Kodachrome processing is at an end.

Dwayne's Photo has officially ended accepting rolls of Kodachrome positive slide films for processing, marking the end of an era.  Around the world, Dwayne's was the last Kodachrome processor, and the end was expected, as Kodachrome was last sold in 2009.

But I have a roll in my freezer.

And I guess I should throw it out.

I thought about it for a day, and realized that though I could certainly pull my FE2 camera out and take photos in a day and then send it in to Dwayne's, I'm not so sure that a 17 year old roll of Kodachrome was worth it...the chemicals on the film are probably degraded.  But even if it were in perfect condition, rushing just to get film processed didn't make any sense.  I like to compose a theme in my head before I go out and shoot, and well, the thinking part of it all takes the longest.

And honestly, there's a reason why my freezer still has about two dozen rolls with B/W, Ektachrome, Infrared and color film...I love using digital.  I think I just keep the film there in the freezer, believing that one day, I'll get motivated and create entire themes worthy of shooting with film, just so that I can be authentic and publish it as such.

Anyway, au revoir Kodachrome, I still have your slides in my archives.

A moment of personal clarity.

There are four things I have always liked, and I think it may lead to simply opening up a work studio / retail space for the purposes of doing:

• photography
• furniture
• architectural / interior design
• graphics

Can one person do all that?  Well why not?  There is no real competition to design; rather, it is a challenge to find people that enjoy your work and are willing to pay - something - for it. On occasion I have found exactly those people, but without the formal definition of what I do, I hadn't really bothered to charge people for a lot of stuff that I provided.

A facsimile of this idea has been floating in my head for a very long time, now.  But tonight / this morning, I decided that I didn't have to play by anyone's rules to achieve my desires, and it was okay to combine those four distinctively different professions.

Today, I found my path.  Now I need to plan how to get there from here.

Do you ever keep stuff in your Amazon cart, just to track prices?

It wasn't intentional, but I've kept a whole bunch of stuff in the "saved items - to buy later" cart, and I've noticed that some things change prices daily.  For instance, this Nikon D3100 has changed price every day for the past several days, and at least 4 times a week for the past month, regardless if from the same seller.  Currently, Amazon is shipping it for $599.95, but it has fluctuated between that low price and $649 through December.

Even books directly shipped from Amazon change prices frequently, though not daily...maybe once a week or two, or less.

I used to use Gazaro, but they changed their website, making the job of tracking prices of specific products a lot more cumbersome.  Nowadays, I just pop stuff in my "saved items - to buy later" cart at Amazon, seeing as they've got a wider selection of items beyond electronics, and frequently the lowest prices.

The top 20 bowl games, by combined score, NCAA.

(rank) year-bowl	Winner	pts	Loser	pts	total
(1) 2001 GoDaddy	Marshall	64	E Carolina	61	125
(2) 1990 Mirage	Houston	62	Arizona St	45	107
(3) 2003 Hawaii	Hawaii	54	Houston	48	102
(4) 2003 Insight	California	52	Virginia Tech	49	101
(5) 2004 Hawaii	Hawaii	59	UAB	40	99
(5) 2007 Ltl Caesar	Purdue	51	C Michigan	48	99
(7) 2010 Hawaii	Tulsa	62	Hawaii	35	97
(7) 2005 Hawaii	Nevada	49	UCF	48	97
(9) 1995 Insight	Texas Tech	55	Air Force	41	96
(10) 1950 Pineapple	Stanford	74	Hawaii	20	94
(10) 1971 Boardwalk	Delaware	72	C.W. Post	22	94
(10) 1998 Aloha	Colorado	51	Oregon	43	94
(13) 1968 Capital One	Richmond	49	Ohio	42	91
(13) 1980 Holiday	BYU	46	SMU	45	91
(15) 1999 Insight	Colorado	62	Boston Col	28	90
(15) 2001 Holiday	Texas	47	Washington	43	90
(17) 1969 Capital One	Toledo	56	Davidson	33	89
(17) 1989 Holiday	Penn St	50	BYU	39	89
(19) 2005 Sun	UCLA	50	Northwestern	38	88
(20) 2004 GoDaddy	Bowling Green	52	Memphis	35	87
(20) 2000 Music City	West Virginia	49	Mississippi	38	87
(20) 1988 Mirage	Ok St	45	Texas Tech	42	87

So, where do you suppose Oregon - Auburn BCS NC game will end up? I'm definitely thinking top 20, but could it topple the top spot?

A reminder: religion is not some sort of badge of honor.

Just because you're Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. does not give you special moral authority; you're just as human as the next chump, and you have to WORK AT BEING MORAL AND GOOD, EVERY DAY.

For example, these two ethnic congregations at this Brooklyn, NY Methodist Church cannot get along, especially their pastors.

As noted by Moshin Hamid in the NYT earlier this month, distrust is high, and civility is rather fragile, barely held together by a covenant between individuals.

But instead of focusing on the spiritual needs of the self, people are wont to concern themselves of the moral failings of others.  Even the threat of being exposed of their hypocrisy is not enough to prevent people from acting or speaking out with their hate.

So I suggest, everyone watch an episode or two, of CBC's "Little Mosque on the Prairie."

Housing still going down - per S&P Case-Shiller Index.

Thought I'd overlay housing and unemployment rate, to see how the inverse relationship worked (if at all).  I noticed though, that Arizona's housing index is less than half of what its peak was, before the bursting of the bubble.  Click on the image to get the readable, full size image.

Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter images.

These are awesome.  CNET has a spread of the LOLA satellite and its photos that have false color added to the images, showing height of ground levels.  Pretty neat.

Mele Kalikimaka!

Merry Christmas!

Watched the Midnight Christmas Mass at the Vatican in St. Peter's Basilica, and wondered if only the opportunity to visit once, would I rather make it to Easter Vigil or Midnight Christmas?  Difficult to decide one way or the other, as it reminds me of the conversation I once had with a friend: which is more important, Easter or Christmas?  While similar to the paradox of whether the chicken or the egg came first, in this case the Resurrection could not occur if the Virgin Mary had not borne Jesus.  Though as my friend pointed out, though Jesus may have been borne, were it not for his Resurrection, he would not ascend to the Right Hand of the Father...

So the question goes back again, if only to visit once, which of the two - Easter or Christmas - does one opportune to partake in?

In the meantime, enjoy your Christmas!

[Below picture has in no way any semblance of pertinence to Christmas, but I'm slowly adding photos from my collection, online.  This one is from the Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, BC.  Photoshop'd with filter, FYI.]

TSA's on the lookout for thermos and coffee cups.

Is it out of specific terror information, that the TSA is now looking specifically at thermos and coffee cups?

I tell you what I think: Al Qaeda is leaking information selectively to see who within their group is leaking information and/or where the weak points in their communication network are.  It's either that, or the TSA just doesn't get that they're caught in a cat and mouse game, and they're always one step behind, in a reactionary stance.

It feels like they need to have an adult conversation.  And speaking of an adult conversation (no, not this adult conversation), isn't that talking down to adults, if you're suggesting that it's about time to have that adult conversation?

Children Now has a great 10 tips list of how to have that difficult conversation with kids:

1. Start early.
2. Initiate conversations with your child.
3. ...Even about sex and sexuality.
4. Create an open environment.
5. Communicate your own values.
6. Listen to your child.
7. Try to be honest.
8. Be patient.
9. Use everyday opportunities to talk.
10. Talk about it again. And, again.

So I guess the problem with adults, is that they can't even communicate with children, let alone other adults, huh?

No need to worry about Iran: they're killing themselves.

Apparently because of the UN sanctions stemming from Iran's lack of cooperation with IAEA on nuclear inspections, Iran restarted its own gasoline refineries, and are now choking themselves to death via smog...literally.  3600 deaths in the first nine months of 2010, from the smog, according to the Tehran Journal section of the NYT.  Though one wonders if that's a big deal or not, because from March 2005 - March 2006, nearly 10,000 people died from the bad air in Iran with 3600 in one month alone, according to the BBC in January 2007.

It's so bad, the government has been on a smog holiday recently...take the day off (or die?)

Image via NYT (Vahid Salemi/Associated Press)

Google Docs Presentation makes others look bad.

Ngram -- 2004, Eugene Rausch and other investors sue Netflix.

Doing a search of the term, "netflix", Google's Ngram shows a continuous rise in written accounts of that term.  What's even more interesting, is that upon clicking on one of the articles dated from August 7, 2004 pulls up an article in Billboard Magazine, where investor Eugene Rausch filed a lawsuit that Netflix had misled investors on their subscriber base.

Note, he wasn't the first, and there was a series of individual investors who filed suit within months of each other, ending up in a consolidated class action lawsuit.  Just over a year later, a judgment was entered, dismissing the case against Netflix and its officers.

On August 9, 2004 (Monday after the report in Billboard), Netflix closed at 16.42.  Today, it's at 180.02.

So, what do you think is going on in the mind of those investors?  Do you think they were so incensed, that they bailed out of Netflix, and missed out on the meteoric rise?

Yes, Lisa Murkowski is moderate after all.

Voting for the Dream Act (which provides a pathway for children of illegal immigrants to gain their citizenship), Lisa Murkowski has made it a trifecta of votes against her Republican leadership on some core issues.  She's probably just gained a whole lot of power of influence and a major power broker in the senate for 2011, showing willingness to cross party lines.

The moderation of Lisa Murkowski is official.

Looks like she's really gone moderate for good.  Last month she joined Democrats in the Senate to vote for an overhaul of food regulations.  Now, she's announced that she'll vote with Democrats in support of the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell law.

If Republicans misbehave in the House, I suspect that the senate's moderate Republicans will be playing a key role in pushing a centrist agenda directly against the Tea Party's favorite goals.  Looks like 2011 might be filled with a lot of political theater.

Google Books Ngram Viewer

Google intro'd a very cool tool in their Google Labs: Google Books Ngram Viewer.  It allows you to search for terms within the 15+ million books and serials which Google has digitized.  Suddenly, term papers seem less onerous, don't you think?

Maybe I'll write a book, just so that I can conduct all my research from my netbook sitting in a coffee shop.

Maybe not.

via LA Times

So much for being "Fair and Balanced"

Media Matters received a leaked email from Fox's Washington bureau managing editor Bill Sammon to employees, insisting that journalists "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question." 1

Now, I can see if there was some validity to the counter-claim of a lack of proof, or that the scientific evidence was flawed, but what is really going on, is that climate skeptics are simply ignoring what scientists have to say, in lieu of believing that everything in this world is politically deterministic.

It follows the same tactic that Bill Sammon followed in an email over health care reform. In it, Sammons directed journalists to specifically use the term "government-run health insurance" or "government option", and to replace any references to the "public option" with, "the so-called public option." 2

"It's a pity those awful people were right about the environment." at The Cartoon Bank

1. Source: Media Matters
2. Source: Media Matters

Some random old photo I took, over a decade ago.

You know, back before digital cameras...I would use ektachrome and kodachrome slide film with the trusty ol Nikon FE2.

A sick America?

Reuters has a report titled, "Is America the sick man of the globe?"  In it, journalist Nick Carey's investigation suggests that there is a structural problem with America's unemployment, which is to say that there is a jobs mismatch, resulting largely from a lack of funding for retraining workers whose jobs are eliminated by overseas competition, primarily in manufacturing.

Probably a bit overstated, I think.  I would suspect that when the economy is this bad, all sorts of indicators might be pointing in the same direction, allowing one to pick and choose indicators to tell their version of the story.

Google Body Browser.

Google updated its Chrome browser beta channel to 9.0.597.19, and in doing so, enabled WebGL and providing us with a new, very cool tool: the Google Body Browser. You can - ahem - strip layers off the body, zoom in, rotate horizontally, and click to isolate specific parts. All in all, pretty cool.  Lots of room for improvement, but this is just more proof that Google's got some awesome products that forces others to catch up with.

Gawker compromised -- users registered with email address have their passwords in the open.

Gawker (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin, Fleshbot) was compromised, exposing the entire database of people who used an email address to register with any of Gawker's sites. Those who accessed it via Facebook apparently aren't exposed, as their passwords aren't saved on Gawker's servers.

You can read about it directly here, and more obtusely being reported here, here and here.

Those who were exposed need to immediately log in and change their passwords, then go through the list of other sites that they've used the same email address and password, and change the passwords on those sites, ASAP. The reason why people need to do this immediately, is because the compromised data is on Pirate Bay as a torrent, and last I checked, with over 450 seeds, and probably thousands of people downloading it.

What is shocking, is that over 680 people used "qwerty" or a combination of that with other letters and numbers in their passwords, and another 1950+ people used "password" as their password, which just boggles the mind that people would do that. I'm guessing site administrators need to add a few lines of code to reject anyone that attempts to register with a password of "password" or "qwerty", or the also ubiquitous "1234567890".

Some extra tidbits: not everyone's passwords have been decrypted (though there is no security in that, since obviously, it wouldn't take very long to decrypt them), but everyone's user name is exposed. Also, not everyone has their email address showing up in the database released, including mine...nonetheless, I changed my password. Which goes into my next point: always use separate email addresses to separate functions (I have five email addresses).

Also note, for some STUPID reason, some people used their work email address in the military and governemnt, and were separately culled and parsed, perhaps as a backdoor method for cyber attacks on the US military and local governments. From Tennessee to Kentucky state governments, NASA, Albuquerque NM city government, even the Bay Area Rapid Transit, and for goodness sakes, the Israeli government and the Department of Homeland Security?!? WTF? Australian government, Arlington Texas city government, Virginia state government, the Centers for Disease Control, National Institute of Health, Health and Human Services, the US Department of Education, Utah, California...the list is just astounding.

Let me be clear: DON'T EVER USE YOUR WORK EMAIL ADDRESS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE WORKING FOR A GOVERNMENT, AND SPECIFICALLY IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS! HOW CAN YOU BE SO STUPID?

Sigh...no wonder some stupid Private was able to get his hands on a treasure trove of sensitive data. We're all doomed...doomed I tell you!

I gave in.

I gave in -- I applied for the pilot program for Google's Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop. If I'm lucky, I figure eh...it would be like a Christmas toy to play with, and I'd have lots of fun with it, seeing how much I could migrate myself to the internet. I already primarily use Gmail, especially with its perfect coordination with my G1 Android phone.

Only thing is, I need a SketchUp app for Chrome. And Sumo Paint, too. Extra online storage would be nice, too...like 50GB. Hey, if any Google employee is reading this, pass the word up the stream?

Low heart beat rates and sore knees.

After coming out of a nap or in a very relaxed state, my heart rate is 48 bpm, but most of the time my heart rate is closer to 60~67 bpm.  I understand people who exercise to the extreme - professional bicyclists - can get their rates down to sub-30.  But then again, their hearts are much larger as a result of all that training, and nothing good ever comes from going to extremes -- I just walk.

Once upon a time, I used to run, but after 30 minutes of running my knees would get extremely sore and I'd usually have to stop; I never got past 5 miles.  I figure sore knees was not the good kind of pain (unlike muscles being exercised) so I switched to walking, and then comes an enjoyment that you never get when running: peace and the time to observe and capture photos of events or things you pass by along the process of walking...like this picture of lonely berries.

A stronger heart = efficiency in moving blood and fewer heart beats.  I once knew someone who said that a person only has so many heartbeats in  their life, and once you use them up, you die.  There is no way to prove or disprove that, but it was really her way of excusing herself from doing exercises.

Chrome OS Cr-48 laptops already out. NotionInk's Adam tablet is coming.

Note, I didn't apply to be a pilot tester, because well, I've got a bunch of native apps that I absolutely MUST use, and therefore this would only serve as a replacement for my netbook, of which I already tried running Hexxeh's Vanilla build of ChromeOS. If by some odd chance someone at Google decided to read this blog and send me a laptop anyway, I would not refuse, however!

Anyway, Engadget's got their Cr-48 laptop and have started going through it. You can read all about it here.

In similar news, NotionInk is taking pre-orders from invited persons, for their Android-based 10" tablet.  The base configuration has WiFi and a regular LCD screen for $375.33.  Add in the PixelQi daylight viewing transflective screen, and the price goes up to $499.45, but is probably something that will make iPad owners jealous.  In other words...worth getting, just so that you can read e-books in the daylight, and ask the person next to you with an iPad why they're not using their tablet in the direct sunlight.

Below, what a laptop looks like with PixelQi screen.  Big enough difference for the higher price to be worth it, I think.

Republicans choose millionaires over sick 9-11 workers.

Republicans voted against cloture in the Senate, preventing the Senate from taking up a vote on the bill that would have provided an additional $7.4B of economic compensation and continued health monitoring for 9/11 workers and NY residents who were sickened from the debris fallout.

And so yet again we see that Republicans have no trouble voting for $55B in tax cuts for the wealthy, but couldn't care less for $7.4B to help sick 9/11 workers and NY residents.

Self-Defense for a Stronger Nation, aka Dojo of Democracy.

Mark Fiore's got a great flash animation called, "Self-Defense for a Stronger Nation" on his website.
You can watch it here, too...via SFGate, that is. Yes, I said flash. Sorry if you're trying to see this on your iPad or whatever.

Tax cuts for the rich, or a $250 check for senior citizens...which costs more?

This year is the second year that Social Security will have no cost of living allowance (COLA), so House Democrats put forth a proposal to give senior citizens a one-time $250 check - a senior stimulus bill, aka pay your electricity bills.  But Republicans said the $14B price tag was too expensive and prevented it from being fast-tracked, which in all likelihood means that it is dead come next year.

Republicans - unaware of what hypocrisy means - have been pushing all year to either extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, or make them permanent, to the tune of $55B a year.

So while Democrats would like to take from the rich to give to the poor, Republicans would like to take from the poor and give it to the rich, then blame Democrats for the growing federal debt.

Google's Chrome Web Store and Chrome OS news.

Lots of new stuff coming out of Google today, following yesterday's big announcements.

Today, the Chrome Web Store was introduced.  Though you can view the store from other browsers, you won't be able to install any of the apps, and well, let's just say that the apps do not disappoint.

The Chrome web apps are the intermediary GUI that makes a netbook or tablet quite useful...almost iPad-like, actually.  Try the NY Times web app -- it's really good with all sorts of options for layout.

When you add apps to your Chrome browser, they show up on your Chrome new tab window, making for easy access.

Also intro'd today, was the first ChromeOS notebook, the Cr48. It's not available for sale, but it will be beta-tested in a pilot program from a pool of people who want to apply for it online, here.

And if that's not enough, Google announced that every ChromeOS netbook will have 100MB free data from Verizon, for the first 24 months of usage. But of course, 100MB is not a lot of data -- just streaming music for one hour at 128kbps = 56MB. They have paid plans, obviously (see below), so if you're prolific and use it for business, it could most definitely work.  With WiFi, one could simply live off the free 100MB of 3G by switching, even if it was a pain.

Plan	Price
100MB of data per month1	Free
Limitless day pass2	$9.99 per day
Additional 1GB of data3	$20 per month
Additional 3GB of data3	$35 per month
Additional 5GB of data3	$50 per month

1. Free data available for two years from the time you first activate your 3G service
2. A day pass offers unlimited data access for 24 hours from the time of data purchase
3. Any purchase of additional data expires after 30 days from the date of data purchase

Quite a busy two-day stretch for Google.

An interesting piece on Cam Newton and Auburn.

Just about everyone that cares about college football knows about Cam Newton and Auburn and the hogwash that the NCAA pulled the other week.  It's just about impossible to know what in the world the NCAA's Committee on Infractions was thinking, but on the surface, it sure does appear that they've been incredibly two-faced about how they're treating Auburn as opposed to USC.

Today, an AP story on ESPN reports that Julie Roe Lach, the NCAA's new vice-president on enforcement, believes that the NCAA is protecting student athletes by taking their welfare into consideration of punishment.  That is to say, they still maintain that they believe Cam never knew that his father was pimping him around.  Of course, others say that he was selling his son around, but let's be honest, he was pimping to any john willing to pay for his son's services, and most everyone believes he found one: Auburn.  Except of course, there is no evidence that the NCAA has found, to implicate Auburn.

Well, it turns out a comment in the message boards points to a very interesting link, and one that pulls together very compelling stories from over the past decade, about the state of Auburn's pay-to-play scheme.  It's a condemning judgement on Auburn athletics and its boosters, which is to say, Auburn could be in some serious trouble, a la SMU death penalty.  This is in fact more serious than SMU's case dating back to the 80s, as the boosters involved here, are at the heart of Auburn's administrative control as trustees, and are implicated in various criminal investigations outside of the university.

Go read it.  Then after you're done reading it, ask yourself, what's the NCAA doing, going after USC?

Big day for Google -- Nexus S phone and eBooks intro'd.

It's getting to be a lot like Apple's announcements, when Google schedules press conferences or a confab, you know something exciting is about to be shown.

First off, the announcement of the first phone to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the Nexus S with a 4" curved AMOLED display face.  It comes with Near Field Communication (NFC) that allows your phone to receive information from objects designed to communicate when you wave your phone near it.

What is glaringly absent from the phone however, is that it is designed for HSDPA and HSUPA but not for HSPA+, meaning that the phone is stuck at a maximum 7.2Mbps wireless data download speed, while other T-Mobile Android phones like the G2 and Mytouch 4G are both capable of running at 14.4Mbps.  Also missing: external microSD card slot; comes with only 16GB of internal memory.

On 2 year contract via T-Mobile, it's $199 / off contract it's $529.  Is it worth $199 if it is stuck at 7.2Mbps and no external card slot?  Tough to say.



Then there's the announcement of Google's long awaited eBookstore.  You're now able to get to all of those old books whose copyrights have long expired, for free and easily on all sorts of devices, as well as shop for contemporaneous titles from a number of parters like Powells.

I think I'm more excited by this announcement than the Nexus S phone, in truth.  How awesome is it, to be a kid and told to read Huck Finn?  Now you can grab your netbook, desktop, e-reader or smart phone and just start reading the classic story for free!  Jane Austen, Tom Sawyer...free.



Only thing missing from today's announcements: ChromeOS devices.  Maybe tomorrow?

Republicans ready to stay true to their hypocrisy.

Why, it was but a week ago that Republicans were insisting that any unemployment extensions should be offset by cuts elsewhere:

"Make no mistake, I agree that they need help, but I look at it as: Are we going to do it from the bank account, or are we going to put it on the credit card?" -- Senator Scott Brown (R-MA)

"If it's paid for by cutting other items in the budget, I will be a yes vote. If it's added to further debts of the United States, no." -- Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL)

So, word is, the Obama Administration and Republican leaders may have a compromise ready, where Bush tax cuts are extended for all groups, and unemployment benefits are extended. And in one fell swoop, Republicans have yet again ignored the principles of Paygo. That shouldn't surprise anyone, because it was under a Republican-controlled Senate, House and White House that allowed Paygo to expire, then rejigger the rules to allow for increased deficit spending.

I'm not for Paygo, because I believe government needs the flexibility to grow deficits when necessary, and subsequently create surpluses when economic growth is strong.  But I find it amazing at how quick Republicans are to revert to their hypocrisy.

USC pwn UCLA...streak is safe.

Must really suck to be a Bruin, finishing the season with four wins, twice under Rick Neuheisel, and losing yet again to the Trojans.

Redshirt senior Allen Bradford (#21) rushed for 212 yards and caught a pass for another 47 yards with two touchdowns, to finish his career at USC. This AP photo via ESPN says everything about the game and Bradford, who carried the team on his back...as well as UCLA defenders, when they actually caught up with him.

via ESPN / AP photo

Death panels are back! Quick, grab the children!

But wait, it's not Obama's health care reform where these death panels have sprung up -- it's Arizona.  Yes, Republican Arizona, folks.  Facing a budget shortfall, Arizona decided to cut money from their state-federal Medicaid program, preventing poor people from receiving organ transplants.

Actually, it's quite bad PR for Arizona -- they relied on cherry-picked data that falsely showed poor prognosis for transplant recipients, and therefore Arizona's legislature determined that organ transplants were not cost-effective.

But worse, in at least a handful of cases, people who had previously been qualified by the state-run Medicaid program and had been waiting for a transplant, were suddenly denied their transplant when an organ became available.

And therein is the truth: Republicans have created Death Panels.  Want to live?  Bring your cash!

Feds reveal the depth and breadth of companies that needed TARP.

Via a NYT article, Feds revealed today the activities of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), which helped many companies besides banks. This wasn't a bailout of companies, but providing short-term loans for the purpose of such things as payroll -- you know, the stuff that revolving credit is used for. It mirrors what many people already knew, namely that credit had tightened so much that companies simply didn't have access to operating capital in order to do business.

The recent rhetoric from the Right, has been to say that TARP was a waste of money; only gullible people fall for this. Turns out, a heck of a lot of companies needed help with short term loans:

• Verizon
  
• Wisconsin Corporate Credit Union
  
• Toyota
• National Rural Utilities Cooperative
  
• Members United Corporate Credit Union
• McDonald's
• Metlife
• Harley-Davidson
• Georgia Transmission Corp
• General Electric Co
• Ford Credit
• Caterpillar
• BMW

Imagine the broad panic and ensuing, immediate shutdown of companies one by one, if the Feds had not extended short term loans directly to companies?  I shudder to think, what happens if Republicans attempt to take the US back to 2008, as they have threatened to do so on regulation, spending and health care laws.

Android robot for Winter.

Dyzplastic's Android Snowman looks to be a hot commodity for holiday gifts.  Though, I think instead of black, red would have been better for a holiday scarf and top hat?

Google Earth reveals Star of David...in the heart of Iran.

Via Gizmodo (originally from the Jerusalem Post) Tehran's main airport has a building that was built by Israeli engineers prior to the Iranian Revolution.  On the roof, the Star of David has been sitting these past 3 decades, revealed for the entire world to laugh about, via Google Maps / Earth.

Now THAT is funny!

Did Lisa Murkowski just show her moderate side?

Senate vote 257 -To Overhaul of Food Safety Regulations - passed 75-25, and Lisa Murkowski joined 14 other Republicans in voting for passage, against Republican leadership (Kyl, McCain, McConnell).

Has she been turned moderate, now willing to go against her Republican leaders, whence in the past she did not?  Hmm.

Black Friday?

If as its namesake suggests, that it is not until Black Friday that retailers go into the black for the year, just how good are those deals, that they allow retailers to stop bleeding red ink on the day after Thanksgiving?

Menstruating women at risk of being touched by TSA?

BoingBoing has picked up on this story of an Army vet who was menstruating and wearing a particular style of panty liner.  The porno scanner was not able to see through it, and as a result, she had to receive a physical check of her genital areas.

That's just flat out disgusting.  TSA's gonna check your vagina by pressing against your panty liner, to see if you're concealing PETN?  Has it come to feeling the vaginas of menstruating women???

Fail.

The prescience of a 1972 New Yorker cartoon on airplane safety.

Don't laugh too much -- we may yet reach this point at the rate we're going.

via New Yorker

Microsoft on The Good Guys, and other places.

Okay, I get that Microsoft wants to place their stuff on TV for brand and product awareness, but seriously, can't they get subtle at it?  The past 3 Hawaii Five-O shows have been featuring close up views of WP7 phones.  And now, a Microsoft logo on The Good Guys?!?  It's not even a real product -- it's a prop monitor!?!

If the TSA's new backscatter x-ray scanners aren't pornographic...

Then no one will complain - not the least John Pistole, chief of the TSA - about Pistole's body scanned, blown up and posted on billboards around the nation. Or his wife?

Honesty is the best policy.

Who isn't smiling at the honesty Hillary Clinton displayed, when she was asked on Face the Nation if she would submit to the new, enhanced patdowns at US airports: "Not if I could avoid it. No, I mean, who would?"

If you want to put Obama on the spot, ask him if he'd be willing to submit his girls to the new, enhanced pat downs every month while the policy remains in effect. In fact, I think every single person in Congress and the TSA should be willing to volunteer their children for enhanced pat downs once a month, just to show that they support the new policy, don't you think?

Let's see if members of Congress and at the TSA can abide by their own policies, or if they think they're different from the rest of us, eh?

eMusic loses three independent labels; fails to distinguish itself.

Over a year ago, eMusic raised its prices (or as eMusic spun it: they kept prices flat but lowered the number of downloads of subscriptions) while bringing in Sony Music, angering a lot of its customers including myself.

I left.

Last month, eMusic restructured pricing, completely removing subscriptions and going with a per-download price scheme (effectively increasing prices once again for existing customers).  At the same time, eMusic announced that they were bringing Universal Music Group on board.

According to the NYT yesterday, eMusic just lost three independent labels from their roster.  Worse, their subscriber base has been flat, holding at around 400K for nearly three years.  One might say that their move to major labels has been utterly uninspiring.

The transformation is complete: eMusic is now just another MP3 service with nothing to distinguish itself from the other sites.  Dimensional Associates may never get a positive return on their purchase of eMusic, methinks.

Oh those Taiwanese. Video news of the TSA sexual predation.

Via BoingBoing, word is out that Taiwan's Next Media Animation - a group that adds computer animation to headline news from around the world - has decided to cover the TSA's preoccupation with touching and seeing naked pictures.

Warren Buffet's thoughts on "bailouts" and the involvement of "big government"

It's nice to see the third-richest (at the moment) person in the world, opine in the NYT on the real events of 2008, and the sheer lack of recognition of how well the government responded to prevent a disaster.

Preying mantis eating.

Grabbed this quickie photo near dusk (meaning that the photo is blurry because you just can't get a good photo from a phone camera w/o LED flash) of a preying mantis enjoying its food -- a dragonfly, I believe.

Dunno why, but I see the littlest details when I'm walking.

Surfing the big waves.

LA Times has a whole feature story with videos on surfing big waves, and traveling the world, following big waves.  Partial towards Waimea Bay and the regularity of good waves out there, from a bystander's view, that is.

If you're in awe of big waves, definitely worth watching people trying to overcome their fears.

Speaking of big waves, as they say, "Eddie would go".

Mount Merapi's photos.

Boston Globe's website has a series of 39 photos on Mount Merapi's current eruption; some are disturbing, others are spectacular shows of nature.

Last night, I dreamed about...space planning.

It turns out, my strongest, most memorable dreams come at the last stages before I get up out of bed.  Naturally, I tend to linger in bed when the dream is interesting.  Today's dream had quite the twist.

I have a reoccurring nightmare that I'm in college and I'm down several credits from graduating on schedule.  This time, I was in college, moving into my apartment dorm.  The first thing I did when I entered my apartment, was space plan the layout of the furniture.  It gets weirder: my roommate was a female I went to high high school with, in real life.  (I usually don't have dreams of contemporaneous people in my life, but of people from a very long time ago.)

Now this was no ordinary apartment dorm, because it had leftover furniture from a prior occupant (which never happens), was on the ground floor, laid out like cabins, and had dual sinks inside.  The leftover furniture was very memorable, and weird.  They were 2' wide by 7' tall CD cases (like bookcases but for CDs because they're shallow), were made with 1/4" thick balsa wood boards and held together with brass hinges that had fallen apart and nicked my finger.  Of course there were bookcases as well, but they were wrapped in those vinyl cabinet shelving wraps.

I clearly remember trying rearranging the furniture a few times, trying to make it so that I'd have some sort way to block the view of my bed from the doors.  Again, this was a weird apartment, because it had a front and back door, and was one very large room with two full size beds (not the usual twin beds you find in dorm rooms or apartments catering specifically to college students).  Each time I arranged the space, it seemed like I was turning it into a linear layout with everything aligned to parallel walls, leaving the room wide open in the middle.

I also remember that my roommate had many female friends popping their heads in to say hi, and I thought this was going to be an awesome year.  What a weird but memorable dream that was!

Chrome OS experience - Part I

Got my USB 4GB flash thumb drive yesterday (Monday) and finally got to writing a Chrome OS image to the drive. I’ve got a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 that I purchased this year (refurb for $215) - about March or so - in order to play with it. One of my goals was to test out Chrome OS while it was in development, and well, turns out that my Dell Inspiron Mini 10 was one of the earliest test mules for Chrome OS, so I knew it would work.

Normally you would have to grab the files from the Chromium project and build an image that you would then write to a removable drive. Instead of the hassle of building your own image, thankfully, you can find a build from Hexxeh, a developer that has done the heavy lifting for everyone. In fact, there are explicit instructions on his website detailing the steps to follow. Again, very easy to do for most anyone.

First thing to note, is that you will need to be able to connect to the internet directly, without network passwords or intermediate browser screens, the first time you log in. In order to access a Chrome OS device, you will need to log into the device using your gmail account and password. There is no intermediate step to set up a network, mind you, so without an open access to the internet, you simply won’t be able to log into your google account, and you’ll be kicked out before even stepping into the system. Once you’re in, you can set up your wireless network access, and presumably it should work from that point on. This probably means that trying to access a Chrome OS device at a Starbucks where you have free internet access, is a no-go for now.  On the other hand, it might work if you have a mobile USB-based modem (3G/4G) attached to your netbook; since I don't have one, I can't test it.

Second thing to note, is that a lot of USB-attached things (other than external storage devices) probably won’t work very well, if at all. My wireless RF mouse was stop and start the entire time. The USB Bluetooth dongle was useless.  Again, I don't know if a 3G/4G USB modem would work or not, as I don't use one.

Third and very important for netbook users, is that the trackpad functions are not working right. However, this may be a case of the software that I’m running on it - an Asus-based script to allow the changing of angle on the trackpad, so that one can read sideways and use the scroll sideways, as an e-reader.

Of course, because it’s not loading anywhere nearly as much stuff as a typical OS, the boot-up and shut down times are very quick. To turn off, you merely press the on/off button - no need to “hibernate” or “sleep” like you would typically want to do with a Windows machine.

- next blog entry will continue my experience with Chrome OS -

To those Democrats in Congress that lost their job...

You have this one chance before you say your final goodbyes in Congress.

Pass permanent funding for health care reform; get that middle and lower tax brackets cut while allowing the top tax bracket to expire; bring HR 6160 to a vote in the Senate; get a vote on the record for immigration reform; pass modest clean energy legislation or go for broke and get a comprehensive clean energy bill to a vote; get a new campaign finance reform bill on the record; but most of all, get a full 8 month extension on unemployment benefits as well as a 8 week 5th tier.

Give Conservatives the finger, the bird, the one-finger salute...make Conservatives so mad that they lose all ability to think straight, and get them to do and say stupid things.

It's not like you're going to win back that seat anyway...you might as well go back to your previous career, but before you do, here's an opportunity to get into their heads and drive em foaming at the mouth.  When they get to that point where they're angry and going to the airwaves, you should show a giant smile and mock them for being myopic; it'll just get them more angry to the point that they'll turn red faced and lose their temper.

It might appear as juvenile to purposely anger Conservatives, but really, what you're doing is ensuring that Americans will be helped in difficult times, for the next year, and nothing makes Conservatives more angry than having to own up to unpopular votes.

Don't you deserve to get some revenge while in the process of helping to improve the future of America?

How smart phone users are perceived - a comic.

Via C-Section Comics, CNET

Welcome to the 21st century.

Last night I was watching The Good Guys on my 42" plasma TV while streaming my high school's championship football game being played 3500 miles away, thanks to OC16 in Hawaii.  :D

How freaking awesome is that?

And they won!

Sulu sez Clint McCance - idiot - is a...

Just watch the video.



I couldn't agree more.  If an adult tells kids they should go kill themselves because they're gay, that person is one sick piece of turd.

What's wrong with a wadiowactive wabbit?

Wuh woh...wadiowactive wabbit was caught awound the Hanford Nucwear Weservation!  No weally, that's a wascally wabbit.

If you knew how and when - more or less - you were going to die, what would you do?

I look into the future, and I see something that goes like this:  I die before I hit retirement age, probably in my early 50s.  I don't know why this would happen, but I just feel like I know the plot to my story, if not the full narrative.  As I think back, I've only ever had two plot lines to my story, and the one I didn't follow was the one where I was already retired by 40 and doing art.  Really.

But the question remains: What would I make of that time, if that period of time is as such, dead by my early 50s?

Curious, but I think I'm already living that life.  I'm not concerned about my future and how it plays out.  I appreciate every day, and the air that I breath, the scents I can smell, the sounds that I hear, the beauty that I see and the flavors that I taste.

I do not concern myself with things that I do not wish to endure if it were to waste my time, which can be a bad thing for those who see it as a lack of ambition...something I was accused of, decades ago.

Sure, I save my money and make provisions for a future -- most likely working till I die -- just in case my fate is completely different from that of what I believe I see.  Prudent, no doubt!

Still, I cannot arrest this feeling I've harbored the past 5 years or so, that I know where this plot is headed.  Boy will I feel silly when I'm in my 60s and still alive and kicking!

Sparky Anderson, Baseball Hall of Fame Coach and USC bat boy, died today.

In memory of a great coach, two stories about him, from a USC perspective.  One comes from USC's official athletic blog, with a nice picture of Sparky Anderson as a bat boy.  Another comes from Dan Weber over at USCfootball.com, talking about his encounters with Sparky dating back to the 70s and how Sparky was at a USC football practice one day, back in the Pete Carroll era.

Sometimes I forget just how much history there is at USC, and the traditions and people who extend out from it.

Where Democrats remained strong, and why there's a lot of room for optimism.

West Coast.

For all the money Republicans and their conservative cohorts spent, they had a net gain of two Representatives, between Nevada, Washington, California, Oregon and Hawaii.  They did not gain an inch in Oregon, and outside groups poured millions of dollars into Oregon's governor's race, in a losing effort.

In Hawaii, conservative outside groups and the Republican Party tried to spend millions to hold onto Charles Djou's seat after he won it in a 3-way race with two Democrats; Djou lost -- by 6.5 percentage points.

In fact, Hawaii Democrats took back the Governor's spot from Linda Lingle, when popular Neil Abercrombie won by a landslide 17 percentage points.  Nearly the same thing happened in California, where Democrat Jerry Brown defeated Meg Whitman by 12 percentage points to turn the Governor's seat blue.

Sarah Palin?  She's .500 on her endorsements.  Of the 64 she originally endorsed, only 32 survived and won.  I call that about as good as flipping a coin.  The Tea Party is a bunch of hooey that the media cooked up to promote as a foil to Democrats, because Republicans, for goodness sakes, aren't really for anything but populist anger.

The gooey middle that couldn't make up its mind whether Republicans or Democrats could solve the economic crisis, has decided that they're keen on the Republican pledge to bring the nation back to 2008.  Can't wait to see what John Boehner comes up with, for his first budget.  Remember folks, Republicans promised to cut the budget 22% back to 2008 levels.

Cheer up Democrats!

The west coast was a net zero sum game for the Tea Party; they gained no more than they lost!  And hey, Democrats still hold the Senate majority, and now John Boehner has to actually come up with a budget...his so-called 22% cut budget back to 2008.

So my fellow Dems, I tell you now, always look on the bright side of life!

A political 'what if'.

What if...

Democrats don't lose control of either the House or the Senate?  Oops, polls and media?

How to view each political party.

Excerpt from conservative David Brooks' piece from yesterday's NYT:

" (Memo to young journalists: Democratic victories are always ascribed to hope; Republican ones to rage.)"

Not that he's got his facts right in the article about what to expect from Republicans, but still, his sarcasm is really not distinguishable from reality.  Republicans only get out to vote when they're angry.

Banana Splits: The Tra La La Song.

Was rewatching that Kick Ass sequence where Hit Girl enters Rasul's apartment and gives the bad guys hell.  Found the recording that was used for that sequence, by the Dickies.

Mitch McConnell...more interested in unseating Obama than helping the economy?

Mitch McConnell said in an interview with the National Journal, that the GOP should say, "Those of you who helped make this a good day, you need to go out and help us finish the job." When asked what 'job' he was referring to, he replied, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

So, score cards out, people: Mitch McConnell just candidly told America that their number one job was not to help restore jobs and the economy, but to make President Obama a one-term president.

Political power is more important than the economy.

Will e-readers dominate the tablets?

B&N is about to introduce the Nook Color e-reader priced at $250, Velocity Micro already has a 7" color e-reader - the Cruz Reader - priced at $200.  The Cruz Reader appears to have a resistive, non-multi-touch screen, is operating on Android 2.0 and lacks access to the Android Market (custom Cruz Market) but at $200, it surely undercuts the netbook market more effectively than a $400 - contract subsidized - Samsung Galaxy Tab or the cheapest iPad.

I personally have a $300 imaginary price level for a device with tablet-like functionality, and my eyes nearly popped out of its sockets when I saw that the Galaxy Tab was in the neighborhood of $600.

Now, I don't think the Cruz Reader is the perfect solution, and in some respect that's because Android 2.0 is not meant to be used on tablet/readers.  But when e-readers running Android Gingerbread are available, I think they're going to severely undercut the high-end tablets from HP, Samsung and Apple.  Or even the current Android tablet from Archos (Archos 70) priced at $275 could sell well, if only it wasn't so ugly.

And with some irony, I think the color e-reader on Android will end up eating the tablet market, rather than the tablet eating up the notebook or netbook markets.

7" Cruz Reader

Archos 70 7" tablet

7" Samsung Galaxy Tab Tablet

Missouri's win over Oklahoma sets up Oregon at USC.

Missouri's win marked the third week in a row that the #1 team lost, setting up Oregon to become the undisputed #1 team across the board, from the AP, USAToday and the BCS polls.  This means that Saturday's game (Oct 30) in prime time on ABC, will be a monumental game.

The Ducks are trying to win in Los Angeles for the first time since 2000, and in the past 5 years (2005-2009), of Oregon's 15 losses, 10 of them have been on the road.  This is the first time ever that the Ducks have been ranked #1, while USC should end up climbing back into the AP 25 after losses by West Virginia, K-State and Texas.

Huge game.  Can the Ducks avoid setting history and becoming the 4th straight #1 team to lose?  Can they beat a resurging USC team whose defense appears to be on the rebound after a shutdown defense against Cal in the Coliseum?  Can the Ducks avoid crumbling like they did against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl last January, in the spot light and predicted to win?

I'm quietly confident and excited that USC will beat Oregon.  For USC, there is no downside to losing to Oregon, as they're expected to lose to them anyway, and USC's on sanctions this year preventing them from going to a bowl game.  On the other hand, Oregon's got a lot of pressure to meet or exceed expectations that come with being #1.  If it's a blowout win by USC, how will the poll voters reconcile the chaos?

Can't wait till Saturday, baby!

Obama rallies on the west coast.

In Portland, they held a rally indoors at the Convention Center and drew 10,000 people - limited by the size of the convention center main room.

But in Los Angeles, they drew nearly 40,000 on the USC campus, in front of Doheny.

Hmm.  Someone in Portland really should have planned it better...like, having the rally outside on the waterfront where, in 2008 about 75,000 people showed up.

This is remarkably cool: head airbag without the helmet.

Very cool post on Core77, about a neck-brace / shawl-like contraption that self-inflates upon impact, to provide head protection.  No need to wear bulky helmets?  Hope so.

France passes pension reform.

They voted to increase the retirement age; too bad those French Senators and members of the National Assembly didn't vote to cut their own pensions in half, though.  Reduce the size of government subsidies, right?  Or is this a case of do as I say, not as I do?

Conservatism is spreading the creed of greed.

T-Mobile MyTouch HD/4G with color options?

Expected to be released next month, the MyTouch HD/4G (or whatever it's called) appears to be - finally - the cool phone on T-Mobile, and apparently, it'll come in 4 colors.  Red of white - that's the question I'm stuck with.

Scott Bruun vs. Kurt Schrader in debate.

What a difference the two people are.

Mr. Bruun - the Republican running for Oregon's Congressional 5th District - talks while other people are talking, including his opponent and the questioners. I'm not impressed with his memorized data, particularly since a lot of it is faulty, having researched it myself - for instance, his repeating the national Republican tagline that suggests the top 3% creates the majority of jobs.

And hey, funny how he contradicts himself calling for less taxes, but talks about increasing spending for programs that he's concerned about; I thought he was supporting less taxes and shrinking the federal debt?

Not that it matters to me, because the spot they're running for, isn't my district, and even if it was, I've already turned my ballot in.

Yikes! Chinese force woman to have a 8-month fetus aborted?

Dunno if it's true, and I know it's a bit like reading a headline from some gossip rag, but apparently Chinese officials have beaten a woman who violated the one-child rule and forced her to have a late-term abortion.

Scary people those Chinese communists.

"I've been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly." -- Sharron - as White as plain bread - Angle.

Not sure what Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle was thinking, but apparently because one reporter a long time ago told her that she looked Asian, she's now parading her *looks* as some sort of proof of understanding of what it is to be a minority.



Did she take Steve Martin's "The Jerk" literally?



Thankfully, minorities have a sense of humor.

Parallel universes, unknown / dark matter...?

CERN is out to discover whether, "parallel universes, unknown forms of matter, extra dimensions" exist. Particle acceleration and collision to find the answers of life and our existence are moving forward. Can we jump to other universes if we're tired of the Conservatives in this one?

Hmm.

Psst...US is getting screwed by China.

China has halted shipping of rare earth minerals to the US, and has raised interest rates.  We're being royally screwed.

Did Maggie Simpson swear on TV with her letter blocks?

The answer is, no.

However, this is breaking news: Upon much closer examination of the screen capture of this past Sunday's episode, it appears that Maggie Simpson's got Jesus on her pacifier!

Spending NOT out of control.

via Paul Krugman's blog, BEA data:

John Canzano...did he lie or is he ignorant?

On KGW sports and in the Oregonian, Oregon sports big mouth John Canzano suggested that Pete Carroll didn't speak out for a playoff in the FBS.

WOW.  Sure sounds a lot like Lars Larson...talks loud but gets his info wrong.

• 2008 - Pete Carroll said he dreamed of having an NCAA playoff.
• 2007 - Same thing three years ago.
• 2006 - Pete Carroll said that even though he loves the Rose Bowl, he'd love to have a playoff.
• 2003 - Pete called out the BCS as imperfect, and always will be until there was a playoff.

Who thinks Big Mouth Canzano would apologize for misstating the facts?  Doubtful.

Wolves in Russia running across freeway?

The news media might start picking this video up, but it's a staged event. Go through the two videos (one from a traffic cam and the other from inside the stopped car) and I'll point out the differences between the two videos, such that the scene was staged for a re-shoot.

---

---

---

In the traffic cam video, the officer has his radio in his right hand, and puts it up to his mouth to speak into it. He then stands there, turning around when the officer on the opposite side yells and turns his siren on. When he goes to open the door, he uses his left hand.

From the in-car video, the officer has his hand down the entire time with the radio in his left hand. He then grabs the papers from the driver and examines them. When he opens the car door, he uses his right hand.

So you see, even though it's a cool video, it's a staged event.