Web Things Considered

You may not have heard (or care much, but I do) that the University of Oregon is bringing back varsity baseball after a 28 (or so) year absence. I think it’s a wonderful thing, though perhaps 10 years too late for me, but still nice to not have to root for the arch-rival come spring time. You may also know that the Oregon State baseball team won their second straight national championship in a stunning run through the College World Series back in June. Their coach, Pat Casey is perhaps the hottest coach in college sports and it came to light this week that the Ducks had maybe tried to woo Casey down to Eugene with their deep pockets. The Ducks denied this report, but it’s still an interesting issue.

Kelly emailed me today and mentioned the subject so I thought it be worth a reply here.

I could go either way on this. For one, big deal if the Ducks tried to woo him, I don’t see that as an etiquette violation. Casey has built OSU into a dominant force, and maybe he’ll win another national title at OSU, but what if he were to undertake the challenge of bringing UO baseball to national prominence and succeed. Then he would prove that without a doubt he is one of the greatest coaches in Oregon sports (and college baseball) history. Nothing like cementing a legacy. He could always turn the job down if he chooses.

On the other hand, I’m perhaps one of the few people who do not like Casey. I can and do respect what he’s accomplished, but hey he didn’t let me on their team and I’ve been known to hold a grudge or two, it’s one of my weaknesses. So, to see a coach I don’t like, coaching my favorite team would not thrill me. If it turns out as reported and the Ducks start with a fresh name with Oregon roots, I think that would be outstanding.

Let Civil War rage year round now. Though since the Ducks will probably suck the first couple years, at least we’ll crush the Beavers with our competitive cheerleading team (the other sport added along with baseball, which just so happens is only the 2nd competitive cheer team in the country). On the plus side for me, whenever it comes up that I played and coached baseball at the U of O, it’ll sound a heckuva lot more impressive without knowing that it was Club Baseball.

In what is quickly surpassing CAPTCHAs as the most annoying, and frightening part of registering for a new web service, we, as users are being asked to give up our email contacts in order to get more “friends” to use the service. I’ve been pondering this for a week or so, but Jeremy Zawodny summed up my feelings pretty well in his post about Spock:

That’s right. They want me to provide my username and password for the on-line services that may contain some of my most sensitive information, including: Gmail, Plaxo, Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL.

I can’t think of a very polite way to say “no fucking way”, so I won’t even try. There wasn’t a button for that.

Blame it on Facebook, Flixster, or whatever spam.. cough cough, I mean “viral marketing” success story there is out there that has led to this trend. I wish it would stop and I wish it would stop now. I have no problems with a service providing me some copy that I can send to my friends, or even let me put in some email addresses to send invites to. But asking for username and passwords to online email accounts is beginning to cross the line. How am I suppose to trust what you do with all of this information? I realize there is a “skip this step” in these examples, but note how small it usually is.

I admit I fell for this on Facebook and they found several people that were in my contacts, and it got me started. But that’s Facebook, one of the biggest sites on the web and they have little incentive to abuse the information. I have since wised up though and even that fact will not dupe me into falling for this again.

Here’s a quick look at some doing this in addition to facebook and spock:

Flixster

iLike

Me.dium