Mayor backs plaza bill

 

Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart wants City Council to help him make good on his pledge to do something about State Road Plaza. The mayor is backing legislation introduced Monday to change the definition of a blighted parcel to include commercial structures that have been 75 percent vacant for at least six months, or 50 percent vacant for at least one year.

Source: Mayor backs plaza bill
Originally published on Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:01:00 GMT

Now let me say, the State Road Plaza is in bad shape. I'll be the first to agree. They recently evicted a tenant who was $300 short for one month's rent after talking to the news about how it was to be a tenant. Keep in mind this place is at least 50% empty as it stands right now, and I given it how empty the place has been I don't see them filling up any time soon. 

However I hate to see government pass legislation that is clearly aimed at one person or business. This legislation may make sense in the long run, however I see a big court battle ahead if this passes and they go after this plaza.

Elections

Of course tonight was election night here in America. I do enjoy being able to at least have a little say in who will represent me, although I do hate the process. Before I get to far, let me say that any process is not perfect, and all have their problems. Here is my experiences.

 

First off there were were 4 precints at my polling place. The parking lot was not large enough to accomodate the number of people. The basement was not large enough to accomodate all the people and the new equipment. Fortunately I got right through, however all the other places were backed up.

 

First off I have never been a fan of how Ohio takes away my secret ballot. They put the number of the ballot next to where I sign. That ties the ballot to my name, which means you can figure out how I voted, which takes away my secret ballot.

 

Next I was not asked for an ID. This is the law in Ohio, and the table right next to mine they were checking IDs. Not that I think this is a great way to stop voter fraud, but it is the law. I expect it to be applied equally.

 

Here in Summit County, we use a scanner that scans a paper ballot right there. In fact I feed it in (with the poll worker watching, seeing how I voted). No apparent problems for that, although I am not sure if everything was read correctly. BTW I was #473 for that machine.

 

I love our system, although the implimentation can use some work. In a book by Marian Williamson, and I wish I could remember the name, she had suggested making the election "day" several days, moving it to a weekend, or making the day a national holiday to get more people to turn out. A step in the right direction. Here are some of mine:

 

I like how Ohio now has a "no excuse" reason to get an absentee ballot. That would relieve some of the pressure on overworked and over-extended polling workers/location.

 

As a programmer, I know that any system that can be touched by humans can also be manipulated by them. Keep in mind you only need a large magnet to wipe a memory card to screw up an election. Or even just a hammer. Getting the internet involved only makes the problems worse. Throwing technology at the problem is not necessarily the answer. There are various levels of "acceptable risk" that software goes through. The most mission critical software & hardware require extensive testing, years of work, and cost a ton of money. You can bet no voting system goes through that kind of rigor. It should, but no one will pay for the resulting system. The other problem is the people who usually work the polls are not exactly tech savy.

 

I like the paper ballots we used here, although I feel I might as well be yelling my votes from a mountain top with a megaphone. Filling out a huge piece of paper, handing my ballot around, putting the ballot number next to my signature. Ummmm.....what about a secret ballot?

 

I also feel that no one should be allowed to be handing out any policitical material with 1 mile of a polling place. I was in my way in and the Democrats wanted to give me a cheat sheet on how to vote. Thanks, but I don't always vote Democrat.

 

One other pet peeve - could we please allow an independant to vote issues only at a primary? Neither party truly represents my views, and in either case I believe in keeping a balance so I usually vote for 1 of each. The only reason I am a Democrat is so I can vote on issues during primary time.

 

Also, I think that leaving political messages on my answering machine should be punishable by taking a cattle prod to candidate's (or who ever's idea this was) dangly bits. A 30-60 second message is not going to get me to change my view on anything. Let me correct that - you may have just pushed me to vote against you.

 

Lastly, I would like all election night coverage to stop. Truth be told, no one can make any prediction based on 5% returns, even 50% returns. I don't want to hear about problems at the polls, which would cause people to not turn out. The only thing that should be reported election night is if some polls are staying open late. Outside of that, any coverage is a waste of time and effort. I can read about it the next day when everything is final.

 

No system is perfect. There is no perfect, it is a process that can always be improved. I think though there are a lot of things that can be done to help make it easier that do not require much thought or effort.

Even more fun with voting machines

Mac noted a problem with her voting machines - the final button to push is rather low, resulting in people not getting their vote counted. I also noted the "To Vote Straight Ticket Press Here" button, which I feel is a very bad idea.

More on my views of elections later, after I vote today.

Now coming to a library near you - Netflix

Hacking Netflix had an interesting post last week about how Palo Alto Library was considering outsourcing DVD rentals to Netflix. They ask "...should libraries be renting movies in the first place?"

The resulting comments were interesting (I recommend reading them). Many things were brought up - The need to stock hard to find movies is not needed because Netflix has everything. Netflix can keep good working copies of movies. One of the biggest points being made that with so much available to stream online, and the quality of various media, why bother with movies, CDs, and to a point even books & magazines?

There was one point not made though. Not everyone has a computer and/or internet at home. You maybe have a DVD player, say from a friend, but no money to join Netflix or even rent from a local brick & morter place.

Many years ago the first VHS machine our family got was from a friend who got a new machine with a remote (yes, that long ago) and they were going to throw out their old machine. Truth was we did not have the money at the time to rent videos so we went to the library and borrowed theirs.

Would I support my library going to Netflix for DVD rentals? Sure. Would I dump my current Netflix membership? Probably not. My guess is that any library would have a 1 or 2 out at a time plan. At this time I am not looking to downgrade my plan. Now if I could get them to pay for my 3 at a time plan...

MMMM.....Yea....Riiight

Overfishing may harm seafood population

One word - Duh.

Two men enter, one man leaves

I had flashes of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome when I saw this article. I liked this "...with a typical Vermont dairy cow producing around 13 gallons of manure daily...". Now I am not sure how much a gallon of cow manure weighs, but a gallon of water ways about 8 pounds, so we could be talking 100+ pounds of manure per day per cow. And that is assuming they do not get any Taco Bell. For those a little more visual, check out the picture here. Scroll down until you see the picture with the text "horse poo-poo" on it. For reference, the guy with his foot on the pile is over 6 foot tall (I think I heard 6' 4", but don't quote me on that).

This is a great way to deal with two problems. I know 10 or so years ago Germany and other European countries were trying to get synergy between industries in using the waste from one industry as the raw material for another. It not only cuts down on stuff going to landfills and to reduce the need for raw materials.

If Green Mountain College wants to go another step further, they should be putting at least 1 solar panel on every roof top. Yes, they may not be able to provide all their power needs through solar power, but every little bit will help.

We will fry anything

When I first saw this I thought "oh my god now what". Fried coke?!? You have got to be kidding.

Then I remembered the tempura sampler at my favorite Japanese place. It includes things like green beans, yams and my personal favorite - banana bites. Of course that at least has SOME healthy bits in it.

Then again, people regularly fry things like Snickers bars. I guess if you have a deep fryer sitting around you just start throwing stuff in.

eMail Trouble

I was reading a post from Allison Randal over on O'Reilly Radar about the fun and joy she has with email. I can sympathize. I have a couple of different email accounts, meaning several inboxes, things spread across those inboxes, more mail than I can keep up with some days, etc.

Interestingly I was also playing some catchup on some other feeds and was reading Tim O"Reilly on the abandoning the power user in Windows Vista.

Now I do not believe the typical user has several email accounts. Most will have 1 for home, one for work (maybe), and possibly a third web-based account.

The problem is email is just getting worse, and it is not just a power user issue. Spam issues aside, more and more of our lives funnel through email. If you read Allison's article, you will see many of the things that goes through her inbox. Not to mention "friend spam" as Merlin Mann put it in the article on the LazyWeb.

Even the "new fangled" RSS does not do enough. Nick Bradbury talks about how much more RSS could be doing for us. One tip for the FedEx & UPS type of businesses - when we get the email notifying us of the tracking number, could we get a link so we can subscribe to the tracking RSS feed? It would make my life simplier. Also it would be nice if we could find a way to let our aggregators know when a feed is completely done.

Tag clouds and beefed up search only go so far though. We need some more horse power in our mail programs. Most seem to allow you to move/delete emails, but not much more.

Contrast that with the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife. One of the primary goals of GSAK is to read in files you get from Geocaching.com and convert it so it can be loaded into your GPS unit, along with various other mapping and other geocaching software. However the scripting language allows for almost all (if not all) functions to be scripted. I have just really began to work with it, but already I have a small script that takes my 3 weekly downloads from GC.com, loads them into a temporary data base, exports them into separate files to load into my Palm, load all 3 into one big database, then export the big database to my GPS. Even further, I can run programs outside of GSAK. One thing I am looking to add is running a small program that picks up all the finds from my Palm and then updates that info back into my main database and initiates another macro (already provided) to help automate the logging of those finds back at GC.com. I can even add a message box to remind me to synch my Palm before doing that process.

Why can't my email be like that? Geocaching, whereas fun, does not have near the volume of activity as my email. Why can't I automatically download the attachments from the emails coming from GC.com to a specific directory? Sure, I can set GSAK to handle it, but it is recommended I setup a new email (!!) specifically for that. Why? I have to do this every week. Why can't Merlin's LazyWeb idea above be easily implimented in all email programs? Why can't we have some kind of microformat that would allow us to easily pick up the amounts from an emailed receipt to import into our financal software? We pick the account, but the underlying info is all there. Why can't right click on an email and say 'mark everything in green from this sender' to draw attention to electronic bill presentment? Why can't we then slowly turn those to red as the bill date approaches? Microformats could somehow handle that. Even the current iCal could. Or maybe play a sound when a bill comes in? Or, as Allison suggested, have a special window at the side of important things, turning them into ToDos?

Interesting Take on American Politics

Tom Hollander has an interesting view of how the whole election process works here in the States. Truth is, I have to agree - the damn signs make little sense. Here in Ohio they are constantly getting bigger. Down the street from me is one that is roughly 4x6 foot! Fortunately it is not where it would obstruct traffic.

Since I live on a corner of a busy street, not far from a school, I get calls all the time asking to place a sign in my yard. This is one of the reasons I no longer answer my phone unless I know who it is.

I have yet to feel strongly about any candidate since I was able to vote. Mostly I feel I am picking between the lesser of two evils. However I do at least throw my vote in, even if I feel as though I am flushing it down the toilet.

At least then I feel semi-justified in complaining when things are not going the way I want them. I want to slap the people who complain about the state of country (or state, county, city, etc.) yet never get off their fat asses to go and vote. You may not find someone you like, but usually you can find someone you DON'T like. Don't complain if you are not exercising your rights.

Interesting video from YouTube

Saw this on YouTube and thought it was interesting.

I have been very busy, but I hope to post an extended entry tonight.

Another White Buffalo

Another White Buffalo

Interesting that in the last 12 years or so we have had 3 one in million occurances. Here is more on the lore of White Buffalo.

Post-It Note Heaven

Will's Room

I tend to use post-it notes at work like many people use small pads of paper, but this takes the cake.

A long time ago I read a book aimed at organizational techniques for creative people. I cannot come up with the title (there are several at Amazon), but one of the techniques they recommended was the use of post-it notes for your to-do list. One item per post it note.

A New Blog Editor

I know it has been awhile, but work has been kicking my butt. I just loaded up Windows Live Writer to play around with. This is a test post from there. I am curious to see how it works with Blogger.

Right now I am computer-less at home - my laptop is on loan to my brother.

This is just stupid

Stow has put price on police response




Stow's defense: Accidents are not part of what a cop does. Funny, Ohio law requires a police report to be filed for any accident where over $450 of damage is done. This is pointed out in the article. So, under Ohio law, any accident with over $450 of damage WOULD be part of a cops duties. This is going to fall pretty quick.

The alphabet groups becoming irrelevant?

Thanks to Geek New Central for bringing this article to my attention.

With groups like BPI, RIAA and MPAA all running around screaming how the sky is falling. I think the need for these groups is falling. What artist of all types are finding out, you do not need the industry anymore. You can connect directly with your audience thanks to the internet.

Consider the Podsafe Music Network. Just this week Alice Cooper, yes THE Alice Cooper, added 3 songs to their network. James Brown has also put a song on this network. This allows podcasters to play these songs without worries the RIAA will come to sue their house away. Why do this? Marketing! These two are willing to forgo the $10 or $20 they may get in royalties with the hope of selling more albums or songs.

Face it - some people will always refuse to pay for music (or movies). Some simply do not recognize you are not paying for the song, but the process that went into creating that song. Some feel all information, including music, should be free. In the internet age. the music industry will need to evolve or die out like the dodo.

An even better idea

Ohio pokes while others speed up




Bob does have a point, however more important would be getting trucks to go the same speed as the rest of traffic. Forcing the big rigs to 55 while the rest of traffic is trying to move at 65 cases many of the same problems mentioned.

Many years ago my friends and I agreed that 55 was a stupid number. If they had lowered it to 60 more people would have been accepting of it. At 60 it becomes easy to figure out how long a trip will take - a mile a minute. I do not mind 60 that much, what I do mind is people whipping in and out of traffic.

Funny - Mel Gibson's Netflix Queue

DVD Dossier got a hold of Mel Gibson's Netflix queue. Well worth the read.

I do feel semi-sorry for Mel, although I find that when drunk people actually say how the really feel. This is probably not the end of his career, but he will definately lost some of the "Mel Gibson is in it I will watch it" audience.

U.S. prepares for showdown in Cuba - Yahoo! News

U.S. prepares for showdown in Cuba - Yahoo! News

Ok, we have not learned yet. How many times have we sponsored someone to overflow a government only to have it bite us in the ass?

Iran warns oil could reach $200 on sanctions - Yahoo! News

Iran warns oil could reach $200 on sanctions - Yahoo! News

If I were in charge, my response to this threat from Iran would be to start a program much like was done with NASA to get us off oil, and push public transportation.

Wish I could read the whole article

Domain Of The Weird

GOP Senator’s staff member calls for the removal of Connecticut’s statehood because a newspaper editorial opposed ANWR drilling.

Does anyone engage their brain before speaking these days? The whole story (follow the links) appears to be behind a pay site ($265/year BTW), so I cannot see the entire context. Assuming the quote is accurate, yikes. Why am I reminded of the Borg?