that I’m holding things together enough. Maybe this is why I play guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and even a little out of tune cello. Anyway, the group is called the Web Ecology Project and we just released a paper last month which got a reasonable amount of press and I’m proud to have been a part of. We’re doing cooler stuff very soon though so keep an eye on that one.

I picked up a few consulting projects. I could have probably done better with these execution-wise, but they were a great way to learn. I learned that I don’t want to be an independent consultant and that I like working with a team. The team can be doing consulting, but I don’t want to be the only one on that team.

I went to NYC a lot. I’ve probably been ten times this year so far. Went to a few cool events by Jeff Pulver including the #140Conf.

I got a new job. A company called Green-Ear picked me up from LinkedIn of all places (yes, LinkedIn actually can get you a job it seems) to head up marketing and strategy for them. We’re doing VoIP communications for videogames. Or in non-tech speak we make it so you can talk to others in any game. Because most of the company is in Ohio, I’m back with my brothers at betahouse and enjoying every minute of it. They are a great company and they’ve empowered me to really make stuff happen. I’m shocked at how fast their programming team can get stuff going. They are ninjas.

Tim also started up another group called the Awesome Foundation. Basically we’re giving away $1,000 grants each month to people who are doing/want to do awesome things. We got a huge amount of press the other day and its just getting off the ground. We have some really cool people in the group that make me even more proud to be with it. We have the founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian that just joined. Reed Sturtevant who heads up Microsoft Startup Labs in Cambridge is there. We’ve got Mac Cowell who runs DIYBio, people from DorkBot and some other really amazing people. And you may ask yourself, how did I get here…? Anyway, we’re still looking for grant applicants and this is going to keep running monthly, so go over and apply! It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes.

I’m also moving apartments soon. After over two years in my little Back Bay studio it is time for a change. I haven’t stayed in one place for so long since I moved out of my parent’s house going to college. I’m moving in with Mac Cowell and four other fun people in Davis Square. The house is humbly titled ‘Epic Manor’, which it truly is. I’m really excited by some silly things like having 2 1/2 refrigerators, space for my cat to run around, an out of tune piano in the living room and a large basement. Davis Sq is great, the house is huge, and its cheaper. Everything about it is Win.

I have almost totally dropped off the Social Media social scene lately. I was tired of the bullshit, the egos, the drama, and the fake people who make fake friends with each other. Although now I’m working fulltime in marketing, I feel more disconnected from most of these people than ever. I’m barely even looking forward to Podcamp Boston.

So I’m keeping busy. I’ve just told myself that I’m going to write, record and finish at least 8 songs by the end of the year (and throw in some of my old tracks) to make an album and release it. I certainly have enough gear and I have no excuse.

My blog is going to shift for a while probably over to mainly talking about the recording and writing of the album. I’ll post lots of clips and tracks unfinished as I write it so you can hear what is happening.

Oh and I’m buying a drumset soon again. woot

I have an odd feeling that they won’t ever be prosecuted for torture, but I feel they should be. Most of the people involved are unrepentant and see nothing wrong with their decisions. Several former CIA officials have been quoted in saying that stopping these techniques is a poor idea, and they letting people know that we were doing them is an even worse idea.

We put people in jail, not just as a form of punishment, but to remove dangerous people from society. Torture is clearly unconsitutional, as is the detaining of people in Gitmo. The people involved lacked the clarity of judgment and morals to see that torture is clearly wrong. Just as a murderer who doesn’t see what was wrong with his crime should be put away, so should anyone involved in torture. I don’t buy the Nuremberg trial line of, “I was just following orders.” If a person outranking you (in any field) tells you to do something wrong, then you shouldn’t do it.

Torture is wrong. What they did was wrong, and everyone along the line should be held accountable for their poor judgment, poor morals and a clear lack of understanding of the Constitution.

So I’d like a new apartment. In case anyone reading has a similar place that they plan on vacating soon, or perhaps you’re a real estate agent and you have something similar… you should contact me. This is simple a wish list, and I don’t expect that I’ll find anything exactly like this by any means. Real Estate nationwide is ‘supposed’ to be tanking, so who knows.

• Neighborhood: Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End, South Boston, JP, Cambridge or Brookline. Anywhere else is either too far away, too overun by students, or to be honest a bit too ‘urban’ for me.
• Either 2 small bedrooms, or a 1 bed + Office. I need my bedroom and project room separate. The project room need not have windows.
• Good electrical wiring. A single 15 amp circuit won’t cut it, and I need 30-45ampres of current available (3 breakers) to not overload it. How I’m not tripping this 20amp circuit now is beyond me.
• Hardwood floors. No carpet. It gets dirty good easy.
• Kitchen: Full sized fridge (not one under the counter as I have now), dishwasher, and hopefully disposal. Eat in kitchen not needed. Gas stove required above all else.
• Parking is a plus, but not a requirement as I have no car currently. If gamerDNA gets bought up by News Corp for 700M then I’ll put a Tesla in the parking spot. (No, they aren’t looking at actually buying us… just a joke).
• 550+ sq ft total. 750+ would rock my world.
• I don’t mind ground level at all, as long as the windows are secure.
• Cat friendly a must. Jade is cute AND a good kitty. She keeps the mice at bay.
• The thicker the walls and floors, the better. I can tend to be a tad loud, but not excessively so. I should be able to watch The Dark Knight at a reasonable volume and not disturb the neighbors
• Few requirements for bathroom. Preference to not having the ubiquitous pink tiles that are so prevalent in Boston apartments from the 50′ s rennovations. Jade the Cat has requested a Claw Footed Tub however.
• Walls must have real framing, that I can hang guitars from the studs. None of this 150 year old horsehair plaster stuff that you can’t even hang a poster on.
• The more closets the better.
• Must be accessible to the T (subway, not just bus). That doesn’t mean a 25 minute walk to the subway either. Boston winters are too cold for that.
• Looking to move either Sept 1, or better yet Aug 1/15th. I don’t relish the Sept 1 insanity and I’ll do anything to avoid it. Earlier opportunities will be considered.
• Preference to NOT put down First/Last/Security/Fee. 4 months is insane, and my sister put down less on her mortgage recently. Absolutely no reason so many are needed for just an apartment.
• $1200 max. Not a penny over. I’m not made of money. Aren’t Real Estate prices supposed to be falling?

Overall, I’m just looking for a nice little place for me and my cat. I’d like to have space for a queen sized bed, as being 26 with a twin bed is lame. I want a room that I can set up my darkroom, music and guitars in and not junk up the rest of the apartment, plus a living room to have a few friends over, or maybe have a couch in! I mean, my current apartment has only my twin bed and my Aeron chair to sit on. Not very good for having friends over. Plus we run out of oxygen if there’s more than 3 people + cat and don’t have the window open.

I hate Hollywood for showing that every struggling artist who lives in a big city has a huge, open, modern industrial loft apartment… even though they haven’t written a song or sold a painting in years. I am ashamed to admit it, but I thought that I’d actually be able to find such in Boston when I moved here, but then found that they barely exist and when they do are $6000/month. No starving artist lives in that, let alone someone working for a startup!

So does anyone have a lead on an apartment for me? In return, you get first dibs on my 180 sq ft mansion in Back Bay.

One of Matt's websites! How friendly!

People on Twitter swarmed on this guy. In his press release he claimed himself to be big on Twitter because HubSpot’s Twitter Grader put him in the Twitter Elite for Atlanta, GA. The language used made him seem so full of himself, egotistical and in short a douchebag. It was enough for hundreds to Digg his press release claiming him the “The Biggest Douchebag in Social Media“. It should be noted that Twitter Grader can’t tell that “Atlanta” and “Atlanta, GA” are the same place, and that he’s only highly ranked in “Atlanta, GA” where even a Cat is above him as was pointed out in a comment on Jamie Scheu’s blog, in a post about the ordeal.

You should take a glance at the Search/Summize feed for this guy, as its a riot from the past few hours.

I had a hint from the beginning that this likely wasn’t a one time occurance however, and when Googling his name my Firefox autocomplete put finished out his name with “scam” at the end. That seemed odd, so I selected it and searched for “Matt Bacak Scam“. All of a sudden I felt that I was watching an X-Files or Lost episode where what you thought was the main plot suddenly became a diversion and melted away.

It seems that our friend Matt Bacak isn’t just a newbie in PR and marketing that got it all wrong. No, this guy knows what he’s doing and is a grade A scum of the internet douchebag that makes the guys on 4chan look good.

There have been alleged scams that he’s ran (that seem like 1-step pyramid schemes), every press release has more spin than watching Fox News, oh and he has great sites like http://www.generatemillionsonline.com/ on which he claims he made over 3 million last year, on the front page. Most people don’t even like to talk about their salaries, but bragging about it like that is pretty bad. Other sites like http://www.powerfulpromoter.com/ are just as bad, claiming to make you gobs of money with your web business.

It’s almost too much to type. He puts stupidly shameless self promoting stuff on Digg. Not just blog articles that he wants to share, but ones like “Matt Bacak joins Twitter“.

Then he has the audacity to have a site like “Matt Bacak’s Pansy Report” in which is partially refutes some claims against him, and tries to use reverse psychology and other sales techniques to try to get you to sign up for his stuff. Oh, and he claims in it to warn you about the “Dark side of internet marketing”. There’s complaints on Rip-Off Report about this guy. He IS the dark side of internet marketing. Look at the final page on his Pansy Report. It’s a get-rich-quick scheme.

So let’s be clear, this wasn’t one guy’s small mistake in putting out this press release. The guy’s entire career is a dark mark on the internet, marketing, pr and social media as a whole. I don’t care how much money the guy has made, but he’s clearly one step from being a fraud, and doesn’t make what most of us would term as an honest living.

Sickeningly, since all of this has happened… he’s gotten almost 100 new followers. Of course Matt himself hasn’t responded to anyone via Twitter so god knows what he thinks about this. Incidentally he has his office phone number of  770-271-1536 on his website, so maybe I’ll call tomorrow morning and ask for comment.

UPDATE 12/5/2008: Yea, I tore into this guy a little hard. So did just about everyone. He screwed up. Putting something out on that PRWeb site cost him at least $500, so I’m sure it wasn’t something done without ‘any’ thought put into it. I mainly have a problem with this guy’s ego and tone. I have zero problem with success in social media. I’m friends/acquintences with many ‘big’ people in social media and think they are great. None of them are full of themselves, or have huge egos. I didn’t even know that Chris Brogan or Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) were “big” in social media until someone else told me. Zero ego, just confidence and skill. Matt’s done some of the right thing by partially owning up to making a mistake. He hasn’t done so with the hubris that I’d expect after a massive screwup like this, but he has done well and tried to reach out to the people who made comments about him and for that I respect him. I still think that in general what he does online with “Internet Marketing” isn’t exactly something that I find to be good or wholesome and I’m not sure what real value it offers, more than just pissing people off or offering get-rich-quick schemes. He’s obviously done well in his field, but just needs to tone down things a bit and learn a bit of humility. He charges for seminars, but in him doing this, he’s gotten more than a seminar of Social Media consulting of what not to do.

For those completely non-programmers out there reading this Ruby on Rails is a framework (basically a lot of stuff done for you already) that makes developing web applications happen really quickly. Its sometimes taunted by developers in other camps as being unscalable due to the growing pains of its most prominent application, Twitter, but that really isn’t an issue. Rails is best suited towards rapid application development for testing and prototyping.

I took some photos for O’Reilly’s Ignite Boston 3 a few months ago and in return they’ve sent me a nice selection of O’Reilly books, including this one. I guess they sent it to me a bit ahead of publishing date, which was nice of them. I’ve found this book to be the perfect fit as an introduction to Rails. It isn’t condescending as a ‘For Dummies’ books might feel, but it doesn’t fly over your head or go into insane detail in trying to explain every intricacy of the framework. In fact, several times it tells you to not worry about something and that you can look into it later but not to sweat the small stuff.

This book doesn’t take the approach of many Rails tutorials that rush you through building a complex application in 5 minutes. Those make too many assumptions of knowledge and are made for showing off more than learning. This goes through in a simple logic manner to explain the layout of a Rails application and how to extend it. You won’t be a Rails master after reading this, but you’ll be ready for your next Rails book and you won’t be lost or confused.

The first chapters go through the basics of installing Rails (giving you multiple options) and explaining some problems you might hit and how to get around them. I already had Rails installed, but I’ve had problems before in reading other tutorials and wasn’t able to understand the layout of the application, how to start the programs, or what the hell these Gems were. This got me around that and I feel much more comfortable with such things.

It steps through basic MVC structure and handling of input, getting it into a database and dealing with RESTful interfaces. The mid section of the book elaborates on this more and gives you room to start actually building some interesting things. The book ends up talking about deploying basic Rails apps, Apache integration, SVN/git, Ajax and other useful topics.

The appendices are really useful and don’t just feel like tables from an encyclopedia. Appendix A takes you through a quick Ruby crashcourse which was really useful. It might still be a bit too high level for your mother to grasp quickly, but if you’ve ever done any sort of programming then you’ll get it almost instantly. The other appendices are equally useful and definitely aren’t just page filler.

So if you’re just trying to wrap your head around Rails I wholehearted recommend this book. I haven’t found a better introduction to Rails, but you likely won’t find a bunch of super-geeks recommending it as it was probably too low of a level for them to want to read. You’ll be able to dig through most of it in a long afternoon, and internalize most of it in a week or so. The examples are clear, short and easily understandable. There are no multipage sections of code to copy, which are often tough to understand and prone to typing errors. The next up rails book that I’d recommend for an aspiring programmer who doesn’t have a large history in programming would be Agile Programming in Rails.

The auto industry wants to place the blame on the overall economy, credit markets, and basically say, “Daddy, its not my fault! Help me out here!”

The US auto industry however isn’t in this place due to external conditions alone. They have buried their heads in the sand for the past 25 years, hoping that all would turn out for the best. They ignored the demand for more efficient autos, and totally missed every trend again and again. Just about the only thing they they continue to do well is work-trucks. They weren’t agile. They were slow. They were overconfident. They were proud and now they have failed. They made wide assumptions that by using 0% interest loans, consumers would snap up their cars instantly and ignore anything from Europe or Asia.

Additionally, they played ball with the unions and agreed to massive pensions plans, never looking forward to the future or anticipating the problems that would occur when everyone went to retire, or the market shifted. They had no backup plans.

And now, Detroit is in trouble. Certainly these companies going out of business would mean the loss of thousands of jobs of innocent, hard working people. At the same time, the markets would shift and new jobs would become available. Asian and European car makers such as BMW and Honda have been making cars in the US for years. People don’t consider them “US Made” cars, but often they are.

There is no need to prop up failing companies with arrogant CEOs. When questioned why they were flying private jets, chartered at over $20,000/flight, they answered that it was in the safety interests of the executives and standard policy. Then when asked by a US House member if the CEOs would lower their salaries to $1 in exchange for the assistance, the CEOs said no. Take note, that CEOs have done so prior in hopes of reviving the companies. Their companies don’t make money, and yet they make massive amounts, plus bonuses. It’s not that they are geniuses that are making companies soar, they are miserable failures that don’t deserve a dime. I could do a better job. Yes, I could do a better job.

Here’s what I’d do:

• Cut lines that they aren’t able to compete in
• Reintroduce the GM EV. Surely the plans are in some file cabinet.
• Push Diesel and biodiesel cars. They aren’t just for europeans.
• Zero Executive Benefits plans. The Executives have the same benefits as other members in the company.
• Don’t play ball with the unions. No more pensions in the future. They will strike, but the company can holdout longer than them. Who today gets pensions (not people in startsups for sure…)?
• Introduce accountability in all departments, with strict review plans
• Fire weak performers. There are no jobs simply due to tenure. Get people working more hours. These jobs average ~40 hours a week. The average needs to be more like 50-60.
• Make all departments feel like a startup. They sink or swim based on their performance.
• Cut costs drastically. No AIG-style retreats. No corporate jets. No Aeron chairs. Give departments small budgets and make them be creative.
• Hire younger people. They are more creative, and don’t expect pensions.
• Crowdsource things where possible.
• Go green.
• Go Agile. Development should be faster, and fail quicker and cheaper.
• Find other ways to create income and revenue associated with the cars, asides from just the cars. Think outside the box. They haven’t done that in 100 years with cars.

Not all of that is perfect, but its a start.

I don’t want my tax dollars bailing out any company period, let alone a US car company. I feel bad for the people working there on the lines, but there are more jobs to be had. I’d rather see us put the $25B into retraining and giving more flexible skills to those people so they can go elsewhere.

To the people working there, I’d say that no job is safe. They should have know that and assessed the risk. The company I work for could fire me tomorrow, or go out of business. It happens. I never assume that my job is ‘safe’ completely, and I always have other skills, education and training to fall back on. If you put yourself into a single pigeonhole skill and expect that the job will always last, then you have done yourself wrong. America didn’t bail out the Valley in the tech bust, they aren’t saving programmers without jobs or lower rates, why should factory workers be any different?

This is the no-regulations, free trade, that the big boys always want. No regulation, means no help. This is capitalisim. Companies must fail. There must be risk. If there is a sufficient market demand than someone will buy them out, or the demand in the market overall will hold them up.

Can anyone explain why tax dollars should hold up bad business plans and poor execution?