What Happened? They're Tearing Down Our Youth! Cell Phones! Video Games! Computers & the Internet!

What happened to our youth?  I took a good, hard look at Google Maps to see.

It's not just Richardson Square that's gone...

Of all the malls we went to, Richardson Sqaure was the most convenient,
   (especially for simple after-school pleasures)
Valley View was second in convenience, and pretty nice,
Of course, the Galleria... nuff said...
but I always liked Prestonwood best.

Now it's a Wal-Mart.  A set of strip malls.  And, if you'll believe it, an airport.  I feel pretty sure that wasn't there, before.

I also looked on maps over by Big Spring Elementary - did you know there's a lake just the other side of the "nature trail," now?  I guess it's been there for years, but it's got piers, and everything.  Boats 'n stuff.  And that big field across the street from the school is mostly a swamp, it looks like.  I used to play with friends, there, during recess.  We'd play "G-Force."  Yeah, the old "Americanized" version of the anime "Gatchaman."

Richardson Junior High is still there, but it's got a new name now.  At least it's still a school.  A Math and Science Magnet school, but that's ok.  I wonder what they use the old band hall for, now?  The days of Mr Costellano directing band are long gone, I guess.

It's weird to look back on all these places, even just with Google Maps & with street view.  Places where Home used to be, and is no longer.  Places that were so important to our lives that even decades later, fill our memories more than most of what's happened since.

It's not so much that I'm brought to wonder what happened to our youth, as: What happened to make such important places less valuable than a parking lot?  Is it online shopping?  Cell phones?  What was it?

Most of us didn't have computers in our homes.  When I graduated in '89, there was just the one set of computer labs in the school.  There were the TI based MS-Dos machines, and the IBMs.  I learned some Basic and Turbo Pascal on the non-IBMs.  I didn't even really consider that I'd get my first computer shortly before graduation (a 80286 briefcase portable with monochrome EGA graphics, 512k ram, 1.2m 5 1/4 floppy, & a 30 mg hd).  I never, ever considered that computers would be such a huge part of everyone's lives only a decade later, let alone how much they've taken over our lives today.

There are times when I wish we could just go back to those days.  Days before email.  Before Facebook.  Before cell phones were disposable, let alone common.  Before we had to be connected, every single second of the day.  Sometimes I consider leaving my phone at home when I drive to the store, just so I can disconnect for a few minutes... but then I bring it along, anyway.  The days when phones were attached to our homes by wires are gone; the days when getting in the car meant nobody could reach us are gone.  "Call us when you get there," is gone, replaced by status updates and tracking software.

Is it possible, do you know?  If it's possible to disconnect, and live life actively, instead of under the direction of all of our wonderful, powerful, all-consuming technology?  Are things really better?  Or, are we simply distracted from reality by our new toys?  I really would like to know if it's possible to get out there, and live without being in constant, total contact, or if it could only mean coming in last for the rest of our lives.  After all... there are new sets of kids out there, today, growing up with their sets of favorite places... but more and more, their favorite places are on the couch in front of the X-Box and Playstation, instead of at the mall or riding bikes with their friends.

I guess in part, I just miss what we got to have when we were young.  And I wish that the youth of today could experience that for themselves, too.  I guess when they grow up, they'll be nostalgic about playing online games with friends who they only ever knew as voices in their headset, and shopping online at Amazon.

Removing that Pesky Toolbar!

Have you ever accidentally left a checkmark in place during an install?  Ever ended up with some pesky toolbar, or other form of software that occasionally just pisses you off??

I recently had such an experience.

Silly me, I decided I'd try to make a few bitcoins (yes, I decided to see what the fuss is about) by trying some so-called "surveys."  Of course, they're not surveys - they're "complete the offer to get the prize" scams.  You can't even often tell when you've actually completed the offer... and end up signing up for a dozen spam sites you'll have to unsubscribe from that very evening.

One of the "offers" I wound up completing was for the Shop At Home website and toolbar.

While technically not a virus, it gave me so much trouble in removal that I was halfway convinced it was one.

They give a great deal of detailed information on how to uninstall and remove their software on their website.  First, try "add/remove programs."  It's possible it may be installed under one of two names. (Isn't that a bad sign, right there?)  It may not be in the list at all, though.  Now, if you're using Firefox, open the browser, and get to the /tools/add-ons.  Click on the "Extensions" tab, if it's not already open.  Now, if you're like me, you start to freak out: there's nothing there!!

Most people will probably see a list of add-ons, and be able to click "remove" with no problem.  Not me, though!  You see, the nice people at Yahoo! sometimes put a download link on their webpages saying that "your version of Firefox is out of date: click here to get the latest version."  One time, some years ago, I did.  These nice people at Yahoo! took their 3rd party version of the browser and modified it to make it more friendly to their own website and toolbar.  They added the Yahoo! toolbar, with no option not to install it.  Since the Yahoo toolbar is (mostly) harmless, I just unchecked it and forgot it was there.  They also (so it seems) made everything on the extensions tab invisible, so there'd be no way to get rid of it.  The best you could do was to uncheck the toolbar in the "view" menu.

I'm afraid I spent a little too much energy e-mailing back and forth with some poor soul working at the ShopAtHome help desk.  Let's just say that, after a few e-mails, my attitude had become somewhat like... a jerk.  It's embarrassing, you know?  First, I had every reason in the world to believe that their simple looking bit of software had outwitted me, and all of my attempts to get rid of it.  Second, why on earth couldn't they put together a normal sort of uninstall program that anyone could use?  My verbal outpourings had, by the end, reached a point of threatening to go to every "partner" website they had and complaining about their virus-like software.  Thinking back on it, it probably would have sounded a lot better if that's what the problem really was.  Instead, I was just e-mailing outbursts of misdirected anger at someone who is (probably) innocent of wrongdoing.  The problem was the 3rd party Firefox package I'd installed years before much more than it was of theirs!

To help prevent outbursts like mine, I'd recommend following these simple instructions: that if the Firefox browser was installed from a 3rd party website such as Yahoo, it may be necessary for the user to 1) Go to the Mozilla Firefox website for a clean download, 2) Uninstall Firefox (but it's not necessary to check the box for removal of user information), 3) go to /Program Files and delete the /Mozilla Firefox folder (the folder will be different on a 64 bit machine!), and then 4) run the freshly downloaded installation software.  Upon opening the fresh install of Firefox, the ShopAtHome toolbar may still be at the top, but now you can go into /Tools/Add Ons and see what's actually installed in the Extensions tab.  From there, it's simple to remove whatever you want gone.

I hope this helps others out there to remove toolbars they're getting frustrated over - I only wish there'd been information that would have helped me better, sooner!

A lot of people are complaining about Obama, these days.  From Obamacare, which makes it impossible for many people to get insurance where they may have had it in the past (while encouraging employers to cut employee's hours from full to part-time), to Gun Control, to whether he was even born in the USA to begin with (there are good arguments out there), there's no shortage of complaints.

Actually, this helps to demonstrate a symptom of our President's personality.  Obamacare is the biggest demonstrator of all.  He's narcissistic, and has a complete lack of empathy for the people he's supposed to represent.  He also has no respect for the Constitution he's supposed to defend.

That's a big accusation, you might say.  I'll agree with you, it is a big accusation.  It is, however, an accusation that's true.  President Obama assumes that everyone has the same financial, political, and popular means that he has.  What this means is that when he writes a bill or has one written, the bill is written for him, and not for the citizens of his country, and not following the dictates of his country's Constitution.  Obamacare being the first example at hand, we'll take a quick look at how it fits the example.

Obamacare is written for Obama: The bill assumes that everyone in the USA has identical health care needs, and has identical health care providers and insurance.  If someone's health insurance fails to meet the standards of Obamacare, it's no longer permitted.  Period.  Obamacare assumes that everyone in the United States has a full time (40 hours per week) job - and the bill is written so that all medium to large employers of full-time employees are required to provide top-quality health insurance - no matter if that employer can afford to do so, or not.  Obviously, this leads to more jobs, and less hours per job.  You cannot expect a small Burger King franchise to provide top-notch health insurance to it's employees and still keep burger prices within range of the general public.  This leads to Obamacare's next trap - the un- and under-insured.  If you don't carry Obamacare insurance, then you're liable to be fined.  While it's still legal (barely) to pay cash at a doctor's office, you still better have a fully capable insurance policy according to Obama.  If not, then be prepared to be fined.

I'm sure we've only just scratched the surface, here, but the basic truth that's revealed by this is: President Barack Obama has no empathy for the people.  He doesn't understand what it's like to be less than rich.  He doesn't understand what it's like to not have political influence.  He doesn't understand that the majority of Americans don't go without insurance because they, or their employers, don't want them to have insurance - it's because insurance is expensive, so they take what they can get.

Along with that lack of empathy that allows our President to blithely go through his day writing bills that require most Americans to bankrupt themselves is the narcissism that what he wants and believes is the only right way to want or believe anything.  Because of this narcissistic tendency, he's perfectly willing to break the American Constitution into shards.  The very founders of this country put into it's Constitution the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.  This doesn't mean just the weapons that a politician decides are ok for him to possess.  This doesn't mean that all United States citizens must get permission to buy a gun, or get a permit to carry it.

The right to keep arms means that anyone in the USA has the right to buy and possess any weapon that he can use himself.  This obviously leaves cannon and tanks out of the picture, as those require multiple men to move and use, but definitely includes any other easily man-portable weapon, whether it be knife, sword, pistol, or AR-15.  Whether any individual person needs a fully automatic weapon shouldn't even be a question - firing a weapon on full-auto is simply wasteful of ammunition, while being very unlikely to ever hit a target.  WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction - such as nuclear devices and truckloads of C4 also definitely do not fall under "arms."  Arms are simply hand-held and controlled weapons for protection and combat that can be used with precision, rather than blunt broad-area destructive forces.

The Right to Bear Arms is... simply the right to carry said weapons, be it knife, sword, pistol or rifle.  Certainly some businesses might feel it best if their patrons not have such weapons on their persons while on the premises, such as at bars, but since most bars need to have someone checking IDs at the door to keep minors out, they can also have patrons check their weapons at the door.  It worked pretty well in the Old West - with modern technology, it can work even better.

The founders of the United States didn't intend for the people to run about in an anarchic state, but to be a self-governing people.  Many of the intents and even stated purposes of the Constitution have been bent, or even broken, but the more this continues on, the less relevant that Constitution becomes.  Once a country no longer has any relevance to the Constitution on which it was built, it no longer has any relevance to the people who live within it's borders.  When that happens, revolutions happen.  Those who came before us had some words to say on the topic:

  To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
         ---Alexander Hamilton

  [W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
         ---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
(Note that he speaks not of a political party, but of the Republic itself)

 [W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually...I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor...
         ---George Mason

 Today it is our own government which attempts to weaken it's citizens, and when our government falters in that goal, the United Nations attempts to push laws to weaken the United States' citizens through our own Congress, and if not that, to force it upon us all though artfully crafted treaties.   Today, those artfully crafted bits of Constitution Breakage are aimed at our right to keep and bear arms.  Tomorrow... who knows what they'll be aiming for?

Here, Chief! Good Dog! Now: Arrest!

The small town of Vaghn, New Mexico, has an unusual problem:  The Police Department is now run by Nikka, the town's drug-sniffing dog.  That's right, since the Police Chief stepped down, the only certified police officer in the entire town is Nikka.

It's a small town, with only 737 people living in it.  There's no crime to speak of.  It's probably one of those backwater communities where people really don't bother locking their doors at night.  Even so, they do have a police department, and they try to keep one officer (the Police Chief) hired on.  The problem with this police chief is that he used to be married - in Texas - and owes thousands in delinquent child support payments.  Having failed to keep up with his child support, he's techically a criminal, and isn't allowed to carry a firearm in his duties.  Ex-chief Armijo is also under investigation for the sale of a town-owned rifle and pocketing the cash - a felony, if convicted.  He feels confident he can clear up this felony case.  Once cleared of all criminal charges, Mr. Armijo plans to run for Chief again, if nobody else has taken the job.

The only other member of the Police force in Vaughn pleaded guilty to an assault and battery case last year; he's not certified, which means he cannot carry a gun, nor place people under arrest.

Helping out in Vaughn's time of need, the local Sherrif's department helps make sure to patrol the area, but itself being short-staffed, is barely able to show a presence.

Perhaps they should just let the dog out of the kennel, equip it with a strap-on taser gun on it's head, set to go off when the dog barks loud enough.  Instead of dolphins with lasers, it's a police dog with tasers.  We've got you now, you Bond Villains!

The Internet's Cloud of... What?!

Gone are the days when a business could pack all of it's computing needs into one room.  Or even one building.  Today, the big boys have turned to farming as an answer:  Data Farming.  This basically entails buying up some farmland in an area with cheap electricity, getting some great tax breaks from the local small community, and putting in one or more large warehouse-type buildings packed with computer servers connected to the internet.

In one sense, this is the cloud - warehouses full of servers.

In another sense, this is the cloud: great billowing clouds of deisel smoke that go up whenever the warehouse decides to run on their own generators, instead of the power supply they bargained for so eagerly.  Once in a while, there's good reason for the data farm to switch over to generator power; the local substation will be undergoing maintenance, for example.  The rest of the time, for some unknown reason, the data farm will simply decide to run on it's own power, instead of locally supplied power.

Microsoft is one of the biggest troublemakers, when it comes to using deisel power instead of local power.  In Washington state, a small farming community thought they'd hit the jackpot when Microsoft decided to put in a huge data farm.  Overall, they did come out ahead.  Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't the best friend to the area - instead, Microsoft is one of the areas biggest bullies.

 

When they decided to move into the neighborhood with their "cloud" factory, they made deals for cheap electricity from the local provider.  Part of this deal is to make a serious estimate on how many kilowatt hours the server farm will need.  This way, the electric company is able to reserve that much power across the year for Microsoft's use, when otherwise that power might be sold to the overall power grid.  Microsoft has, at times, run their own deisel generators excessively, sending clouds of smoke over the nearby elementary school, even though the local power grid was fully capable of serving their needs.  Near the end of the year, Microsoft was going to have to pay a very large fine for not using power that was reserved for their use.  What does MS do?  They threatened to run large, electric heaters full-out during the last few weeks of the period, in order to waste electricity and bring their usage up to near the estimated levels.  Having shoved with their strong arm, the electric company fell, and reduced the fine. 

There are many other data centers around the nation that also rely on deisel backup generators.  Yahoo, practically right next door to the Microsoft facility.  Facebook and many others, as well.  These data centers typically run at 100%, 24 hours a day, no matter what the demand actually is.  The New York Times found that these data centers can waste 90% or more of the power the pull off the grid.

It's been said that if manufacturing plants were as wasteful as these server farms, they'd be out of business right away.  So... how are these data centers managing to remain so profitable, under their clouds of deisel exhaust, with such massive waste of resources?

Profits are that good?

So... is it a cloud of data, cloud of smoke, or cloud of money?  One thing is for sure:  there's a big cloud of wasted energy.


For more info, check out The New York Times' articles on the Cloud.

One Nation, Under Obama, for Which He Stands...?!?!



I don't know if it was Obama's idea, or someone in his political campaign, but he's really screwing up in a big way. I don't know if you've seen this, but his campaign is selling t-shirts and limited edition prints of new version of the American Flag. It comprises a combination of a poorly painted set of pale red lines (as opposed to the bold, straight lines of the flag) with the field of stars replaced with the pale blue insignia of the Obama campaign.

I've seen two versions of this flag. One, in the shape of the flag, and the other, in the general shape of the United States - minus Alaska, Hawaii, and possessions. Sorry, guys. You'd think he'd want to include Hawaii, since he's selling mugs and other goodies on the campaign website that have photocopies of his birth certificate: "Made in the USA." That's quite a slogan. Unfortunately, I doubt the slogan has anything at all to do with keeping manufacturing inside the United States. 

Interestingly, since this story jumped into the news just the other day, the Obama campaign has removed these parodies of the flag from their website, and taken the merchandise down, as well.  It's good to see the offending flag taken down, but for many Americans, the Obama flag will be a flag of warning.  After all, what sort of person goes around changing the flag of his country?  Historically... not good.

The Capable Politician

In this world, we see all kinds of people getting involved in politics. Husbands, Fathers, Activists, and so many more. Yes, also Wives, Mothers, and Daughters. We see all sorts of people becoming involved, but really... what marks the true capability of a politician?

We see people aiming for the top political offices in our country all of the time. Sometimes, the candidate makes it as high as Congress simply because nobody else in his district had the time or inclination to try. Other times, we see the candidate stand strong, holding fiercely to his beliefs, a pillar of strength. And then, we see politicians vie for public office just because “I can do it better!”

 

“I can do it better!” seems to be the main battle cry, lately. After all, if a politician tries to stand firmly on an issue, the other politician will dig for something negative within that issue. Abortion vs Pro-Life. Religious Freedoms vs Separation of Church and State. Taxes vs... well, other Taxes. Reduction of taxes is seldom promised, and even more seldom something anyone can follow through with. Bush number 1 did a pretty good job, lasting as long as he did on that issue.

 

“I can do it better!”

 

Sure. I'll stand up there, and repeal the laws that clog the system, shovel out the glut of Government Employment and Agencies that basically either don't do anything, or are just there to back-up and duplicate other agencies. At the same time, I'll push laws through that limit the government's ability to spy on our citizen's private lives. I'll push legal guarantees through Congress so that we can protect our citizen's privacy for generations to come. I'll make sure you can go to the bathroom without a federal agency watching.

 

Yeah. I can do it better. If I didn't have to attempt all of those things with the full might of the American Government standing against me. If I didn't have to turn into a Politician, first.

 

Weirdly, we have “I can do it better” people who actually are politicians. People who want to enter our nation's highest office, standing on a soapbox of “I can do it better.” This is a pretty small soapbox, people. When the opposition is standing on a soapbox of “I've been doing it already, and I'm going to protect what I've done no matter how bad it is,” the soapbox of “I can do it better!” is pretty small, indeed.

 

So, what is it that marks a truly capable politician, then?

 

Taking a stance. Taking a stance on something. Anything. Doing This, or Undoing That. Fixing what's broken. Only... don't fix, and don't undo. Instead, you're implementing a plan to improve the efficiency of the legal process and lower the overall cost of your government. You're taking a stance on personal freedoms. You'll stand between all comers, and protect the citizen's Constitutional Rights. You're the Champion of Civil Liberties. The Protector of Privacy.

 

And maybe you take a stand on something even more incendiary than that. But these days, taking a stand on something as basic as privacy, or civil liberties, or even our constitutional rights is pretty incendiary.

 

Good luck, out there.

Obesity?! Fat Kids?! Sugary Drinks?! Who to Blame?!

   It's back.  Obesity has returned to the spotlight.  Honestly, it's so big, it's hard for it to get out of the spotlight; in the USA, obesity is at near epidemic levels.  It's epidemic not only among adults, but it's causing our children to swell like little ticks, too.  In the news, now:  Sugary Drinks Linked to Obesity.

   I think we've all always known that too much sugar leads to getting fat.  Too much sugar, too many sweets, just too much food, along with too little exercise, and the end result is getting fat.  It's strange, though, how so many of the current articles online are blasting "sugary sodas" as the reason for getting fat, when diet sodas are also to blame, as well as the ubiquitous juice box.

   That's right, I went there:  The juice box.  Parents try to keep their children away from drinking sodas by giving them something healthier - juice boxes.  Unfortunately, they're still giving their children a bunch of sugar.  Sugar habits begin early in life, and by midlife, are very difficult to give up.  Why give a juice box?  Tap water, or if you're scared of city water, bottled water, is perfectly safe, does an excellent job of hydrating playing children, and won't make them get fat.  Actually, drinking a lot of water is one of the ways to help flush fat out of the system, too.

  It astounds me, on a regular basis, the way people tend to grab onto one of society's problems and then point their fingers of blame at a specific food, drink, or business, as the cause of that problem.  Obesity?  Let's blame soda, now.  Last time, we blamed fast food.  Before that?  Fried foods.  Honestly, people have pointed the finger of blame all over the place, and even gone to court to sue corporations for "making them fat."  Thinks like this astound me!  Who chose to eat fast food?  Who chose to drink sodas?  Who chose to buy foods that were deep fried in fat?  The person pointing the finger, that's who!

   Food alone isn't the culprit, nor are sugary drinks.  The activity level of the person matters a lot, too.  When you go to the grocery store, there are easily twice as many handicapped spaces as there were 20 or 30 years ago.  Are there twice as many people who are so badly injured they cannot walk even 20 extra feet to the building?  Or is it all of those people who got so fat they have to send someone into the building to get an electric scooter "mart cart" before they can start shopping? 

   Children eat what their parents give them to eat.  Adults eat what they choose to eat.  Children who play outside, drink water, and eat reasonably are healthy.  Adults who spend a lot of time on outside activities, drink water, and eat reasonably are healthy, too!  There's no reason for obesity to be such a problem, but it is.  Medical sources say that by 2030, 13 of the states will have obesity rates over 60%.  Let's do something about that.  Let's go outside and play.

This (tiny) House

Every few months, I find myself looking on youtube, searching the web, and basically dreaming of building a tiny, preferably mobile, house.  It's that time, again:  I've spent much of today looking at all the interesting things people can do with recyclables and building tiny houses.

   Today's search began as an offshoot of something I saw at the store, yesterday: A Conestoga-style camper in the back of a pickup truck.  This was super-cool.  I tried hanging around for a few minutes, just in case the owner showed up, but I had to do some quick shopping.  By the time I came out, the vehicle was gone.  I did, at least, snag a few pictures before I went inside.  I just wish I could have seen the inside, and how it's constructed.  I suppose I can find that on youtube, too.

 

   The next step in checking out today's search was when I saw a picture link on Facebook.  I do kind of hate Facebook, for the way it creates the expectation that we're all willing to give up our personal privacy, but as long as we're vigilant, we can still manage to maintain the semblance of privacy while pretending to share every detail.  Right?  To continue, I saw a picture linked on Facebook: an over-long tricycle with a shortened, narrow camper built on it - basically it looked like a small over-cab camper such as sits in your neighbor's pickup.  I'd love to see the inside of this little work of art!  I continued hunting around Youtube and online for a bit, trying to find more examples of this very-cool little RV, but there were too few examples of anything similar, and the links quickly degenerated to links for camper or tiny house videos.  I did watch a couple of camper videos, since they are a sort of tiny house, if a lot less sturdy, then my attention landed fully back on tiny houses.

 

   There's a young man, still in High School, who has been building his own tiny house on a flatbed trailer part-time for nearly a year.  He plans to take it with him when he goes off to college, and possibly even continue living in it after college.  The plans he came up with, and the overall design, seem very well thought out. 

   A pair of architects showed some examples of small and tiny houses built out of pallets and wooden shipping skids.  Once complete, these little houses appear to have a real rustic charm, and best of all, are nearly free.  The pallet houses were conceived of as part of a project they had joined to design an easily built, low-cost housing solution for areas hard-hit with refugees and otherwise displaced people.  If I knew someplace local where I could get a hundred or so pallets, I might try building something deep in the woods here on the farm.

 

  What some people have built as part of this tiny-house movement is really amazing.  From gypsy wagons, shepherds huts, and modernized conestoga trailers, up to fully framed little houses (mostly on trailers, for building-code reasons), the kinds of things people will build to live in, for short or for long-term, can be really inspirational.

 

   It could be very nice to have a tiny house on wheels to set up by the lake or river on a weekend as beautiful as this one. 

 

For more on Tiny Houses, and living in small spaces, Faircompanies has a number of youtube videos.  Enjoy this one about a 320 sq ft shotgun shack and the family of 3 who love it.

Space? Spending, and Where the Profits Are

I was reading the other day about how they used a toothbrush to clean the threads for a bolt on the Space Station. Then I saw the comments section below it, bashing space spending.

It's weird, how many people bash spending on space, when we have so many things today that were only invented because of space. People wonder where all the money goes: it goes to making things that work. Innovations and inventions, many of which eventually become a part of our daily lives. Let's see if you've ever used one of these items:

Cordless tools.
Ear thermometer.
"Invisible Braces" - Even Tom Cruise wore those!
Enriched Baby Foods.
Satellite TV Dishes - invented by NASA.
Sneaker Insoles - copied from a NASA product to protect astronauts during blastoff.
Recycled Pavement.
Medical Imaging.
Fire Fighter Equipment – Fire fighters wear suits made of fire resistant fabric developed for use in space suits.
Better Pacemakers.
Smoke Detector – First used in the Earth orbiting space station called Skylab to help detect toxic vapors.
Scratch resistant lenses.
Memory Foam.
Long-Distance Telecommunications.
Safety Grooving - These indentions in the concrete divert excess water from the surface to reduce the amount of water between tires and the runway or road. This increases the friction between wheels and concrete, improving vehicle safety.
Water Filters - such as Brita, etc.

And there are many, many more devices in everyday use, that we never even think about as having to do with space... even though they only exist because of space. If you were to add up all of the benefits of these items, and how much money they've made in the private sector... from the sales price on the shelf, through all the many people who were paid to help produce the item... wouldn't it easily add up to more than space flight has cost this country, in total?

What I'm trying to say, here, is that space flight is a Profitable enterprise. Not necessarily for the Government that runs it, but for the private enterprises of the country that has it.  That makes it a little sad that we, in the USA, no longer have direct access to space flight, now that our own Space Program has been reduced to an empty shell.  I suppose the majority of profitable innovations will go to the countries that still have their space programs.

VZW the Bully!?

What are we, as the customers, going to do about this? When will Verizon stop bullying and pressuring other companies into throttling our data? I had a real problem crop up recently: While watching Hulu Plus on my Rezound, the High Resolution option disappeared, but only when connected through Verizon's network. When connected through my (lower quality) home wifi, the high resolution option was returned. I contacted Hulu about this problem, and even though it took several e-mails before my support person reached high enough into the chain of command to get a real, and true answer, I did get that answer. Hulu Plus on Android has been specifically modified to remove the High Resolution option when connecting through Verizon's network, while continuing to allow High Resolution viewing when connected through other networks. This is something that Verizon required Hulu to do, in order to continue being able to send data through the Verizon networks. In other words, Verizon bullied Hulu into throttling the video, since Verizon doesn't always have enough reason to throttle OUR bandwidth. I have the copy of the email, here:

Hey ++++++, Thanks for getting back to me with more information. I apologize for the delayed response, as I've been researching this issue. I'd love to share some insight into what I've found. It appears this disappearance of the "High Resolution" option while using 3G is the intended behavior of the app, to remain in accordance with the streaming requirements established by the carrier -in this case, Verizon. I believe it's meant to help users from going over their data limits, but Verizon might have other reasons behind this mandate. I apologize for any frustration this causes, as your G3 network seems to be more reliable than your expensive Wifi network, but at this time there is no workaround for the issue, since it's in place to comply with Veriozon's requests. I hope this helps. If you run into any further issues or questions, please write back. Best, +++++ Hulu Support

Since I've got unlimited data, it's obvious this isn't to protect me from going over my data limits. For anyone who does have data limits, they're completely nuts if they watch much video over Verizon's network. The only other reason for the throttling of my Hulu data is simply because Verizon is being a bully. I'm trapped in my current contract for another year and a half. If things don't improve on a massive level, well in advance of that time, I'll dump Verizon. I won't use any carriers. Already, you can access WiFi at a large number of locations. In this town, there's the coffee shop, McDonald's, Burger King, Lowes, and many others. In another year an a half, WiFi will probably be available at WalMart, other grocery stores, and basically anyplace you could think of going. I'll end up going network free, and use Skype. If you do the math, just buying a brand new phone outright, paying for a phone number through Skype, and paying Skype's per-minute usage is still CHEAPER over a two year period than it is to be stuck in a two year contract with Verizon! Bonuses of sticking to WiFi and Skype? NO phone calls while driving. NO texts while driving. NO alerts of any sort while driving! If you want to watch video content while camping? Just download a copy of the content onto your device before going, and then be able to stay truly disconnected on your camping trip. Verizon is really getting on my nerves. If it's getting on your nerves, too, just pass this message on. Also, check out http://http://www.facebook.com/VzwTheBully

Remember that old computer?

In 1989, I got my first computer - a 286 briefcase portable with a 1.2 mB 5 1/4 floppy, 512k (that's kilobytes) of ram, monochrome (amber) EGA video, and for the low-low price of around $200, I put in a 30 megabyte hard drive.

Fast-forward to today (pretty soon, nobody will understand what "fast-forward refers to), and transfer that entire 30mB of data from a laptop computer (more powerful than a supercomputer in '89) to a handheld computer/telephone hybrid (a droid X) in only 10 seconds.

Tech sure has changed, hasn't it? Remember taking typing class on the old IBM Selectric?

E-cigs. Worth the Hype?

In a word? Yes.

I recently purchased my first electronic cigarette - Crown Seven Hydro Imperial.

The starter pack I purchased contained 2 atomizer cartridges (what would be the filter part of a normal cigarette), one battery (the tobacco portion of a normal cigarette), and a charger (USB charger - plug it into any computer or car charger with a USB port on it). Each cartridge is supposed to be equal to two full packs of cigarettes, and I've found that on my basic cig needs, it will last for about 3 days, if not longer.

The starter pack I got was the Crown Seven Hydro Imperial. The first cartridge was good, but the second was dry by the time I got to it - not so good. However, the normal refill packs have the cartridges not only capped at each end, but also sealed inside individual plastic baggies - much better!

I'm now on the second cartridge from the refill pack, and I went with the black cartridge as opposed to the white. Why? For basic aesthetics, is all - a filter should be different from the rest of the cig, right? The black, full strength cartridges, seem to work very well, lasting at least as long as any normal two packs of cigarettes might last for me. I do tend to do a "puff-puff-pull" to get a good, hot vapor, but I understand this is normal for e-cigs. On the other hand, I also tend to put the cig back in my shirt pocket after a few pulls, thus using less than I would from a real cigarette.

Price: The local cig/tobacco shop sells two brands of e-cigs: Crown Seven, and nJoy. The Crown Seven starter pack cost about a dollar more, but the replacement cartridges only cost about $10 for a pack of 5, as opposed to nearly double the price for the nJoy cartridge pack.

I feel that the choice I made for an e-cig was the right one for me. I enjoy a decent smoke, and if I decide I want to take a drag from my cigarette, I don't have to worry about where I am! After all, I'm not blowing smoke in the middle of a crowd of people, I'm just inhaling a little water vapor, and then exhaling it.

As for health, I haven't done any research, but I would guess that "smoking" an e-cig is much healthier than smoking my regular cigarettes. There won't be any tar - the byproduct that carries the majority of poisons and carcinogens of any cigarette. It's nearly as inexpensive as it is to purchase tobacco and tubes and make my own cigarettes as I want them. And, I no longer feel the compulsion to finish the cigarette once I pick it up - if I take one drag, and stick it back into my pocket, it's okay! I haven't "wasted" my cig!

To some, this may look like a glowing recommendation for the Crown Seven brand - and I suppose it is, in some part. However, I do admit to a total lack of experience with the other brands, so if you know someone who personally recommends a different brand, then perhaps they're the person you should be listening to. For me, though.... Crown Seven has hit a home run!

Japanese Relief Funds - Please, send help!

Help Japan
Donate to Japan earthquake relief efforts
103,353 people donated $6,411,585 so far


In about a week and half, there have been donations of just under 6 and a half million dollars to the various agencies helping Japan after the earthquake and tsunami crisis began. Of course, these numbers are as reported on the Yahoo! homepage, so it's entirely possible there are numbers elsewhere that I haven't seen. Such as, how much has been donated by residents in Second Life - I know that I made a small donation there, too.

Even so, we have to realize that $6.5 million is just a drop in the bucket, compared to the complete devestation they have suffered. $6.5 million won't feed all that many people, when you consider how much it costs for the aid organizations to actually transport so much equipment, get it in place and running, and keep it's own people fed. $6.5 million won't rebuild more than just a few blocks of homes - let alone rebuild the entire cities and villages that have been wiped away!

$6.5 million. It's not a sum of money that gives anyone the right to pat themselves on the back, for. We need 10 times that much money in the relief efforts, just to get started.

Please help. Donate. These are people much like yourself, who have lost their homes. People just like your neighbors, who are freezing in the winter's cold. People just like your family, who are going hungry, and unable to feed their own children. Just as you would help your friends, neighbors, and family members, give a little help to these people, too. Donate to the Red Cross, or another favorite aid organization, today.

$6.5 million is a wish for help. Let's boost that number much higher - let's hit $65 million, and accelerate up to $6.5 billion, because that's how much it'll cost to even get started on a real recovery for these people.

Let's really try to help.

Welcome to No-Comm!

Welcome to No-Comm, where all of your communications end!

Here at No-Comm, for the highly discounted rate of only $27.95 per month, plus any irrelevant fees, we provide you with the highest quality pseudo phones, loaded with giggle® operating system to make your phoney experience better than ever! No more, will you be distracted during meetings by a phone that rings unexpectedly. No more, will you find yourself trying to answer the phone during dinner, or on the drive home. Our giggle® phones are specifically designed to never ring during those situations when it may be awkward. Tired of a phone that rings every time you go to the bathroom? Ours won't.

Try the new giggle® phone, exclusively from No-Comm - the only cell phone company that always gives you the perfect excuse!

No-Comm: a private subsidiary of Last-Call Communications Company, wholly owned by the Banana Computer Corporation - home of the Ripe Banana®, the worlds best kept secret in computing.

U.S. Citizens gather in Comments section to Display Racism

"What's that?" you may ask. It's simple - Yahoo has a news article about how the Chinese news service used footage that appears to have been stolen from the movie "Top Gun" in order to show supposed air force drills. Big deal - give it to the Copyright lawyers to deal with, right?

Well... just handing it over to the copyright lawyers won't make it "big news." You have to make a big deal about it, first. And so, a big deal has been made. A news service/propaganda machine has spouted it's infringing story, and we've made a big deal about it.

What bugs me the most isn't that they've taken a well-known movie and stolen a few seconds of footage. What bugs me is the way we've responded in open forums; responses that lack entirely in any level of intellect, but show only hatred, and blatant racism. I hope what you read in the comments section below the article makes you feel as disgusted as I feel... How can we make, or keep, friends in and of other nationalities/nations if we cannot stop saying such hurtful and hateful things? Knowing that it's our own citizens saying it just make me want to leave the country out of out and out embarrassment.

Here's the link to the page we're talking about: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110131/ts_yblog_thecutline/chinese-air-force-drill-looks-awfully-similar-to-top-gun?mwp_success=NONJS_POST_SUCCESS#mwpphu-container

Suprise Swells vs Surfers; Photographer Breaks Law to Save Man

Along the Northern California coast, there is a place called Maverick's. This is where you'll find some of the biggest names in surfing, and some of the biggest waves to be tamed; each winter, Maverick's holds and invitational tournament - that's right, if they don't invite you, then you can't get in.

In past years, the staff, and photographers at the Maverick's invitational event were all part of the safety crew, all connected by radio, so that they could all direct whoever was closest to move in and rescue any surfers who were in trouble. However, in 2008, the NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) became a part of the picture, enforcing a ban on personal watercraft in the area, as part of the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, one of the NOAA's pet projects.

Because of the NOAA ban, the entire system for making contact, and maintaining a safety crew at Maverick's was broken down. A large number of surfers opposed the ban in the first place, citing safety issues, but the NOAA passed it, anyway. This meant that, 2 years after the ban went into effect, there was no new safety apparatus in place to replace the highly efficient safety system from before.

On Saturday, the surfers were in closer to shore than usual, because of smaller than expected waves, when, suddenly, a set of 25 foot tall ocean swells were spotted moving in. The surfers frantically tried to paddle out to sea far enough to safely catch the waves without being caught in the froth, but a few didn't make it. Jacob Trette, age 30, was one of those.

Trette was sucked over the falls by the first wave, driving him underwater. When he finally surfaced, another wave was already crashing down on his position, forcing him back underwater, and driving his body through the rocky reefs.

One of the photographers, Russell Ord, saw that some of the surfers were in dire need of help, and took his jet ski out into the waters to aid those who needed it. he got one surfer, Alex Bottello, and pulled him out of the danger area. It was then that Ord saw Trette, floating face-up in the water. Ord zipped over, and jumped in to get Trette onto the rescue sled behind his jet ski, and rushed him in to the shore.

Jacob Trette was taken to the hospital, where he was placed in an induced coma. Trette has many injuries, not the least of is to his brain, due to lack of oxygen for too long a time. The hospital has reduced his body temperature, in an effort to keep his body from requiring as much oxygen, and hopefully saving him any additional injury.

Maverick's used to have a very efficient system in place to help prevent just this sort of incident from having such horrific consequences, but the NOAA decided to step in, and declare any and all personal watercraft illegal in the area. Personal watercraft, as many people already know, are far less damaging to the environment than larger vessels are. The "jet" propulsion method makes it nearly impossible to cause injury to a sea animal without crashing directly into them - which any halfway sane person would avoid doing, if only for their own survival. Larger watercraft normally use an exposed propeller for propulsion, which can easily injure or kill various kinds of sea life. The wake from personal watercraft is much smaller than that from larger vessels... not to mention, being nothing at all, compared to almost all of the waves that come through the area. The amount of sand pulled away, and pushed back onto the beaches when there are decent swells. The kelp ripped away from reefs, and cliff faces eroded into the ocean by the action of nature's waves. Compared to that, the personal watercraft are harmless toys.

If Maverick's had been permitted to keep personal watercraft on hand, if only for safety reasons, they could have kept, and maintained, the excellent safety system they already had. Unfortunately, the NOAA stepped in, just like a bunch of busybody bureaucrats with almost no real understanding of what they were doing, and took all of that away. If Trette never wakes, or wakes with brain damage, we can safely say that it's the NOAA's fault.

And if the NOAA decides to cite Ord and ticket him for taking out his personal watercraft to save a life, perhaps we should see what we can do to get the NOAA shut out of such decisions, and replaced by people who actually a)know what they're talking about, and b) have a real interest in the preservation of the seas, instead of a political interest. Let the NOAA have their weather systems and oceanography; let people who actually care take care of the rest.

Super Bowl Madness at All new Heights

I'm not saying that the fans have reached all new heights with "Super Bowl Madness." I'm saying that the NFL has reached new heights in it's madness!

Why?

I just read that the NFL will be charging $200 per ticket - to stand outside the stadium and watch the game on TV.

In text-speak, that reads "O - M - G."

Does the NFL even consider what sort of can of worms they're opening? By putting fans outside the stadium, standing in the weather, they may find themselves liable for every runny nose belonging to one of those poor, ripped off fans.

Here's my suggestion, and this is just if you really do feel the need to be on the stadium's grounds during the game. Load up a pickup truck. Include these items: A small generator, 52 inch TV, and antenna. Also a grill, cooler full of iced beers, plenty of brats and buns with relish, ketchup, mustard, etc. A number of cheap, folding lawn chairs. Drive to the game, park in one of the incredibly oversized parking lots - you should be able to see the stadium just about at the horizon - and set everything up. TV just under the topper, protected from the weather, so you can watch the game. Generator up by the front of the truck, so it's not too loud. Grill, nice and hot, brats, turning golden over the heat, with the buns optionally toasting on the top rack. Wearing a warm coat, a cold beer in hand, enjoy the tailgate party with any friends who were willing to come along and also spend cash on the overpriced parking. After all, this is the exact same experience the NFL is offering for 200 bucks a head, but you can get it all for the price of... what? A $50 parking fee?

Netflix Moving to Dump Snail Mail Customers

From what I've seen so far, Netflix is attempting to nudge - perhaps more like ram! - it's customers away from physical DVDs and BluRays, and more toward streaming video content. It's true that Netflix carries a number of movie titles, "on demand," but it seems that the movie selection is much more limited than what you can get on DVD; also that they don't seem to get very good streaming rights to the movies, leaving a limited window in which people have to find, queue, and watch the movie.

The customers are putting up a fit, as they learn of the changes. People like getting that Netflix envelope in the mail. They like being able to add a movie to their DVD queue quickly and easily - but Netflix is deliberately making it harder to do. They like to watch their movies on their TVs - but Netflix is limited to computers, some handheld platforms, and some gaming platforms, seriously limiting many people's ability to watch a movie with the entire family.

"But wait, there's more!"

Here in the United States, we have a pretty decent broadband internet network. It's not anywhere as speedy as, say, South Korea's, but it does us okay. The question we have to ask, is, can our (somewhat) creaky broadband network handle the kind of high-bandwidth usage that Netflix is encouraging? In this writer's opinion, just watching a TV show on Hulu is sometimes difficult enough, and that's not trying to watch at Blu-Ray Hi-Def settings, either! It seems doubtful that, if we replaced every single DVD customer with a high-speed internet customer, anyone would be able to watch much at all!

This writer lives alone, so doesn't mind watching movies on his computer, or android device, most of the time. But if I get a date for a "movie night," I'll definitely want to pop in a DVD and watch it on the TV, to share the experience.

The Mammoth Cloning Project - a response to the comments

I just read an article on Yahoo about how some researchers in Tokyo are planning to clone a Mammoth. It sounds very interesting - but it's just crazy how a lot of people reacted, in the comments section below the article. This is my response, to them.



I find it interesting how many people seem to think that Humans are no longer a part of Nature. Why? Is it because we use tools? In that case, we should announce that most types of apes and monkeys are not part of nature, either. Is it because we make changes to our environment to make it easier for us to live? (Houses, apartment buildings, etc.) If so, then obviously the beaver should not be considered to be a part of nature, either - there is a beaver dam in Canada that can actually be seen from orbit, it's so big!



All creatures in nature strive to live in an environment that is more to it's liking. Moles dig tunnels in the yard and in the fields. Wild cats, of various types, climb trees, hunt and kill other animals, and even toy, cruelly, with their prey, if they're not so hungry as to begin eating before the prey is even dead!



With this technology, we (humans) can save, protect, and bring various species back from the brink of extinction. We can learn other ways to use cloning, as well. To modify the process to grow individual organs, so that transplant patients can be given their own organs, in perfect condition, instead of having to accept organs from someone else's dead body, and probably having to come back in 5 or 10 years to have yet another transplant done to replace the organ that their body knows doesn't belong.



This technology could save the world. Why would God be against it? It's a technology created by us, who are all creatures of nature, no matter how much we might want to deny it.