A Day in Paradise

http://www.jetpackinternational.com/video.html

Is that awesome or what!

This sticker fell off of the bottom of my laptop.

Wireless LAN: 001B9E-ED8081

What people don’t understand is that while the auto industry has been the driving force (no pun intended) of the US economy for the last 100 years, the next 100 years will be all about technology and alternative energy. Two things that the automotive have been slow to embrace at best and actively trying to kill.

The failure of the financial institutions & the current economy wasn’t the cause of the automotive industry’s failure but was simply the catalyst which triggered the inevitable failure of a decrepit automotive industry.

Time to cut the cords and let GM go down in flames. Split the bailout package between transportation companies who specialize in clean energy and a program for retraining GM employees.

Just my 2 cents

Had some problem with FF not “remembering” print settings on XP – I think I figured out the problem here.

http://saalwaechter-notes.blogspot.com/2008/01/firefox-and-default-printer.html

I’m waaay too busy for my own health, but have some awesome new stuff coming out that I can’t wait to show peeps!

Stay tuned!

I had this weird dream last night. I was in a parallel universe, it was the weirdest thing. In my dream, I was at the park talking to a good friend of mine, we were chatting about this and that and at some point I said

“Hey, I watched this great VDV from NotFlix last night” to which “Steve” said “REALLY?? That has been in my NotFlix queue forever, but it’s got a long wait and I’m not sure when I’m going to get it. Can you make a copy for me?” I agreed and after a bit more chit chat we went our separate ways.

Next thing I remember we’re in the car driving home, and my 7-year-old asks me “Daddy, isn’t it illegal to copy VDVs?” - apparently in this parallel universe they have some really strange laws.

Do I agree and convince my daughter that her father is a criminal, or explain to her the intricate details of copyright law and fair use and turn my impressionable 7-year-old into a budding little anarchist just like her father?

“Steve is paying for NotFlix already, but can’t get the movie because too many people want to watch it. My making a copy of the movie and letting him watch it is not hurting anyone and even saving Notflix postage fees and clearing up the movie for other NotFlix members who are waiting for the movie. Laws are meant to stop and punish people from doing bad things and hurting people, but some laws are pushed into place by big companies who just want to make more money than they are already making”.

I continued with an analogy “When you and your sister go to buy an ice cream, you choose strawberry and your sister likes Chocolate. More likely than not, one of you will ask for a taste of your sister’s ice cream and you’ll share bites. What if the ice cream makers decided that they are losing money every time your sister tastes your ice cream, and they use their money to push through a law that says that tasting someone else’s ice cream is stealing and if you a taste of that ice cream you should buy a scoop of that flavor yourself”. She laughs “That would be silly”! “Yes”, I respond “It would be”.

I wake up thinking about stealing, and think of a scenario which is much more realistic to this universe, and something that upsets me every time I go out to watch a movie (a couple times a month).

I pay from $8 - $13 to watch a movie, with my family that comes out to between $32 and $52. Popcorn and drinks adds another $15 - $20 onto the tab. We arrive early to get the seats we want and wait for the cinema to darken and our movie to start. At the time advertised the cinema darkens, but instead of showing the feature presentation, or even trailers we get “a word from our sponsors” which go on for 10 or 15 minutes. That is hugely offensive to me as a paying customer, but I’m not going to rant.

I bill $180/hr. which means for every minute I am watching a commercial I am losing $3. Lets say I watch a movie on IMAX with my kids ($52) plus drinks and popcorn ($20) plus at least 10 minutes of time watching ads ($30) that brings my tab up to $102.

So to pull this rant together, it costs me $102 each time I go to a movie (enough to buy 5 DVD movies), and then I buy DVDs (I have a shelf of kids movies and old favorites to prove it), and then I have Netflix subscription on top of that. I don’t TIVO, which means I sit through commercials (20 minutes of commercials every hour makes $60 in lost billing time). And then after all of that, each time I sit down to watch a movie I get an FBI warning that if I make a copy (for any reason) I would be stealing and committing a federal crime. How I am expected to explain this logic to my kids is beyond my control.

It’s just silly.

no time to watch now, but looks funny

Some deep words from Nobel Prize winning economist

The most important thing that Barack Obama brings to the presidency is his willingness to reason. He won his presidency not as a black American but as a reasoning American who happens to be black. America needs a change from the reign of "obtruding false rules pranked in reason’s garb" — to use John Milton’s words. Attacking Iraq for an imagined link with 9/11 was daft. Having unaffordable health care is not a reasonable way to run a rich society. Destroying the environment is not smart. Spreading the wealth a bit in a deeply unequal society is not as offensive to reason as it appeared to Joe the noncertified Plumber.

it’s great to see that Joe the Plumber has gathered a fan club as far away as India.

Reasoning also demands re-examination. Obama has to reassess whether he has got the right balance in policies on trade. On Afghanistan, he must examine how to balance his military toughness with the building of social infrastructure there and finding ways and means of getting Pakistan’s energetic — and largely secular — civil society on his side, not against him. Obama may have to reassess some of his campaign rhetoric while firmly retaining his largehearted reasonableness.

Josef Joffe is not as gracious & a bit skeptical.

Up to 8 out of 10 West Europeans would have voted for Obama, which points to a religious rather than political phenomenon. The way they see it, George W. Bush is a one-man axis of evil, and Obama the redeemer: "Deliver us, for thine is the kingdom . . ." Europeans want to love America again, and they imagine that a simple act of exorcism (called "elections") will rid them of the curse. But politics is not about redemption. Obama is not what West Europeans dream he is: polite, social-democratic and pacific. In other words, more European than American. Will the Euroswooners still love Obama when he presses them for more troops in Afghanistan and real sanctions on Iran?

Glad to see that Obama has just been voted president. Glad to see that the American people were able to see through a campaign of fear and vote overwhelmingly for CHANGE! Glad to see my county vote 65% in favor of Obama.

For once we can look forward to the next 4 years and hope to turn away from the years of war and gutting of the economy and start planning for our future and the future of our kids.

Some guy is making a comparison between the democrats and the dolphins… time to go to bed.