As a former employee of Best Buy (and for full disclaimer, a current shareholder), I can't say I entirely disagree with Larry Downes' post on Forbes regarding his latest experience at one of their stores.

It stinks that the store I loved visiting as a kid (and mostly loved working for) is going through such trying times right now. I hope Brian Dunn and the rest of the crew can turn the boat around before it's too late.

And I agree, there are far too many salespeople who work there that don't really understand how to give great customer service. But for every awful experience I've personally had there as a customer, I've easily went through dozens of solid interactions. There are lots of people I know who work at Best Buy for the same reason I wanted to work there: making sure people understand how cool technology is and how it can really change your life.

"Congress has sat idly by as the TSA strip searches 85-year-old grandmothers in New York, pats down 3-year-olds in Chattanooga, and checks colostomy bags for explosives in Orlando. Enough is enough!" said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) "The least we can do is end this impersonation, which is an insult to real cops."

First step towards ending the charade of security theatre in airports. Kudos to you, Marsha Blackburn.

Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.  Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

I don't normally like to link to these list type of posts since they mostly seem to offer mostly obvious tips. In this case, though, staying focused and productive is easily the most difficult part of being a freelancer, and this list offers some good advice for doing just that.

Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, said society was adopting new behaviors and expectations in response to the near-ubiquity of Facebook and other social networks.

“People may start to ask the question that, if you aren’t on social channels, why not? Are you hiding something?” she said. “The norms are shifting.”

I don't know if people ever think that because you're not on Facebook, you are hiding something. It can be frustrating to organize an event and try to remember all of your friends who aren't on Facebook, but besides that, I think a lot of my friends have a bit of respect for those who can get away.

As soon as something better comes along, or as soon as Facebook screws up big (like GoDaddy big), people will move to greener pastures.

Nilay Patel, for The Verge:

Faced with concrete impact to its business, it appears GoDaddy did the only sensible thing — fold.

Yeah, I'm still going to leave them.

The Olympian measure of endurance for a Soyuz crewmember is to hold your bowel for the two-day passage.

Pooping from the point-of-view of a NASA astronaut.

So it's been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That's a lot of money. Really too much money. I've never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we're all sharing this experience and since it's really your money, I wanted to let you know what I'm doing with it.

Another nail in the cable television model of content distribution. But beyond that, it's really cool that he's showing everyone what he's doing with the money he earned.

I forgot I had this in my RSS feed list until today, when I got blasted with 30 pictures at once.

But really, it was a pleasant surprise. Some of these photos (like the one I linked to) are really, really well done.

It sounds obvious, but for me, the most difficult part of graduating from college is figuring out what to do next.

I feel like I've spent much of the last year wandering aimlessly, trying to figure out what it is I want to do with my life.

Right now, I have two projects going on simultaneously:

• Trying to start my own video production company, producing videos for commercials, TV networks and bands

• Trying to start an iOS development house, creating iOS apps for local governments

"Trying to start."

That phrase pretty much sums up what I mean by "wandering aimlessly." I feel like I've done some of the work needed to get these businesses going, but I don't feel like I've settled on exactly what I want to do.

After contemplating what it is I want to do now that I'm done with college, I decided I need to start making both long and short-term goals to get me to where I want to be.

Therefore, I'm making a few of my short-term and long-term goals public so that I can be scrutinized by friends and family throughout this holiday season, as well as motivate me towards a future that I can call "successful":

SHORT TERM GOALS:

• Learn Objective-C to a point where I can make a simple camera application that sends pictures to a specific server
• Practice different Final Cut Studio tutorials to learn new tips and tricks

LONG TERM GOALS:

• Build a solid business plan that outlines what I want to do for the next 20 years
• Decide the camera workflow I want to use for the next 5 years and begin investing in it
• Pick a name for the businesses and establish an LLC for one (or both) of the companies
• Use this blog to post about things I care about, both professionally and personally

Lastly, my biggest goal for the next year is to have an answer to the question: "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"

(I apologize if it seems like I just rambled in that post. It's been a while since I've blogged.)

While I can't say it's not entirely without merit, here's a rather cynical view of American broadcast television from the view of Great Britian.