I call first casualty of the post-Comcast ruling.

Net Neutrality has been temporarily defeated, and the ISPs have already stepped in.  AT&T and Apple are denying ABC its right to have their own player app in the iTunes App Store, while pushing people to the iTunes media store to buy episodes.  You see, you not only have to pay the pipe owner for access, but you have to pay the pipe owner's brother to watch your media.

Didn't take long for consumers to suffer from a lack of Net Neutrality rules, huh?

The failure of free markets and a deregulated economy.

This is not meant to be a long diatribe against unfettered Capitalism.  Rather, it is a short commentary on why  free markets fail, and why the dogma behind it is corrupt.

Religion, the basis for moral and ethical construction of societies (going back to early human development away from nomadic tribes to that of villages and cities) was, and never will been perfect.  Even if the core of its dogma seeks perfection, harmony and love, we know from history that many misdeeds have been committed under its name and banner.  It is wrought by charlatans, misguided intentions, and people who wish to do evil under the guise of religion.  Yet for all its failings, religion is (generally), of all the labors of Man, guided by that intention for (doing what's right / moral) perfection, harmony and love.

Yet followers of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand seem to think that Capitalism - a system based on greed no less - is somehow perfection, in and of itself.  Adam Smith fans like Alan Greenspan have long pushed the idea that free markets are self-correcting.  How curious isn't it, that a system based on greed, should be considered perfect, even while one based on morality and ethics (religion) is knowingly and demonstratively flawed?

Capitalism and free markets aren't evil or bad systems, but they are certainly NOT inherently perfect in and of itself!  We have all learned through school, that the founders of the United States, knowing the faults of man and fearful of imbalance, developed a government based on checks and balances.  What free market advocates deride as government intervention, is in reality and in practice, the only check and balance of Capitalism: REGULATION.

Capitalism may set up the rating agencies to price risk, but it is not itself free of fraud and fool-proof, as was witnessed by the collapse of the mortgage market.  The packaged derivatives were marked as AAA, when in fact the rating agencies were being paid by these companies who were offering the derivatives, to rate them.  We even know from internal emails and whistle-blowers, that the rating agencies were knowingly playing along with the game, which eliminated their ability to provide any check or balance against these market products.  Fund managers and investors - basing their trust on the rating agencies - bought these derivatives thinking they were investing in safe, AAA-rated products.  A big fail on free markets!

It goes without saying, but Libertarians, Tea Party supporters and Conservatives who continue to push the idea that smaller government is better, are pushing America away from the unique and core American idea of checks and balances.

Beware of corrupt dogma.

HPQ + Palm

Still scratching the head on this one.

The economy wasn't shrinking, but Mark Hurd squeezed the core printer development division at HP, once he replaced Carly Fiorina.  Now, HP's looking to open a new division and sink a few billion into Palm?

The worst part about all this, is that Elevation Partners will actually reap a profit for their investment in Palm, while other stock investors will have lost money.  I mean, if anything, EP is directly responsible for the lousy execution and PR - they popped their own guy into CEO spot at Palm - and yet they will profit for it?

I still have questions about Palm CEO's comments late last year before they did a stock offering that pushed their price up into the $16~$18 range.  The stock dropped rapidly as their last quarter results were released, to the point that people realized the company wasn't going to survive more than 18 months at best.  Was CEO Rubinstein purposely misleading investors to pump up the value of stock at the time of the offering?

I am dubious of capitalism; it seems like not only are the stock analysts a bunch of fools (or tools), but so are the ratings agencies and the CEOs of companies.  There are shenanigans all around.  That and Carly's evil sheep.

The world has gone to pot.

10.1" refurb'd Dell netbook arrived yesterday (4/27)

Actually, it was listed as a 'scratch and dent', but it was neither scratched nor dented in the least.  There was some crud that I scraped off, and the netbook looked sweet.  Dell Outlet was having a spring clearance with 20% off most items; 25% off on Alienware stuff, too.  I took the opportunity to get myself a Dell Mini Inspiron 10-1012 (which I have to say, is quite neat) for just $215.20.  It includes a 6-cell battery with an Atom N450 CPU, so the life of the netbook is quite long (6~10 hours).  Took me some time because I haven't gotten a wireless setup going on at home, but I spotted a sweet wireless router with a usb port (for print sharing or external hard drive sharing), and will pick one up today (4/28).

Anyhoo, I had been spending a lot of time getting some stuff loaded onto it and installed, and just getting oriented with Windows7 Starter.  There is one very disconcerting drawback - if anyone has played with it - that it is extremely difficult to change the wallpaper, and it only applies for the Starter version of Windows7.  Fortunately, after much searching, it appears that I have finally found the solution by this programmer who's got a very small and simple registry editor and program that makes it very simple to add wallpapers.  It's called, "Starter background changer", and you can find it here.  Works like a charm, though I haven't rebooted to see if the registry changes are permanent or if Windows has extra tricks up its sleeve.  AFAIK, it works perfectly.  You can manually make the registry changes if you want to, but why bother?

Oh, and it turns out, you can run Sketch Up on this netbook.  I figured it would, because the NM10 express chipset contains the 3150 Intel graphics chipset, and that chipset supports OpenGL 1.5, the minimum standard for using SU7.  Just need to get a portable-size mouse to go along with the router, already have an external hard drive ready to be loaded with all sorts of stuff, and I'll be networked and speeding along.

In response to Arizona passing immigration law.

I'm boycotting Arizona.  Not that I enjoy Arizona to begin with - damn it's hot - but I have family there, and well, I'm going to have to avoid visiting them while the immigration law remains on the books.

I understand SF mayor has banned all official travel to Arizona, LA is considering ending all contracts and stop working with any Arizona companies, and California's state government is considering the same.  I wouldn't be surprised if other cities and states join in the boycott soon, as word spreads of approval by governments all over the US.

But watch out when May Day (May 1) comes around; traditionally a day for worker protests, there could be a massive planning to stage huge protests all over.

Medical insurers moving ahead of the curve.

Wellpoint and Blue Shield of California have decided to end the practice of rescissions, ahead of the health care law's deadline.  This comes on the heels of Regent Blue Cross announcing that they were going to allow individuals to stay on their parents' plans up to age 26, again ahead of the health care law's deadline.

Of course, you have to wonder openly, what's stopping ALL health care insurers from implementing the health care law ahead of schedule?  Isn't it in their best interests to get ahead of the deadlines and use it for their own PR benefit?

Shouldn't Kaiser Permanente - especially because of the nature of how and why it was created - be ahead of everyone?

What would life be, without humor?

Take for instance, the poor Apple worker who lost his iPhone.  Thank goodness, Dilbert's got it covered.

I love techno and spinning lights.

Put the two together, and awesome.  This is way better than a disco ball.

Honestly, Michael Steele?

This is amusing.  GOP chairperson Michael Steele was speaking at DePaul University, and I grabbed this excerpt including a quote from Mr. Steele, from the DePaulia:

Steele shocked us all with his frankness in his response to the question, "Why should African-Americans vote for the Republican party?" "You really don't have a reason to [vote Republican], to be honest -- we haven't done a very good job of really giving you one," Steele said.

via NPR, DePaulia 

Current read.

Quite good actually. It covers - so far - a lot of things I didn't ever think about, and has a bunch of core things to consider when considering creating a design business. It has several very useful charts that, unfortunately you need to re-create it yourself in an excel form. It most definitely applies to interior / architectural businesses by the specific topics and points; too bad they don't have these for all professions, eh?

I'm only on Chapter 4; I have a short attention span because every other paragraph I read, ends up as a prolonged thought that circles around in my head as I process the idea and move it around with hypotheticals. If you've ever listened or watched Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach, you'd understand.

This is the exact CD that I own (15 years ago); contains excerpts from 3 Glass operas. Also worth the buy, considering the price.

Palm's missed opportunity

Palm almost had a hit.

And then they went ahead and listened to the wrong people. I'm talking about the Foleo. The proof? Apple released the Air and the netbook market exploded a year after Foleo was cancelled before it even reached consumers. How prescient was it, to have a lightweight, small screen laptop?

And then they went ahead and pursued WebOS and the Pre, after gaining such glowing praise from the wrong people, otherwise known as the media. Too bad, Palm, too bad.

Lindsey Graham's pulling support for energy plan.

According to a NYT story, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is angry that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is postponing debate on the energy bill, to make way for immigration reform debate. That apparently angered Senator Graham, causing him to indefinitely - or more likely temporarily - remove his support and stop working on a comprehensive energy bill, to the chagrin of his working colleagues Senator John Kerry and Senator Joseph Lieberman.

So what made him angry? Senator Graham felt that, with the extreme polarity of immigration reform, bringing that up before a comprehensive energy bill would have made it impossible to get an energy bill passed this year. I think he's right; immigration reform is a very hot topic, and can hurt or help several Representatives and Senators coming up for re-election this year. Of course, the energy bill is polarizing as well, but because President Obama has given the green light on nuclear and offshore oil drilling, it was expected to be balanced with the other goal of cap and trade (don't get me started about Sarah Palin's flip flop on that issue).

But Senator Graham should understand, that Arizona has pushed immigration reform to the forefront, not the Obama Administration. Unfortunately for all parties involved, this issue is coming to a head with Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer signing into legislation a bill that allows police officers to require proof of citizenship if they suspect the person to be a non-citizen. Now, I'm not smart enough to know the difference between a legal and illegal alien and a US resident that was naturalized but speaks only Spanish, but apparently down South, they have special powers beyond racial profiling. Within 90 days, the bill will become law, and I guarantee we will have our very first victim who will have standing for a US Supreme Court trial. The SCOTUS will have lots of reasons to overturn this, including the 4th Amendment, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, and Section 8 of Article 1. It's a pick and choose your favorite reason that the Arizona law will be thrown out, but that before it can reach the SCOTUS, it must first gain standing in court, which means it needs a US Citizen to be apprehended, searched and fined for not carrying proof of citizenship. Of course, the opposite action will occur as well: Illegal immigrants will be clamoring for fake IDs.
So unfortunately for the US and for Senator Graham, Arizona has chosen to make immigration reform the most important issue of the Spring/Summer.

USC Trojans in the NFL draft / signed -- 2010

Drafted:

• Taylor Mays - 2nd round / 49th overall - 49ers
  
• Charles Brown - 2nd round / 64th overall - Saints
  
• Damian Williams - 3rd round / 77th overall - Titans
  
• Kevin Thomas - 3rd round / 94th overall - Colts
  
• Everson Griffen - 4th round / 100th overall - Vikings
  
• Joe McKnight - 4th round / 112th overall - Jets
  
• Anthony McCoy - 6th round / 185th overall - Seahawks
  

Undrafted / Signed as Free Agents:

• Alex Parsons - Raiders
  
• Josh Pinkard - Seahawks
  
• Jeff Byers - Seahawks
  
• Will Harris - Seahawks
  
• Stafon Johnson - Texans
  
• Nick Howell - Texans
  

Not too bad really, for an off year. That's 7 guys drafted, 6 guys signed as free agents.

Christopher Cox and the SEC

I thought it apropos to pull this quote from the NYT in 2005, at the time that Republican Representative Christopher Cox was selected by President Bush to the SEC:

"Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support."

I tire of the absolutists who strive for Ayn Rand's idealism, such as Alan Greenspan, and of course Christopher Cox, but I have to remind people, that in fact Libertarians are strong supporters of Ayn Rand's unregulated capitalism. Be wary of economic Libertarians who worship the House of Ayn Rand.

via NYT

House episode, "Lockdown"

Finally watched it on Hulu - which by the way, appears on track to go paid subscription route next month - and of course, in the last 30 seconds of the show, they pan up to an inscription on the concrete partially covered with ivy, reading, "OMNES TE MORITURUM AMANT".

Of course, being curious, I Googled the term, and was not very satisfied with the interpretations that people seemed to have settled on. I spend the better part of over an hour trying to figure out the grammar and the vocabulary, to see if I could piece together a better translation than either:

"Everyone loves you on your deathbed" or "Everyone loves you when you are about to die."

Instead, I got, "All love you who are about to die." To break it down, I believe people are incorrectly interpreting "omnes" as "everyone", when they should probably use the straight interpretation of "all", as "omnis" would better fit "everyone". This seems clearer when taking "amant" as a third-person plural present active, when you say, "they love you" as opposed to "everyone loves you" (or maybe I'm just going crazy). "Deathbed" seems like a colloquial application of "moriturum" and turns a verb into a noun, so I applied a stricter interpretation of, "about to die". By applying stricter interpretations, I think the meaning comes out clearer.

That is to say, that in relation to the episode and that the inscription is above the entrance to the hospital, it makes no sense to say, "everyone loves you when you're about to die", as it infers cynicism. As we all know, Greg House is becoming less cynical and more understanding, especially as witnessed in this episode. To that end, I think it makes much more sense to say, "All love you who are about to die" as words of comfort to the inevitable which House was confronted with, in this episode.

Whatever.

Seahawks gonna draft Taylor Mays?

Pete Carroll's tweeting songs to give a hint who they're gonna draft, but of course, how do they know exactly which player they'll draft, until they know which players are still available??? Seems like he's pulling pranks on people.

But I think he's hinting at:

1. Taylor Mays with Jeremy - Pearl Jam and Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash, both pointing to Seattle and Big Balls - AC/DC pointing to his sheer size.
2. CJ Spiller with Back Door Man - The Doors pointing to a cut back runner, Soul Sacrifice - Santana pointing to a Southern player, and Let the Beat Build - Lil Wayne, referring to Spiller's smaller stature.
   
3. Charles Brown with Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies suggesting his stats that he only allowed 1 sack last year, California Love - Tupac that points to California.
   

But then again, he could be jerking us all around. We'll see. I'd be mildly surprised if he didn't pick up these 3 guys actually, as they fill the 3 positions- of many - needing help, but especially safety and left tackle. I guess we'll see over the next few days.

I think USC might have 8 or so players picked, even with a 9-4 record this past season; they're just a juggernaut of talent. My expected order of picks: Taylor Mays, Everson Griffen, Charles Brown, Damien Williams, Anthony McCoy, Joe McKnight, Stafon Johnson, Will Harris, Jeff Byers, Nick Howell, Kevin Thomas and Josh Pinkard, the last 3 might end up undrafted and sign as free agents.

Of course, if they get 10 guys picked, it will make huge headlines, given that it would mark 3 straight years of at least 10 players picked from USC. That's something to think about.

Closing thoughts of the day.

Finally finished painting my Ikea bed frame, and assembling the bed frame and the mattress slat base, and disassembled my old bed frame to be tossed. The frame from Ikea was originally unfinished pine (FJELLSE frame - says it's $49.99 online, but it's $79.99 in-store), and at first I was going to stain it black. The more I thought about it however, even the most benign, water-based stain stinks, makes a mess, and requires sealing it, no matter what the stain manufacturer says. Instead, I went with water-based acrylic latex primer (tinted to a grey color) and water-based acrylic latex paint, both because of the low-voc values of water-based acrylic latex. I'd go with zero-voc, but it costs way too much, and they didn't have the quart size that I needed. In the end, I still have 3/4 of the primer and paint remaining.

Well, I ended up using Ikea SULTAN LONEVÅG slatted bed base, mostly because I was keen on the idea of having the head portion raised for reading in bed. All this is a huge step up from the simple, convertible futon frame that I had bought when I first moved to Portland, and I could feel how much more comfortable the bed was, even while keeping the same futon (I don't want to get rid of my futon because it has 4" of cotton and wool wrapped around a foam core). The dog liked it as well; he just lay there next to me, while I enjoyed the novelty of having the head part of the bed raised.

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Been reading up on using CSS and HTML5; contemplating whether I want to go with CSS/HTML/javascript, or stick with Flash. Flash is actually kinda easy to do graphic layout and transitions, in comparison to having to code everything in javascript, but going traditional has its benefits, as more people are blocking Flash as a result of the spread of intrusive Flash adverts everywhere.

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Took the time to cut back the plants - something normally done in the middle or start of Winter - and they looked much better. I sorta let my black bamboo's main stalks dry out and die, but like bamboo does, it's not dead. I cut back the main stalks, and three new stalks are beginning to show; grasses are like that. Cut back the ornamental japanese blood grass, and it looks good, as well. Now I have 5 small japanese maples - hope I buy a house one of these days - and they all seem happy. Need to vacuum the patio.

Being green, government intervention, and Popbox pre-order

If you buy a book on sustainability, but it's made (printed and bound) in China or Singapore, isn't that somehow defeating the purpose of being green? I kid you not, but there are books about sustainability, printed and imported from China or Singapore:

• SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients
  
• Sustainable transport: planning for walking and cycling in urban environments
  
• Living Homes: Sustainable Architecture and Design
  
• Print and Production Finishes for Sustainable Design

You'll notice that they're all design books.

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Google has just brought a great deal of transparency to government requests for content removal from their services. Apparently the US (along with Brasil) is in fact, taking a leadership role in censorship, with over 3500 data requests and 123 content removal requests. United States, I hardly know ye.
via BoingBoing

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Popbox now available for pre-order from Amazon. Choose between the base model or the wireless model. According to Amazon's stats, people are preordering the wireless unit at a rate of 2-1. If you plan it well however, you could place your wireless router next to your Popbox and broadband modem, within your multimedia framework. Just plug the Popbox into the wireless router and save yourself $20, eh? But make sure you get one of those WiFi 802.11n models with 4 10/100/1000 ethernet outlets; it'll ensure that if you plug in a network-attached-storage to it, that having multiple users accessing content won't cause a shortage of bandwidth.

Virtual window view.

Can you say awesome?

They have an app that splits the image into two separate screens, for $9.95. To get the whole IR-tracking experience, it'll cost somewhere between $2500 and $3000.

I want a 'best of' Hawaii videos to use with this, so that in the middle of Winter, I can feel like I'm in Hawaii.

-via Engadget

Popbox HD coming out this Summer...

According to a blog entry that was pulled within hours of it being posted, Crunch Gear reported that the SDK for developers was released "ahead of its summer 2010 launch‎".

This website appears to have grabbed the original post from Crunch Gear. From the article:

There’s still no word on the exact launch date of the Popbox but this announcement seems to indicate that it’s quickly approaching. The website still lists it as spring 2010 although we were just told it’s going to be this summer instead.

CS5 pricing.

If you can wait a few weeks and if you are wanting to upgrade to CS5, you can pre-order now, via NewEgg and save a few bucks over Adobe's retail prices. Actually, all of their prices are slightly discounted.

You'll notice that, if you are upgrading from 2 versions back (CS3), it'll cost you an additional $200 (list prices) than if you were upgrading from just 1 version back (CS4). If you skip CS5 upgrade and wait for CS6, you will have potentially saved $400, if the pricing structure remains the same, 18 months from now.

Again, I don't see the value proposition in Adobe's current upgrade pricing structure, which means that I'm going to skip CS5. I'd rather save $400 and have HTML5 with CSS3 fully supported. If they had kept the same upgrade pricing from the last cycle, there would not have been this $400 differential (in fact, there would be no price difference between skipping a generation and not), which seems like a bogus (or idiotic) way for Adobe to go, if you ask me.

Zeus Trojan, now serving 88% of Fortune 500 companies.

Amazing, but 88% of the Fortune 500 companies have had data stolen via the Zeus Trojan.

There's a reason why some companies have completely separated servers that do not talk to each other, that you have to manually connect back and forth.

Eat your hexane, children.

The Cornucopia Institute published a study that examined the use of Hexane in processing foods, noting that the FDA has set no maximum levels for residual Hexane in soy foods with one exception: Hexane is not allowed in foods labeled organic. Be careful though; products listed as, "Made with organic ingredients" aren't certified organic and do not have the same requirements to keep Hexane out of their products; Clif Bar is one such product that falls into this category.

So what's Hexane? It's a byproduct of petroleum which:

Is used to extract edible oils from seeds and vegetables, as a special-use solvent, and as a cleaning agent.
Acute (short-term) inhalation exposure of humans to high levels of hexane causes mild central nervous system (CNS) effects, including dizziness, giddiness, slight nausea, and headache. Chronic (long-term) exposure to hexane in air is associated with polyneuropathy in humans, with numbness in the extremities, muscular weakness, blurred vision, headache, and fatigue observed.
Neurotoxic effects have also been exhibited in rats.
(Excerpt from EPA's summary of Hexane)

Now, for the scary list. Soy burgers that use hexane-processed soy:

• Amy’s Kitchen
  
• Boca Burger, conventional
  
• Franklin Farms
  
• Garden Burger
  
• It’s All Good
  
• Lightlife
  
• Morningstar Farms
  
• President’s Choice
  
• Soy Boy
  
• Taste Above
  
• Trader Joe’s
  
• Yves Veggie Cuisine
  

And of course, the good list. Soy burgers with no hexane-processed soy:

• Boca Burgers “Made with organic soy”
  
• Helen’s Kitchen
  
• Morningstar “Made with organic”
  
• Superburgers by Turtle Island
  
• Tofurky
  
• Wildwood
  

(From Cornucopia Institute's study, "Behind the Bean" - link to pdf)

Oh, and this isn't just an issue with soy burgers. Soy milk that isn't labeled "Organic" and any other foods that don't specify that it is "Organic" uses soy that is processed with hexane. Again, those foods processed with hexane have no rules governing maximum levels of residual hexane. Scary.

-via BoingBoing, via Mother Jones

PDX airport TSA not doing too good.

Am at the airport waiting for the pappy to get oh his plane, but it was a laborious 20 minutes to get through the security check, all because they only had 1 person and a rush of planes leaving mid-afternoon.

Makes no sense why they had just 1 person checking IDs; normally the line is 5 minutes long. How annoying it is when they don't have the capacity or the willingness to adjust on the fly as needed.

Even though I score PDX high on everything else, the TSA has clearly dropped the ball at PDX.

Republican Haley Barbour, Mississippi Governor

I caught this quote in the NYT from Haley Barbour, "“Barack Obama has worn out three sets of knee pads, down on his knees praying that the conservative vote is split in 2010."

It sure feels like a subtle allusion to Muslims who do all their praying on their knees, as opposed to Christians who only do so, if they pray at bedtime, or Catholics. And it's no wonder, for a guy that called himself a "fat redneck" would offer that, because everyone knows slavery is wrong, there's no point to talking about it.

That's what you can expect from even mainstream Republicans in office.

Popbox HD.

I have no idea how I spaced out on this, but Popcorn Hour / Syabas is going to release the Popbox HD, said to be priced at $130. Having spent way too much time looking at different media players and their UI, I am hopeful that Popbox will do for me, what I was expecting to do with a HTPC running Boxee. If you haven't seen Boxee, you should check it out (or its predecessor, XBMC); the UI on Boxee is quite beautiful, compared to that of the Western Digital HD Live media player. No offense to WD, but their UI is ugly and boring, by comparison, and they do not currently have Netflix support, among other things.
The bonus of the Popbox is not just that it will have Netflix support, but that it has an API for developers to create content for the platform; it's likely we'll see a whole host of services runnng on Popbox, from Twitter to Facebook and all other forms of social media. As they say, content is king.
Unfortunately, the previously announced release date (March of this year) has long passed us by, and according to the official blog, while they have firmed up their schedule, they're not willing to release an official date, to avoid embarrassment of missing another deadline. That's fine with me; I nearly bought a WD HD Live media player this weekend at Costco, but felt like it was too inadequate; thank goodness I didn't get it; I can wait for the Popbox, especially when it's priced at $130.

Adobe CS5 is available for purchase.

But wow, the upgrade price for any of the suites is a minimum of $599, and no special upgrade pricing for early adopters (as of today). Hmm. I don't know if I can afford this right now. That's a really steep price for annual software upgrades.

Deep in the middle of the night...

I remember that it takes a lot of time and especially effort, to get important things done. Case in point, building furniture stuff. :P

Prototypes came back, and well, what Ponoko says is the width of their materials isn't what the material width actually is. You'd think that 1mm actually is 1mm, but it isn't; it's actually .65mm. And you'd think that 4.5mm was actually 4.5mm, instead of 5.25mm. Each thing I sent out to get made, came back so far off, that I have to fully recalibrate the drawings to take into account up to 35% difference between what they say is the width of their materials compared to what I've actually measured. One piece, I had to chisel off some wood and trim plastic - have you ever tried to trim plastic? Not fun, let me say. But then again, in the end I found some flaws that I couldn't see from my 3D model, because I didn't completely measure out the light bulb that I had intended on using.

And then there's the cost of making these prototypes. I've not spent over $120 for 3 models with extra parts that don't fit. On the other hand, I think I came up with a use for the cutout pattern left behind in the sheet materials used.

Those candle holders don't exactly quite work out, at least one of them. I'm going to need to calculate the cost again, to see if it makes sense pursuing it, but the renderings quite closely match the actual output. I'll need to compare the two in another post.

Speaking of which...costs of stuff.

$1070 - Autocad lt 2011
$XXX - Adobe CS5
$400 - Network attached storage with two 1.5TB drives
$75 - Wireless router
$400 - netbook
$800 - workstation
$400 - nettop computer (for streaming media content to tv/home audio)
_______________
$3500 +/- total

I have a lot of wants (and needs), but they sure cost a lot. :O Holy cow...if I could just get my store stocked up with actual stuff to sell. :P

Call me cynical but...

Investors appear to think that yesterday's news that Palm is dumping its ties with the ad agency responsible for the creepy Pre commercials, means that Palm is headed towards good times. The stock closed at $3.85, opened at $3.90, and had gotten as high as $4.33.

Investors are idiots.

If (good) advertising were all that was required to make a product succeed in the market place, then the Android G1 should have bombed from a lack of advertising, being the very first Android phone released; yet the G1 surely didn't suffer the fate of the Pre, whose sales lagged behind that of the G1.

While it's true that better advertising could have helped Palm's situation, it takes much more than advertising to make a product succeed; people have to believe in the company behind it, they have to find a compelling reason to buy it, and they have to like the product. To that last bit, all you need to know about the Pre, is that it fares poorly in the opinion of owners at Sprint, with an average rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars. Compare that to the HTC Hero (running Android) at Sprint, which is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars. If owners of the Pre aren't overwhelmingly happy with their phones, I tell you now, investors who think advertising will solve Palm's problems are idiots who only make their money out of pure luck.

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On a separate note: The head economist at the OECD has indicated that stimulus spending should be winding down as spending cuts and raising taxes should follow. Of course, in the US, if we get a second Republican revolution, we could end up with spending increases and tax cuts, which would invariably exacerbate the soon-to-be-infamous debt-to-GDP ratio that Republicans have been talking about, lately.

I am surely going spend extra time in Purgatory for questioning the intelligence of Conservatives (which we all know, is at best marginal.)

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EDIT-4/7/2010 17:13 PDT
Turns out, Palm shot up over 80 points including overnight trading, because of ramped up takeover rumors. You know what's funny about the takeover rumor? It fits perfectly with what I wrote might happen, 15 days ago: "I can visualize a Taiwanese or PRC company buying out Palm - at a loss to Elevation of course - and getting rid of much of the current staff, turning it private." Crazy, I know...how prescient, when other people were talking about RIM, DELL and other technology companies.

Random thought: Will it snow in Portland in April?

Just captured this radar image, and it's snowing just west of Hillsboro. I bet it snows in the West Hills, at least a flurry. Hmm...maybe I should take a drive up there.

Republicans are being dishonest with the American public.

Scenario the Republicans are wont to avoid discussing:

How the interconnected banks that lend billions to each other daily, would sequentially fail as each bank's equity would be dramatically reduced from each of the failed banks. The domino effect is made more spectacular as people make a run on the bank, and the swift destruction of any lending ability by all banking institutions ends up crippling entire economies worldwide. Bank capital is gone and all the venture capitalists and corporations who thought both their own capital and investments were sound (under the most conservative of investment approaches), now find that their capital has nearly disappeared and their investments vastly diminished.

We saw this scenario in the 1929 crash, as Herbert Hoover chose to give markets freedom to resolve itself, only to find the nation in a depression that would last years beyond his failed re-election campaign. It was not until 1931, that Herbert Hoover chose to make an intervention, in an effort to garner votes for his re-election. We know what followed: Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal that brought Keynesian economics forward.

But the Republicans live in a protected perch from which they can hurl criticism without having to own up to their proposals. Republicans have chosen the populist direction, going where the wind blows, regardless of where that gust leads to. They are wont to avoid talking about the 1929 crash, because they would rather adopt a conflicted - but nonetheless populist - stance of free markets tethered to an outrage of the disparity of CEO pay in the free market. You can have either one or the other; ideology from the fringe does not accept a middle ground; the Conservative ideology has no room for compromise.

Just as bad, however, are those who understand little of what is going on, but are nonetheless filled with anger about what has and continues to transpire. It is as they say, shoot first and ask questions later, except that failure to ask questions first leads to devastating economic consequences. That is, in effect, what the Tea Party is asking for: replace everyone in government. I have few fears, but one of the fears I have, is what an unfettered Republican government would do. People celebrate Ronald Reagan, and while his rhetoric helped bring down the Berlin Wall, he nonetheless followed the same poor economic theory of trickle down economics, which to the contrary of what Republicans have told you, actually boosted federal debt faster than GDP growth. Worse, Reagan's era (resulting from free market advocates such as Alan Greenspan) was the beginning of the fast growing disparity between CEO pay and the average salary of Americans. We surely had wonderful expansion of GDP during the Reagan years, but we also sold out on federal debt and the middle class.

I am not an apologist for Democratic policies, either. Democrats are generally conflicted between Keynesian economics and the Libertarian call for smaller government, leaving us with a mixed bag of policies.

I blog too far off topic, but you get the point: Do not trust what Republicans are telling you, as they are afraid to speak about truth of history. If they accuse others of revisionism, look into their eyes and question whether they're lying or if they're naive.

GOP insult Maine residents.

The GOP issued a press release attacking the President as an "anti-job Maine-iac." As cute as they wanted to appear, I think Maine independents are not amused that they're misusing their state's name to attack the President; that's just un-American.

Google's April Fools pranks!

Love em.

• In response to Topeka Kansas changing its name to Google, Google has changed its name to Topeka.


• Expanding Google Translate, there is now Google Translate for Animals, for Android.


• Of course, when you're on the run, sometimes you might get lost; now you can find yourself, by simply Googling on your mobile device, "Where am I".


• Who wants the convenience of 2010, when you can go back to 1997, and enjoy the old ways of accessing your voice mail? Google Voice now has Standard Voicemail Mode.


• Quite honestly, books are boring. Now, thanks to Google Books however, you can see text come alive in 3D!


• I misplace things all the time. Fortunately, Google Docs will now allow us to upload anything to the cloud, just $0.10/kg!


• This is just awesome-o. Youtube has to spend a lot of money to broadcast all those videos people post. To save money, they've now installed TEXTp which uses text instead of video!


• Google Wave now has special notifications, for those of us that need a better way of being alerted to changes in a Wave.


• Why, they've even gotten into the spirit Down Under.


• And forget Google Fiber; now they're introducing TiSP, a free in-home broadband service!


• This one is a bit different. Do a Google search. In the blue bar, you'll see something like, "Results 1 - 10 of about ____ for ___. (at 2.88 hertz)" The key being, of course, the stuff between the braces ().


• And speaking of 3D, Google Maps Street View now has a little icon guy with 3D glasses, enabling you to switch back and forth between 3D views and normal viewing.


• Google now has the Google Annotations Gallery (GAG for short) which is an open source Java library.


• And along those lines of stuff only geeks would enjoy, you can now include "evil=true" in your API requests, so that Google can identify people who are evil.


• This last one is awesome. Google Japan has come up with a newfangled keyboard.

Whew! I think they've surpassed all expectations.