A wee bit early April Fool's Day prank.

"Ever had a word on the tip of your tongue but just couldn't remember it? Or perhaps blanked on a person's name in a socially awkward situation? Or even suffered memory deterioration due to ordinary aging or questionable life choices? If so, Brain Search for mobile may be for you. Using our new CADIE technology, we can now index the content of your brain to make it searchable, thus bringing you aided retrieval of memories."

Thanks to Google and the Brain Search for mobile. I tried it, and it's incredible!

This is not an ad for Clearwire.

I got frustrated over using open / free wireless WiFi, for reasons including speed and lack of signal. Living in the heart of downtown with coffee shops on every corner, you'd think it wouldn't be a problem, but I don't own a laptop, and I prefer sitting in front of my screen at home with my dog, anyway.

So last night, I gave in and walked into the Clear store four blocks from me, signed up, and left within 10 minutes of entering the store, with a Motorola WiMax receiver/modem/whatever. I plug this in to my gigabit ethernet connection on my workstation, and immediately I have my connection and am surfing the internet, no software installation or diagrams.

So I checked it out already, and I'm able to stream perfectly running 720p. Been watching South Park on Netflix and SNL on Hulu. Life is good.

The three most depressing songs to me.

• I Won't Hold You Back - Toto
  
• Love Song for a Vampire - Annie Lennox
  
• Twin Peaks Theme / Falling - Julee Cruise / Angelo Badalamenti
  

For me, Toto's ballad was at a time when I was in middle school and had a fairly serious relationship. Annie Lennox's song, perhaps the most unusual choice, came when I was in a very serious relationship during college. And the Twin Peaks Theme came when I accidentally met someone online that became the love that never was. She sent me the Twin Peaks CD, and since then it's always broken a piece of my feelings whenever I hear it.

I'm thankful for Imeem, to allow me to share my personal music favorites with others, especially these three.

Mixed bag.

Well, found out that the washing machine part that's broken is a bearing that sits inside the bell assembly, and a new one would be $284. The repair guy and I talked it over a few scenarios, and we came up with basically two options: find the cheapest used machine or the cheapest new machine.

As it turned out, later the next day he called and said that he found an exact match machine that someone was going to throw away (motor died) but the bell assembly was still good and he'd negotiated $50 for it for me if I wanted it. With his $100 to pop it in there, it would cost me $150, which is still cheaper than buying a used or new machine. I like this solution the best.

Also found out the other day that another friend just got laid off. I think we're in the process of developing a Fridays Ikea breakfast morning for unemployed friends. Maybe I'll start a meetup thing for unemployed networking Ikea breakfast...um...then again, they might not like that.

Can your personality type be determined by your blog?

According to Typeanalyzer, yes it can. Want it broken down to one word? Archetypealyzer can do it.

I'm not so sure about the results though, as it only checks the words you use, as opposed to the pictures, and your blog isn't necessarily the soundbox for expressions of creativity - I use my flickr account for that.

It's all just a bunch of fun.

Bad things happen, forgot to mention...

I got wood blinds for my patio door through the mail on Friday, delivered late in the afternoon. When I opened them up, they were missing the spacers that I had requested so that I could surface mount the blinds over the trim around the window.

Of course, they were already closed and aren't open over the weekend. I sent an email, and in the meantime, my wood blinds are sitting on the ground.

So sad. If they don't overnight the spacers to me, I'm going to leave them bad mojo...aka bad review on their site. But if they come through, I'll do a larger order for my big windows.

Figures though, as this happened on the same day that my washer broke.

Dammit.

Bad things happen at the worst of times.

You know it's going to happen. First my sofa's armrest received a tear in the fabric, now the washing machine is on the fritz. Thankfully I don't need to worry about the expenses, but it gives you stress.

Best to smile and take it as it comes.

I can only imagine it would be a lot worse if I owned a house instead of a condo that was relatively newer. I don't have to worry about termites, dry rot or bats, moles or pine needles killing my grass, or the deep freeze that would have made mush out of lush plants.

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On a different subject, I hear people are stealing dogs these days. I frequently leave my dog outside the grocery store or the post office, and I know some people think that when he's not on leash but waiting outside, that he might be a stray. But I also know that my dog absolutely does not want to go home with anyone else, and will squirm and escape anyone if they tried to grab him. He's a feisty boy that will not take kindly to anyone else trying to grab him, as he will get out of his collar - it's not that tight - if someone threatens him or tries to befriend him while I'm inside. In one case, I left my dog outside Safeway one morning, and when I came out, an employee had tried to give my dog a donut, which he would not eat. He left it on the sidewalk. I think I have the best dog in the world, really. :D

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Finally, good news/bad news. Oregon's unemployment rate continued to climb, by a full percentage point to 10.8% in February, but that's a slower rate than January's rate over December. However, it also meant that Oregon now tops the region including California, whose rate moved upwards to 10.5% from 10.1% in January. Both states saw their rates slow down dramatically from the previous period. It may be a temporary lull however, as I know personally, three people who were laid off in March so far. All is fuzzy but not warm.

Does a company have to follow their own TOS?

Does a company have to follow their own Terms Of Service?

Let me put it this way: What are the possible ramifications for a company that fails to follow their own TOS? So if you are suspecting that the consequences would have to depend upon the circumstances of the violation, then I have to ask a follow up question: If the degree of a company's violation of their own TOS matters, then why bother posting a TOS in the first place?

There simply is no point to having a TOS if you're going to violate your own rules, and there is no point to changing your TOS to adjust it as you please, if you're going to treat it similarly (freely violating it).

I know, I know, it's all rhetorical questions where I have the answer. I have the answer because I've been thinking about it a lot recently, as I got into a spat with MarketWatch's comment board Admin over a comment that I had made:

"@az1103
Your opinion is worthless while the test I took when i was 10 counts."

According to MW's own TOS:
"You should... refrain from ever personally attacking the person making the posting"

Now, if you look at what I posted, I was extremely careful to direct my adjective, "worthless" to an individual's opinion, and not the person himself. And, my choice of adjectives was extremely precise, as not to say that a person was without worth, but that his stated opinion had no value. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, "worthless" means, "lacking worth."

So, I go through the trouble of carefully crafting a retort to someone's derogatory comment, only to be slapped on the hand by MW's Admin? This is where MW is stoking my ire.

The Admin responds to my critique of his/her lacking of adhering to their own TOS, by suggesting that a new TOS will be coming out, and that the TOS is a "guideline" anyway.

Folks, that is no way to respond. It may work for the Pirate's Code from the Pirates of the Caribbean, but not a TOS of a major media outlet. And for the record, there isn't a mention of "guidelines" in the TOS, which means that their Admin person is making it up. But the Admin IS making the point, that MarketWatch is not required to follow their own TOS, and when they do issue a revised TOS, they won't have to follow that new TOS either.

And therefore I ask you, does a company have to follow their TOS, and if they do, are there any consequences when they fail to follow their own TOS?

More importantly...why do I care?

I care because I enjoy these types of challenges. If someone throws down, I'm not backing down.

Obama Administration's AIG mistake.

Allowing those $165 million in bonuses to go out is a mistake. The retort by the lawyers is that AIG could face lawsuits if they did not go ahead with the bonus payouts. Even if the payouts represent less than 1% of the bailout money given to AIG, it's not the amount so much as it is about a company giving out any bonus when it's asked for taxpayer bailout.

The Obama Administration missed one huge opportunity to leverage Americans' moral outrage of AIG against the threat of these lawsuits. You would have to be a fool to file such a lawsuit against the interests of the American Taxpayer, essentially acquiescing to public scrutiny and anger.

A contract may be legal and binding, but the moral outrage is even more powerful.

Instead, the Obama Administration just suffered its greatest toll on their moral high ground and political capital.

The Creative economy.

I sat down the other day, and realized that the Creative Economy that Richard Florida spoke about, is generally correct.

The one exception is that creativity may draw others into a city from around the country and world, but the internet means that this is not necessarily required. We can email, we can ask questions, we can deliberate in an open forum of posts, and we can stay connected via video chat or just plain old text message. People will still migrate to the city center where creativity is, just to be around other creatives and to absorb that atmosphere. But that's now how the creatives are being enabled.

Ponoko.com allows you to custom cut different materials in their stock, from a laser cutter, build it, and then sell it on their website.
Shapeways.com allows you to create 3D objects that they in turn manufacture from a 3D printer, allowing you to sell these objects on their website.
Cafepress.com gives you the opportunity to create graphic designs for various materials (such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and calendars, etc) that you can then sell on their website.
99designs.com is a marketplace for people to post design competitions for all sorts of graphic-related items including website design, letterhead, logos, etc. From there, designers can compete with each other to win money for their designs.
Etsy.com allows you to sell your handmade goods online.

It used to be that you had to be near a city to enable certain opportunities to sell and create; the internet now enables you to move to Wyoming and perform the same act of buying and selling, as if you lived in San Francisco.

What's missing? An internet-based salesforce that'll do the on-the-ground marketing for your products in every city. I bet that'll be coming soon.

My first 3-panel comic strip.

Hint: Click on the image or HERE to see it in entirety.
Thanks to the Stripgenerator v1.0.3.

Cold day, but Spring is coming...

The leaves were beginning to peer out, and the white blossoms of the ornamental pears have started to erupt. In two weeks from now, Portland will be blooming with color!


And of course, the dog is ready to play.

The white lie: "Wealth Redistribution"

A common theme among the staunchest Conservatives and GOP, is that President Obama and the Democrats are attempting to redistribute wealth by taxing the rich and giving to everyone else. But there is a white lie within their rhetoric.

When jobs are eliminated or shipped overseas to increase profit, companies reward their leadership with pay raises and bonuses, including stock compensation. Stock compensation encourages CEOs to make the company profitable, but at the expense of American employees.

If jobs are being redistributed for the benefit of the CEO's (and leadership's) pay, that is itself wealth redistribution. Yet those same Conservatives simply ignore this massive wealth distribution, and prefer to talk about letting free markets create winners and losers. This is code for letting the rich get richer and the middle class die.

By taxing the rich, we are able to create retraining programs and fund the re-education of those whose jobs were sent overseas or laid off. This is the back end of a market system that says that it's better to have winners and winners, instead of winners and losers.

Saw this hybrid Piaggio.

Coming out next year. Piaggio already has 3-wheel MP3s in varied engine sizes, but this one is a hybrid with regenerative braking, and is said to be capable of 141 miles a gallon (the MP3 250 gets 65 mpg max). For $9,000 that's not so bad.



The future MP3 hybrid




The existing MP3 250cc

Wow, what a nice idea!

Isn't that pretty? It's called Touch Book, priced at $299 for this Spring. The keyboard and monitor are detachable from each other, converting this into a strictly tablet computer. It's underpowered (no Intel Atom) but it'll run Linux for 10-15 hours.

Good enough for me.

Renzo - the Italian Greyhound.

Meet Renzo.

My friend named him Renzo after then Italian designer Renzo Piano (of course).

I helped her out this past Tuesday, in finding him at Scamps, buying all the necessary dog accessories, and bringing him home. I held onto him while she drove, leaving me covered in stink. Poor dogs get really stink when they have to sit amidst their poop and pee...even if they're not covered in it. That stink just gets soaked into their coat...and onto me. :P

He's shockingly a really fast learner. Only problem is that he sat in his cage for a few months using the bathroom, so when he got placed into his kennel, that's where he immediately uses the bathroom. He won't go to the bathroom on walks, but will instead hold it until he's inside my friend's apartment or inside the kennel inside her place. That's sad but funny.

When he was given room to run, he surely enjoyed running around all over the place and exploring, and he loved playing with toys.

Bad mortgage bailout.

I'm all for bailing out people who made mistakes, especially those who bought their first home between 2003 and 2007. What I'm completely against, however, is bailing out stupid people.

How do I define stupid people? Stupid people are those who bought a home in 2008, despite the fast-rising unemployment rate, all the data that showed a quickly contracting housing market, rapidly dropping housing prices and swiftly declining stock market. If you made such a risky bet and went against conventional wisdom by buying a home last year, you DO NOT deserve a bailout, now that your home is underwater. But that's exactly what the mortgage bailout will do. It includes a cutoff date of January 1, 2009 for mortgages.

This is not just wrong, this is asinine.