Yes, Virginia, there is Pork in the Bailout

As I've been striving to learn Congressional process, after being very annoyed at the pork hiding in the Bailout bill, I stumbled across the Wikipedia entry for H.R. 1424.

I should have known better, but wanted to struggle through the raw text myself. All 3 divisions were indeed passed as the same law, so all that pork is sent to the pit. I still have a lot to learn, as this practice is common. Most of this is just disgusting to me, as the three Acts in this bill have nothing in common with each other.

No wonder our government spends so much.

::sigh::

"Pray for our republic," intoned Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, a leading opponent of the measure. "She's being placed in very uncaring and greedy hands."

Historic bailout bill passes Congress; Bush signs - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

Now, I have to vote everyone out of office that voted for this thing. Thankfully, my Representative, Michael McCaul, voted against this bill. Unfortunately, Senators Cornyn and Hutchison now must go.

A Letter from Joe Biden

In my quest to spread The Common Sense Fix I've exposed myself to probably far to many mailing lists. This was pretty evident this morning when I received an email from Joe Biden.

Ryan --

If you saw tonight's debate, you saw Governor Sarah Palin give a spirited defense of the same disastrous policies that have failed us for the past eight years.

She couldn't identify a single area where she or John McCain would change George W. Bush's economic or foreign policy positions.

If you want something different, Barack and I need your help.

Make a donation of $5 or more right now to bring about the change we need.

The change we need is fixing this broken economy from the bottom up -- not tax breaks for the wealthy and huge corporations that ship U.S. jobs overseas. We need to focus on defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban and restoring America's standing in the world -- not an unending commitment in Iraq.

Let's be clear: Governor Palin and Senator McCain are offering nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies at home and abroad, trying to disguise them in the rhetoric of change.

Americans need real solutions and real change.

We're in this together and there's a lot to do before Election Day. Please make a donation of $5 or more right now to support this campaign for change:

https://donate.barackobama.com/changeweneed

This is the most important presidential election you'll be part of in your life.

Thank you for all that you're doing.

Now let's get to work and change this country,

Joe

Here's my reply, which I'm sure will go nowhere.

Ah, Joe, more of the same. I watched the debate and saw very little of consequence for the average American. All I saw is the same politics as usual -- from both sides. You're right, we need real change in this country.

I'm tired of the same old class warfare arguments that tell me to start making one group or another pay more of the burden of running this country. It's time we got back to "All Men Are Create Equal", and started believing in it again. Punishing successful Americans for their income is not the answer, it just creates a disincentive to build wealth and become better.

Corporations are wealth distribution machines, as a company does not amass 'wealth'. Corporations build jobs. Heavily taxing corporations just gives less incentive for them to build them here. It is about time we started making America compete in the world marketplace, and give corporations a reason to create jobs here.

Think for a minute how companies pay taxes. Any income a corporation creates has to be divided up among the employees, the investors, suppliers, debts incurred, growing the business, and the government. A corporation doesn't amass wealth -- it distributes it, so any taxes a corporation pays is taken away from creating wealth for everyone else on that list.

The only way we're going to get out of this mess is to grow this economy. It's time for real change. We need to stop taking so much money away from the American people to give to a bloated government that spends far more than it takes in. Government needs to focus on creating incentives for businesses to start up and thrive in these United States.

It's time for real change. Let's get to work. Three initiatives to get us on track are The Common Sense Fix, change-congress.org, and fairtax.org. It's time for change that can make a difference.

Ryan

I'm not sure if any of this will make a difference, but it feels far better than doing nothing, or whining about it around the water cooler.

I'm Tired... of Election Year Politics

I'm tired of all the same old rhetoric, the same politicking, the same class warfare, and the same corruption. It's time for real change in our government, not more of the same. That's why I've had several politically directed posts in the past several months. I think it's time to enumerate just what I'm tired of.

Class Warfare

Whenever I hear the words rich, poor, greedy, or redistribution of wealth, I know that the person talking is just trying to get us to fight amongst ourselves so they can walk off with the money, power, or whatever it is they set out to take. It's a tactic to deflect from real issues.

Fairness comes from equality, not placing different standards on any particular class of people. Anyone who talks differently is just trying to play one group against another. It is time to stop playing that game. This is one of the reasons I started supporting FairTax, which would take away the inequities in the current tax code and make taxes fair.

Evil Corporations

This mostly involves talk about taxing the excessive profits that a company makes. On the surface, companies appear to pay many taxes -- taxes against their profits, taxes against the income they are providing employees, and taxes on investments they make. Over the water cooler, I heard recently about the tax benefits of employing a workforce in India (I am not kidding).

Now, think for a minute how companies pay taxes. Any income a corporation creates has to be divided up among the employees, the investors, suppliers, debts incurred, growing the business, and the government. A corporation doesn't amass wealth -- it distributes it, so any taxes a corporation pays is taken away from creating wealth for everyone else on that list.

It all sounds good when the evil corporation being taxed isn't identified as you, but in some way or another, you are on that list. That's what makes corporate taxes such an effective way at hiding the true nature of a tax. Again, that's another reason I'm supporting FairTax.

Corruption

The whole process has become corrupt. Money invades and distorts at every level of politics. Earmarks are a staple of the modern political arsenal.

Take a gander at the latest atrocity coming out of government, know as The $700 Billion Bailout. It's 451 pages long!!! For something that has been deemed so critical to our economy, I would have thought they'd be brief and expedient (for reference, The Common Sense Fix is only a single page long, though it might grow to 5 pages it it was formatted like the current bill).

If you bother to scan through that document, you'd find juicy provisions for Energy, Mental Health, Disaster Relief, Film and Television Production, a Motorsports Racing Track Facility, Railroad Track Maintenance, Mine Rescue Team Training, Economic Development for Samoa, and I'm not even covering half of it. Who doesn't have their hand in the till for this one? Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up.

[Note: In reexamining the text, I found that E.E.S.A. is part of Division A, and most of the other troubling stuff I've noted above come from Divisions B & C. I've found a better link for E.E.S.A. here. All these Divisions appear to be part of HR 1424 (which comes from the Senate website), but it's not clear to me if they all are voted on at once. If anyone knows, please leave a comment.]

I'd recommend reading the bill for entertainment value as well. The name given for the bill is E.E.S.A. (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act) and it's main provision is for a T.A.R.P. (Troubled Assets Relief Program), apparently to cover their backsides. It sounds like stuff out of an old comic book!

This is just normal business in Congress. This bill is an ordinary knitting together of all the wants and needs of various constituents, tying together various parts of other legislation, nipping here, extending there -- such that most of the bill is illegible. It makes for a great opportunity to sneak things in.

I would guess that most elected officials don't read the whole bill, and instead read something like this summary of the bailout, which conveniently leaves out all the earmarks hiding in that little bill. Heck, I don't think even journalists read this stuff, because I've certainly never seen it on CNN.

This is why I'm supporting the Change Congress movement. We've got to demand real change out of our system, and vigilantly defend our government from the corruption that has infected it.

The Common Sense Fix

I love Dave Ramsey. He's the guy out there giving financial advice that my grandmother would give. Since my grandparents lived through the Great Depression, I trust them. He has a plan that makes sense, and we should pass this, instead of incurring more national debt.

Here's a quick and dirty summary of the plan:

1. Insure the subprime mortgages
2. Remove mark-to-market accounting rules for 2 years
3. Eliminate capital gains taxes

Go read it at daveramsey.com, and send it to your congress representatives. Congress needs to hear from us that we know what we want.

Bringing our Country Back from the Brink

Who can escape the news of the proposed $700 billion bailout program? Well, not I, and it has been bothering me. I can't support this kind of action, it just seems ill-advised for our government to grow this much -- not matter what kind of oversight there is. So, I wrote this letter to my Senators and Congressmen.

There is another plan out there that can help this situation, and let the market fix itself. One of the biggest reasons for this problem we're in is because of government regulation in the form of Sarbanes-Oxley. While that law isn't without merit (it did have good intentions), it's heavily contributed to this problem with sub-prime mortgages because the market hasn't adjusted to this way of thinking.

I usually hate regurgitating other material, but Dave Ramsey has posted a very good explanation of the current situation. I'd recommend you read the full text here, but I'll requote what Dave learned from economist Simon Wesbury:

"... if we change ... one rule and don't force [companies] to mark [sub-primes] down to market value and just let them hold on to all the stuff ... for [a fixed] period of time ... -- a temporary change -- that'll free the market up."

The cost is also far less be much simpler to implement. We need to make smart decisions about our country, and be prudent with taxpayers' money.

Speaking of taxpayers' money, I've also read recently about FairTax (www.fairtax.org). Coming from Texas, I understand how an economy can be boosted by the lack of an income tax. We've had things far better in this part of the country in recent years, and I believe that has something to do with our lack of an income tax. It is a simpler tax system to implement, and encourages businesses to grow. The research that has gone into this proposal is amazing, and it addresses all the concerns I had about such a drastic change. We need to start growing this economy, and putting money back into taxpayers and investors hands is a great start, but it also brings the added bonus of making America more attractive for businesses to come here -- bringing jobs back home. This is all in a plan that keeps the same level of government funding. Please consider this plan as a way to help the United States of America compete in a global economy.

Building a Better Light Bulb

I just read about an interesting new technology for light bulbs, being developed by a company out of Seattle.

Vu1 has developed a new technology called ESL - Electron Stimulated Luminescence. Essentially, they are claiming to have developed a light bulb that has all the qualities I care about as a consumer.

• Perfect light quality
• Instant-on
• Fully dimmable
• As efficient as CFLs, if not better
• No Mercury
• The same cost as current dimmable CFLs

I can't wait to get my hands on one to try it out. I recently tried one of the dimmable CFLs in my office, only to be sorely disappointed because it only was able to dim about 10%... still leaving me with 90% of the light. Hopefully, these new bulbs will be just what I need for spotlight replacements.

Beware the Logic of Congress

So, we all know inflation is kicking us right now... I'll have to write another post to dig into that, but let's just take that as fact here. Inflation is caused by a basic devaluing of currency. What gives our currency value? The U.S. Government.

So, when the U.S. Government wants to back our currency with mortgage securities, you just have to wonder -- are they paying attention?

via Housing Bill

Proof the Europeans Get Better Cars

This is proof to me that Ford builds better cars abroad: Ford Kuga.

Can someone tell me why we will have to wait/beg to get the next generation Escape to be this?

It does at least look like they will bring it here.

The Story of Stuff

This is an amazing story of the modern consumer industrial system. Very entertaining. And don't forget, Earth Day is April 22nd.

Here's a teaser:

Will Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen Use Be Considered Doping?

A study by the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University seems to indicate that taking ibuprofen (Advil) or acetaminophen (Tylenol)for regular weight lifters increases muscle mass and strength, when compared to a control group.

Is this to be the new doping scandal in professional sports, or perhaps the upcoming Olympics?

See more about the study at Scientific American.

Change Congress

This is a fresh idea. Larry Lessig is spearheading this movement to change the way our government works. The general idea is to remove the influence of money on legislators, so that they can focus more on representing the people.

See more at change-congress.org

Recession (e.g. We're Not in One)

Recession... what does that mean? According to Wikipedia it means:

...a recession is a decline in a country's real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Wikipedia further references the National Bureau of Economic Research's Recession Dating Procedure:

A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades.

Hmmm... How does an amateur economist measure this? I'm going to pick GDP for starters, because that's easier to find. I like the NBER's definition, though, as it clarifies "real economic growth" into the specifics of income, employment, production, and retail.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes a bunch of statistics about the GDP, so I'm going to start there. Since the NBER dates the end of the last recession in November of 2001, I'm going to start with the quarterly GDP from Q42001 to present to see how our economy is really doing. I've prepared a chart with the BEA's data that shows the percentage change in US GDP, adjusted for inflation.

Notice how the chart never dips below zero? That means we haven't even had a quarter where the GDP didn't grow, let alone two of them in a row. That doesn't mean that growth isn't low, just not negative. The GDP in the 4th quarter of 2007 only grew 0.6%. Such swings are necessary to a healthy economy, though... look at what happened in 2003 after the GDP growth dipped lower than what we just had (0.2%).

The BEA is full of useful data, but it looks like it takes awhile to compile, so I'm not sure how real-time you can get with it. I'm going to have to start paying attention to where the news get their information... it looks like they'd be reporting on past events if they are taking this data when it is released -- the 4Q2007 results were reported almost a whole quarter after it ended, on March 27th.

This data is adjusted for inflation, and I wonder now how this would look compared to what actions the Fed takes with monetary policy. Perhaps I'll dig into that and tackle that next.

Learning Economic Theories

Already a couple of days in, and I'm learning that there is a lot more to learn. I've been focusing on the article of The Great Depression in Wikipedia to kind of give me an overview. This also is a big area that economists have spent a lot of time researching.

The article also tries to educate on the various theories of economics such as Keynesian, Classical, and Neoclassical. These are all academically created theories, but it is interesting to see how they have influenced government policy.

The Great Depression spurred governments to make drastic changes in policy, in particular the US government. The adoption of new policies in the United States seems to have dramatically changed our culture over the past 75 years or so. This is going to be worth exploring further for me, but I'll try to highlight a few points here.

Keynesian economics advocates active fiscal policy, which means the government gets involved in trying to smooth out normal business cycles in the economy. We see this in government deficit spending today during times when the economy is slowing.

Monetary policy also changed dramatically, by moving away from the gold standard in currency. Essentially, we moved to a system where a 'dollar' is measured on it's own and not in relation to gold. This allows the government to control what the value of a dollar is. I have a lot more to read here, but we essentially see this today with the Federal Reserve when they change their interest rates.

Clearly, I have a lot more to read to get a grasp on this stuff. I remember a bit of it from high school history, but just a bit. These are just the basics that I'll have to build on, so I'm not going to be able to jump into big stuff right away. I'm looking at the theories right now, but I think I'd like to tackle the topic of Debt first -- and understand how it's used today, and how that has changed over the years.

Economics

All the hubbub about the economy lately has reignited my interest in economics. I'm probably paying too close attention in an election year, but the media keeps yammering on and my head keeps trying to make sense of everything coming my way. So, I've decided to take a foray into history and try and see if there are any correlations with current events. I'll probably be relying heavily on Wikipedia for this endeavor, but I may bring in a few other sources as I have time. Here's a rough outline of what I'd like to look at over the next few weeks:

• Current Trends and Policy
  • Consumer Debt
  • Government Debt
  • Government Budgets
  • Trade Deficit
  • Immigration / Outsourcing / Non-Immigrant Work Visas
  • Effect of an Election on the Economy
• Past Causes of Economic Downturn (including the Great Depression)
  • Debt
  • Inequality of Wealth and Income
  • Business
  • Deficit spending
  • Trade decline
  • US Federal Reserve
• Causes and Effects of Inflation

The goal of all of this is to connect the dots, envision what could happen today, and what to do about it. Ambitious, I know, but at the very least I'll be clearing the cobwebs out of those old high school history and economics knowledge.

Omnivore's Dilemma

I recently just finished this book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which I found very interesting, so I had to share it.

One passage in the book just stood out to me, about Polyface Farms, and how they have created a farm that produces food by allowing the animals to do what they do best, yet they all work in a symphony that creates a better environment for everyone. Food production is not a zero-sum game. I found a video, up on TED, where the author goes through this exact passage.

This pastoral view of the world reminds me of my preferred view of the future, which I derived from a poster I saw in the fourth grade. If I ever find a picture of that poster, I'll put that up here...

Also, the passage above with the chickens reminds me of some friends and their stories of chickens in their garden.

What Do I Want To Do When I Grow Up?

I come back to this question, now and again, when things are tough; when I find that I want to break out of the mold that I'm in, and head in a different direction. Springing from all the latest MacWorld speculation, I re-read an old posting on Daring Fireball about Apple's culture.

[W]hat gets chalked up as devotion to/obsession with Apple is, in fact, devotion to/obsession with great design, and there’s an utter dearth of rival PC or handheld gadget makers that value design as Apple does. The last time I was truly interested in an operating system that wasn’t from Apple was BeOS, and that was over 10 years ago...

[M]any ... companies see Apple’s success this decade as an aberration — that the Apple bubble will soon pop and mediocre jumbles will return to the top of the technology heap. But what if it’s the other way around, and the aberration was Apple’s tepid success in the 1990s?

I sure hope that many more companies follow the Apple path. It's that kind of attention to detail that I want to see out of products, and what I like to put into my work. Being in an environment where others don't value going that extra mile is usually what makes things tough for me. That's when I start asking the question again.

Electoral Compass

Here's an interesting site. It gives you a survey, and plots your opinion against the other presidential candidates out there.

No wonder I'm having a hard time with this -- I'm nearly exactly in the middle between all the candidates, with no others sharing the same views. Ah... the compromises one must make to live in a republic.

End of the American Empire

Deep thoughts for today, but this has been bugging me for awhile. Via Richard Florida I found this article from the Financial Times. It provides an apropos warning from the Ottoman Empire.

[T]he upshot of this debt crisis is the sale of assets and revenue streams to foreign creditors. This time, however, creditors are buying bank shares not canal shares. And the resulting shift of power is from west to east.

Disturbing, isn't it?

Money is power, and we will become indebted to foreign nations that do not share our ideals. Sooner or later that will lead to a geopolitical shift, if it hasn't already. Just like any financially responsible individual, we should be wary of who we take money from, and for what reasons. I hope we take the advice of another blog posting I read recently.

It is this generation’s task to renew the tree of liberty and keep the American experiment going – to remain true to the ideals that made America and have driven it since 1776.

Perhaps Shakespeare had it right:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

I am glad to understand this, but sad that I feel powerless to prevent it.

iTunes Movie Rentals

I see some rumors out there that I'd like to make a prediction on.

Variety is reporting that Fox and Apple are signing a deal to offer movie rentals on iTunes. Their reported price is $2-$5 per rental for a 24-hour period.

If that is all there is to the deal, then it seems destined to be lackluster. They should be aiming at the $1-per-day DVD rental market, and not the cable on-line rental market -- that's the real competition out there.

Play to win, Apple; play to win.

Personal Connections with Music

Isn't it amazing when you listen to a piece of music, and subtly feel what you did in the past when listening to that same piece of music? My brain just amazes me at it's capability to do that. It's like the emotions creep in first, and then your brain nags at you to remember that time in your life.

I just dug out a couple of old pieces of music, thanks to the miracle of iTunes and that I have my entire old CD collection converted to an always on-hand digital music library. I was listening to Christmas music today, and it reminded me of a song in the movie Toys from 1992, "The Closing of the Year". Don't bother looking on iTunes for it, as that soundtrack isn't part of their collection -- the closest they have is this. It's the same song, for the most part, but by totally different singers. I had to check, but it's the same composer, Hans Zimmer. Funny to find a song from a non-so-successful movie on an operatic Christmas album - "A Gala Christmas in Vienna". Ha!

Anyway, I was thinking about this song, didn't quite know why, but after I started listening to it, I remembered what I was when first hearing it. I had lived in Texas for about 6 months at the time -- almost exactly 15 years from today. I spent a lot of time listening to CDs back then. I just love how music can shape or enhance your mood. You have to let it in, but it's such a great release. BTW, the song "Happy Worker" from Tori Amos is also on that CD is quite good as well.

Pirates of Austin

Pirates
Originally uploaded by ryandobson

Our "Ghoul Bash" this year went over quite well. We were going to go for "Undead Pirates", but ran out of time for makeup. ;-) Overall, the costumes turned out quite well.

Fiest's 1234 - Creativity

I'm very impressed by how this video was made. The whole video was done in a single continuous shot. Pay close attention to the beginning and ending, and you'll see how cool that is. It's all over the place now, thanks to Apple using it in the iPod Nano TV spot.

The Video

The Making of the Video

Dramatic Prairie Dog

This cracks me up every time I watch it...

Music from a Tesla Coil?

Now this is an Amp I'd like to plug into...

And, of course, a crash course in how to build one here.

Creative Pursuits

I just got done watching the commentary track of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, and I was just reminded of how similar the creative process is. Whether you're creating a movie, music, book, or software, nearly all creative endeavors go through the same processes. They also run into similar difficulties, such as funding, or finding the right support.

It's also a terribly exhilarating experience.

95% Done

For those who are keeping track on our website, I've been regularly posting our progress on the kitchen via photos. We still have some finishing touches left, but the final product isn't hard to see from here. We made it this far on Friday, and spent the weekend enjoying the fruits of our labor.

I have to say -- the $45 in under and over cabinet lighting that Alexis found at Big Lots really makes this room pop. It is also infinitely useful, and provides more light in just the right areas -- even seems to make the counter space feel bigger.

Tiling

We've finally gotten to the backsplash phase of our kitchen remodel. This one has taken time to plan for, and get the right materials. Since we updated the counter tops, those had to be in place first and the last pieces of it arrived today.

When we took off the old tile, wall and all, I was a bit nervous we'd never get something back on the wall. I'm glad we did it, though. We got the chance to do some electrical work to allow for under and over cabinet lighting, which I think is going to really be nice in the kitchen.

Justin has been such a help in this. I've really been relying on him for 'how-to' advice, and it helps that he's just as picky as I am. We went through a lesson today on tiling, and he walked me through it. The tile is in place for the island now. We will probably do the rest tomorrow, and then find time later to grout and seal it.

Why I've Been So Busy

The Wii proved a good distraction from blogging, however the real reason I haven't posted much here was another project going on. We're currently remodeling or kitchen. You can check our progress here.

Scored a Wii

So, after a week of trying since it's launch, I was finally successful in obtaining a Nintendo Wii. I have to say, after some of the horror stories online, I was wary about waiting in line for one of these.

I got a tip last night that Best Buy (in Texas) would be running an Ad in Sunday's paper where they would guarantee a minimum of 12 per store. I left the house at 6:30am to go grab a paper to see if this was real, and it was, so I decided to drive by the nearest store to see how bad the line was. There were already 8 people in line, so I chose to stick around just in case 12 was going to be the max number (and perhaps some people could have been holding spots for others). I called my sweet wife to let her know she didn't have to get up, as she was willing to drive to another store to see if there was a better line. By now it was about a quarter until 7am. The line filled up to 12 by 7. Someone drove by and dropped off a couple of newspapers for everyone waiting to read.

Steve, the manager, came out to check on us, and let everyone know that there were enough units for each person in line at that time. He politely told us that he was not allowed to say how many they had, but would let us know when the line size grew past that number. My wife dropped by at 8am with Starbucks, and kept me going. I had already read the paper, so I passed it off to her (although there were no coupons in this issue). Steve came out a couple of times more, and a little before 9am let the people in the line over number 27 know that there were not enough units for people past that point, unless someone in front dropped out.

Just before 10am, Steve came by one final time and started passing out tickets, and explaining to everyone how the process would work. He took the people at the back of the line, and anyone else who wasn't purchasing a Wii and moved them to the front, so they could enter the store uninhibited. We all walked in line and picked up any games that we wanted, and proceeded to Customer Service to trade in our ticket for a Wii.

Overall, it was a very pleasant and orderly process. Thanks, Steve!

I'll update later, but the system is already a hit with Alexis -- Wii Sports is cool, and so is Excite Truck.

Keep the Hardware Coming

If you are a victim of Moore's law you are in hardware; if you are a beneficiary of Moore's law you are in software.

How to tell a hardware from a software person

I'm definitely a software person.

R.I.P. Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin was tragically killed by a stingray yesterday. Although we didn't get to meet him during our stay in Australia this year, his presence was felt at Australia Zoo. This is a big loss for them. Our prayers go out to his family.

Read more at: Steve Irwin Killed
and Witnesses tell of freak death

OSCON 2006 - Morning of Day 1

I was just greeted with the morning site of Mt. Hood from my hotel window in Portland, Oregon this morning. I'm looking forward to the week of the conference here. Day 1, I'm signed up for JavaScript Boot Camp and The Rails Guidebook. It should be fun.

Maybe I'll venture out on the MAX later this evening and pretend like I know how to get around in a big city. Austin is slated to add light rail to the options of transportation around 2008, so it will be interesting to see how it works here.

In the meantime, I need to find a MiniUSB to USB adapter so I can upload pictures from my camera...

Metaprogramming

I went to an interesting talk last night by Dave Thomas, sponsored by Austin on Rails. Dave is the author of several interesting Ruby and Rails books. Cool stuff. I am just getting into Rails, and this talk covered some of the interesting features of Ruby that make all that magic work. I'm still learning Ruby, so I don't quite feel qualified in calling myself a Ruby Programmer yet, but maybe someday...

At the giveaway, my name was pulled and I got a free copy of Bruce Tate's From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager Should Know. Cool beans.

Shuffle Recovers from 'Lights of Death'

Those of you that know me, know that I've been limping along iPod-less for a little over three weeks now. My 512MB iPod Shuffle had been experiencing the green-orange Lights of Death.

It would not play, and no computer I had access to would recognize it either as an iPod or a thumb-drive. I had even taken it to the local Apple store for a Genius to look at, and had no luck there.

The troubling thing to me was the method of failure... it seemed more like a firmware issue, and not a component failure. I'm not so sure now. The day it died I had hooked it up to my work computer's docking station for an emergency charge. It worked fine after that, on the car ride home. Then, when I went to plug it into my Mac, it wouldn't show up. Is there some kind of weird overcharging issue?

My plan was to let the battery drain, and see if I could trigger some other kind of reset. Wishful thinking, since flash memory doesn't erase that way.

Over the long weekend, I noticed that a new iTunes came out, and a new iPod Updater. I had tried the previous iPod Updater, but since I couldn't get the iPod to show up in the Mac, it couldn't update it. I downloaded this new updater, and iTunes. I fiddled with my Shuffle a bit, and it still had the Lights of Death... so I wasn't very hopeful when I plugged it in. I was surprised when iTunes gave me the message, "There is new firmware for your iPod, would you like to update now?" Heck, yeah!

So, I just finished a bike ride with my resurrected Shuffle, and things are much better.

Update: Apple releases utility to reset the 1G iPod Shuffle. See: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ipodshuffleresetutility10formac.html.

176-Year-Old Tortoise Named Harriet Passes On

One of the coolest things we did in Australia this year, was to visit Australia Zoo. While we were there, we met Harriet, who was just a magnificent animal. It was hard to believe that a living tortoise was around at the time of Sir Charles Darwin. Talk about a connection to the past!

I was very sad to hear of her passing today.

Read more at dsc.discovery.com/news/...

Is Pepsi Fine? - No

Someone else is noticing the Pepsi trend. I much prefer Coke, but I to am finding it harder to get at restaurants. I think Pepsi is gaining in marketshare, due to some of Coke's pricing terms. I asked one of our local mom-and-pop shops about a year ago why he had to charge so much for a half-liter bottle of Coke. He said he was being charged the same rate that than the vending machine in the same building charged for the 20-ounce bottle, and he still had to add sales tax to it. He couldn't do enough volume to justify the business, so he had to switch to the half-liter bottle to keep the overall price down.

Inspired by www.jonsthoughtsonevery...

iTunes Movie Store Leaks?

You just have to wonder how these things leak out. The pricing negotiations on iTunes music items always seem to leak, and show that Steve is fighting for the consumer . I have to wonder about that. It seems awfully convenient for these stories to leak out in favor of Apple.

I'm not one for conspiracy theorys, but Apple does know how to work the media. They have proven, time and again, that the can construct a consistent message and deliver it through mass media in a very efficient manner -- regardless of what story market share numbers tell. They provide a compelling story.

So, if you connect those two thoughts together, you come up with an interesting idea. Apple could be manipulating the media to increase their leverage on content providers during license negotiation, but I have no proof of this. "Manipulating" may be a strong word, but I think it still applies.

Keep in mind that any form of DRM (Digital Rights Management) represents a tightening of control over media, regardless of the terms and pricing model. Apple has so far presented fairly reasonable terms, but there isn't anything to prevent them from further restricting them.

Probably what worries me most about DRM is its durability. Will it last? Digital media could last a long time, if you still have the ability to access it in the future. Think about that for a minute, then think about trying to play an 8-track tape today. The difference is you don't need a physical player for most digital media -- just a physical way to transport the media. Obsolete file formats abound -- simply because we don't have a way to read the format anymore. DRM under the control of a single company represents a lot of faith in that company to allow further access to that file in the future.

Read more at Variety.com - Friend or foe?

Update: Need I say more about Apple and media? At last count there were 117 articles linked to the Variety story on Google News.

Cars

Went to see Cars last night. I am still surprised at how well the folks at Pixar can put together a movie. They have such an amazing sense of craft, that it's easy to forget you are watching an animation. You also get the sense that they genuinely took interest in Route 66 and the age of driving. It is just such a pleasure to witness this craftsmanship at work.

What if Darth was a Little More Normal?
Audio dubbed from James Earl Jones' other movies... ROFL!

Darth Vader After the Death Star Blew Up
This cracked me up!

New Site Design is Up

Over at the home page, I've put up the new design. I decided to try out iWeb for this round, since it came with the latest iLife that I bought for the video I'm editing of our Australia / New Zealand trip.

Once I got accustomed to the interface, I actually liked it. Normally, I like hand-coding my HTML, but iWeb has some really excellent tools for graphics in it. It's like a poor-man's Dreamweaver, I guess. I was able to mask, rotate, resize, and position different photos within the page. The Travel main page is where I tried most of this out, building on the template Apple supplied. It was so easy, I plan on extending this page in the future.

The only part that really annoys me with iWeb so far, is the Navigation Menu. There is no way to customize what is included in that menu. You can choose to include pages or not, but not really add any links to it. I may need to explain what I'm trying to do to clarify this.

iWeb has the concept of a site where you group all of your pages together. You can edit any number of sites, and have them all publish to .Mac under different directories. So, a site called Main is published under /iWeb/Main/Main.html. This is great, because I wanted to have certain sub sites that were just related pages -- like the Travel page. The problem with this implementation was that I could not use the navigation menu to link back to the Main site, or have the Travel site listed from the Main site's navigation menu.

There also seems to be no customization you can do to the Navigation menu, aside from changing the header height to allow it to be under some other page header. It is not positionable like other elements on the page, and you can't select it to change any of the style in it. It's an on or off element per page. Considering how customizable the graphics and text fields were, this is a bit jarring.

Overall, it was quick and easy to use, and I like the program. I still might try out some other site design software, but this is a definite improvement from the old .Mac homepage.

New Apple 'Get a Mac' Ads

These are priceless. They pretty much sum up all the little points that I tell people, but with such better writing. Six, in total, Viruses, Restarting, Better, iLife, Network, and WSJ. http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Money and Prestige

How do you find good leaders? I was just watching last week's episode of "The West Wing", and it triggered an essay that I had read. A section of Paul Graham's How to Do What You Love talks about Money and Prestige.

Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like. ... The other big force leading people astray is money. ... The danger is when money is combined with prestige.

Now, take this, and apply it to executive compensation. There is a lot of money being thrown around in that area. I am not saying it is wrong, but it certainly isn't going to help find the right people for the job. It will attract a whole mess of ambitious people, though. For middle executives, this may not be a problem. For a top position, do you want to attract the most ambitious people? This doesn't always equate to good leadership. You really need to dig into a person's character to find that. Some of the best leader's I've known, did it naturally and sometimes even reluctantly. That being said... I still have no idea how to attract good leaders.

Boot Camp

For all the people out there speculating on when Apple is going to allow Windows apps too run natively inside Mac OS X, this is for you: OS/2 - A better Windows than Windows. .

Does no one remember this? Seriously, one of the big killers of OS/2 was that it's best apps were all Windows apps. I see Boot Camp as just an Apple sanctioned boot loader that won't stomp on OS X. People were doing it anyway, so why not sell a few more boxes?

It's nice to think of all the grand virtulization technologies, but I really don't find them that interesting. It is a new label on an otherwise old technology. All this hype so that you can run multiple virtual computers on a single box. Why the hype? Because they are mostly running an OS that needs some kind of backup OS to take over for it. It's a good robust solution, but let's not forget why it is there. It's taking up the slack for reliability from the OS. It happens to work a lot better now that we have all these CPUs to throw at it, but it's still a fairly old idea.

Inspired by www.theappleblog.com/20...

Airport Screening

I think this is the best description of airport security yet. Most people just don't grasp the real purpose of it.

Remember the point of passenger screening. We're not trying to catch the clever, organized, well-funded terrorists. We're trying to catch the amateurs and the incompetent. We're trying to catch the unstable. We're trying to catch the copycats. These are all legitimate threats, and we're smart to defend against them. Against the professionals, we're just trying to add enough uncertainty into the system that they'll choose other targets instead.

Read more at http://www.schneier.com...

Daring Fireball: Familiarity Breeds a User Base

Also known as inertia. The reason for a lot of Windows users not willing to switch to a Mac is just a lack of familiarity to it.

I went through this switch almost five years ago. I had used a PC, in some form or another, for about 8 years at that point. I was reluctant to leave the comfort of commodity hardware, but I had just reached the point where I was sick of having to fix things on my computer. My day-job requires a lot of tinkering, and I just wanted a computer that I could work with and rely on without all that extra tinkering.

Probably the biggest reason, though, for the switch, was that I was never really ingrained into the Windows world. My first computer was a Coleco Adam, which taught me a lot about BASIC. My next computer, which I fell in love with, was a Commodore Amiga 500. That computer was just so far ahead of it's time... It was truly a computer for artists, and I still really identify with that. I learned so much on that computer that it's ridiculous. I entered the wider world with BBSes, I learned graphics animation, photo editing, music composition, video game creation, and C programming.

The first PC I bought (a Dell) actually started with OS/2 on it. This was pre-Windows 95, but I tried to keep that thing running for awhile. After eventually moving to Windows 95, I tried BeOS for awhile. That OS had some promise, but just no market share. The file system was brilliant. I then experimented with Linux for awhile, but I couldn't get much past that. There was just too much to tweak with, and I ended up not getting anything else done.

Shortly after OS X 10.0 was released, I took the plunge with an iBook. Now, 5 years later, I don't want to go anywhere else. Things on the Mac just get out of the way and let you get to the work you want to do... I can't explain it much better than that.

To sum it up, I didn't have a lot of inertia, so it was never much of a pain for me. I think change is good, and with computers, you need to be prepared to jump ship whenever a better ship comes along. This is why open data formats are so important. Sink or Swim, baby.

Inspired by daringfireball.net/2006...

Apple SVP Schiller: Co. Isn't 'Trying to Replace TiVo' || The Mac Observer

At least not yet, anyway. I keep wondering why people are all speculating about a new "Airport Express" that will also have a "Front Row" like app embedded in it. It's a great idea, and the addition of Bonjour to the software will make this much easier to implement, as you're just going to be pulling off media from other computers on your network. The price isn't right, yet, for a Mac Mini to be this device, and it just does more than necessary for a media box.

Incorporating Front Row into an "Airport Express" may prove more difficult, as that device just isn't a computer. I would look for this functionality to come from a totally new device, probably after the Intel transition is complete. Another intriguing option would be to push the new wireless networking standard (802.11n) to with a new device. There is much more bandwidth with this protocol, and would be better suited to video. Perhaps that would fit into a larger base-station device, and not an 'Express'.

Read more at www.macobserver.com/art...

PaulStamatiou.com » Intel Mac Mini is Upgradable

This is exciting news. With the new pictures surfacing of the Mac Mini's internals, it looks like they are using socket-based processors. This makes it fairly easy to upgrade, if there aren't any other changes between the base and upgraded models.

I am having flashbacks to the old days, when I used to build my own PC, before I went Mac. There also used to be some jumpers you'd have to set, and perhaps a BIOS setting. I have no idea how this works in a modern Intel system, with EFI. Perhaps it is all handled for you now, and the hardware just adapts to the new chip.

Read more at www.limeprint.com/2006/...

Why Peak Oil is Probably About Now

This article is for all those people who keep asking why the price of gas isn't going down. It is a good summary of oil production levels. Now, keep in mind that as production stays flat, demand certainly isn't going down. Supply < Demand = Higher Prices.

Read more at www.theoildrum.com/stor...

In Defense of Apple's Announcments - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Now these guys have it. The big thing about all the new Macs is how little the change looks on the outside of the box.

Apple has so far transitioned half of it's product lines into a completely new chip architecture, and no one is batting an eye. In fact, people are clammoring, "Is that all ?"

They are pulling this off by only introducing minor external changes, and just adding a sprinkling of new features -- making it look like a small upgrade. These new boxes are anything but a small upgrade.

By the time they are done with this transition, they have paved the way to allow another revision of hardware fairly quickly, and can introduce new physical designs to increase demand. The whole key to this chip swap is to reassure everyone on how little has changed, and to not rock the boat just yet. Rock the boat later, when you don't have to explain to everyone how stable the product lines are.

Read more at www.tuaw.com/2006/03/01...

China gives itself its own top-level domains

The golden age of the Internet is about to end. In this dream that is now coming to and end, there was no confusion about how to resolve DNS addresses. It was a simple, fairly straightforward process. Once this is broken, and certain rules are no longer followed, we may all need to purchase update 'maps' to the information superhighway at regular intervals. Certain roads may also be closed occasionally, and on the authority of whoever controls them.

Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

YouTube - Microsoft iPod Packaging Parody

This just shows what is wrong with most computer packaging out there, and how more isn't always better.

Watch it at www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Update

Looks like Microsoft commissioned the video for a little internal education. See http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/25957

Writers Block Live » Blog Archive » The HD Boycott Begins Now

It sure looks like I'm going to enjoy a lot more free time in the future, because I won't be able afford to own a lot of media

Read more at writersblocklive.com/pa...

Why formats like RSS 2.0 work

It's really nice to see the acknowledgement of how important a stable platform is for development. I think a lot of new developers miss that point, in their quest to bend the computer to their will. Data formats, like RSS, are such a crucial thing to keep stable. A clear evolution path helps keep the temptation to reinvent the wheel at bay.

Read more at www.scripting.com/2006/...

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

Speaking of marketing prowess, I just read this article about DeBeers and the history of diamond marketing. Some of the advertising may seem a bit morally questionable, but you can't argue that this kind of stuff doesn't still happen today.

Read more at www.theatlantic.com/doc...

I was also listening to TWiT this morning, and they were discussing the paid use of bloggers to pump up products on the web. One might go as far as saying that it is now even easier to manipulate the media to get your message out to a large audience. There is a need for a course that teaches people how to be critical of media. There was a bit of talk in this episode about how this used to be a part of Home Economics, which has all but disappeared from modern curriculum.

I have not doubt that kids today are much more adept at handling all the messages that are being driven toward them, because of the sheer quantity of media available, but I'm not so sure how easy it is to process. It would be good to at least confront media with kids and open up a dialog that questions it's intent. Ignoring media, or disallowing access to media doesn't really prepare them for the onslaught that will eventually happen. I think kids need to learn to question the messages coming from media at an early age, because companies are marketing to them at ever younger ages.

‘Fun New Products’ Coming From Apple

The rumor mills are working overtime to speculate on the latest announced Apple event. You just have to admire how a company can keep people in anticipatation like this, and crank up the buzz. Apple is a marketing machine.

My two cents: I just can't get out of my head how much fun Steve had demoing PhotoBooth when that was first introduced.

Read more at writersblocklive.com/pa...

Update
Mike is now guessing for a Mac Mini update. Think they might throw in an iSight update (the non-embedded version)?

Update 2 - 23 Feb
With Apple halting bulk orders of Mac Minis, it is looking like a good candidate for updates or replacement.

PunxsutawneyPhil.com

Six more weeks of "mild" winter!

Read more at www.groundhog.org...

And more at Punxsutawney Groundhog Sees His Shadow...

Newsvine - Activist Cindy Sheehan Arrested at Capitol

Now, I'm usually one to tell people to "move on", for things like this, but if this article is accurate, I am gravely concerned for this country.

To summarize, Cindy Sheehan, known anti-war activist, was arrested at the State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan on it. Police warned her that it would not be allowed. WTF? That seems like a reasonably peaceful demonstration to me. Tread lightly, folks, we still have almost two full years left.

Read more at www.newsvine.com/_news/...

[update] I've been reading some of the comments on the original article, and I thought I'd add to this post. T-shirts are explicitly exempted from the Capitol anti-demonstration law, which is what the original charge was originating from (it was lessened to something else). Other posters wanted to point out that this was a political move by the Democrats that invited her, and all I can say to that is "Of course it was!". That still doesn't lessen the seriousness of this issue to me. [update] All charges were dropped, and the police issued an apology.

AT&T chief says that people are only paying for half the Internet

This article is clearly showing how AT&T is becoming more and more a dinosaur. They just don't get it, do they? We are talking about a global network, not just some leased lines here.I say it's time for a change. There needs to be more competition in this space. Right now, in the US, at least, most people have about two broadband choices -- cable or DSL. The two are competing, but neither will really allow others access to their endpoints -- at least not in a meaningful, price-competitive way.

It's a shame that my electric bill can be more competitive than my broadband Internet access.

Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

bynkii.com: They'll never know what hit them

I agree. The Disney board is about to get a big dose of RDF.

Read more at www.bynkii.com/archives...

Outsourcing World

This was an interesting podcast talking about the business behind outsourcing. For all the talk about how efficient it is to outsource "information workers", when the reporter is point blank asked if outsourcing his job would be effective, he dodges around and comes to the conclusion that "no it wouldn't be effective, because reporters create things." That is paraphrasing a bit, but it was the general idea put across.

So, when we are talking about outsourcing engineering jobs, what exactly do engineers do again? Oh, yeah, they create things...

Read more at www.businessweek.com/me...

deeje.com/musings: MacBook Pro is a marketing experiment?

This is a very insightful blog posting about Apple new MacBook Pro. Apple is using this product to test the waters. They want to know exactly how to position their new products when they are all out there.

Read more at blog.deeje.tv/musings/2...

HD TiVo Series 3 @ CES | PVRblog

Woo hoo!&nbsp; Finally!&nbsp; This looks like it is everything I was hoping for.

Read more at www.pvrblog.com/pvr/200...

"Analog hole" legislation introduced

This is really getting out of hand. It is going to get to the point where we won't be able to listen to or watch anything at any time without paying something. And to blame piracy, which will not be affected at all by this legislation, is just ridiculous. This kind of legislation is really going to limit the growth of technology. I am tired of these companies out there protecting their old business models, and trying to legislate new business models without letting the market decide. This is not what this country is supposed to be about. Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

Zeroconf and Firefox

Has anyone done an extension for Firefox that implements Zeroconf? I'm looking for a cross-platform extension that uses Zeroconf (a.k.a. Bonjour) to discover local services. I found one random link on a message board that is over a year old, but it doesn't work the Firefox 1.5, and it didn't look like it was quite finished anyway.

Mayor Phil

Mayor Phil
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

Punxsutawney has recently added these colorful little statues around town in various stops. Alexis and I took some time out of the Thanksgiving break to try and snap as many photos as possible of them. We managed to capture 15. I believe we missed at least one of them, though, after talking with my aunt, there is a "Builder Phil" near the TrueValue hardware store.

My "Lost" Alter Ego is Hurley

I scored as Hurley. I'm Hurley! A big fan of food, fun, a person everybody can relate to and everybody likes. Who is your "Lost" alter ego?

Information Is Getting (To Me) Faster

I've found that the flow of new information is getting faster. Since I started using NetNewsWire, there has been a steady uptick in my ratio of information found versus time spent finding it. I used to spend a lot of time surfing the web looking at various news sites looking for interesting things. Now, well over a year after I started using NetNewsWire, it's all coming to me. Now, RSS alone hasn't accounted for all of this. This seems old-hat to many people out there, but we are still in the early-adopter part of the curve. I recently added feeds from digg to my subscription list, and it has only helped things out. For those who don't know, digg is like Slashdot on steriods. What the editors and moderators on Slashdot do that takes a day or more is done by the collective power of the users at digg.com in a few minutes. I often see information on digg.com a day or two before it makes it to Slashdot. Information flows faster. Does anyone remember the old television commercials from AT&T with the dog in the computer who would go fetch the news? It was an idea back then that never quite materialized. With the ability to do tag searches on news feeds, we are almost getting to the point where this is feasable. Perhaps it is already there in some people's minds, but I'm setting my standards a little bit higher. I just love the magic of technology. I'm anxious to see how Newsvine turns out.

Konditorei

I read this little book, by Randy Komisar, called The Monk and the Riddle. In this book, there is this little coffee shop where some of the scenes take place. I just couldn't help but take a trip there, and see it for myself. I have to say that it was nothing like I'd expected. I did, however, have a very nice white chocolate mocha latte there, though.

One Infinite Loop

What Apple fan couldn't resist a little side trip while visiting Silicon Valley?

Business Development

In continuing my theme with contrasting various sources, I couldn't help but draw inspiration from my wife and I's trip to California last weekend. We took a tour of the Korbel Champagne Cellars near Sonoma, and the history goes back to the Korbel Brothers starting out making cigar boxes. That was the reason they bought that land -- for the lumber. As it turns out, there wasn't that many trees left, and they needed to find a use for that land. They started farming many different crops, including tobacco, apples, pears, and finally grapes. At each point, they readjusted their plans and kept trudging on. They are now one of the premier brands of champagne worldwide. Can you imagine starting a business as a cigar-maker and changing that into a Champagne maker? The perseverance that would take is just amazing. As we were wondering around the winery after the tour, I couldn't help but connect that to Paul Graham's speech at OSCON (see Channels), where he talked about new companies and how they often have to change direction by asking the right questions.

Channels

You'd think I had a lot of time on my hands lately, but in truth I've been quite busy -- just a lot of thoughts popping into my head. I'm getting better at blogging these. Another similar line of thought that I came across today. Inspiration piece number one was a podcast from a speech that Paul Graham gave at OSCON 2005, the next was a blog from Mark Cuban that I found through an article on Slate. The thought was about channels, as in distribution channels. Paul generalized this in such a beautiful way so that it represents exactly what is really happening. Channels are the aggregate of what businesses push towards us. There used to be such a high cost to getting a product to a consumer that these channels were created to add value in the aggregate. In the digital age, the barrier to this entry is much lower, and yet we still see businesses clinging to the traditional model. Why is that? It turns out that there is a lot of power built up in the distribution channels, and they don't want to give up that power easily. That brings me to the article on Slate, which leads us into where this power is. Wal-mart is clinging to the "video window", which is an agreement between them and content publishers to not allow pay-per-view or any other broadcast of content withing 45 days of a DVD release. What this basically adds up to is that this channel doesn't want to compete with other channels for a certain amount of time. Soak this in for a sec, and I think you'll start to see that the tail is wagging the dog. A single channel is making decisions for consumers about which other channels they can use. That is real power. Mark's proposal is to charge a variable price depending on the date of release. This is an intriguing proposal, and I'd like to see how it pans out. I don't doubt that he is going to keep pushing the boundaries of distribution. Good luck, Mark! Another quirk that brought this to my attention today was a song I heard last night. It was at the very end of the E-Ring episode Toy Soldiers. After some digging on the NBC forums for the show, I found the title of the song was Breathe Me by Sia. The fact that I had to dig into viewer comments to get this information is just ridiculous, but that is a topic for another post. I immediately went to iTunes to try and purchase this song. It turns out that the song was only available for purchase as part of an album (Six Feet Under: Everything Ends, Vol. 2). Someone please explain to me why a single song that is basically part of a mix tape only available as a single song? There wasn't even a discount for buying the entire album. Seriously... this is some kind of a joke, right?

Questions

I've read two articles in the past day that had a parallel line to them, and I wanted to connect them here. This first is an article from Paul Graham about Ideas for Startups, and the second is an article from MSNBC about Einstein. The focusing point of both articles revolves around the use of "Questions". Paul poses that and idea for a startup is best posed as a question. Going through the process of answering that question is what leads to a startup, and it often changes direction as you find a better question to ask. All good ideas start with asking a question. Einstein questioned the nature of light as a 16-year-old boy. He wondered what it would be like if you could "catch up" to a beam of light. What would he see? He eventually answered that question, but the question lead him down the path toward Relativity. It's interesting what questions can lead to.

Flock

Ever since I started using del.icio.us I've been looking for a better way to sync up with my browser bookmarks. I've been using Cocoalicious for awhile, and I like that. I especially like being able to post to it directly from within NetNewsWire, but I have to use a PC at work. So, this lead me to Flock, and I'm giving that a go right now. It even has support for blogging directly from within the browser. I'm curious to see how all this is going to work together. It's an interesting concept. Update: I'm going to need to learn some tricks to get the blogs to post correctly from within Flock, but we'll see how that goes.

Google Print

Prompted by Why we believe in Google Print and Publishers Challenge Google's Book Efforts (WSJ - subscription required). Yes, I read them in that order. I have to side with Google on this one. I really thing the advantage of being able to digitally search the full content of millions of printed pages far outweighs the potential downside of possible theft of work. If this were really a copyright issue, then why aren't the publishers suing libraries? I haven't checked, but did publishers try to outlaw libraries when they started? This is really an extension of the concept of a card catalog. If I were doing research today, this would be exactly what I wanted. Come to think of it... whenever I want to know about something, I first type it into Google. If I find enough out of free, online content, then I'm satisfied. But it would be very nice if I also got back information in published works that I could then go check out from the library, or purchase from some outlet or another. What if I could buy a digital copy of that work, at a discount from the printed copy? What if I could take that work and order a printed copy that was published on-demand (ala www.lulu.com). Now I'm starting to see why the publishing industry is so scared of this. It completely rips apart their business model, and they lose control. Let's ponder their model for a minute. Publishers find a few authors, promote them, print a lot of books, push those books into stores, and pay the authors after they make up the cost of printing all those books and promoting them. For a few cases, this might be different, and if I'm really far off, please let me know. The value-add that the publishers are bringing to the table is both the promotion, and the relationships with the booksellers -- not the actual printing of the books, which turns out to be a negative for the author. I believe the search mechanism will actually drive more people towards purchasing books, but publishers would really have to adapt to handle the influx of requests for works they aren't necessarily promoting. If they could handle on-demand printing, then perhaps they wouldn't be so worried, but that would requre significant captial investment. This is the kind of technology that shifts the world. Anytime you do that, people get scared. Change is often feared.

Elizabethtown

I needed this movie just at this moment. The circumstances that start off the story are quite preposterous, but the feeling that Drew has is something that I think a lot of guys can relate to -- at least I can. You have this sense of doubt about yourself because of this mistake you made and then you stood up for the consequences. This mistake then gets stuck in your head and sits there mocking you while you miss out on some very good things happening around you. I can so relate to the moment when Drew is standing in front of Claire and should be telling her not to go, but has this compelling urge to confess his spectacular failure. It's that kind of obsession of failures that I am talking about. Not that it happens a lot to me, or even if it's big; it's just that some things can kind of stick in your head like that. That keeps you from moving on. So, give yourself five minutes to wallow in self-loathing, and really soak up the misery. Then move on. If you get a chance, and are in the right place, ignore the critics and go see Elizabethtown. At the very least, you'll hear a nice soundtrack.

Apple changes the rules on video distribution

iTunes Video Store This is groundbreaking news. Oh yes, this has been talked about, but the deal has now been done. The biggest news from Apple yesterday was the distribution of television shows. This is the toe-in-the-water of digital video distribution over the network, and it is going to change the way everybody thinks about content. Music was an easy first step. The demand was there long before the content was available (at least commercially). Video is in same stage music was only a few years ago. Making individual episodes affordable for consumers to download is going to drive this market. This was the missing piece for many products -- and it's only the beginning. The technology has been there for some time, but a deal had not yet been brokered. The success of the iTunes Music Store gave the confidence to media outlets that this really can work, and their content is safe. This is an exciting time.

Serenity

Wow. I went to see this movie over the weekened, and it was just fantastic. Serenity started with a bang, and just kept on rolling the whole way through. I've been a fan of Firefly since it was on Fox, and so unrightly pulled away from us all just as it was gaining momentum. All of the characters were true to form, and the environment was just amplified for the movie. It felt a little rushed, but perhaps that's because I missed the pace of the series, where there was time for a meal to be shared around the table. While the show had some pieces that were meant for the fans, I think anyone could just jump onboard without too much trouble. Don't let the fan base scare you, it's still good entertainment. All I can say now is, "Thanks, Joss!"

Google Goes Las Vegas

Very interesting article about an experiment with Google AdWords. It seems if you try to mess with the system, the system will smack you down.

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Water and the Grocery Store

So, can anyone explain mass panic to me? Gas stations are just packed, there isn't any bottled water (or bread) left at the grocery store, and people are just coming out of the store with toilet paper like crazy. WTF? We are in a staging area for evacuees, and yet it's like the storm is going to hit right here. The power will likely go out with the winds, but how long are people expecting it to go out? Update: In all fairness, I've met several people while out today that are hosting others from the coast, so I understand some of the activity out there. It has just gotten a bit out of hand, as several others I met are just caught up in the craze. I even found myself almost catching it. The local stores are well staffed. Apparently they've called in extra help. I talked with one cashier at a local wholesale store who was just happy to be there; he's getting paid overtime for all of this. I guess this is one way to drive up the economy.

Rita in Central Texas

So, I'm in Austin, and the news is just going nuts about this. They are telling us that we could still see a Class 1 Hurricane this far north from the coast on Saturday. Crazy. Update: Looks like the track is going further east. Update: Saturday, 8:36 AM CST All the rain has moved out of the forecast for the day. It's a bit more windy out than normal, but otherwise it looks quite nice. The Austin City Limits festival is still going on.

Do What You Love

I often see this little quote bantered about in motivational speeches, or business books. A little tidbit of wisdom. Lately, I've just been trying to figure out what that is. It's not as easy as it sound, especially when you throw the expenses of life around. I guess I have the problem of being good at several things, not all of which I like. About the only thing I've figured out so far is that I like starting new things. Not necessarily finishing them, which presents quite a conundrum if you want to follow the above advice. So, I just need to find a job where I can start a bunch of things, but then just let other people finish them. That doesn't sound like the clinching interview quote, does it? I guess the problem is that I am good at getting things done, but I just don't like the finishing part. Often I find myself smack in the middle of something when I've already thought out the rest of it in my head, found that uninteresting, and start thinking up the next task. So, does "Do what you love" really count for stuff like this?

del.icio.us

I've added my del.icio.us feed to the sidebar of this blog. This represents a good portion of what I'm looking at on the web. I'm using this is a bookmark aggregator, and so far it's pretty good.

Katrina

In the midst of this tragedy, I am in awe of how quickly we will have access to satellite imagery via the Internet. No longer do we have to be spoon-fed the data from the media; we can just get it ourselves. My prayers go out to all who have suffered.

New Katrina sat pics from NASA; more coming via Google: "Xeni Jardin:

BB reader Phil Gross says,

Regarding use of Google Earth to overlay near-live damage photos: Satellite photos of Katrina's damage will be available through Google Earth and Google Maps in the next few days. They've scheduled time on five flyovers in the next week. Poeple will at least be able to see the damage for a large part of the area at a fair level of detail. Link

(Via Boing Boing.)

10 MPH Movie Trailer

The movie about 2 guys who crossed America using just a Segway just released their movie trailer.

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An amazing world we live in...

Sometimes this stuff is just old hat to me, but every now and then I take a look back at just how far we've come and am amazed. I am listening to a song on my iPod here, and I thought to myself, "That is a cool tune. I wonder what that is like in guitar tablature?" I then just typed in the name of the song and the word tablature into the Google search bar of Firefox, and there it was. Now, keep in mind, ten years ago I had to scour several text-only sites, and search for awhile to find anything. Often, I'd have to go to newsgroups, or even just go out and find the sheet music. I'm not trained to read music very well, so that wasn't what I wanted anyway. That's if I could find it at all. I'm a hack guitarist. This is just one example. Often I will come up with a question in my head; something like, "I wonder how this works?" I can usually just type that into Google and get an answer really quickly. Life is better in the information age. P.S. The song was "Conviction of the Heart", by Kenny Loggins.

Mac Mini

Mac Mini
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

So, I've taken the plunge and bought a new Mac Mini. This is so much better than my almost 4-year-old iBook. And the screen on the Dell 2005FPW is just beautiful. Fun stuff.

Transitions

So, now I have to think about a "transition" computer. I'm really glad the Mac Mini is out there as an option. I wonder how close it is to a refresh? Can they get it up to 1.5 Ghz in a month? Probably whatever I decide to do, it'll refresh right after I buy. Time to start digging into rumor sites more...

Apple heart Intel Rumors

This particular bit of information is of great interest to me right now. Why? I'm on the verge of buying another Mac, and I was leaning toward that top-of-the-line PowerMac G5. Now, I know most were lackluster about the last round of updates, but I am still using an iBook at 500Mhz, so I was just waiting for another round before going whole-hog. What concerns me most is, I wanted to buy a machine for the next 3-4 years. My venerable iBook as surprised me at lasting 4 so far. If there is an architecture switch coming, then whatever I get, it isn't going to last much longer than 2 years. That certainly leaves me wanting to put less money into a current box. I already bought a external monitor, so I'll either be stuck with a Mac Mini (not a bad choice, but I have G5 lust) or a low-end PowerMac. Steve -- whatever happens with your relationship to IBM, please keep the sexy hardware coming!