Some Rantings, Ravings, and Damn Skippy Too

Let's Give It A Rest Already

2011-05-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

He's dead, okay? Gone. Finished. A round to the head and two rounds to the chest. And his body was buried in the Arabian Sea.

Osama Bin Laden's fate was SEAL-ed.

Let's stop with the conspiracy theories folks. He's not alive and we didn't keep him for interrogation to glean intelligence from him on all things al Qaeda. At this point in the game, our intelligence services probably know more about what goes on with "The Base" then Osama did. After all, he was holed up in a walled compound for 6 years with no phone, internet, or any real time source of information.

Sure, I do agree that pictures of his body and burial should be released. Not so much as proof, mind you; but more of extending the message, "If you frack with us, these are the consequences. We will find you and kill you"

Killing Bin Laden was about killing the biggest head of the symbolic hydra of jihad. It was about sending a message and avenging the deaths of thousands. There was 9/11, the USS Cole bombing, the twin bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi and Keyna, Khobar Towers bombing, and many others.

But there are those who believe that we captured him and are interrogating him as I type this out. Since there are no pictures, there is no proof that he's dead.

Okay, let's pretend that he's alive and in US custody. How do you guarantee his safety and security? This man had his hands directly and indirectly involved in the deaths of thousands of civilians and military personnel. And I'm not talking about guaranteeing his safety and security from the general public. I'm talking about safety from his own security detail, his interrogator, his security escort, the personnel in the detention facility.

Those thousands of people that dies all had relatives and friends, cousins, sister, brothers, parents, etc, etc. Can you guarantee that someone guarding him was not affected in some way, shape, or form by the actions of this man? That they won't take him out when they get the chance? A revenge killing for Bin Laden's actions for any of those atrocities?

No, you can't.

Killing Bin Laden was about sending a message and avenging those who died. Nothing more. Nothing less.

His dead and let's stop with the silly conspiracy killings. You already got your birth certificate. What more do you want?

What Might Have Been - A Requiem for Napster

2009-12-07T13:07:00.001-08:00

Yep, as every other news blog and tech magazine will write, ten years ago today, the RIAA kicked off its massive lawsuit campaign against Napster. But how many will ask and take a look at what might have been? What would have happened had theRIAA, its members, and its artists embraced Napster?

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless for disclosure reasons, asked me that over the weekend. What would have happened had Napster not been sued?

My friend is in a unique position to ask and answer this question. For the past 20 years, he's been an artist's middleman. One who connects bands to bands, bands to venues, agents to artists, agents to venues; and so on and so forth. He has a massive music collection in both vinyl and CD along with terabytes of hard drive space dedicated to MP3s,FLACs, and Oggs. He works in the background, and only peaks into the foreground when needed.

When Napster first appeared, he was the first to realize that the game has changed. For almost 80 years, people had bought music in much the same fashion; the album. Whether it was a vinyl record, CD, tape, or 8-track, it was pretty much the same. Sure, there was a singles revolution there for a bit, but the industry adjusted slightly, but the album was still the way of the profit. Listeners bought the vinyl, and then bought the 8-track, and then the tape, and finally the CD. Sure, there were ways to trade and share those recordable tapes andCDs, and due to a handy Congressional mandated tax on them, the RIAA still made its profits years and years after albums first debuted on vinyl; people went out and purchased the CD of the very same album they had on vinyl. Money made times two from the same purchaser.

The re-purchasing system worked year after year after year and after year. And then Napster came along and broke it.

You see, people were already looking for something new and different to do with all these CDs they had. Sure, you had multi-disc changers in home stereos and in cars. You had those funny visor wallets and portable CD players. But people still wanted something different. MP3s and players were just squeaking out into the market, at $400 dollars a player, they weren't cheap. But they were there, and people who did buy them (myself included, the Creative Nomad II), loved them and spread the word. Myself and other's included ripped our entire CD collections onto our computers, and created a never ending randomizedplaylist for our MP3 players; their high cost now justified with this new way of listening and playing and organizing our massive music collections.

And then Napster showed up, and all hell broke loose. We all soon realized that we could share and trade all this music we had amassed over the years, and we could share it around the world! Artists and albums and songs from people as far away as an Antarctic research station were available to anyone else with Napster installed on their system. Discovering new songs and artists caused us to go out and buy the album from the local big box store or the corner record store. We brought the album home, ripped it, and shared it. Millions and millions of people were doing much the same thing. And it was good.

Or was it? In the background, the RIAA threw a fit. This new finagled file sharing, Napster, P2P thing came out of left field for them, and they had no idea what to do with it.

My friend at the time thought the RIAA would embrace Napster. People were buying albums like never before to share with people whom they don't know who had access to music they'd never heard before. Napster was the first true online social network, a WEB 2.0pre-alpha if you will. The potential was enormous for growth, and the RIAA went and squashed it.

One of the biggest points of contention with Napster wasn't the sharing or the claim that money was lost because no one would buy a song they just downloaded. It was because Napster broke down walls and barriers to music. After 80 years, the customer was in charge of what to buy, what to do with it, and when. Napster was not conceived in the halls of theRIAA , and that bruised egos and caused massive jealousy. A 20 year old college kid in a dorm room came up with a whole new distribution system! How preposterous! Napster also broke down theRIAA's specialized region coding and selling system. The ability to sell a slightly different album in Japan, a different one in Russia, and a different one in the US was gone and done with. If someone in the US wanted that Japanese version, they had to shell out big bucks for the import, but because of Napster, that wasn't an issue anymore. You could share your US album exclusive song with someone who had the Japanese album exclusive song. Gone was the import album cash cow.

My friend went on to say some interesting things. First off, Napster allowed bands who never get extra exposure, now get global exposure. He had one local band not only start getting fan mail from Japan, Germany, and South Korea, but they also started filling orders for their CD album all the way across the globe! All the band did was share a few of their songs on Napster, a live recording or 2 from the bars they played at, and they had fans all over. They made more money in 6 months of CD sales then they had in 5 years of playing in all sorts of venues and trying to sell the CD at the door and the local record store. The RIAA was double pissed now because exposing bands to the world used to be their business!

And my friend said that was happening all over. From the smallest bar bands, to the biggest rockstars, even stand-up comedians and coffee shop poets were getting exposure they never had gotten before. All thanks to Napster. All sorts of albums across the spectrum of genres all were on the sales uptick. He told me that record stores he kept in contact with at the time had reported a large uptick in the sales of vinyl records and record players as people figured out how to connect them to their computers and create MP3s. Everyone was buying and everyone was sharing, and then they went out and bought even more and shared some more. It was almost like the RIAA's 80 year album re-purchasing cycle except on a weekly basis.

But the RIAA decided that this was a threat to their album re-purchasing program that had worked so well and had created year over year profits for 80 years, and they decided to squash it flat.

Looking at the current landscape, the RIAA's album sales have gone down, down, and down year over year since they defeated Napster. They hate the current business models of customers buying singles online, streaming music, and creating their own listening experiences. Sure, they're making money through these sales and the further aggressive licensing of musical contents to movies, tv, and video games. Some of their lawsuits have brought them some dough (but at the expense of destroying their public image. But they aren't making the money they made before with CD albums, but they could have.

My friend said they ruined for themselves. Imagine if they embraced Napster and used Napster to supplant what they're doing now; licensing music to all sorts of venues while people still bought albums and shared music across the globe. They'd have more money then they'd ever dream of. And I'm inclined to say he's right.

I remember when the RIAA first got pissed off at Napster. My response was that they were pissed that they didn't come up with the idea of a whole new, fast as lightning, global distribution system. They let pride and ego get in the way. They wanted to tell the consumer what to buy, where to buy, how to buy it, and what was going to be in there when they bought it. In many ways, they got their wish. Digital downloads earlier this year overtook sales of CD albums for the first time (iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Zune, and the various Band and Hero games). That's an important milestone. But they still aren't making the money they used to make on album sales, and they never will.

Think of it as an opportunity missed. Imagine the landscape if Napster had thrived and MySpace and Facebook showed up and we kept sharing our music. The money that could have been made with a licensing deal then? As I said that last sentence to my friend, his eyes lit up and his cell phone and notepad came out. He made a phone call to a band member he knows and said he knows someone at Facebook. There's money in them thar hills, as they once said, and the RIAA missed that landscape completely.

Louisana's Legal Discrimination.

2009-10-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

A justice of the peace in Hammond, Louisiana has denied an interracial couple a marriage license -

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else,” Bardwell told the Associated Press.

*and*

“There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage,” Bardwell said. “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

I find it interesting that people are throwing a fit, but the same people who are complaining also voted for and added an amendment to their state Constitution banning gay marriage and civil unions.

It also prohibits state officials and courts from recognizing any out-of-state same-sex marriages or civil unions.

Nothing like cherry picking our racism and discrimination.

Karma is a very strange creature. Because what goes around, can, will, and does come around in strange and unexpected ways, shapes, and forms.
When this story popped up, that was the first thing that popped into my mind, “What are Louisiana’s laws concerning gay marriage and civil unions?”

This is what happens. Because the voters and legislature of Louisiana decided to vote on and add a discriminating amendment to their state Constitution; people’s mindset has become such that if we can legally discriminate against this group doing this; why not discriminate against this group doing that too? One thing leads back to another.

It’s prejudice, and it’s ignorance, on a level that is staggering at this point in time. And you know what? People voted to make it legal.

ANd for those of you who don't believe that this racial discrimination and the discrimination against gay aren't one and the same; I urge you to take a closer look at the arguments portrayed here. This justice of the peace and opponents of gay marriage both claim they're doing it for the good of the children!!

The Perceptive Illusion of Helmet Safety

2009-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

We humans are a strange lot. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear, and we believe quite a bit without questioning. We’re creatures of perceptive reality, of habit and repetition. If someone or something challenges our long held belief in something, whether it’s right, wrong, or misguided; we’ll defend it to the hilt regardless of anything.

The recent tragedy of Anita Zaffke comes to mind. Anita was on her motorcycle in early May, and doing everything she was taught was right about being safe on a motorcycle. She was wearing her helmet, and had bright reflective clothing on. While Anita was stopped at a red light, she was tragically killed. Anita’s body and motorcycle we’re thrown 150 feet away at the rate of 50mph. Several bones in Anita’s body were broken along with several severe internal organ injuries. She did not survive.

Laura Hunt was the driver of the car that slammed into Anita and killer her. Laura, a registered nurse I might add, was driving her car and doing her nails at the same time! She looked up while driving at 50mph to see the red light and to send Anita to her death. Recently, Laura was indicted on 6 counts of reckless homicide and faces 5 years in prison.

Anita was wearing all the right and proper motorcycle safety gear that various authority figures, teachers, parents, family members, the mainstream media and others have told us was and is safe and is required and requisite to avoid disaster. But how did the helmet and reflective clothing keep Anita safe from the stupidity and recklessness of Laura? The simple answer is that they didn’t.

I recently attempted to have a discussion with my aunt about motorcycle helmets. She looked upon me with horror when I told her I did not wear a helmet. She told me that is not safe at all. When I attempted to counter-point her or get more of a response than ‘that’s not safe’, she would have none of it. She just regarded that not wearing a helmet was not safe.

There are three issues here; what we’re taught as safe, what we perceive as safe, and what is actually experienced as safe.

I have quite a few friends who are nurses, police officers, paramedics, and firefighters. I myself did a stint in the ER and in an ambulance. About 70% of my nurse friends will tell me that I am an idiot for not wearing a helmet because a helmet always equals safe. They will tell me about all the horrific injuries they see from motorcycle crashes from riders without helmets in their hospitals. I asked if they ever see any riders with helmets on? They say no because they’re always safe.

But the other 30% offer quite a different picture. The reason they don’t see any riders with helmets on the hospital? It’s because they’re already dead. The paramedics, firefighters, and policemen that I have spoken to have all told me very similar stories. Helmets have rather nasty habits of breaking necks. The helmet adds an extra amount of weight to the human head that the neck just cannot handle properly. Go ahead and put a helmet on (any kind) and shake your head back and forth and even up and down. Even with a snugly fit helmet, you can feel the extra pulling sensation at the base of the skull and on the neck. Now multiply that pulling sensation by 20x and imagine the snapping of the neck. Helmets also have a bounce back effect from striking a surface. That bounce back can also snap necks (like snapping a rubber band too fast). Helmets effectively make the biker's "head" much larger, so with a bigger head a falling biker is much more likely to slam it against the road or a car (causing traumatic brain injury because the brain is still slammed against the skull). Helmets can also cut off, severely damage, and obstruct the airway. They can also hide, mask, and obscure critical head injuries and impair treatment that can readily be treated on the scene.

Helmets also have side effects when worn. They muffle one’s hearing and impair peripheral vision (almost like horse blinders). And as mentioned above, they add extra weight to the head and the neck that the neck cannot properly support (especially when moving your head to check on traffic left and right and on your six). Yet many helmet safety diehards I have told this to scoff at these points, and yet they’ve never even worn a helmet. Go ahead and put a helmet on; any kind really (full face, half face, top helmet). Go ahead and walk around with the helmet on your head. You’ve lost quite a sense of your environment with full face and half face because of the loss and/or impairment of peripheral vision and hearing. Now imagine having that on your head at 50mph with those losses. That’s pretty safe, right?

The Chicago Sun-Times recently had a small article about a Chicago area reporter, Tom Negovan, who returned from being attached to a combat unit in Afghanistan for 2 years. The first week back in Chicago, Tom decided to take his motorcycle out for a quick ride and got into a bad accident when a driver turned left directly in front of him. The bike was totaled and he suffered a few broken vertebrae which required spinal surgery, and the article made mention a few times about how Tom almost always wore his helmet; and the time he doesn’t wear his helmet is when he gets into an accident. Yet no other mention was made about the driver who was not paying attention to the road and their surroundings, and pulled left in front of an oncoming motorcycle.

The article had carried a tone of and made the assumptive comparison that if you do not wear your helmet, you’ll get into a wreck on a motorcycle; and if you’re wearing your helmet this type of injury and surgery could have been avoided. The article failed to mention that it’s also possible the added weight or even the pinch point the helmet creates at the back of the neck could have caused even more injury to the spine. And the article further failed to make issue that drivers need to pay attention to the road and traffic. Essentially the article shifted the blame onto Tom instead of the driver of the car. The idea is that if a rider gets hit by an at-fault driver, it was the stupid rider's fault for not wearing a helmet. This is no exaggeration; this exact opinion has been promulgated by the defense in countless court cases, effectively denying riders and their families’ justice against at-fault drivers.

I refuse to wear a helmet when I ride. I like to move my head around and check my six. I like having my peripheral vision detect the motion of a car on either side. I like hearing and sensing my environment for dangers, sirens, even someone telling me something from a car, or effectively hearing sounds from my bike (in case something is wrong). Want to smell gas, oil, and your exhaust in case something is wrong also? None of these can effectively be done while wearing a helmet.

The illusion of helmet safety is rooted in the false perceptions of what we’re taught and what we experience. Just as many nurses claim that helmets equal safe because of the lack of injurious patients brought in wearing helmets (because many or most of them are dead at the scene); many riders themselves who are taught that helmets and reflective clothing equals safe ride ignorant of what’s really going on around them. They believe that riding with reflective and colorful clothing means that drivers in cars notice them and that if anything happens to them, the helmet will keep them safe. Many drivers also misconstrue the helmet/safety link. Drivers who see a rider with a helmet on automatically think that if something happens to the motorcyclist they’ll be fine because they’re wearing a helmet.

There is a complete disconnect on what safe really is, what the assumptions are, what the perception is, and what the reality really is.

Illinois recently passed a law making text messaging illegal while driving. That’s just great, and I’ve heard cheers from people who claim that this is what needs to be done to make out roads safer and more accident free. What about touch screen dash mounted GPS units? What about playing with the various radios and MP3 players? What about reading the newspaper and books? What about the three yelling and obnoxious kids in back? What about doing makeup and feeding your child a bottle or sippy cup? What about staring off into space while in hermetically and environmentally sealed soundproof vehicles with an air conditioner at full blast with all the comforts as our living rooms during primetime realty TV watching time? Except these motorized living rooms on wheels impede us from properly hearing, seeing, and even feeling the outside environment that we’re driving in and supposed to be paying attention to so that dangerous accidents do not happen to us or anyone else. But we’re going be safe come January 1^st 2010 when text messaging becomes illegal in the state of Illinois.

What’s interesting is that helmet laws may ironically make riding more dangerous, because fewer riders on the road means that drivers are less likely used to seeing riders. I’m not the only one who refuses to ride through a state that requires a helmet, and I know that there are people in helmet-required states that won’t ride or buy a bike because of a helmet law. Helmet laws make driving, riding, and even walking more dangerous, because when people stop riding, they start driving, and it's cars and SUV's that kill other drivers and pedestrians, not riders.

When I ride, I have no choice to pay attention to what I am doing, to my motorcycle, and my surroundings. My feet have to remain on the foot pegs, my thighs hugging the gas tank. My left hand covering the clutch, and my right hand on the throttle and near the front break lever. My eyes are scanning the road for holes and bumps, dips and dangers, cars, other riders, and any other type of movement on the road. Paying attention to all those variables is what is going to keep me as safe as possible. I have no choice but to pay attention to what I am doing and to my surroundings. And that choice of control and vigilance is impeded by a helmet.

Drivers in any type of four-wheeled vehicle on the road have lots of choices to either pay attention to the road, pay partial attention, or none at all. They can eat, drink, smoke, text message, read books, read newspapers, do makeup, do their hair, shave, paint their nails, email, discipline unruly children, feed children (and YES, I have seen somebody breast feeding a baby behind the wheel), input directions onto a GPS, play with the radio, talk on the cell phone, dial the cell phone, turn the air conditioner on full blast, turn the radio up in volume, close the windows and seal themselves from the outside environment, and daydream. And they have the choice to do all of this, some of this, or even none of this at 30, 40, 50mph or faster because the vehicles they drive afford them the opportunity and ability to do so.

Unfortunately, helmets have become a panacea and already so much a part of the society’s collective safety consciousness; many people and city and state governments think they can require a person to slap a helmet on their head and they've done their part to make sure that motorcyclists are safe. But it's actually the opposite. This approach is akin to outfitting somebody with a flak jacket and then having them run through a firing range. If you had to choose between giving a person a helmet or the education about how to ride and drive safely, you should choose the education and ditch the helmet every time.

The drivers who are so insistent that bikers wear helmets aren't wearing helmets themselves. This isn't silly: crash helmets could potentially save more lives for motorists than bikers. About 58,000 drivers and passengers die on U.S. roads every year compared to 2,500 bikers. If helmets are good for bikers, they ought to be great for drivers and passengers. Why is nobody banging the drum about this? After all, helmets save lives and are always safe, right? Or is it that a crash helmet would impede a driver’s ability to read and pay attention to the TV and properly use the touchscreen GPS in the SUV?

If you feel that you can properly ride your motorcycle, pay attention to the road and environment, and properly see and keep an eye on cars and other vehicles on the road; and act accordingly in those situations while wearing a helmet. Then by all means do so. That is your choice, and always should be. You should have the right and choice to always do what you feel is safe and right for you. Since drivers of all kinds seem to have a plethora of choices afforded to them while driving, motorcyclists should have a choice afforded to them also. Let those who ride, decide.

Facebook Censorship

2009-08-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

Facebook recently showed-off many of its self-policing policies in regards to borderline racy photographs, and just recently announced the elimination of two hate groups on its social networking site. It was also revealed that Facebook's group of content censors also go through emails; eliminating html links to sites or content it deems in violation of its terms of service (such as a link to a bit torrent tracker hosting public domain works and information). I begin to wonder if this is the start of a disturbing trend.

While courts have repeatedly ruled that a website or business, forum or blog can censor the content that is placed on its site(s) by its users; social networks in general are finding themselves the new primary communication protocol du jour, and this type of censorship may run afoul of federal wiretapping laws in the future should social networking become the new norm.

In the next few years, the social networking model may extend to become the new communication system via cell phones and netbooks and with it an explosion of different types of communications convergences. It may already be right at the doorstep as the new Palm Pre will have built in MySpace and Facebook contact integration. If someone on your contact list leaves you a wall post on Facebook, your phone will be notified of that wall post via that cell phone contact and Facebook friends integration. Now to reply, you can choose to reply via a commented wall post, a cell phone text message, a cell phone MMS, an email via Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo; a comment via MySpace, or for old fashioned sake; dial their phone and talk to them. Quite a few phones are coming out this year with this type of convergence built in.

Should a company that is involved with allowing its users to communicate via its website/cell service/cell phone/blog/forum/etc. be allowed to censor those communications that it find obscene and objectionable? No, they shouldn't. This is the equivalent of Ma Bell cutting off your landline phone call because the conversation became racy or you were using the 7 dirty words.

The argument gets used (quite repeatedly actually) that we have to protect society's children from such vagrancies and ill reputed language. Don't these children have parents that should be supervising their use of the internet on computers, chatrooms on the XBox360, and keeping an eye on who their child is texting and talking to on cell phones? I mean censorship in order to protect a society's children work great in countries such as China and Cuba. THey are communist countries after all, and communist governments are want to do such things and censorship under the guise of protecting one's children.

But why should my First Amendment rights to Freedom of Speech be sacrified in the name of protecting someone else's children? Parents need to keep an eye on their own kids, and kids need to be taught what they should and shouldn't be doing online and communicating while conversing the whiles of the internet. If I choose to have a racy and steamy conversation on any email system I choose, I should be allowed to without big brother-like interference. If I email a friend on Facebook and MySpace, why is someone from the company reading those emails? Its none of their business. That's why there are a public comments section for all people to see, and there's a private email section for 'private' conversations. I should be able to send links to whatever webpage, blog, torrent location, and whatever I choose without someone watching and reading over my shoulder.

I'm an adult. I should have the freedom to choose what about me and my communications are private and what I decide to become public. Its not those who provide the means of communication's job to decide for me. My business is my own and who I choose to share it with.

Wolfran Alpha, The Next Generation?

2009-05-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

I just spent the last half hour playing around with the new search engine, Wolfram Alpha. Well, let's clarify something first. Its not a search engine, per se; but something more akin to a data retrieval and display system.

MSN Live Search , Yahoo Search, and Ask Jeeves are more akin to a search engine. You go and search for something and the varied results of that something from in and around the internet are displayed for your viewing perusing. Many of the search results are displayed via their overall popularity in the search engine itself and advertisement revenues.

Google is more of a data search and aggregation system. Google software spider-bots scour and search the web for all sorts of data. You then type in what you're searching for and Google displays the results of your query based on the spider-bot's searching, the amount of times someone has searched for a similar query and clicked on a resulting web page, and of course advertising.

Regardless of what search engine you are using, once the results are displayed, you then have to do some further searching for that piece of information you're looking for. Sure, if you're searching for information on Chrysler, you get a results page that will display a link to realtime and past stock information, a link to the wikipedia page, some news search aggregation results, a map location of the company's headquarters, and the company's home page. Sure, the data's all there, but all over the place. You end up clicking here, there, and everywhere to get the nugget(s) that you want or need.

But what if you need something else? This morning I wanted to find out what the background music was that was playing in the latest Terminator: Salvation trailer that I saw last night during the season finale of 24. So I used to Google to search for 'Terminator Salvation trailer music'. The first few result pages were forum posts. SO I perused those pages and discovered that the song is NIN's The Day the World Went Away, but not quite. I had to do a bit more digging, and discovered that its a mix called 'The Green Mix' in the trailer. Well, not quite yet again. It is the green mix in the trailer with added drum acoustics. After finally digging a bit deeper, I found that someone had taken the 'Green Mix' and resampled it with the drum beats and had it up on YouTube.

Whew, talk about digging deep! But, I've searched for more arcane things over the years via a combination of Google, MSN Live Search, and Yahoo and found my answers as I've developed quite a skill at searching online for the data and info I need and want and in a certain form too.

But that in and of itself is the inherent problem. The data out and about the world wide web is all over the place.

And then I tried Wolfram Alpha with emphasis on the 'Alpha' part as its still not 100% cooked and still being baked and worked on. I tried searching for Terminator Salvation trailer music, and received the Wolfram/Alpha doesn't know what to do with your data error message. Wolfram doesn't operate like a traditional search engine. I typed in Terminator Salvation and received a rather well organized page of information about the movie; director, cast, release date , and a small plot synopsis. More then likely all culled from IMDB and then displayed via Wolfram's format.

Add in a bit more information like small versions of the trailer, information about the trailer (music played, composer, etc.), links to a few photos and who in them, the photographer that took them, the location (geo tagging), and all the little odds and ends information that I scoured a bunch of forum boards for.

I searched for Uranus and received all sorts of realtime information about the planet as well some info about the discoverer. A Voyager 2 query resulted in a bunch of realtime data about the spacecraft as well.

Wolfram Alpha is not going to change the way we search so much as it's going to change the way data is compiled and displayed.

Help!! I've Fallen and I Can't Get it Up!!!!

2009-05-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

This is in response to CNN's news blog article - http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/07/erectile-dysfunction-ads-too-hot-for-tv/

"The whole principle of censorship is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." - ROBERT HEINLEIN, The Man Who Sold the Moon If ED commercials and advertisements are banned because we aren't thinking of the children; why stop there? I'm offended by Victoria's Secret ads (of which running an ED ad right before might really make those commecials a whole lotta fun!!). Let's keep going. I'd like Depends and tampon ads banned too due to all the talk of 'flowing like a river'. Let's not forget the KY ads too since I start to feel lonely now that I have to have a 'Her' to use with the "His and Her' version of KY Personal Lubricant. Grow up people and start using some responsible, adult thinking. If you're so offended, change the channel (Or are you not in charge of the remote? Or is your child watching TV, playing video games, or surfing the internet unsupervised?). If you don't like commercials about adult prescriptions or medications, then don't watch House or Grey's Anatomy with your 4 year old as they're obviously going to air ads like that during these medical shows. I would rather have a child of any age ask a question about ED, Viagra, Cialis, sex, etc; and not be afraid to do so with their parent. If the child or teenager is not afraid or embarrassed to ask a sexual question; why are parents acting afraid or embarrassed to answer the question?.

iPhone 3G Bashing Time!

2008-10-31T07:38:00.001-07:00

Okay, it's not quite as serious as that, but close.

I'm going through a dilemma of sorts with my personal communication device (or tether). I need something to take some notes with (a to-do list, if you will), and a calendar. Sure, some impromptu need to check this web page stuff, email (Gmail mostly), and a weather check now and then.

My trusty Sony Ericcson W300i has served me quite well for the past 3 years. It does all the aforementioned above fairly decently, but the anemic keypad is just ain't cutting it, and well, the phone is working on spit, duct tape, and bubble gum. Time for a new phone.

While I've been eyeing up a few HTC products, and patiently waiting for the month of November when a plethora of new phones are coming out; a friend of mine let me use her iPhone for a week telling me it was the next best thing to an orgasm.

The iPhone experience has been a head-scratcher.

The phone itself is nice. The weight itself is good, the device feels solid in my hand. Voice calls work; I can hear them and they can hear me. The touch screen is rather spiffy, and the screen display sure looks nice. The bevy of connection options is great, the App Store is cool, and the iPod functions on the touch screen. well, it works (LOL - sorry not much of a music/movie watcher/listener on my cell phone - I have a Zune for that at the gym).

But I sure don't feel satisfied using this thing as it's seriously lacking features that even my W300i has.

The onscreen keyboard bites for text messaging, and why doesn't it go to landscape mode? Most, if not all, touch screen phones do this by default.

Who's genius idea was it to exclude MMS on a multimedia phone?? I can neither send nor receive picture messages on an iPhone. And yes, I am well aware of the email work-around for this, but I shouldn't have to do it that way. Take picture, tap send, choose contact(s), and off it goes! Done, done, and done. And yes, my W300i does it that way. I rode my V-Rod for 3600 miles this summer, and took pics all the time and sent them to my friends on my phone. And they in turn did the same. With an iPhone this is not possible.

Bluetooth is only usable for a singe ear headset? I heard their reasoning about A2DP (battery life), but you what? Let your users come to that conclusion. Give them a choice and options. And no file and data transfers over bluetooth? That's dumb. I know a lot of users who transfer contacts between devices and themselves, and a few pictures and ringtones from time to time.

iTunes is the bane of application existence (see above). I email stuff to myself all the time, as well as transfer some pics and ringtones. Sorry, want to add contacts, pictures, documents, ringstones, and full songs to your iPhone? Gotta use the iTunes approval service. If Stevie Jobs doesn't want that data on your phone, iTunes won't let it on there.

And what's up with Apple's remote cut-off switch that's embedded in the iPhone? If Apple don't like it, they can remotely kill it off or remove it. And what's cute about that is that at purchasing and contract signing; the AT&T rep doesn't even mention that and it isn't in the contract.

Is it me or is Stevie Jobs and company the land of obsessive, compulsive disorder control freaks?

The iPhone is a pretty neat device with quite a few glaring omissions. More like an iPod with a few anemic cell phone functions tacked on.

Open up the platform for the end users and the developers and give everyone some choices, and you've have a great device.

At least the phone call functions worked.

Let's Solve the Oil Crisis......Let's All Download!!

2008-09-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

A thought occurred to me as I was somewhat stewing over Comcast's recent limitations on my downloading and uploading starting on Oct. 1.

Quite a few products are made from a barrel of oil or a byproduct of. With the price of oil over $100, everyone and their cousin is crying conservation, smaller cars, and better fuel mileage. Now granted, vehicles (*cough* SUVs *cough* Hummers) are a part pf the problem, but what if there was something else that could make a huge dent in oil conservation? Something in the Occam's Razor category? Something KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)?

I ran into Circuit City the other day trolling around for a new mouse, while also finishing a shopping trip from Target and a quick run through Best Buy and I noticed how many movies and games there were at all the stores. And they're all on optical discs. Movies, Music, TV Shows, Blu-Ray, PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, PC games, applications, and on, and on, and on. All on optical discs, all in plastic cases and boxes, and all made, material wise, from oil in some way, shape, or form.

Guess what folks. We go to downloadable and digital distribution content, we take out a giant chunk of oil-manufactured products. From actually making the discs and plastic cases, to shipping the material on giant freighters and UPS/DHL/USPS shipping trucks, a giant dent can be made in oil and fuel consumption in one fell swoop.

The digital distribution framework is there. The broadband and bandwidth speeds and pipe are there. With low power server SSD drives, a dent can be made in server farm energy consumption and heat dissipation right there. All the parts and puzzle peices are there; they just have to be put together.

Detroit and the auto industry are far behind the curve as they've ben working hand and hand wit the oil industries for years and they had gotten very comfortable with navigating the money making and shaking beauracracy with each other and the various governements of the world. They're not going to give up the cornerstone of their money making abilities without kicking and screaming quietly into the night.

Imagine the money that can be saved and made just from going to digital distribution content.

Comcast's Broadband Limits

2008-09-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

First off, I would like to applaud the FCC on taking a stand with Comcast with their blocking and spoofing of the Bittorrent protocol. Even though what they recieved was a slap on the wrist; it established that the internet should be neutral and set a precedent for other ISPs who were doing or considering their own protocol and content blocking.

But Comcast has gone ahead and decided to go with Plan B; imposition of limits on people's use of the internet by capping how much can be downloaded/uploaded in a month. This is just a blantant attempt for Comcast to almost force it's broadband only customers to also purchase Comcast's phone, digital cable services, and pay-per-view content.

Let me explain.

First off, let me complain about the price. I pay $70 a month for Comcast's high speed internet (8MB downstream/ 2 MB up). It's expensive, but I use it quite a bit. I play online video games here and there with my PC and Xbox 360. I download movies from either iTunes, Amazon Unbox, or Netflix and with the advent of downloadable high defintion movies I will be getting those types of movies as well streamed to my HDTV. I also stream music from Pandora or my XM Satellite radio online. I also use VOIP services over my internet connection. So, bottom line is I use my expensive high speed internet to pay for and receive quite a few other services.

I don't use any other Comcast services, but they do call or send mail always asking me to sign up for their digital cable (pay per view and downloadable), or their phone service. I use DirectTV and I'm perfectly happy with it, and my VOIP and cell service serve me fine (I tell them). What's funny is if I add Comcast's digital cable service to their internet package the price goes from $70 to $55.

But what about families of 4 who use quite a bit more downloadable services? Xbox 360, Playstation 3, VOIP, Netflix, Apple TV and iTunes, Amazon Unbox, PC games and downloads and music. You name it. They're going to hit that 250GB ceiling really quick all because Comcast does not like you paying for and using other provider's content over their internet pipes. They want you to pay for their pay-per-view movies and downloadable content and make and pay for phone calls on their network.

Comcast has always advertised their broadband internet as unlimited and high speed, but now Comcast has resorting to imposing limits on your usage and blocking protocols instead of innovating and adding to their network. Whatever happened to spending money to make money and promote competition? Remember the dark ages of AOL/Prodigy/Compulink dial-up ISP service and that they charged consumers based on hourly usage and how much was downloaded on the internet? Do we really need or want to return to that?

I would change ISPs in a heartbeat, but Comcast in the only game in town and the surrounding towns.

Comcast needs to be stopped yet again. Moving forward, innovating, and inventing are what's needed; not blocking and limits. If companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and the like are to provide consumers with services they they want and use, they need to work without limits as well.

How Sci-Fi Channel Frakked Up

2008-08-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

"The Scariest Night on Television!" Oooooooooo, brings up some spine tingly images, doesn't it?

I mean, it's a good tag line and all, but it doesn't bring up images of cheesy B-rated acting and dialogue, does it? Or cheap-ass CGI that looks like it was rendered by a 486DX with a whopping 16MB of RAM.

What I'm alluding to is Sci-Fi channel's continued airing and financing of really, really bad Saturday night B-rated horror-sci-fi flicks, and the cancellation of Stargate Atlantis.

Now first off, I'm not a big time, Tivo saving, TV addicted watcher. Never have been. I got hooked on 24 starting with season 5, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis since the first seasons, Eureka, and I fall asleep to Adult Swim.

When SG-1 was not renewed, it sucked, but was understandable. The show had gone on for 10 years! The money pile from reruns and syndication was running a little thin; so Sci-Fi didn't renew and MGM said DVD movies. It worked. Both Ark of Truth and Continuum were great flicks for SG-1 and it seemed like a great way for the franchise to continue and Atlantis to carry the TV torch while we wait for Stargate Universe.

But canceling SGA is just a bit on the mind boggling side. Sci-Fi recently let the news out that this was their most watched summer ever lead by Eureka, Ghost Hunters, and Scare Tactics. They mentioned that their Saturday crap CGI-fests averaged 2 million viewers. No mention of SGA even though numbers averaged above 2 million viewers per episode this season, and ECW, well let's not start on why that's even on the Sci-Fi channel.

This is probably a case of dancing numbers around to make things look positive (seriously, those awful Saturday night flicks were getting 2 million viewers in the summer?!?!?). And I know that SGA was getting expensive due to the US dollar/Canadian dollar conversion rate was getting expensive. So money somehow, someway was getting to be a sticking point with SGA.

But the ratings were up (1.5 to 1.7; about 2 to 2.4 million viewers) per episode, and they did climb a bit more with DVRs. The legal download sector was making some money from SGA (number 1 on Amazon's Unbox) too.

And then when MGM/Sci-Fi announced Stargate Universe the next day, and they said they were going to target the younger demographic (thoughts of Stargate: 90210 flashed through my mind). And then the answer hit me; I'm getting older!

I've been watching SG-1 and SGA for 11 years; SG-1 started when I as 20. I'm hitting the end of that 18-34 money making demographic that the TV execs and advertisers love. They want to bring in new young blood to watch the show.

So there you have it kids. All us faithful watchers of SG-1 and SGA were getting too old for the execs and advertisers and they want the young blod to watch the show and spend the money on the stuff the advertisers hawk.

I'll still watch Stargate Universe and the Stargate movies when they come out, but I'll be less enthused about it.

Let's Blog! (Sounds Like a Wierd....Never Mind)

2008-08-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know right off the proverbial bat that I'm entering in quite a crowded field here. Blogging.....the dog next door is even doing; detailing his last biscuit treat, butt scratch, and that interesting smell he couldn't quite let go of.

So what makes me special that I decided to do this 5 years after blogging hit the mainstream media like John Pinette at Red Lobster shrimp fest? Simple, I may have a few interesting things to say (Or may not, and I may just say something about it).

But I also just wanted to do it. As the old saying and adage always declares; "Whatever happens, happens, just have fun while doing it.".

And that's exactly what I'm going to do.