Google Phone / Nexus One pricing details leaked.

And it's not good.


If these details are true, I'm not even sure why Google bothered. It's priced too high (unsubsidized) for most people to tolerate, and while the subsidized price is very nice, the requirement that you sign up for a specific plan from T-Mobile is just wrong. For someone like me, I'd be paying MORE to get less, and that's just wrong.


Man, I don't know what they were thinking, but even with a really nice phone, you can still get it wrong with the pricing and set yourself back by the negative press, as such is making the rounds of the blogosphere. Google really dropped the ball on this one, if those details prove to be true.

In 7 hours, the weather can change dramatically.

In 7 hours, we went from this:

To this:

Started with a beautiful sunrise with clouds glowing in the sky this morning, to just crazy snow coming down right now. And just like most of the snow events in Portland, it caught the city by surprise. No one expected snow fall below 1000 feet.

Crazy day.

Barry Obama, 3rd grade.

Just came across this article today about a portion of Barack Obama's childhood in Hawaii. It's impossible to convey the difficulty of someone that wasn't Asian, living in Hawaii in 1969; 3/4 of all residents were Asian at that time. But just for a moment, this black and white photo captures the essence of a happy moment. It would have been interesting to be in the room when Obama first laid his eyes on this photo.

via Star Bulletin

AT&T has finally found the solution to their network problems...

Stop selling the iPhone in areas where the network is congested!

Here's an excerpt:

Q: Are iPhones no longer available in New York City?
A: Yes, this is correct; the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone.

Genius! LOL!

Consumerist via BoingBoing

How do you define hypocrisy?

Six years ago, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

That's how the Republicans in the Senate are framing their vote for the expansion of Medicare in 2003, and why they oppose the current health care plan. You see, according to Republican senators, it's okay to flip flop if you're Republican.

But to be sure, there are some serious Conservatives outside of the beltway, that know exactly what's at stake:

"As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt," said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He made his comments in a Forbes article titled "Republican Deficit Hypocrisy."

Bartlett said the 2003 Medicare expansion was "a pure giveaway" that cost more than this year's Senate or House health bills will cost. More important, he said, "the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers. One hundred% of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit."

The pending health care bills in Congress, he noted, are projected to add nothing to the deficit over 10 years.

Oh, the hypocrisy.

(via USA Today)

The arctic ice is melting...

Does this mean Santa will have to seasonally migrate in 25 years, and if so, where? Will he instead choose to permanently migrate to the South Pole on the Antarctic land mass? Will he switch out his reindeer for emperor penguins?

So many questions, so few answers.

Why America's manufacturing ability is dysfunctional...?

I skimmed through this article from the New Republic, which argues that most managerial positions in the US are filled with finance grads and not people skilled or knowledgeable in the production side of manufacturing. Because of the tendency to focus on numbers, the business schools have diminished American companies' abilities to compete globally where innovation and creativity reign over mere asset allocation.

I guess you could say, that Wall Street is in the business to make money, and the people who manage the companies that make products know how to make money for Wall Street, but don't have a clue how products are made. This is illustrated by the endless series of quarterly calls, where money managers discuss how their company is reallocating capital to address shortfalls in one sector, or how the bottom line is affected by the cost of borrowing money.

In my opinion, this explains why we got the Pontiac Aztek. No designer worth their reputation would have placed their name on that beast. You just KNOW the managers sat around and said, "Hey, this part is too expensive, replace it with this cheaper substitute."

via BoingBoing

Before anyone gets any crazy idea that global warming isn't real...

I present you the simplest presentation to explain it:

You see, Congress loves money.

" In 2006, the year before (senior competition counsel, Dana) Wagner was hired, Google spent just $750,000 on political lobbying in Washington. Its current foes on the antitrust front--AT&T and Microsoft--spent a combined $35 million that year in political contributions." - via CNET

It's clear that the discrepancy between lobbying has made a huge difference in how DC views Google, and why we're seeing Washington tackling Google head on, even while Microsoft owns 90% of the world's desktop OS market and as much as 95% of the world's desktop productivity suite market.

As expected, the Democrats begin to split.

As sure as the sun rises from the East, the Democrats are beginning to fracture. The coalition of disparate groups within a big umbrella is finding it impossible to co-exist and agree to the same agenda, allowing individuals to hold up the majority. In time, animosity will grow until the fracture is complete and the Democrats once again lose power. Of course, at that point they will express remorse for what happened, and try to build their coalition once again. Like this never happened...how coincidental that the last time the Democrats lost power, they were dealing with...health care.

Rise, fall. Repeat, ad nauseam.

Why Chrome is good, and other stuff.

In addition to being able to install script extensions (to block ads, flash, save passwords, etc) you also get one more layer of protection from visiting some sites that have been compromised by malware (see image below).

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Read about how Google gave their employees around the world free Android phones, dubbed Nexus One. Looks quite pretty, and is about the width of the iPhone. Difference is, it's packing Android 2.1, which is ahead of the Android 2.0.1 on the Verizon Droid, and ahead of the Android 1.6 for most of the rest of us. Hope they make this available through T-Mobile...'cause I'm gonna git me one of them phones.
- via Gizmodo and BGR

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Talk about aweseome. Verizon is offering a buy-one-get-one-free with the Droid phone. You buy a Droid, you get a free Droid Eris. Save yourself $100. - via BGR and Verizon Wireless.

Chevy Volt will surely fail.

All I can say is, that someone really screwed up in marketing. No way would you commission a song that would make everyone laugh about your car?!#!

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Doesn't it remind you of when you were young and watched Sesame Street or the Electric Company?

Yep, it's still cold outside.

Single digits in Portland, are you kidding me? Brrr!

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Early morning weather update.

Holy Cow, it's freaking frigid!!! - Forgive the Einstein on the Beach moment of multiple thoughts at the same time.

Google Chrome browser, now with extensions.

It's about time, that Google's Chrome browser finally got extensions. I don't like Firefox nearly as much, because it's nowhere near as fast as Chrome.

However, a huge annoyance - that up until now was inescapable in Chrome - has been these really intrusive Flash adverts, which have music/jingles that automatically play, particularly from certain companies and on certain websites. With extensions, I can now use the AdThwart extension that prevents Flash objects from automatically starting. Works great!

Another awesome extension is Feedly, which aggregates your rss feeds into a very beautiful layout that makes it fun to review the highlights of your feeds. As much as I love my Google Reader - which by the way is the only way to read your rss feeds on a smart phone - Feedly is a better interface for viewing rss feeds on a laptop or desktop, IMO.

In other news...it's damn cold in Portland, Oregon!

Who's gonna win the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2010?

I'm gonna take a wild guess, and suggest that most people will take Oregon. What do you think?

Looks like ESPN fans generally agree...Ducks will beat the Buckeyes.
Go Ducks...the Trojans already beat the Buckeyes up in the Horseshoe, it's your turn to whip them in Pasadena.

Can you tell which of these are rogue antivirus?

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In fact, all of the examples shown above are images of Fast Flux Rogue Antivirus malware that will pop up in your browser. A whole host of servers and people's computers have been infected with what are called "Fast Flux Rogue Antivirus" malware. I decided to write this blog post, because Accuweather is one of those very popular websites that is currently hosting this malware without their knowledge. These viruses are cleverly disguised to look just like your own antivirus software, which makes them difficult for most people to catch.

If you have something like this pop up, do not hit "close" or "cancel" buttons that are within the screen, as these are javascript buttons that are easily written to do a whole host of actions, not merely closing or cancelling the window that's open. Instead, you have to hit the 'X' on the little button on your browser's chrome (upper right corner) or hit control-alt-delete to access the processes tab, and close down the specific browser window process (or browser completely).

Here's one part of the solution: Use Google Public DNS or OpenDNS. DNS, if you didn't already know, is a domain name server. You type a name (www.yahoo.com) and the DNS fetches the actual IP address (69.147.76.15) and sends you to the correct address. With Google Public DNS or OpenDNS, you are bypassing your ISP's or someone else's DNS that may direct you to a site other than the one you were looking for...preventing some of the phishing attacks you will come across throughout the internet.

Reminds me of Jay Leno's Jaywalk All Stars...

But worse.

Don't hit the play button.

If you're the squeamish type, you don't want to hit the play button. This video was taken from Chinatown in Honolulu, looking in on a particular indoor marketplace where there are several vendors. I know the general market well enough to be able to visualize this scene. Now, I'm sure that when it's hustling and bustling, there is no problem, but when the people inside are gone, the place gets a-hopping...who knew they could jump over 2 feet?!?

Third warning: Don't watch if you've got a weak stomach.

Hilarious movie!

I had to share "Big Man Japan" with everyone. The acting is top notch, and the story is absolutely funny. A mockumentary on a super hero, you can read a synopsis at Rotten Tomatoes. I just finished streaming it from Netflix, so if you have the time, go watch this movie!

The clip below gives you a taste of the action and laughs.

How to rescue the economy, in my opinion.

It's all about jobs, and since the vast majority of jobs are either small business or self-employed, I would - if President of the USA - focus on microeconomic policies rather than macroeconomic ideas. My 6 point plan (again, if I were President of the USA):

1. Restructure the SE Tax. Instead of having self-employed pay forward the following quarter's taxes, have self-employed pay taxes on what they actually earned the last quarter. As a matter of fact, self-employed persons have extremely volatile earnings from one month to another, and one quarter to another. By forcing them to pre-pay their taxes, the IRS creates an environment of punishing those who over-estimate their earnings by over-paying their taxes.


2. Require the coordination between federal, state and local taxing jurisdictions, to bring together all of the separate taxes, into a simple, single structure, to which the self-employed and businesses are able to pay out to a single entity (local jurisdiction) which then distributes the share of taxes to the other jurisdictions (city, county, state, federal, etc). In the case of sales taxes, again, one agency to send taxes to, and that agency distributes the revenue. Simplifying the process of paying taxes would greatly improve the response rate, and encourage people to become legitimate businesses.


3. Ban the Business Personal Property Tax, or at least provide a 5 year window where start ups don't have to pay this tax. This is double-taxation of the worst kind, which only eats away at the ability of small businesses and the self-employed to compete as a start up, when you often have high initial investment costs but few - if any - clients.


4. Give the self-employed and the unemployed the right to fully deduct all medical expenses from the first dollar (as opposed to the IRS 2% rule). In addition to this, allow the self-employed and the unemployed to participate in a federally supported healthcare program at a reduced rate, for anyone earning less than 350% of the poverty level (2009 single person $10,830 x 350% = $37,950), to those who do not qualify for Medicaid.


5. Provide a one time 200% deduction rate for start up expenses, for the first year, usable once per company/person, a minimum of five years between your next eligibility for this start up deduction (for another new business). If you cut the cost of starting up a business, you'll increase the number of people willing to work for themselves, but start up costs are huge, and banks are deaf to the plight of the laid off people who wish to start their own businesses.


6. Provide for continued unemployment compensation while people move to self-employment. To provide an incentive for people to become self-employed, federal and state unemployment compensation would provide up to 150% of an individual's maximum weekly unemployment benefit compensation level. If you were eligible for $300/wk of unemployment compensation and you earned a weekly average over one month of $200, you would be eligible to receive an extra $250 a week from the state/feds, to meet that 150% benefit (($300 x 150%) - $200 = $250).

Tax cuts are nice, and spending programs are swell, but in both cases, generally money has to trickle down to the unemployed via several levels of individuals and require the assumption that these people will spend the money they've just earned, in order to spur job growth. If Congress gives direct assistance to the unemployed, small businesses and the self-employed, they will be empowering job growth where it typically starts from, and with immediate results.

Comcast's bid to control NBC/Universal

"My conservative economic religion is founded on the rock of competition, which since Teddy Roosevelt's day has protected small business and consumers against predatory pricing leading to market monopolization." - William Safire, NY Times, Jan. 20, 2003.

Quite apropos, don't you think? Free market advocates like to give the markets the ability to determine winners and losers, but as these media giants continue to consolidate and grow, they jeopardize the spirit of competition, and in fact use their monopolized positions to increase costs to the consumer.

Comcast isn't being generous of spirit and heart by buying out NBC/Universal; to the contrary everyone knows they're doing this to increase their profit potential, not diminish it. However, part of the equation is getting a return on their investment, which has always included increasing fees or finding ways to get consumers to pay for goods that were previously given away for free.

Bill Safire was correct 6 years ago - may he rest in peace - and he's still correct today. Media gigantism is an epidemic of a runaway market that has been effectively deregulated by those free market advocates like Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and others. Through 26 years of deregulation we have had 4 asset bubbles: S&L, Dot-Com, Energy and Mortgage.

It's time to say, "NO" to this laissez faire approach to regulation.