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Adding to the first annaul Mountain Man Competition, Brian suggested we have a whittling competition. He actually suggested we whittle with butter knives just to make things difficult, but I think that would just be frustrating and tedious…we will handle those details later. Anyway, over the course of our week in the woods we will use whatever tools we can find to whittle the most impressive pieces of wood you have ever seen. We’ll post pictures when we get back and have a poll for whose carving is the best. Like this idea? Have your own?

Help us come up with more ideas!

How do you want to see the Wegner brothers compete over a week in the mountains? Leave your ideas in the comments. We only have a few days left, but any great ideas will have their own post created (which includes a link to your site, if you have one) and the competition photo-documented if possible.

This is open to everyone: automaticable readers, vacation attendees, random extended family members…anyone really. There is only 1 rule: no running competitions! (grrr…)

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We are only a few days away from the Wegner summer vacation and it is about time I announce our first annual Mountain Man Competition. Not only am I announcing this to the folks here on automaticable, but this is the first time the other vacationers are hearing of the idea as well. If you want to help participate, make sure to read through the end of the post to find out how you can be a part of the Mountain Man Competition.

For the first aspect of the Mountain Man Competition, we are going to have a beard growing contest. I’m not sure what the state of all the participants’ facial hair is, but for everyone participating we will have a final clean shave Friday morning and document our spikey growth over the entire week. Expect a photo-blog of our facial evolution when we get back. The winner gets to bask in his (or her?) manly glory as the most masculine (and hairy) person of the bunch.

Help us come up with more ideas!

How do you want to see the Wegner brothers compete over a week in the mountains? Leave your ideas in the comments. We only have a few days left, but any great ideas will have their own post created (which includes a link to your site, if you have one) and the competition photo-documented if possible.

This is open to everyone: automaticable readers, vacation attendees, random extended family members…anyone really. There is only 1 rule: no running competitions! (grrr…)

To help me in my search for inspiration, Stacy recommended I write something on this story that talks about improved portable shelters for the homeless. It is hard to be against something that raises the standard of living of anyone, especially those at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.  I would like to take a fairly objective view on this subject, the well being of the homeless living in the streets, and look at the economic and social impacts of something like free, comfortably designed portable shelters.

Healthcare for the homeless

Probably one of the most positive aspects of having free, high quality shelter for the homeless are the health benefits of staying dry and warm.  Not only does staying well improve the standard of living for the homeless, but it also decreases a huge social and economic burden from cities who have to treat the uninsured homeless population.  With fewer uninsured people getting sick, this will not only decrease the cost of healthcare for those that can and do pay for it, but it will lighten the already overfilled load of patients that hospital emergency rooms have to take care of.  The healthcare aspect is a win-win for the homeless population and the surrounding society.

An increasing homeless population

This will be a hard point for many people to agree with, but as the lifestyle of the homeless becomes better, the homeless population will increase.  I am not saying more people will choose to be homeless.  Nobody really ever willingly makes that choice.  What will happen, though, as the standard of living increases, is that less people will make the choice to stop being homeless.  If the main motivation for people to look for work and get out of their rut is a terrible lifestyle, having comfortable, attractive, and portable shelter will not provide as much of this motivation. This is a hard concept to swallow, that certain homeless people will not move into a more productive lifestyle if they are given suitable shelter, but I believe it to be 100% true. My following points will rely on this fact, so if you cannot agree with this, then you probably will not agree with the rest of my post either.

An increase in the homeless population is an increase in crime

Because of the deprived lifestyle many homeless people lead, there is a natural increase in crime rates where there is high homeless population density.  This is not to say that all homeless people are criminals, just that there are enough that are desparate enough within the homeless communities to raise crime rates.  This increase in crime not only costs cities more for policing the crimes committed, but increased crime rates lower property values, decreases the social welfare of the surrounding population, and attracts additional negative externalities such as drugs and prostitution.

Unavoidable publicity

With an increase in the homeless population and larger, brighter portable shelters being used, the homeless will be impossible to ignore. This can have 2 different effects, and I haven’t yet decided whether this will have a net positive or negative. First the positive: the more the homeless population stands out, the more people will be aware of and want to fix the problem.  Philanthropy will increase out of pity, concern, and also out of selfishness.  The selfishness stems from the negativity surrounding the homeless population.  Nobody wants to see their streets filled with homeless people for many reasons, and this increased publicity from the homeless will make it that much worse.  With the homeless population standing out more, this could drive down housing prices and social welfare even further than the current homeless population does.

There are a number of other externalities that increase the social and economic costs associated with a well-kept homeless population, but I think these cover the main points I have been thinking about.  The positives related to improved portable shelters for the homeless are extremely positive: an increased standard of living, lower healthcare costs for society as a whole, and cleaner looking streets. At what cost do these come, though?  It is never easy to put a pricetag on happiness, but there will always be economic elements that are taken into consideration.  In the end, without hard numbers, it is a hard call to make. The well-being of the homeless increases substantially, but the economic costs of an increased homeless population are also significant.

What do you think? Does it matter that there will be more homeless if they are better taken care of? Will the benefits outweigh the costs? There is a lot to think about here, and I think we can have a good discussion about this in the comments.  I’m sure there is a ton I haven’t thought about, so leave your opinions below.

That’s right people.  Kyle Wegner, everyday SEO and automaticable contributor, is internationally famous.  How is this possible, you ask?  Well, the image you see in this post was used by a fellow named Martin Menu in a presentation in France last week.  The conference he presented at was called the Atlassian User Group, which you can find more information about here (site in French).  In the presentation he not only included my image, but a By: line, so my name has now been recognized internationally.

The reason I know about this is because Martin contacted me and asked permission to use the image I created.  Though the image has been realeased under the Creative Commons Licence (with some restrictions), I really appreciated him asking whether he could use it or not.  The internet is such a free for all with people stealing other people’s work, and it is nice to know that some people still respect the hard work people put into their art.

If the presentation ever gets put online and Martin follows up with me with the link, I’ll definitely be posting it here.  Until then, just know that a group of people on the Champs Elysees saw my RSS image and name during some conference on June 19th. 

Many of us at automaticable downloaded the all-new Firefox 3 we helped to announce yesterday.  For those of you that haven’t, you can still install the fastest browser in the world by clicking here.  Anyone who did download on June 17th, however, has something to be proud of. You were 1 of more than 8 million downloads that occurred, easily placing Firefox in the Guinness Book of World Records for the single day download record.

Anyone who participated (ok, and wannabe’s too) can get an official personalized Firefox 3 download day certificate! As you can see, I’ve already downloaded mine and am proudly displaying it here on automaticable. Get yours now!

Just a quick post here, but something I’m very excited about.  Since Google Maps started releasing “Street View” for cities around the US I have been waiting anxiously for them to add Atlanta.  I actually thought it was a bit ridiculous to be queued behind places like Spokane WA and Manchester NH since Atlanta is a fairly large city, but I’m sure there were reasons behind the decision.  Maybe since Atlanta is such a large city and is not on a grid system they figured it would take more effort to actually scour the streets.

Anyway, I was looking up directions today to figure out where to go to pick up my car since it is in the shop and was greeted with camera icons that marked every turn on my trip.  Awesome!  No more having to guess what each obscure twist and turn will look like when I take trips.  For someone as OCD about directions as me, this is great news.  I am always looking for visual cues to let me know I am going in the right direction.

People, I have something very depressing to admit.  I have run out of things to say.  Because of this, automaticable is suffering.  Since when am I opinionless?  I must be getting sick or something.

Someone say something inspiring.  Give me some ammunition here.  Tell me you love Bush, or that I am a Godless heathen.  Talk to me about how gays shouldn’t marry.  Make fun of my lack of style.  Say my music sucks.  Tell me SEO is a scam.

If you don’t want to do all those things, just visit all the links I stuffed into that last paragraph.  That’ll keep you busy while I try to think of something new and awesome to say.

I hope all of you Obamamaniacs were right, because he just pushed Hillary out of the game.

That is all.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a favicon is the icon that rests on the left side of the tabs or navigation bar in your browser that is unique to different websites.  For example, the favicon for automaticable is a red wrench on a black background.  See it?

Earlier today I noticed that my iGoogle page had a new favicon. Instead of the capital G surrounded by Google’s primary (and green secondary) colors, now a blue, lowercase g stands on an opaque background.  For a second I thought my browser had loaded the wrong page, as such a drastic change really threw me off.  The favicon change actually applies to the google.com page as well, so if you do not use iGoogle you can check out the new favicon simply by going to Google search.  Also, if you don’t know or don’t remember what the old Google favicon looked like, Google Blogoscoped has a short story, including an image, of the favicon change.  You can find that story here.

So why do I bring this up?  Well, to me this is a huge branding play by Google.  Their capital G has long represented them as a clear, powerful symbol.  It looks like Google has decided they do not want to have as powerful of a symbol representing their brand, as consumers generally trust super-powerful corporations less than mom & pop shops.  Moving to a lowercase logo has been a trend in the past for companies that want to feel more personal.  The first that comes to mind is AT&T, the once megapowerful telecom provider for the United States, which has recently rebranded themselves with a lower case at&t.  Whether people actually change their feelings about a brand simply through upper case and lower case lettering is a mystery, though I can tell you personally that lower case lettering definitely looks inferior and weak to me.

Is this a good idea for Google, changing from their iconic G symbol to a plain, lower case g?  No, not in my opinion.  I’m sure this favicon change is just a single step in a long-term rebranding campaign for Google, but if they think they are going to be able to position themselves as one of the little guys, I think they are going to have to decentralize the entire company.  There is no way a company with 60%+ market share in their realm (search, here) will ever convince consumers that they are still a small personal company.

Then again, I am just a single consumer that spends a huge part of his day on Google doing SEO work.  Do you think this is a good idea? How do you think something as small as a favicon change will effect things vs. a full branding campaign?

A few weeks back Scott posted about his summer workout program. I have also been trying to work out more, as a full time job of sitting in front of a computer has done wonders for my figure. As brothers, we have been sharing a common trait with our workout plans: we lack motivation. Because we don’t have workout partners or at the very least someone else around to peer pressure us to actually get out and run, it has been really easy to find excuses not to go.

Those days are now gone. Scott came up with a brilliant idea: motivate each other, long distance, through a drinking game. We are going on vacation together at the end of July, and whoever runs less owes the other one beer. How much beer, exactly? One beer for every 2 miles one runs more than the other. We have about 8 weeks until vacation, so if one of us falls behind, that could add up to a LOT of beer.

We created a worksheet using Google Docs where we will be tracking how much running we’ve done and subsequently how much beer is currently owed. You can follow along with our progress by clicking here watching the spreadsheet below. As you can see from the picture above, we haven’t actually started running a whole lot yet, but at least I am in the lead! Free beer, here I come!

Edit: With a little Google Documents magic, now you can watch our progress via the spreadsheet below.  Cheer on your favorite in the comments!