If you haven’t heard of App.net, it’s something of a Twitter alternative (and more). You can learn more with this link, and even sign up for a free account.¹

For the purposes of this post though, you can think of App.net as “similar to Twitter”. And like Twitter, App.net is often used for conversations between folks directing public messages to one another. This can result in useful exchanges visible to the world, which is great. Sometimes those others join in, and on exchanges between users with many followers, that can be slightly less great.

Enter Riposte, an App.net client. Riposte has a setting to filter out excessive replies from bystanders who may not be contributing. This setting has my favorite preference name of all time:

You’re gonna get some hop-ons.

If you’re a fan of Arrested Development, you’ll surely appreciate this.² As the extent of the explanatory text shows, the concept of the setting is a bit difficult to convey. However, the name is perfect. And the icing on the cake? If the preference name doesn’t convince you to tap it and learn more, the icon surely will:

Footnotes:

1. If you’re already on App.net, be aware that you can follow @OneFootTsunami there to get notified of the daily OFT post. I also post there occasionally under @PBones.↩

2. And don’t forget, Arrested Development Season 4 will be released on Netflix this Sunday, May 26, 2013.↩

A simple statement of eagerness or an explanation as to why you were tackled to the ground by a federal air marshal and, following an immediate and unscheduled landing, forcibly removed from your flight?

Could Be Both, I Suppose

Tom Cruise is perhaps most famous for his role as Ron Kovic in “The Making of ’Born on the Fourth of July’”. Throughout his 30 year career, however, Cruise has also played several Jacks. Let’s look!

A List of the Jacks of Tom Cruise:

Jack

Film: Legend [Link]
Year: 1985
Trivia: The sound of the unicorns at play is actually a recording of humpback whales!
Note: Filmed with a (then-quite-large) $30 million dollar budget, “Legend” grossed only around $15 million, making it quite a flop. Cruise’s first true blockbuster “Top Gun” was released just one month later.

Jack Reacher

Film: Jack Reacher [Link]
Year: 2012
Trivia: The character in the book series is described as being 6 feet 5 inches tall. Tom Cruise is 5 feet 7 inches tall.
Note: The rather-ridiculous character name purportedly originates from author Lee Child’s own lofty height. While struggling with the first book, Child and his wife were at the grocery store when an elderly woman kindly asked Mr. Child if he could reach a product on the top shelf for her. Child’s wife mused that if he couldn’t finish his book, he could always get a job as a professional reacher.¹

Jack Harper

Film: Oblivion [Link]
Year: 2013
Trivia: Writer/Director Joseph Kosinski is not related to “The Office” star John Krasinski.
Note: With this film, Tom Cruise has actually played a Jack in two consecutive films.

Stay tuned for Cruise’s next Jack ____er role.

This completes our tour of the Jacks of Tom Cruise. I hope you have enjoyed this list. For a similar list, please see A Man for All Seasons, featuring Nicholas Cage.

Footnotes:

1. Not a real occupation.²↩

2. Unless you count “Basketball Player”.↩

On Tuesday, Massachusetts held primary elections to determine who will compete for the Senate seat left vacant when John Kerry became Secretary of State. While researching one of the candidates, congressman Stephen Lynch, I noticed something odd. Specifically, his official congressional portrait:

Congressman Lynch’s Official Portrait

Is that a hyper-realistic painting, or an incredibly Photoshopped picture? I honestly don’t know! Research showed that Lynch’s opponent in the primary, fellow congressman Ed Markey, has an official portrait which is clearly a photo. So I first assumed Lynch’s portrait was a picture. Perhaps only Presidents have earned painted portraits.

That’s apparently not so. Congressmen can get painted portraits, and on the taxpayers’ dime no less. So, it’s a painting then, right? The background behind Mr. Lynch certainly suggests as much. Perhaps we can confirm over on Lynch’s website? Ah, perfect, an About section. And there’s a link to Lynch’s…Official Photo.

Alright, that settles it. It’s a photo.

Supposedly.

Last week was hellish. The unconscionable Boston Marathon bombings on Monday were followed on Thursday night by a rampage through Cambridge and Watertown, and a full-day lockdown of the area. Ultimately, one suspect was killed while a second was captured alive on Friday night. Now we must attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy.

And so it was that on Saturday, the Boston Red Sox returned to Fenway Park for their first home game since the bombings. A very moving ceremony was held prior to the first pitch to memorialize the victims and honor many of those who aided the wounded and eventually caught the perpetrators. As it was wrapping up, David Ortiz took the field for the first time in 2013. He gave a brief speech, one which was both impactful and explicit¹:

• This jersey that we wear today doesn’t say “Red Sox”. It says “Boston”…This is our fucking city! And nobody’s gonna dictate our freedoms. Stay strong!

Frankly, though the park was full of children and the game was airing live on TV, it was exactly what needed to be said. After seeing pictures of bloodied victims missing limbs, we can cope with a little salty language. The crowd, roaring in appreciation, certainly agreed. Watching at home, I laughed and clapped along with them, but I also wondered what might happen as a result. The FCC doesn’t generally take kindly to expletives being broadcast on television.

An answer came shortly, via a tweet from FCC chairman, and Boston-area native, Julius Genachowski:

Fuck yeah.

Footnotes:

1. The video is, as always, archived here.↩

Boston’s own Mighty Mighty Bosstones:

Up around 95,
sailing down Storrow Drive,
left exit into Kenmore Square.
Slowed down when I got there,
and that’s when it was crystal clear,
It wasn’t there, it wasn’t where
I left it, when I left it.

I want my city back,
back the way it used to be.
I want it back the way it was.
I looked around and found,
this doesn’t feel like my hometown,
and I don’t like the way it does feel.

Stepped out to take a closer look,
held in with every step I took,
the sadness I felt just to look around.
I looked up to the Citgo Sign,
you used to be a friend of mine.
Do you agree with me at one time,
this was once such sacred ground?

But now I want my city back,
back the way it used to be.
I want it back the way it was.
I looked around and found,
this doesn’t feel like my hometown,
and I don’t like the way it does feel.

“I Want My City Back”
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

I stood at the Boston Marathon finish line yesterday. It was just past midnight, and my girlfriend and I had just completed the Midnight Marathon, a playful group bike ride which tracks the marathon’s route on its 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Copley Square. The official race had yet to start, but the viewing stands were already in place and Boylston Street was partially shut down. In just a few hours, thousands of runners and spectators would fill the area to share in the joy of completing one of humanity’s most difficult athletic challenges. For now, however, the street was barren. The contrast was striking, leading me to snap a blurry picture of a then-desolate finish line:

The Boston Marathon Finish Line

This place is now a crime scene. Mere hours after this photograph was taken, some twisted individual or group decided to injure and kill innocent men, women, and children by setting off bombs at the end of one of the world’s most famous running events. No one has yet claimed responsibility, but very little will change if they do. There can be no real logic or reason behind such a heinous action.

But at the time, the hellishness was still to come for our city. And so having finished our own race, we slowly pedaled back home to Cambridge. As we did, we were delighted to come upon the work of some enterprising MIT students. They’d turned the Boston-facing side of the campus’s Building 54 into a giant game board, upon which a massive-scale game of Tetris was being played.

MITris in Action

After first seeing the game from across the river, we biked closer to check it out. I took a turn at the controls and enjoyed a bigger-than-life version of a game so many know and love. I smiled as I played, and even more as I thought about the spirit of the whole goofy endeavor: this was quintessentially Boston. That night, I went to bed both tired and happy.

Today, I wake to somberness, as we deal with the aftermath of a senseless attack. For now, fear and anger have replaced whimsy and good humor in our town. The violence was perpetrated on a holiday we in Massachusetts celebrate as Patriots’ Day, a day which commemorates the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775. That day began with the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere and the subsequent Battles of Lexington and Concord which marked the start of armed conflict against the British. Just as they must have been more than two centuries past, people today are frightened and concerned. But now, just as it was 238 years ago, Boston is defiant.

Yesterday, only a few hours after the explosions that rocked our city, Building 54 was again hacked by folks at MIT. This time, the massive architectural canvas was used to spread a message of pride, of strength, and of resilience. Looking across the Charles River last night, this was the view from the cradle of modern America:

Boston stands strong.

This piece was written and posted to the web for you live via satellite, from a jumbo jet winging its way across the Atlantic Ocean.

Airplane Not to Scale

The Internet was accessible thanks to Lufthansa’s FlyNet, which provides pretty incredible coverage.

FlyNet’s Coverage Map

You may notice that China is not covered. This is solely a political decision to manually deactivate the service while in Chinese airspace, pending the Chinese government’s decision on approving of the service. I’m sure that decision is coming any decade now.

The website for FlyNet is rather amusing, offering a half dozen stories of how the service might be used, because apparently people need to be convinced that having access to the Internet is a good thing. Perhaps you’ll use Flynet to watch a downloaded video message by staring at the back of your iPhone and pointing its screen away from you, like Sandra L.:

Later, we see the beginnings of some rather hideous and duckfaced sexting.

Maybe you’ll find yourself in Josephine A.’s shoes, with FlyNet showing you that your daughter just eloped:

Sorry you had to find out this way, but at least there’s a barf bag close at hand.

Or like the eminently relatable Michael O., you might use your FlyNet connection to pick out the magazine cover shot for your upcoming puff piece in New Manager magazine:

Subscriptions are limited to three months, after which you’ll receive Manager magazine for the next 57 months. At that time, your subscription will again be transitioned automatically, this time to Veteran Manager magazine.

Anyhow, through the wonders of modern technology, I was able to trade seven thousand otherwise useless airline miles for the ability to hop online. I could browse the web, check email, chat with colleagues, and even keep up with the Red Sox home opener via the mobile version of their site. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a pitcher’s duel is actually not a lot of fun to watch via a text feed. As such, I had a bit of time to think, and I realized something.

We can fly a plane halfway around the world.

We can launch a series of satellites to orbit the planet.

We can use those satellites to access the Internet as that plane flies hundreds of miles per hour.

And yet MLB.com’s pitch-by-pitch still isn’t smart enough to know it doesn’t need a parenthetical “(s)” at the end of the word “out” when there are no runners on base!

Recently, I’ve been amused at the communications from multiple different companies.

Comcast

First up, while updating my billing info with my local high speed Internet and cable provider, I got this message:

Forty-five days is six and a half weeks. I’m not ordering x-ray specs from an ad in the back of Boys’ Life magazine; I’m just punching in a new a credit card number online. When same-day delivery of physical products ordered from the Internet is becoming a reality, it’s comically anachronistic to need a month and a half to change my auto-pay information.

Panera

Then there was this email from a sandwich shop:

Paul, Escape With Authentic, Handcrafted Pastas…

Exactly how depressing do you think my life is, Panera? This email is just insulting. And really, if I wanted an escape, I don’t think I’ll “take a trip to extraordinary” with pasta from a bread company.

Lufthansa

It’s not all terrible turnaround times and cruel beliefs about my life, however. As they have before, Lufthansa brought me a bit of incidental joy:

Amazing. It’s the addition of the “Dear” before the fantastic title which takes it beyond even the address label from 2011.