EatAddict: A Free Speech Blog

Double Rainbow All the Way...

This just in: rainbows cause orgasms ... and then uncontrollable weeping. Funniest thing I've seen in while ...

Black Couple Gives Birth to an Elephant in the Room

A black couple in the UK somehow churned out a white, blue-eyed baby with a full head of blonde hair. Doctors claim it's not albino and are still scratching their head, trying to figure out how the hell this happened. Mailman? Slavemaster's genes finally decided to surface several generations later? I can't call it...

No Stereotypes Were Harmed in the Production of this Video...

Hmm, how can I best describe this? Think of Tavis Smiley—now, think of the polar opposite of Tavis Smiley and multiply that by 10 or so. Yeah, that's it...

Back from Hiatus

Eataddict is back by popular demand—well, it's more like 75-100 emails over the past year encouraging me to continue adding my two cents to the blogosphere. The scope will be much broader. Yep, I love hip-hop but turning 30 (and an A.D.D. resurgence) has expanded my topics of interest to anything and everything. With that said, what have I been doing over the past year? Here's a few things:

1. Got "Won't Do" tattooed on my shoulder in honor of the late, great J Dilla. 
2. Moved to the Bay Area from Los Angeles.
3. Death-gripped my iPhone 4.
4. Realized just how predictable the show House is (it rivals Scooby Doo).
5. Joined the team of one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley.
6. Didn't write or record a single verse.
7. Became addicted to hulu, netflix and ch131.
8. Decided that I don't like the Miami Heat.

I Like Booty!

"In this prison, booty—booty was, uhhhh, more important than food. Booty ... a man's butt". This dude needs a reality show pronto.

Alimony Needs Algorithms—The Government Could Learn From Google

al·go·rithm

[al-gore-rhythm] A recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.

Amidst the recent web content explosion—blogs, user-generated content, social media, etc—finding relevant information on the web is truly a needle-and-haystack scenario. To make sense of the content chaos, as you know, Google employs a robust algorithm to deliver relevant results to web searchers. To manage the unwieldy masses of desperate singles, companies like eHarmony.com and Match.com leverage algorithms to determine relationship relevance and pair up compatible individuals. Even Amazon uses behavioral models to determine the right set of products to include in their product recommendations (you know, the "People who viewed this item ultimately purchased..." sections). While none of these services will ever be 100% accurate, the thought is that with enough information, we can build models to predict people's preferences and behaviors—or at least get to a degree of accuracy closer than a 50/50 coin flip. 

In problem-solving, I'm always a fan of getting to the right information—faster, smarter—and customizing a fix, rather than applying a template solution that really may do more damage than good. Unfortunately, when it comes to divorce, the government isn't on the same page and tends to use context-irrelevant judgments in splitting up the spoils. Well, let me take a step back ... some states do put constraints on alimony payments—taking into account the length of the marriage and extenuating circumstances—but even still, the final determinations are highly-discretionary and hardly data-driven. The result: an unfair, inefficient distribution of wealth from one party to another.

Before we bring in algorithms to save the day, there are two basic principles that we need to ground ourselves on:

1. In a divorce, a spouse needs to be compensated for the opportunity costs incurred from sacrifices to one's professional path. For example, if a wife forgoes her law practice to take a domestic role, she needs some repayment for that sacrifice. 


2. Give credit where credit is due. Who really worked harder—a athlete's x-wife who had no household obligation other than to wear out the stripe on her Black Card, or, the wife of a blue collar worker that struggled to feed three kids and maintain control of her household? And yet, by embracing the spouse is entitled to half methodology, we'll award the former $20 million and the latter $20,000. The point: just because you were along for the ride, does not mean that you contributed to the ultimate success and are entitled to a massive payout. What does determine that entitlement is the details of the situation—something which the legal system tends to gloss over.

Why can't we create an algorithm that internalizes a wide range of relevant inputs—spouse's income and career trajectory prior to marriage, industry, level of education, duration of marriage, level/type of contribution to the breadwinner's profession, etc—and combines it with historical data and trends to determine the fair amount of compensation? These could be guidelines for basing judgments rather than the arbitrary income divisions that we currently use. Sure, this is profiling which generally has negative connotations, but, with enough relevant inputs, the output becomes more reliable.

And no, this is not meant to be a misogynistic diatribe. Guy Ritchie shouldn't have gotten a penny from Madonna and instead of getting a payout, Nick Lachey should've been forced to compensate Jessica Simpson for putting him on the Hollywood radar (albeit the outer fringes). Furthermore, an algorithm could reveal that a supportive wife had a more material impact on her husband's earnings and therefore deserves more compensation. Whatever the case, we need to rely more on data than discretion.

Termanology - "Nothing Iz Real"

Produced my Marley Marl's son M. Will.

DOWNLOAD: Termanology | Nothing Iz Real

Brooklyn Postman Says: "F*ck Your Package"

Now that the USPS has been completely undermined by the proliferation of e-mail, I suppose this is now the apex of their employee quality.

J. Bizness - "Reason: Beats & Pieces"

More goodness from Los Angeles beatsmith J. Bizness. I immediately downloaded and dumped this into my iPod as soon as it hit the streets. 26 winstrumentals—producers, step ya game up.

DOWNLOAD: J. Bizness | Reason: Beats & Pieces (via RappersIKnow)

"Precious", the New "Color Purple"

Oprah and Tyler Perry team up to bring this new emotional drama that features a haggard Mariah Carey, an Oscar-worthy Mo'Nique, and a new young star whom I initially thought was the brotha from Notorious. Though I'm neither a fan of Oprah nor Perry, this looks deserving of a trip to the box office.

Pay Not Prison

It's twenty-three months later and fallen football star Michael Vick has emerged from federal prison trading lockup and license plates for home confinement and a minimum wage construction job. I remember two years ago when the dog-fighting drama ensued—as an animal lover, I wanted the "villain" locked and the key tossed. In retrospect, Vick should have never gone to prison.

No, no, this isn't me sympathizing with a troubled black male whose lack of a father figure thrust him into very bad things. This is Free Speech considering the economic impact of imprisoning a revenue-generator and making tax-payers foot the bill.

A jailed Michael Vick deprives the NFL, the city of Atlanta, and merchandise vendors of tens of millions of dollars of revenue. This doesn't even take into account all of the derivative markets that Vick impacts—concessions vendors, local restaurants, etc. What happens instead? Tax-payers finance a trial and his 23-month sentence in a federal penitentiary. Well, as you're likely well aware, America is BROKE, not just on the federal level, but on the state level as well. California, for example, raised its sales tax by a full point, has put its state workers on furloughs, and is considering selling off state monuments and even releasing prisoners because it can't afford to detain them. The fiscally responsible retribution is not jail-time, but a hefty fine...a fine so swollen and compelling that Vick would never even want to pet a dog again. Assuming you could levy a fine equal to one year's salary, you're looking at a $7 million+ collection. This also relies on the maybe unrealistic assumption that the NFL cooperates by not suspending Vick and that some damn good PR spin could be generated to win the favor of fans. If so, the public is relieved of a HUGE tab and goes from being in the red to being millions of dollars in the black. Further, the revenue train keeps chugging with merchandise, ticket, broadcast, and media sales.

Clearly, this sets a precedent that challenges the integrity of our judicial system and poses an ethical dilemma, but I think in these extreme economic conditions, such solutions must be considered. Let's invest in schools and health care rather than financing our fulfillment from putting a dog-fighter in prison.

U-N-I - "Land of the Kings"

U-N-I describes their new joint "Land of the Kings" off of Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound singles label. Download the track here.

Awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Seems like a new niche humor photo site pops up everyday. This is one of my new favorites. Some samples:

Ghostface Dove Soap Commercial