We can laugh about it now knowing there were no major damage or injuries from yesterday's east coast earthquake. Still, it was odd to see people so freaked out. Chillax folks, earthquakes happen.
Ironically, we experienced a "slight" 3.9 magnitude earthquake a few miles from Oakland last night. I was in bed playing Dragon Quest VI when my wife came in and asked if I felt the earthquake.
"Yup..."
Back to Dragon Quest VI.
If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.
The above quote is from Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania regarding the moving of the Eagles/Vikings game from Sunday to Tuesday due to the snow storm hitting the East Coast. <sarcasm>Of course, all Asians are "very good at calculation"</sarcasm> but it was pretty damn funny. I'll give him a pass for at least being witty in his semi-racially insensitive remarks.
Just read on ESPN.com that an employee of the Philadelphia Eagles was fired for a post he put up on Facebook. Basically, this employee was upset that one of his favorite players, Brian Dawkins, signed with the Denver Broncos. His post was:
"Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver ... Dam Eagles R Retarted!!"
Seems pretty harmless by sports forum chatter standards. The employee later deleted the post but was still fired a few days later. I've heard of similar things happening in other non-sports related companies where employees have been terminated for making detrimental statements on social networking or blog sites. I'm sure the threshold is different for each company and I can't speak to what I'd do if faced with a similar situation. Most likely, my take would be that unless an employee is leaking private company information or committing deliberate libel towards the company or another employee, it's really not a big deal. Employees shouldn't be afraid to voice their opinions about their employers. If nothing else, I'd view it as a valuable communication tool for employers to improve the way they do things. However, incidents like the above are just another reminder that in the new age of Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Blogs/etc. we have far less privacy than we'd like to think (a lot of which is our own fault). My rule of thumb is I expect every post/update/comment/etc. that I make will be read by every single person in the world from my business partners to my mother. If I wouldn't want any of them reading it, I shouldn't even put it up.