Busy day

It was a long, busy day. It is amazing what can get done in about a half hour of cleaning. Lots of other stuff as well, although the kitchen was still too hot to do the dishes, unfortunately.

I watched a movie called The Movie Hero. The "hero" of the movie believed he was in a movie and, essentially, one of the characters. He regularly talks to the audience, refers to his love interest (Dina Meyer, who has been in a lot more than I had thought) as "love interest" instead of her name, walks around Hollywood Blvd. with a sandwich sign and trying to find a side kick. Very weird, but fun. It is no worse than any of the other crap movies out there.

One of the things that I really liked is at the beginning of the film our hero, played by Jeromy Sisto, had a very passionite speach about movies. Mentioning things like who did not feel that could accomplish anything after watching Rocky or The Karate Kid, believe in love after Titanic (and other films, but I don't recall them) and similar types of things.

This got me to thinking about some of the films that I like to watch when I am down or whatever. Note - no links. Most of them are old enough and main stream enough.

The Last Dragon - A hero's journey, and a reminder that all I really need is within myself.

The Karate Kid - If I ever need a boost to get things done, this would be the movie to watch.

Mystery Men - If Karate Kid is not available, this is a good substitute. These people are not the best superheros, but sometimes the second string is all you got.

Hudson Hawk - Sure, most people think this movie sucks out load, but to me there is no faster way out of the blues.

Kissing Jessica Stein - A quirky romantic comedy. A reminder that sometimes love is right under you nose.

I've been sorted!

You are a RAVENCLAW!

As a Ravenclaw and as an NFP, you value
imagination, ideas and intelligence. You are
probably somewhat of an individualist and avoid
conforming just for its own sake. You are
insightful and perceptive, and since you are
empathetic and value harmony, you usually try
to avoid conflict. Of course, you may enjoy
participating in heated debates, but only as
long as they remain on an intellectual level
and not a personal level. In general, you are
open-minded and curious, and set high standards
for yourself.


Hogwarts Sorting Hat: Based on Myers-Briggs Personality Typing
brought to you by Quizilla

I hate young neighbors

At 12:02 AM my neighbors across the street, right across from my bedroom window. My open bedroom window, was in the midst of a party when two women got into a fight. Two drunk women. The resulted in lots of screaming ending with what I guess was one of the boyfriends screaming "FUCK I HATE DRUNK WOMEN!!"

Amen brother.

Things seemed to have quieted down at least. Hopefully I can get to sleep before 1 AM.

Another Call To The Lazy

As I have mentioned before, I am a lazy person. Given the number of "real" updates here that may not surprise anyone.

My biggest pet peeve, though, is double entry of information. I hate having to type something in one place and then having to retype the same thing in another program. One reason I did not get into online bill payment is this same reason. That and I am too cheap to pay for Intuit's bill pay that integrates with Quicken, but I digress.

My bank has finally gotten with the times and not only offers free online bill pay, but has the ability to download transactions. I have recently enjoyed balancing my checking account in about 30 seconds because of downloading and matching the transactions up as cleared before doing the reconciliation. Cool!

But not all is good in Nirvana. Currently I get two bills through electronic bill presentment. One is paid through the company's website, the other is auto-withdrawn from my account. In case one I need to walk through the website and then go off to Quicken and make an entry (which is usually for a future date). In the second case I need to make the entry when I get the email, again after consulting with the website.

Now my laziness gene kicked in after reading this about converting hCalendar to iCal. Why can't we have some kind of microformat that is the basic info of the transaction: Payee, amount, date and maybe a few other things? You could then download the file, have the financial program de jour open up and ask you what account to stick this in. Bonus points to the financial program for remembering what account something went into before.

Now I now there are services that allows for aggregation of electronic bill presentment and payment. But personally I am tired of getting nickeled and dimed to death on $10 for this service, $20 for that, etc. Frankly that is the only reason I have not gotten TiVo - I don't want another monthly service bill. That and I don't need another excuse to watch TV, but I digress again. I may sound like a bit of an old fart, but I have better things to spend my money on personally, especially when I can get this service for free through my bank.

Maybe someday Quicken, Microsoft and the rest of the financial industry will get off their collective butts and come up with some way of securely and generically working with your financial program seemlessly.

What do I mean by seemlessly? If I want to be a bit old school, when I get a bill in through snail mail I should be able to get into my financial program, make an entry, denote it is electronic much like I would enter a check number. At the appropriate time, the program would send the transaction to the bill payment service of choice for processing.

Taking it a step further, you could get something like an RSS entry from the vendor of choice. It would be better if you could setup a central place instead of polling several RSS feeds, but the mechanism would be the same. This would prompt the financial program to go out and grab, in a secure way, the information needed to pay the bill (see the above idea for a microformat). Next time in the financial program you would be presented with the bills that need to be paid and then they could be handled as above.

You could also get this info through email, although I don't know if I want to send through unsecure email that my cell bill was $20 for a month.

The financial transaction format could even be used at Amazon and what not - as part of the checkout process you could snag the transaction file. It could be split up into categories already for you, saving even more time. Downloaded transactions are many times already classified, at least they have been for me.

Taking it even a step further, you could come up with a format that, again using the RSS idea, let you know that a statement is available, go and get it and present everything to you for reconciliation.

Let's face it - entering transactions and reconciling statements is about as much fun as watching paint dry, only sometimes with the joy of the pain of a root canal. To me anything that would allow me to spend less time on those functions and more time learning about how my 401k works is a blessing.

2005 World Stupidity Awards: Winners

2005 World Stupidity Awards: Winners

Clearing out some old marked blog entries. I have to say there was some stiff competition and I am glad I am not a judge for this one.

Thanks Mac for the site!

Saving money on the high cost of printing

Saving money on the high cost of printing

In case anyone is still in the dark, printer companies are like razor companies - they practically give away the printer and are really in the business of selling the ink.

One thing some people don't realize (and may not be takin into account) is that some companies include part/all of the print head in the cartridge. It is not like you are paying all that money for JUST ink.

Personally I use my printer as little as possible. I buy maybe a cartridge every two years, and then usually only the black one.

Carburetor breast fantasy wins bad writing contest - Yahoo! News

Carburetor breast fantasy wins bad writing contest - Yahoo! News

For those who are not serious writers, this is always a fun thing to read.

Law & Order: In God We Trust - TV.com

Law & Order: In God We Trust - TV.com

I normally do not watch this show, but I was working on the computer last night and wanted some background noise and my stereo is too much of a pain to flip on and off and I have no music on my computer right now.

The episode itself revolved around a guy who shot his sister's black boyfriend (fiance?) nine years previously and since has become a model citizen and born again christian. A lawyer was making the arguement that his conversion and subsequent actions did not require him to go to jail since his conversion he has, by all appearances, rehabilitated himself. In the end the man went to jail for life - the defendent still pled guilty and accepted a life sentence.

The scary part to me is something said by the defense lawyer, to paraphrase "too bad this did not go to jury. Given the way this country is going I could have hung a jury."

Although fictional, I can see where this is true for two reasons, and for reasons that both sides of the liberal/conservative spectrum will hate.

First many conservatives, particularly the born again Christians, would accept the arguement that he has become a different person and jail would do this man no good. I realize that some will want the Old Testament eye for an eye type justice, but most born again types I have met tend to believe in forgiveness for those who have themselves become born again (all the rest of us can, and will in the end, go to Hell). Chrisitan conservatives of all types though could follow along with this type of thinking, although if someone had found god through another religion you would wonder if they would support the arguement.

Second some liberals, although opposed to this argument on the religious merits, would agree that this man is rehabilitated and jail is a waste of time and money. Jail does not rehabilitate people anyways, and many times takes fundamentally descent people and makes them criminals. And besides don't we let people off for temporary insanity?

The scary part is I could see this happening, if it has not already and the way the arguments were written my guess is this has at least by tried somewhere in the United States. This becomes a slippery slope. As the prosecutor pointed out - his subsequent actions can, and should, be taken into consideration in sentencing however the crime should still be prosecuted. But that is the important part - the crime still needs to be prosecuted. Even the subsequent actions need to be evaluated without any kind of religous filtering on. The motivation for someones rehabilitation can be religious, but just because found god, however they care to define god, is not reason alone for a reduced sentence, or worse yet throwing out a case.

Beep, Beep. Hello? Is anyone there?

43 Folders: On the culture of distraction; one pipe for all interruptions?

The second part of this post about Growl is really cool, although it is only for Mac OS X. Thanks for 43 Folders for making me aware of this program. Hopefully we will see this in Windows someday, or at least something like it.

This program highlights a couple of things. First off we have to many beeping, blinking, message popping programs. IM program(s), multiple email notifiers, RSS notifiers, calander appointments, programs like Weather Bug, and how many web sites or other miscellaneous bits of info that we have to check on a regular basis because there is no other way to find out if something has changed? It makes my brain melt just thinking about it. Welcome to modern society.

Growl gives 1 notification mechanism, and ideally an easy to way set how, or if, you are notified. Now I am not sure about how granular you can set notifications. What in the world am I talking about? How about a few examples:

I receive a meeting request for later in the day. I would like notification immediately. A meeting request for later in the week would be lower priority and maybe popping up a message once an hour.

Any high priority email I want immediate notification, low priority no notification.

Anything from my boss let me know every 15 minutes, my work group every half hour.

Anything email with "compile results" in the subject gets immediate notification, as does anything that says "get out of".

Anything from "notify@company.com" receives no notification.

Any MP3 enclosure from an RSS feed gets shoved into iTunes, changing the genre to Podcast.

Any MP3 from RSS feed foo gets moved to the top of the New Podcast list in iTunes.

You get the idea.

Now I will be the first to admit that my personal idea of "simple" rule processing is, well, WAY above what 90% of the people think they need. As a programmer I want to have two different interfaces - a quick and dirty and a highly complex. There are times you need a quick rule, and there are times when you need a highly complex one or two. Of course my vision of how to make this all work involves a scripting language and having all programs as scriptable. That, however, is a raving for another day.

However, there is a flip side to this. First off we all need to learn how to make use of the technology we have. How many of us make good use of priority in email? I don't. How about making use of IM status, even just to check and see if someone is at their desk? Do we even just use our brain and just leave off people from our email? Or maybe just shutting off our notifiers completely?

Second we need to keep things as current as possible. I will admit I get very few emails compared to most people, but I work with people with 100s, maybe even a thousand, emails in their inbox. Adam Curry has been commenting on "infinity + 1" in his gMail account so he does not have to delete anything. One thing I have picked up from David Allen's Getting Things Done is regular processing of your inbox. If there is something I keep, I move it out of email and into a file on my hard drive. I set some time aside to periodically kill off old files. Even my sent & deleted folders in email get killed off monthly, keeping the last month of email in both folders only. Many of my emails are permanently deleted after I read them because they are not useful.

Lastly we need to have easy ways to move data application to application. Microformats and existing formats like iCal and vCard are good starts, but we also need a way to move financial transactions. How about easy ways to transfer play lists, or move files to MP3 players easily. There is still too much fiddling we need to do to get data to "flow" easily from app to app, or even from RSS feeds to apps. This is another situation where we need to get more apps and web sites to be scriptable with some kind of API.

Self-Esteem For Dummies

Awhile back there was a Ziggy comic where he was reading Self-Esteem For Dummies, which of course if the silliest, and just a wee bit ironic, title for a book. Really, self-esteem for dummies? Hello!!

Well, of course I had to check it out on Amazon, and although I did not find that exact title, I did find The Complete Idiots Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem. I did not check ot see how well it was selling, but I really think that everyone who does buy a copy needs to look up what self-esteem might mean.

Actually they need a talk that starts with "Come here Sparky...". Robin Williams had a bit awhile back where he was talking about the protestors for the movie The Last Temptation of Christ in which the protestors complained "The movie is not real." To which Robin Williams replied "Come here Sparky....NO MOVIE IS REAL." Of course I also feel this needs to be accompanied by knocking on the head much like you would a door along with screaming "HELLO?!? ANYONE IN HOME IN THERE??", (kind of like in the movie Back To The Future) but then again my tolerance for stupidity is decreasing almost exponentially as I get older.

Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit - Yahoo! News

Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit - Yahoo! News

One word - cool!

Pesky'Apostrophe. Better Than an Unexpected Period.

Pesky'Apostrophe. Better Than an Unexpected Period.

This ranks up there with taking time to debate what the state reptile should be. If the state legislators have nothing better to do than debate things like this, maybe they should go out and get real jobs.

GoNOMAD--The Top Ten Best Bare Beaches in the World

GoNOMAD--The Top Ten Best Bare Beaches in the World

Now I have to say I am not a nude beach person, something I am sure everyone around me applauds, but the fact that the USA only got 1 beach in the top ten when France got 3 is telling.

Oliver Willis � Wall Street Vs. The American Worker

Oliver Willis � Wall Street Vs. The American Worker

I have heard of similar problems with tech companies who DON'T outsource to other countries.

Instead of recognizing that treating employees well can result in a bigger bottom line, hence greater value for their stock holders, seems to be a foriegn concept.

Scripting News: 7/19/2005

Scripting News: 7/19/2005

Still more discussion on Autolink. Overall this argument is now down to the "am to/are not" type of bickering. People on either side of the fence are not going to magically jump the fence, especially when a lot of the proponents seem to have the attitude of "suck it up."

Robert Scoble has the best argument of late. I have used GreaseMonkey until I started playing around with the new alpha release of Deer Park. The only thing I would add that GreaseMonkey needs is an opt-out for creators.

GreaseMonkey is different from Google, Microsoft and other autolink schemes because the user determines what kind of modifications will occur (and most of them seem to remove ads). If you feel that Amazon is an evil empire you can direct your ISBN links to Barns & Noble, or better yet get the price of several sites and pick the best price. Prefer MapQuest over Google Maps? No problem.

Truth be told I would not mind autolink sometimes, but a) I want to direct the links to where I want to go, not where someone wants me to go based upon their own financial interests and b) I can tell what are the modifications that I make to a page vs. what did the creator do.

A post note on opt-out - One big complaint that I have heard is autolink over riding links on internet stores. I also wonder about the Amazon Associate links.

Beacon Journal | 07/21/2005 | `Junkman artist' talks some trash

Beacon Journal | 07/21/2005 | `Junkman artist' talks some trash

There are times I wish stuff cost more so that repairing things made more sense, but it is tough to justify paying more for a repair than it is to replace the item with not only a comparable, but possibly better, item.

There is so much that could be done if we would just take a little bit of time - composting, further recycling, etc. to reduce our solid waste.

Of course the best thing it to not buy as much that will need to, eventually, thrown away.

Beacon Journal | 07/21/2005 | Norton may say adios to, well, adios

Beacon Journal | 07/21/2005 | Norton may say adios to, well, adios

People in Norton just have too much time on their hands. If one comes to America to live I would think that survival would dictate that they eventually learn English, just like if someone moves to say Mexico to live they would eventually learn Spanish. Given that English is the official language of Ohio (German lost by 1 vote many years ago) I think this is over kill and changes nothing.

As for the guy who complains about getting stuff in multiple language he needs to expand his awareness. Most companies put multiple languages on labels or in manuels to get some savings on printing.

Given that most of the world speaks two languages I think people here need to get over themselves.

Adbusters : Blogs - Big Ideas: The Death of Environmentalism

Adbusters : Blogs - Big Ideas: The Death of Environmentalism

I have to agree that most liberals I know are more anti-conservative than what the world could be like, including myself. We all need to work on our vision more...

Get ready to e-mail this one to your friends... - Yahoo! News

Get ready to e-mail this one to your friends... - Yahoo! News

Ok, political correctness has gone WAY too far. Face it - the world is not as nice as the PC police would like us to believe it is, nor should it be.

'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies - Yahoo! News

'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies - Yahoo! News

A dark day for Trekkies everywhere.

Opinion Column by PC Magazine: Creative Commons Humbug

Opinion Column by PC Magazine: Creative Commons Humbug

Although I have to agree that "Creative Commons: Public Domain" makes no sense, Dvork misses the point of Creative Commons. This provides a way for people to allow for personal use of COMPLETE WORKS. Fair use allows for, say, up to 60 seconds of a song to be used in say a review. Creative Commons allows for an artist to let people freely copy their songs for personal use yet retaining certain rights. Even further I could claim that the song is mine - in the case of a document it would not take much to swap the names out.

How is that different from public domain? If something is placed in the public domain it can be used for ANY purpose without regard for the original creator. So, for example, I could pick up a public domain song and include it on a disc and sell that disc and the musicians or song writer are not due any royalties. With Creative Commons you would need to get permission before including said song in a compilation.

Copyright, on the other hand, does not allow under fair use the copying of complete works for any reason. Granted the RIAA is not going to come down on me for going to the library and renting a CD and ripping 1 song, but legally they could.

To me Creative Commons is something like Open Source, with its various licenses. It provides a way for artists to legally spread there work while maintaining certain rights. Current copyright law tends to be more of an on/off situation, and failure to enforce your copyright on all things could hamper future efforts on things you WANT under copyright.

Gates Puzzled by Computer Science Apathy - Yahoo! News

Gates Puzzled by Computer Science Apathy - Yahoo! News

It is not just that the job is perceived as boring (it is not to me), but many college career counselors are poo-poo-ing comp sci because of all the outsourcing to India and other Asian countries.

Archaeologists Unveil Pompeii Treasure - Yahoo! News

Archaeologists Unveil Pompeii Treasure - Yahoo! News

I inherited an interest in Pompeii from my mother, and this is one place that I will visit when I get to Italy. This site has been worked for years and yet it still coughs up some interesting things.

Internet Daily: Independent podcasters losing ground - Internet Software - Retail - Internet Services - Mobile phones - Travel - Media - Entertainment

Internet Daily: Independent podcasters losing ground

I think they miss the point. Of course Dawn & Drew cannot compete against something put out by ABC any more than an indie band can compete with the deep pockets of a big label. It is about making more voices available, and making it possible for small, niche shows. For example In The Trenches would not survive on any broadcast station, even a Public Radio station yet it is still a good for those who would be interested in that topic. Same with Coverville, Dawn and Drew and a slew of other podcasts. Just like with music, people will flock to the "main stream" and then, when they get board, they will seek out the indie podcasts.

Podcasting Spurs a Media 'Land Grab' - Yahoo! News

Podcasting Spurs a Media 'Land Grab' - Yahoo! News

For those who do not listen to Podcasts there is some complaints about iTunes labelling the people who got the whole movement, well moving, as independent podcasts since they are not associated to a company.

Music Videos May Be Coming to iPods - Yahoo! News

Music Videos May Be Coming to iPods - Yahoo! News

Does anyone actually watch music videos anymore? Of greater interest - downloaded TV shows & movies a la the PSP.

TiVo Wants You to Watch Commercials - Yahoo! News

TiVo Wants You to Watch Commercials - Yahoo! News

There are 2 aspects to this, in my mind:

1 - People want to not only want to time shift their shows but they want to take less time watching them. To expect people to sit down at a specific time for a set period of time any more is unheard of.

2 - MAKE THE DAMN COMMERCIALS INTERESTING! I get soooooo tired of seeing the same commercial not only on EVERY commercial break for a show, but many times multiple times within the same break. I don't mind watching commericals that are interesting, or at least different. It is the price of admission to "free" TV, but at least give me a reason to WANT to watch commercials.

Catching up from the weekend

It was a long, hot, muggy weekend. I still do not have my wireless working consistently in my living room. I have been trying to setup the lab to so I can drop my laptop down and work back there, but with temperatures in the upper 80s and 90+% humidity sitting in a non-air conditioned room and cleaning is not my idea of a fun way to spend the weekend.

Two things happened this weekend that were completely condictory. First off on Friday I went out and rented a bunch of videos to use up some expiring coupons with the thought of sitting around all weekend watching videos and sweating. I then get home and find out this was Harry Potter weekend.

The problem with Harry Potter is that once I start reading I don't want to stop. And by don't want to stop I mean I read pretty much cover to cover without stopping. The only book I have not done that with is Book 5, but the reason I did not read it completely in one sitting is because I was on vacation at the time in Colorado.

Overall I loved the book. Darker than the last few, but I liked it much better than book 5. In book 5 Harry was acting like a bit of a prick typical rebelous teenage boy. He seems to have gotten things into a bit more perspective.

Our 10th Grader's Fall Homeschooling Schedule

Our 10th Grader's Fall Homeschooling Schedule

Any kids who complain about having too much work should see this schedule for a homeschooled "10th grader". Not only is there bookwork (can you call it homework when you are homeschooled?) but she has a bunch of outside projects and volunteer work. This is a great way to learn a lot and, hopefully develop a life long interest in leanring.

Google Maps Pedometer

Ok, this is a GREAT idea for anyone who is walking, running, or otherwise trying to do some kind of distance work. My only complaint - it would be nice if there was some kind of input to switch locals. Say a zipcode box.

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | 2009 is TV's digital deadline

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | 2009 is TV's digital deadline


Interesting read - the FCC is pulling the plug in 2009. I'm not rushing out to buy a TV, and in fact I will probably buy one of the conversions boxes for my TV, unless I can get a hell of a price on a cheap 23-23" TV for my living room. I might just pick up a digital TV tuner card for my old PC and get that all setup for DVR and other media uses.

Competition Slashing Costs of Broadband - Yahoo! News

Competition Slashing Costs of Broadband - Yahoo! News

Last year I read an article that I believe Norway has 10 MBPS cable and something like 8 DSL, for somewhere around US $80-100/month. Given I am paying $45/month for 5 MBPS that would be cool. The guy in the article said that DVD quality movies downloaded in an hour or so.

Agassi Won't Seek Congress Seat in 2006 - Yahoo! News

Agassi Won't Seek Congress Seat in 2006 - Yahoo! News

Sounds like Agassi is like me - votes for whom he feels would do the best job. The only reason I am not a registered Independent is because locally you cannot vote for issues in a primary unless you are a democrat or republican. That sucks out load.

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | Barred from North Canton?

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | Barred from North Canton?

This is a flat out attempt to get rid of sexual offenders in a city, and in my opinion is not constituional. I would love to see the area in North Canton where these offenders can live.

I'm all for protecting children, however too many people are getting labeled "sexual offenders" of late. One questionable rape conviction and you could be a leper for life - and that is what it seems with today's courts.

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | Barred from North Canton?

Beacon Journal | 07/13/2005 | Barred from North Canton?

This is a flat out attempt to get rid of sexual offenders in a city, and in my opinion is not constituional. I would love to see the area in North Canton where these offenders can live.

I'm all for protecting children, however too many people are getting labeled "sexual offenders" of late. One questionable rape conviction and you could be a leper for life - and that is what it seems with today's courts.

A weird day

I was stuck in training all day today so it was pretty dull all round. We are getting spotty rain from Huricane Tropical Storm Dennis. Actually we are getting spotty thunderstorms. For example yesterday at my house we got thunder but no storm. Some places got over 3" of rain in an hour. Go figure.

On a sour note the leg seems to be regressing. I am hoping it was the sitting in training all day that is causing this and not another trip to the doctor.

Bad Blogger, no donut

It has been awhile since I put out just a regular post, so I thought I would try to catch up today.

The leg is still swollen, but the nasty toxin areas are slowly being absorbed. I am still taking the doctor's advice and getting back into walking slowly. I did 1 mile tonight along with my tai chi class, which I have not been to in over a month. My feet are killing me, but otherwise I feel pretty good.

I am trying to get a USB 2.0 PC card to work in my laptop. So far not so good with my thumb drive. Maybe it will work better with the external HDs that I got it to work with.

Over the weekend my brother and I (mostly him) powerwashed my house. Of course now I need to paint the house because the aluminum siding on the house is 20+ years old and was starting to flake off before we started washing. Later that night my brother & nephew had a guys night out and went to see Star Wars III. It was my favorite of the first trilogy, but I still like the second trilogy better. Maybe I'm a little old school. I do have to agree with Mur Lafferty of Geek Fu Action Geek - Padme was a bit whiny, although I do allow for stress & hormones. Face it - her husband was going through some rather radical changes. As an exercise for the reader - figure out the inconsistence between Episodes III and IV. Oliver Willis also noted a parallel between the formation of the Empire and the Bush adminisration. I can see where he felt this way.

One last thing about Star Wars - I knew that Mace Windu (Samual L. Jackson's character) was going to die. No shock there - all but 2 Jedi were dead at the beginning of Episode IV. I said when they killed him they had best give him a good death scene, especially after what he did in Episode II.

Overall though I have just been alternating between too busy & crashing.

Independent Online Edition > Media : app6

Independent Online Edition > Media : app6

I have listened to the recordings, and frankly they are not that great. Yea, they were free but if I was serious about classical music I would not want these in my collection. Given that classical music labels and orchestras are in their death throws anyways since fewer and fewer people listen to classical music maybe they should be more worried about boosting overall listenership instead of worrying about "unfair competition."

Arizona School Will Not Use Textbooks - Yahoo! News

Arizona School Will Not Use Textbooks - Yahoo! News

Although I am all for going electronic, I have to say laptop displays are not ideal for extended reading.

Slurpee celebrates 40 years of 'brain freeze' - Yahoo! News

Slurpee celebrates 40 years of 'brain freeze' - Yahoo! News

Not having a 7-11 nearby we always had Icee machines around, but happy birthday anyways!

podbat blog

podbat blog

A good use of technology to help in efforts. It is interesting to see what has happened in 4 years.

Amateurs Get in on Newsgathering Domain - Yahoo! News

Amateurs Get in on Newsgathering Domain - Yahoo! News

Slowly by surely the amateurs are making some of the professionals irrelevant.

Union Leader: Labor Can't Just Back Dems - Yahoo! News

Union Leader: Labor Can't Just Back Dems - Yahoo! News

This is not good news for the Democrates who have always been able to count on union support. This also highlights the problems of the Democratic party loosing its way and the unions letting all parties know they are willing to help anyone who will advance their cause.

A couple days of bad UI design

Many years ago I read About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design by Alan Cooper. This books primarily talks about computer user interfaces. Anyone who uses a computer (and anyone who works in the industry) should read this book or the updated version of the book since this one is out of print.

Anyways I was thinking about this book the last few days. After almost 3 full weeks of antibiotics it is taking its toll on my digestive system so I have been spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom at work.

The first bit of bad design I came across was the brown soap in one of the dispensers. Think about this - brown soap in a bathroom. Yea, that is smart. They have since gone back to the pink goo they were using.

The second was the bathroom stalls. Now I am not exactly a normal sized person, so I expect certain problems from time to time. Normally I tend to use the handicap stall. Not a big deal since we have no one, currently who is handicap on our floor. However a lot of the taller guys also like to use the handicap stall. Given the amount of time I spent in the bathroom over the last few days I finally figured out why. The toilet paper dispensor is right at knee level, effectively shrinking the width of the stall a good 5 or 6 inches. Raising that up 6-10 inches it would probably give us enough space to slide our knee under the TP.

This has gotten me to think about cascading style sheets (CSS), skins, and programs like Grease Monkey. These things get closer to Alan Cooper's ideas, allowing the user to make the web in the above cases work like the user wants. CSS & skins allow the user to change the site (or program) so that wonderful yellow & purple color scheme to something a little more appealing. Or, more importantly, allows someone to shift the font to a larger size or make buttons larger for people who have problems using a mouse. Grease Monkey is more of a glue - allowing the user to bring in information from other web sites or to clear out modify sites on the fly.

I think some of the things I have heard that Microsoft is going to do in Longhorn (their next OS) with RSS sounds interesting. I am only about half way through their talk from Gnomedex. Some of what they said sounds good. Some of what they said I have said here before. Some of what they said could be done today. The trick here though is that we need to work with the file associations so that if we send iCal files through an RSS feed the aggregator (or whatever is reading the feed) will work with the program that is set up to work with iCal programs, not just Outlook or Sunbird or whatever. Hopefully Microsoft will embrace that idea. Converserely I hope other software companies pick up on what Microsoft is trying to do - build RSS processing in ALL programs. There will always been some of us old farts who will not move off of aggregators any time soon (hey, I still use DOS batch files), but I have to agree with Microsoft - why shouldn't a calendar program read a feed that is calendar information directly instead of going through the aggregator.

Personally, I would rather use 1 aggregator and send enclosures off to the program of choice. I do not particularly like managing my podcasts and my news/blog feeds in 2 separate programs, but for now that works out best. Maybe some day in the future we will find a better way.

Ancient footprints in Mexico shatter human migration theories: scientists - Yahoo! News

Ancient footprints in Mexico shatter human migration theories: scientists - Yahoo! News

This only changes the time frame, not necessarily the full theory about immigration from Asia. The "several migration waves" makes sense, but the bigger question is did the waves all come from Asia or could they have come from South/Central America?

Four London Blasts Kill 40, Injure 350 - Yahoo! News

Four London Blasts Kill 40, Injure 350 - Yahoo! News

There is not much that can be said about this. It is horrible event and my prayers go out to the victims.

Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal - Yahoo! News

Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal - Yahoo! News

It should be interesting to see how this case turns out. This guy was sitting outside of a house to score some bandwidth, but what happens if you are just driving by and hookup with an unsecured WiFi? What about hitting your neighbor's network instead of your own?

microformats | weblog | Gnomedex calendar the microformat way

microformats | weblog | Gnomedex calendar the microformat way

This is the type of thing I would like to see happen. One thing I personally would change is the aggregator should allow for selective addition of events to the calendar program of choice. Granted we are starting to get beyond the simplicity of RSS, but it would not be that tough to see an hCalendar (or other microformat) and display "add to calendar" as a link or button for the feed.

French-Fry Holder

French-Fry Holder

I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, but it definately is odd. Given I find eating fries while driving a good way to save time this would work for me, except that it would not fit into my car's cup holders.

WakeNBacon

/mathlete/

Ok, this is what happens when geeks have WAAAAY too much time on their hands. Some people should NOT do drugs (or maybe they need to do more...).

Kaplan: Microsoft Tried to Crush Startup - Yahoo! News

Kaplan: Microsoft Tried to Crush Startup - Yahoo! News

Microsoft trying to crush a competitor? Abusing its monopoly? Surely you jest! (That much sarcasm can pull a muscle)

Oil Prices Top $60 a Barrel on Storm Fears - Yahoo! News

Oil Prices Top $60 a Barrel on Storm Fears - Yahoo! News

How come sometime everyone sneezes the oil prices go up? I am tired of seeing these stories.

Bush: Abortion Won't Decide Court Nominee - Yahoo! News

Bush: Abortion Won't Decide Court Nominee - Yahoo! News

Let's try it again with comment. I am trying to remain hopeful that he will pick a good candidate, however history has shown that most people (and Bush himself) will do the exact opposite.

Bush: Abortion Won't Decide Court Nominee - Yahoo! News

Bush: Abortion Won't Decide Court Nominee - Yahoo! News

Blake Ross on Firefox and Beyond » The new Firefox tag line

Blake Ross on Firefox and Beyond » The new Firefox tag line

I don't care if it is true or not, but it is funny!

O'Reilly Radar > Change the positioning, change the rules

O'Reilly Radar > Change the positioning, change the rules

Too cool! Actually it reminds me of the "we'll document the bug and make it a feature!"

SBC recently dropped their DSL price to $15/month for the 2 people in the universe who has not seen their ads. Maybe SBC can learn something here.

iTunes traffic - Holy Crap!

iTunes traffic - Holy Crap!

I have been hearing similar stories from other podcasters when iTunes opened up. Keep in mind .Net Rocks is purely a programmer show and Mondays is a geek show. I can't imagine what Don & Drew and some of the other shows that are aimed a little more at the general public jump was.

Japanese Man Keeps Hot Dog-Eating Crown - Yahoo! News

Japanese Man Keeps Hot Dog-Eating Crown - Yahoo! News

You would think for the fatest nation in the world we would be able to win an eating competion!

Astrologer Sues NASA Over Comet Probe - Yahoo! News

Astrologer Sues NASA Over Comet Probe - Yahoo! News

I hope this guy gets hit with court costs. I may follow astrology, but geez trying to determine what "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe" is for God to determine, not us.

This and That

It is amazing how much one can get done when not watching TV. I knocked a bunch of things off my to do list even with the heat. The humidity is starting to go up - weather man says to expect thunderstorms on Tuesday, which means a few days of yuck humidity. The biggest thing was getting a filing cabinet into place. I have had a big office grade 4 drawer filing cabinet sitting in the middle of the room since Feb. when we moved the office. I just today got it out of the way and started to transfer the files from my old 3 drawer cabinet. The new one is much deeper and the old one, but I found a place to fit it in. I am still not 100% sure what I am going to do with the lab, but I do know that the drapes and carpet have to go at some point. I have a few pieces of furniture I would love to get rid of, but that will mean finding a place for my sheets, blankets and soap and stuff. This house was built in the 50s and has 0 storage space. There is a small closet that I may try to make use of.

I finally got a walk in today. Only half a mile on the track, but it is something. I need to get back into it slowly so I don't piss off my leg. It is angry enough ;).

In today's Parade Magazine (it comes with my Sunday newspaper) they had a reader question about Gerald Ford (sorry, these do not appear to be listed on their web page). Pretty much they said he is doing pretty good for a 92 year old who has had 2 strokes. He still gets out and plays golf (and is probably still something of a hazard) and swims a few laps every day.

Ford was one of my favorite presidents. Pretty much the guy never really had much of a chance to do anything, which was somewhat on purpose given that he was a big compromise between the Republicans & Democrats, was the butt of a lot of jokes (who remembers Chevy Chase falling into the draps at the Oval Office?). A lot of things were over played, like his notorious golf game. According to some pros at Firestone Country Club (where they used to hold the tournament of champions) he actually is a pretty good golfer, but has a wicked slice just like a lot of players.

Personally I think he would have made a pretty good president, given half a chance. Not now of course, but in his day. I might be biased though since he is a fellow Eagle Scout. As someone who made it all the way through I can tell you that shows a lot about him. When I was in, 1 in 100 boys entering scouts made Eagle. It takes a lot of dedication, intelligence, and at times bravery to make it. Maybe in Ford's day you did not learn a lot about dealing with others, but a part of making it to Eagle is to become a leader. It is too bad I cannot support the Boy Scouts anymore given their current stand on gays & certain religions.

Leg Update & Cigarette tax

I had a follow up with the doctor today about my leg. Things are definately looking better. He wants another week's worth of antibiotics and I am not going to fight him on this. I have played "I thought we got this the first time" before and it is NOT a fun game. He also gave me the ok to start fitness walking again. He wants me to start slowly (like I needed him to tell me that), but at least I can get moving again.

Cigarette Tax Goes Up in Ohio

Now let me start out by saing that I am not a smoker, period. After seeing the brown sludge they pulled out of my mom's lungs even if I was considering smoking that would kill the thought right quick.

Today Ohio raised their cigarette tax by 70 cents to $1.25/pack. Cigarette smokers are an easy target for such taxes - smokers are not liked by a large part of the population, cigarettes are sold in a way to make them easy to tax, and given the addictive nature of cigarettes people will probably find a way to pay the tax increase.

Now I realize there are 2 basic reasons for playing around with taxes. The first is revenue. The second is to carrot & stick people into certain behaviors. For example at $1.25/pack many people will quit smoking (stick). However with mortgage interest being deductible many people feel they need to buy a house (carrot).

With the taxes raising by such a large amount, the revenue aspect will probalby not yield as much as the powers that be would like because of people quitting. The hope is that there will be lots of people quitting that will help reduce medicaid expenses down the road.

Now in theory this all looks good, however to me it seems a bit unfair to the cigarette smoker when all tobacco use will cause an increase in some kind of cancer. Allow me to repeat that: all tobacco use will cause an increase in some kind of cancer. So, to me at least, it would seem logical to increase the tax on ALL tobacco products. Granted, relatively speaking, other forms of tobacco use are relatively minor, but if the goal (and it has been stated by some state congress people) is more to encourage people to quit instead of raise money then it should be across the board. I realize that taxing cigars & pipe tobacco is tough, but I would think that at the minimum it could be done by weight.

Also, I would think that taxing alcohol would be an equally good thing. How much does the result of drunk driving cost Ohio medicaid? I would bet you coul make as much off a tax on alcohol as you would the cigarette tax.

Tags: Taxes

O'Connor Retires From Supreme Court - Yahoo! News

O'Connor Retires From Supreme Court - Yahoo! News

This is very unfortunate. Justice O'Connor seemed to keep her personal views in check, at least she was not extremely conservative. You can be the nomination from Bush will not be as moderate, particularly on abortion. I also feel that there will be some tricks played where the nomination will not come until it is "too late" to debate before the court open's it session with the hope of pushing through a radical.