So, this month my gas bill was $235 . This is incredible to me - the only thing I use gas for is heating the house and heating household water.
Just last night I was watching Dirty Jobs - where a new senior citizens home was being built - with a large number geothermal wells.
These wells were all 90 or so feet in the ground and helped to alleviate the power consumption of the final structure.
60 million barrels of oil a year could be saved if all the schools in the USA employed similar technology.
Now, this isn't that much when you consider that some numbers indicate we consume 19 million barrels a day, but saving 60 million barrels of oil is still significant - it purchases us three days more oil on the year than if we continue with our current usage profile.
So, when I move in to my next house, I'd certainly love to put in such a system. A combination of a wind turbine, geothermal heat source and some solar panels might reduce my oil profile significantly.
But the value isn't there just for a single household to do it. The value is to convert large numbers of homes to it, so that maybe we set up all the schools with geothermal power, then a significant percentage of homes and save another 60 million barrels of oil and we end up with 6 days less of oil consumption next year than this year.
All this construction certianly comes with a cost - and uses oil to be implemented. So, maybe the first year this is a wash. Then in the following years we could start saving more barrels of oil.
Of course, our population (and the world's population) continue to increase and demand will still increase even with implementing these kinds of measures. Without implementing these kinds of measures; however, we will have less energy for everyone (and higher prices).
So, there is little choice. We need to work to start saving energy resources. My gas bill this month is $235 - what will it be next year?
Monday, February 26, 2007
Second Introduction
So, it has been a very long time since I have posted on this blog and a great many thing have happened since my last posting.
My wife and I had two miscarriages during the time I was blogging. Then my mother-in-law died - and unknown to everyone my wife was pregnant a few days before her death.
You can imagine that the hope engendered by being pregnant was tempered both by the past spontaneous abortions and by my mother-in-laws death.
Fortunately, the third pregnancy went full term and our second child (out of 4 pregnancies) was born. His name is Corwin and our first child is Random, both boys. It would be nice to have a third child, but the emotional wringer of the spontaneous abortions as well as age and higher risk of disease and economics all factor in the decision. Corwin is only 5 months old now and certainly we wouldn't want to have the next one too soon - as that also increases the chances of a spontaneous abortion.
Well, I certainly have hopes for the future. I hope my boys will have better lives than I've had, even if what I've had so far isn't so bad. It is in the core of my mind that the future should be better than the past.
So, now, this blog is for both of my boys. Hopefully, in reading these blogs when they get older they will get some idea of who I am as well as ideas about the world around them.
My wife and I had two miscarriages during the time I was blogging. Then my mother-in-law died - and unknown to everyone my wife was pregnant a few days before her death.
You can imagine that the hope engendered by being pregnant was tempered both by the past spontaneous abortions and by my mother-in-laws death.
Fortunately, the third pregnancy went full term and our second child (out of 4 pregnancies) was born. His name is Corwin and our first child is Random, both boys. It would be nice to have a third child, but the emotional wringer of the spontaneous abortions as well as age and higher risk of disease and economics all factor in the decision. Corwin is only 5 months old now and certainly we wouldn't want to have the next one too soon - as that also increases the chances of a spontaneous abortion.
Well, I certainly have hopes for the future. I hope my boys will have better lives than I've had, even if what I've had so far isn't so bad. It is in the core of my mind that the future should be better than the past.
So, now, this blog is for both of my boys. Hopefully, in reading these blogs when they get older they will get some idea of who I am as well as ideas about the world around them.
New Species Threaten the Earth
This CNN article should be cause for alarm for everyone.
Antarctic ice melt reveals exotic creatures
Quote From CNN article: "Looking down 2,800 feet into the icy water -- a comparatively shallow depth -- they found fauna usually associated with seabeds about three times that deep, in places where the creatures must adapt to scarcity to survive.
Antarctic ice melt reveals exotic creatures
Quote From CNN article: "Looking down 2,800 feet into the icy water -- a comparatively shallow depth -- they found fauna usually associated with seabeds about three times that deep, in places where the creatures must adapt to scarcity to survive.
There were blue ice fish, with dorsal fins like ribbed fans and blood that lacks red cells, an adaptation that makes the blood more fluid and easier to pump through the animal's body, conserving energy at low temperatures....
Among the hundreds of specimens collected, the scientists identified 15 possible new species of shrimp-like amphipods, and four possible new species of cnidarians, organisms related to coral, jellyfish and sea anemones, the scientists said in a statement."
Does the above quote scare you? Perhaps not. Perhaps you have put together what I have from that article.
Damage is done to environments by foreign species introduction. With the melting of these ice shelves we have a massive introduction of foreign species - species from another time. Most of these species have probably died off due to circumstances of their times. That does not mean that those circumstances continue to exist in the present. Perhaps the starfish in this article may survive better than existing starfish and cause damage to the environment at the same time.
We have a massive task ahead of us and no one is even discussing it. These foreign species from another time need to be isolated from our current environment. They could be carrying diseases that current species have no protection from.
Since it is apparent that no one is being pro-active in this aspect we may run in to new species replacing old ones in a reverse form of evolution, we may find new diseases in existing species some of which definitely do not need the help over the edge and we may luck out and the biodiversity being delivered in to our ecosystem will replace species that are being lost presently due to our direct actions.
Hey, anyone want to comment? Am I insane or some misled prophet of doom? Of course, one should realize that I do not mean that horrible things will happen. What I mean is that horrible things could happen and that we increase those chances by not dealing with the invasion of past species in to our current ecosystem.
Then again, maybe the new starfish will be edible by humans and replace the dwindling species of sea life.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Kiln or Furnace
Well, who knows if anyone still reads this blog, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. My mother-in-laws death and my wife's pregnancy which happened as near simultaneously as these things can has vastly reduced time available for the expansion of thought.
Anyway, I was reading an article in a magazine - nature or something like that where they discussed finding a huge impact crater in Africa, by high-altitude imaging and locating pieces of quartz.
In that article it discussed that at 1600 degrees silicon turns in to quartz (not the point of the article, I know - the point of the article was that it was the largest impact crater ever found, once it was realized what it was).
So, now I am curious - if anyone can answer the question - how can I make something to produce 1600 degrees and melt silicon in to quartz?
The other question I have is interesting. If the quartz created in Africa was from a vast impact, why is there (or was there) so much quartz in cape may (sometimes known as cape may diamond)?
Anyway, I was reading an article in a magazine - nature or something like that where they discussed finding a huge impact crater in Africa, by high-altitude imaging and locating pieces of quartz.
In that article it discussed that at 1600 degrees silicon turns in to quartz (not the point of the article, I know - the point of the article was that it was the largest impact crater ever found, once it was realized what it was).
So, now I am curious - if anyone can answer the question - how can I make something to produce 1600 degrees and melt silicon in to quartz?
The other question I have is interesting. If the quartz created in Africa was from a vast impact, why is there (or was there) so much quartz in cape may (sometimes known as cape may diamond)?
Monday, January 16, 2006
Death
I'm going to be writing an article on Death - but I never seem to be able to finish it.
My mother-in-law died on Christmas day - very suddenly - and this leads my thoughts to travel to thoughts about death.
So, I haven't written much on my blog or on the Useless-knowledge website. In fact, I've written nothing.
Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with some content sometime. The reality is that either in work, after work hobbies or other activities - I've been having trouble concentrating and completing my tasks. I have lots of things to write articles about - but I keep returning to my article on death, which I can't seem to finish.
In the beginning, this blog was written so my son would have resources about me - other than the spoken word by others, about who I am and things like that.
Well, I can say somethings to tell him about himself of the past when he reads this in the future.
Of the grandparents, your Grandmother on your mother's side was the one you were closest to - and she played with you and seemed ready to watch you at a moments notice whenever we needed her help. Seemingly swollowed up in to a black hole at our house and foregoing making dinner for your grandfather and other things to watch you or sometimes just to help us with you.
More about this I suspect will show up in my article - which - who knows - perhaps no one will read. It seemed though that she was happiest when she spent time with you, my son.
Alex
Monday, December 12, 2005
UK - Article Loading to Database
Well, I've improved my performance greatly in loading the article into my database in the hopes that I'll be able to use this data to help them update their interface.
So, up from the last number of articles I have loaded in to my database, I now have 7770 articles of over 10,000 articles uploaded.
That's pretty good. Less than 3,000 to go and then I'll need to be able to grab the most recent articles as well.
There are lots of options with the Useless-Knowledge website update. one hopes for the least work for the most increased abilities, looks and performance, but it seems to me that it is likely that they'll need something completely custom.
I just don't know. And considering the efforts necessary for completely custom - it is difficult to discern if it is worth it. Perhaps they should look at the update in phases. Start with looks and an improved posting logic. Then later add article counters and comments sections to the articles.
It might be better, who knows.
Alex
So, up from the last number of articles I have loaded in to my database, I now have 7770 articles of over 10,000 articles uploaded.
That's pretty good. Less than 3,000 to go and then I'll need to be able to grab the most recent articles as well.
There are lots of options with the Useless-Knowledge website update. one hopes for the least work for the most increased abilities, looks and performance, but it seems to me that it is likely that they'll need something completely custom.
I just don't know. And considering the efforts necessary for completely custom - it is difficult to discern if it is worth it. Perhaps they should look at the update in phases. Start with looks and an improved posting logic. Then later add article counters and comments sections to the articles.
It might be better, who knows.
Alex
New Greyhound
This is mostly a personal entry. It has been the better part of two years since one of our two greyhounds had to be put to sleep.
I should say that there is a moral obligation when humans take on pets - that you must be able to say to yourself about the animal at least 'I am going to kill you' - when you take on a pet.
Because it is unfair for an animal to live its existence primarily for your pleasure and companionship to suffer a horrible painful prolonged death because you don't have the guts to know when the time is - to put that animal to sleep. To kill it. Or you don't have the courage to do what needs to be done.
And in most cases - unless you are near the end of your own life you will outlive your family pet(s). One of the dogs we almost adopted - the owners - a couple - the husband died. The dog was mostly the husbands dog and the wife I suspect may no longer have been up to handling a dog - at least for a time. Fortunately, the dog is healthy and can be re-adopted to another family. Boy it was a really friendly dog. I have cats in the house, though - and this particular greyhound failed the cat test and wanted to eat the test cat. Since I don't want to have another dog at the expense of losing all my cats - he was out of the running.
It is a stark reality that any pet owner should acknowledge when you begin your custodianship of an animal. It is responsiblity for life and death.
Determination of when that time is - to put down a pet - is much harder. But if you don't recognize the fact that this will probably come to pass on inception of taking care of an animal - it is much harder.
No matter what it is hard to put an animal down - when the balance has shifted significantly on the issue of quantity or quality of life. It is largely a judgement call - but good veterninarians won't let you put an otherwise healthy animal down - if in their judgement you are overreacting.
Ok, so we've been looking for a new dog. It is always a journey to find a good fit. Fortunately, I think we found one in a timid greyhound who is just off the track called Willy.
Unfortunately, our current greyhound is called Philly, and Willy doesn't know his name. So you call one and you get both. So we are going to change Willy's name. Usually we keep the name, with Jet and Philly - we kept their original names. They both also seemed to know their original names - so that makes it a whole lot harder to justify changing the dogs name.
I've been watching a lot of anime lately - and am a fan of the sounds that Japanese language makes. So, my wife and I came up with a first and last name for our new Greyhound formerly known as Willy.
Oku Gengetsu. Oku - meaning Timid. Gengetsu - meaning crescent moon.
Greyhounds in general are somewhere between labrador retrievers and well, I can't come up with a completely sedate breed of dog. Anyway, Greyhounds are usually fairly well-rounded in being jumpy happy dogs and lying on the couch or floor sleeping.
Oku, though - and probably because he doesn't know anything about anything - is very very timid. So, Oku means timid in Japanese - and timid he is.
Crescent moon - is because he has a large two or three inch tall crescent moon scar on his side. We actually didn't notice it when we picked him up (him being very timid and another dog that we couldn't have because of his cat-eating obsession being very pushy and wanting to be with me). It wouldn't have mattered, of course. Philly was abused before she came to us and had many scars, but nothing nearly as large as this.
Timid Crescent Moon. Doesn't sound nice or anything in English. It is transformed - even in simple words - in Japanese to Oku Gengetsu.
So, hopefully, some day - a very long time from now - will come the time of decisions for Oku. And one hopes it will be a long time for Philly as well. But Philly is getting older and a large amount of the reason we got Oku - was because she was getting lonely and stopping eating.
She is of course ecstatic to have a companion again.
Now, if only we could get Random to be disciplined enough not to scare Oku so Oku can get acclamated to our house. :)
He's doing well, though - with all so many new things around him. And he isn't allowed to come up on the couch yet.... Which has got to bug him because Philly is allowed to... But them's the rules passed down from the adoption/rescue people and that's that.
Alex
I should say that there is a moral obligation when humans take on pets - that you must be able to say to yourself about the animal at least 'I am going to kill you' - when you take on a pet.
Because it is unfair for an animal to live its existence primarily for your pleasure and companionship to suffer a horrible painful prolonged death because you don't have the guts to know when the time is - to put that animal to sleep. To kill it. Or you don't have the courage to do what needs to be done.
And in most cases - unless you are near the end of your own life you will outlive your family pet(s). One of the dogs we almost adopted - the owners - a couple - the husband died. The dog was mostly the husbands dog and the wife I suspect may no longer have been up to handling a dog - at least for a time. Fortunately, the dog is healthy and can be re-adopted to another family. Boy it was a really friendly dog. I have cats in the house, though - and this particular greyhound failed the cat test and wanted to eat the test cat. Since I don't want to have another dog at the expense of losing all my cats - he was out of the running.
It is a stark reality that any pet owner should acknowledge when you begin your custodianship of an animal. It is responsiblity for life and death.
Determination of when that time is - to put down a pet - is much harder. But if you don't recognize the fact that this will probably come to pass on inception of taking care of an animal - it is much harder.
No matter what it is hard to put an animal down - when the balance has shifted significantly on the issue of quantity or quality of life. It is largely a judgement call - but good veterninarians won't let you put an otherwise healthy animal down - if in their judgement you are overreacting.
Ok, so we've been looking for a new dog. It is always a journey to find a good fit. Fortunately, I think we found one in a timid greyhound who is just off the track called Willy.
Unfortunately, our current greyhound is called Philly, and Willy doesn't know his name. So you call one and you get both. So we are going to change Willy's name. Usually we keep the name, with Jet and Philly - we kept their original names. They both also seemed to know their original names - so that makes it a whole lot harder to justify changing the dogs name.
I've been watching a lot of anime lately - and am a fan of the sounds that Japanese language makes. So, my wife and I came up with a first and last name for our new Greyhound formerly known as Willy.
Oku Gengetsu. Oku - meaning Timid. Gengetsu - meaning crescent moon.
Greyhounds in general are somewhere between labrador retrievers and well, I can't come up with a completely sedate breed of dog. Anyway, Greyhounds are usually fairly well-rounded in being jumpy happy dogs and lying on the couch or floor sleeping.
Oku, though - and probably because he doesn't know anything about anything - is very very timid. So, Oku means timid in Japanese - and timid he is.
Crescent moon - is because he has a large two or three inch tall crescent moon scar on his side. We actually didn't notice it when we picked him up (him being very timid and another dog that we couldn't have because of his cat-eating obsession being very pushy and wanting to be with me). It wouldn't have mattered, of course. Philly was abused before she came to us and had many scars, but nothing nearly as large as this.
Timid Crescent Moon. Doesn't sound nice or anything in English. It is transformed - even in simple words - in Japanese to Oku Gengetsu.
So, hopefully, some day - a very long time from now - will come the time of decisions for Oku. And one hopes it will be a long time for Philly as well. But Philly is getting older and a large amount of the reason we got Oku - was because she was getting lonely and stopping eating.
She is of course ecstatic to have a companion again.
Now, if only we could get Random to be disciplined enough not to scare Oku so Oku can get acclamated to our house. :)
He's doing well, though - with all so many new things around him. And he isn't allowed to come up on the couch yet.... Which has got to bug him because Philly is allowed to... But them's the rules passed down from the adoption/rescue people and that's that.
Alex
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Useless-Knowledge
I am currently involved in a project to update the useless-knowledge website. Who knows what will really happen to the site, but one thing is crystal clear - in a major update many people might say leave the old articles behind.
This is very disturbing to me - these articles represent a lot of work on the part of a lot of people. Over 10,000 articles and who knows how many people.
So, I have begun first by getting a list of all the articles in to my database - and now the slow process of grabbing that content and putting it in a database. This way, if and when a conversion happens, the data will be in a database and can be applied to the newer format.
I am currently on the 143rd article - going in to my database. This is going to take some time, because I have ascertained no completely automated way to place the articles in the database. I could grab the entire page, but this isn't particularly useful.
I am just grabbing the article content and whatever HTML is associated with the article.
We'll see how long I stick with this and how much time is involved.
Alex
This is very disturbing to me - these articles represent a lot of work on the part of a lot of people. Over 10,000 articles and who knows how many people.
So, I have begun first by getting a list of all the articles in to my database - and now the slow process of grabbing that content and putting it in a database. This way, if and when a conversion happens, the data will be in a database and can be applied to the newer format.
I am currently on the 143rd article - going in to my database. This is going to take some time, because I have ascertained no completely automated way to place the articles in the database. I could grab the entire page, but this isn't particularly useful.
I am just grabbing the article content and whatever HTML is associated with the article.
We'll see how long I stick with this and how much time is involved.
Alex
Colored Bubbles
In a previous posting I showed a link to a Popular Science of Popular Mechanics article - which talked about the difficulties of creating bubbles that have color instead of clear bubbles.
Well, one of the uses this process could be applied to is medical coloring. Since the color disappears - when one applies an ointment to your face (for example) it could be colored temporarily - showing the user exactly what parts of the face have been covered.
I suffer from acne - even at age 34 - or however old I am now.
I use a couple of topical medications as well as a medical soap - but nothing works 100% or even 95%.
I do wonder if such medical coloring - could help - and show what parts of the face I miss with medicine (if that is what is the current problem).
The applications of this material are immense - even without considering the cosmetic fun that could be had if the coloration lasted hours instead of seconds.
Alex
Well, one of the uses this process could be applied to is medical coloring. Since the color disappears - when one applies an ointment to your face (for example) it could be colored temporarily - showing the user exactly what parts of the face have been covered.
I suffer from acne - even at age 34 - or however old I am now.
I use a couple of topical medications as well as a medical soap - but nothing works 100% or even 95%.
I do wonder if such medical coloring - could help - and show what parts of the face I miss with medicine (if that is what is the current problem).
The applications of this material are immense - even without considering the cosmetic fun that could be had if the coloration lasted hours instead of seconds.
Alex
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Writing Music
I was involved with music ages ago. Or at least it seems like ages ago. Right now I have some music instruments around and I play them sometimes for my son so that hopefully he will have some interest in music.
So, it has always been of interest to me to write music - but writing music on paper and performing it with a trumpet was never really my interest. I always wanted to do it in some automated manner.
There is software out there - mentioned by Him Louderback - that allows you to write music (using music notes and Midi synthesizer sounds) on the computer and have the computer perform the music.
Two pieces of software he mentions specifically - Cakewalk Sonar 5 and Notion. He had some complaints about Notion, but he also had some good points with it in that it had excellent sounds to go with the music notes. Rather unfortunately, the software is relatively expensive and at the moment I am pursuing other non-work goals.
Can't do everything at once. Right now I am concentrating on writing my Manga Style comic book - starting with an outline of the story and a cell by cell description of what needs to be drawn.
And at the same time, I am gradually getting the opportunity to learn how to draw in the Manga style.
I suspect that this will be a long-term project, but I definitely feel that the medium of Manga comic book will be an excellent form for the stories I have to tell.
Alex
So, it has always been of interest to me to write music - but writing music on paper and performing it with a trumpet was never really my interest. I always wanted to do it in some automated manner.
There is software out there - mentioned by Him Louderback - that allows you to write music (using music notes and Midi synthesizer sounds) on the computer and have the computer perform the music.
Two pieces of software he mentions specifically - Cakewalk Sonar 5 and Notion. He had some complaints about Notion, but he also had some good points with it in that it had excellent sounds to go with the music notes. Rather unfortunately, the software is relatively expensive and at the moment I am pursuing other non-work goals.
Can't do everything at once. Right now I am concentrating on writing my Manga Style comic book - starting with an outline of the story and a cell by cell description of what needs to be drawn.
And at the same time, I am gradually getting the opportunity to learn how to draw in the Manga style.
I suspect that this will be a long-term project, but I definitely feel that the medium of Manga comic book will be an excellent form for the stories I have to tell.
Alex
Monday, December 05, 2005
The Bright Colors of Future
In a post I made some time ago - I indicated that one of the things I would want would be to change the color of my skin, eyes and hair at any time and be able to change them again - as often as I would want to.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/0a03b5108e097010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
There is now technology that might make some of that possible. I can almost see me with blue hair and green skin with bright red eyes. A few hours later - I'd be back to my natural color.
Who knows if these guys will be able to realize it?
I can see it now, if my son has children and I'm old he'll be yelling at them about using natural colors instead of flourescent yellow for hair color...
Alex
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/0a03b5108e097010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
There is now technology that might make some of that possible. I can almost see me with blue hair and green skin with bright red eyes. A few hours later - I'd be back to my natural color.
Who knows if these guys will be able to realize it?
I can see it now, if my son has children and I'm old he'll be yelling at them about using natural colors instead of flourescent yellow for hair color...
Alex
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Vacation
Well, I have returned from vacation - lots of things that I want to write reviews of from the course of my vacation. Our Plan with Tan vacation plan, the rental car (Lincoln Town Car), Parks that we went to and overall how things turned out. Some of these will be articles and I suspect that some of them are more blog entries for here and of more personal interest.
Oh, if you go with your child to play with sting rays at Sea World, please don't scream out when it sucks on your fingers when you feed it while your toddler is next to you. My wife scared the crap out of my son doing that.
Anyway, it turned out ok. :) Hopefully my son won't be deathly afraid of sting rays for life.
But if he's going to be afraid of something - deathly afraid of something - sting rays are a pretty good object.
And I didn't feed the sting rays after that :)
Alex
Oh, if you go with your child to play with sting rays at Sea World, please don't scream out when it sucks on your fingers when you feed it while your toddler is next to you. My wife scared the crap out of my son doing that.
Anyway, it turned out ok. :) Hopefully my son won't be deathly afraid of sting rays for life.
But if he's going to be afraid of something - deathly afraid of something - sting rays are a pretty good object.
And I didn't feed the sting rays after that :)
Alex
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Notes on current News #1
Science continues its decline in the Western world.
Consider that once - science was core to the Muslim world. Today and for a couple of centuries this has not been the case.
It should be noted that an increase in religosity is what killed of science and philosophical thought in Muslim society.
This is what is happening here in the Western World.
There aren't enough physics teachers in the UK.
Entropy in UK
Top biologists abandon the best colleges in the United States because they are not free here to do the research necessary.
Stem Cell Scientists
Genetically modified food is feared in Europe and in the United States it is prevalent but society in general is blithely unaware that it is happening. It is uncontrolled. Either policy is dangerous.
And now we have problems getting corporate America to supply funding for a Darwin exhibition at a major museum.
We are turning our backs on science - science which is literally the hand the feeds us, earns our great incomes and makes our countries flourish.
Seems there is no way to stop history from repeating itself. I suspect though - that this time through the cycle there will not be so much time in the Interregnum, and the state of science will overall be higher throughout this Interregnum.
Alex
Consider that once - science was core to the Muslim world. Today and for a couple of centuries this has not been the case.
It should be noted that an increase in religosity is what killed of science and philosophical thought in Muslim society.
This is what is happening here in the Western World.
There aren't enough physics teachers in the UK.
Entropy in UK
Top biologists abandon the best colleges in the United States because they are not free here to do the research necessary.
Stem Cell Scientists
Genetically modified food is feared in Europe and in the United States it is prevalent but society in general is blithely unaware that it is happening. It is uncontrolled. Either policy is dangerous.
And now we have problems getting corporate America to supply funding for a Darwin exhibition at a major museum.
We are turning our backs on science - science which is literally the hand the feeds us, earns our great incomes and makes our countries flourish.
Seems there is no way to stop history from repeating itself. I suspect though - that this time through the cycle there will not be so much time in the Interregnum, and the state of science will overall be higher throughout this Interregnum.
Alex
Monday, November 21, 2005
Today Monday 20051121 in the News
GM reports that they will be cutting 30,000 jobs over the next 3 years. This will result in a 1,000,000 car drop in production capacity.
Does it matter that GM is going to lose 1,000,000 car capacity? Not really. They fell in love with the American ideal of bigger is better and made lots of profit. Now they laughably have commercials about the great mileage they get in their cars. Talking about the remade Cavalier/Cobalt getting 34 mpg.
I have two very important points on this...No, three
1) When my wife owned a Chevy Corsice (1989) hatchback - she loved the power in the car. It had a nice six cylinder engine. But the brakes were constantly not quite right, I changed the battery in the car - and we had to take it to the dealer so they could reset the computer (apparently you can't do something as simple as change the battery yourself) and the electrical system was beginning to act - well weird.
2) Every American car has left me stranded on the road and helpless. It is not a good feeling - and living in New Jersey not every area is a place where you can walk to a house and ask for help.
3) My Honda Civic - 1992 - which I have since donated had 222,222 miles over 9 years. Its sticker (stick shift/manual trans) had 36/40 MPG. Sometimes you get better and sometimes you get worse mileage than the sticker. That car for the life of the car when I owned it - got 40MPG. The car broke down once - because the distributer finally crapped out at 160,000 miles. And Chevy wants to laud the Cobalt (similar car) getting 34 MPG! What a bunch of idiots - is the kindest way I can put it. And you know what - my parents had a 1986 Cavalier - and it was a piece of crap. In fact, it was the car that turned my family from American Manufacturers to - well Honda.
I could really go on a lot about this stuff. Really this is a case of macroeconomics and microeconomics.
On the Microeconomic side you have comfort, reliability and fuel-efficiency. This are all factors in favor of Honda vs GM.
On the Macroeconomics side you have jobs, GNP and global perception of Americans. These are things that if you lose the Microeconomics side - guess what you lose the Macroeconomic side.
Guess what, people in general are what you might call selfish. We don't want to be victims of being left on the side of the road. We don't want to be victimized by garages that charge lots of money to do repairs or dealers that charge even more to do repairs. We like it even if there is just a perception that by the things we do on a daily basis we are saving money.
So, people buy what is best for them - meaning foreign cars in general and my family - Honda in specific. My wife's Honda CR-V has 202,000 miles on it. Never broke down. Although once it wouldn't start because the 6-year old battery finally died. My newer Honda Accord Coupe that I replaced my Honda Civic with has 37,000 miles on it (my driving habits have changed a lot) and it needed the transmission replaced. It was on warranty and the new warranty on the new transmission is 10 years. So, I am relatively unconcerned about that.
So, nearly 500,000 miles in cars my wife have owned and one break-down. And I'm not even including the hundreds of thousands of miles my parents have put on their three Hondas that they have owned over time. A Honda Wagovan (great car, but butt ugly), their newer Honda CR-V and their 1996 Honda Accord which has 137,000 miles on it.
Sp, anyway, read this article for more information - including a little note from an analyst saying 'Clearly, they eventually need to make better products that are more competitive with their foreign competitors, but that's a long-term proposition'. The main problem is that GM does not have a long term proposition anymore. They need to make better cars, more fuel efficient cars - now, not next year and certainly not three years from now.
http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/markets/natworden/10253826.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Sorry folks. I went on a rand there. Nothing upsets me more than blatant stupidity. Yeah yeah - buy American and get stranded on the road. You know what - I'm in to limiting my risks. When you break down you could get in to a car accident, you could have a bad element come and rob or worse you and your car, and you could be trying to fix it on the side of the road and get hit by a drunk driver.
No thanks. I prefer to not break down in the first place.
RIAA Backs Rootkits
People are auctioning your privacy all the time. Apparently this guy thinks that anything on your computer is something that he has the right to take a look and see if everything is working just the way he wants it.
Everyone needs to send letters to these people and tell them they are allowed to make fair profit - but charging $15 an Audio CD, when everyone knows they can go to a store and buy CDs for less than 30 cents a pop, 50 cents a pop if you want a case just isn't going to float.
We just don't care enough about their profit margin. They should replace all these record stores with little machines that let you preview music and say 'burn it' and burns a quality CD. There would be no over supply or under supply of disks. People could conceivably know every track that they are purchasing and the entire disk should cost no more than $2.
Apparently stupidity is not exclusively an American trait:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/21/australia.tourist.ap/index.html
From the 'I want to torture people and my government won't let me. Waaaa' group:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/21/cia.prisoners.ap/index.html
Something nice to see - but maybe not so nice to smell.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/21/stinky.plant.ap/index.html
I have to say - if there was one that was 11 feet tall (or so) it would be neat to see in person. Hard to imagine a 11 foot tall dandelion...
So, if you have been up on the headlines lately - you may understand that there is a Darwin exhibit in a New York area museum. Due to the recent ID/Evolution debate - it attacted - $0 in businesses to fund the exhibit. Incredible. Stupidity spreads from individuals to large identities. It will be remarkable indeed if the United States will be able to keep up with other countries in science when we are apparently averse to what the science actually means and impacts life.
You know... Mazda went for a few years without the RX7 - its hot car. They noticed something - their sales slumped. Part of the reason they brought the car back as the RX8 - is that they needed something to attract people to the showroom.
Well, the United States of America's business is much like a car manufacturer. We have in the past had a lot to offer other countries. Our technical abilities attract people to do business here.
But, in this rapidly changing world - the United States of America in general is rejecting science. And our rate of scientific progress is slowing while places like South Korea are outstripping us in biology - once one of our main points of scientific progress. Science is no longer respected in the United States and we will not be attracting employers. Large companies like Intel are actually shipping high-technology jobs out of the country. Will India be the next powerhouse economy, South Korea or maybe perhaps China? It could well be.
Anyway, more than enough typing for now.
Alex
Does it matter that GM is going to lose 1,000,000 car capacity? Not really. They fell in love with the American ideal of bigger is better and made lots of profit. Now they laughably have commercials about the great mileage they get in their cars. Talking about the remade Cavalier/Cobalt getting 34 mpg.
I have two very important points on this...No, three
1) When my wife owned a Chevy Corsice (1989) hatchback - she loved the power in the car. It had a nice six cylinder engine. But the brakes were constantly not quite right, I changed the battery in the car - and we had to take it to the dealer so they could reset the computer (apparently you can't do something as simple as change the battery yourself) and the electrical system was beginning to act - well weird.
2) Every American car has left me stranded on the road and helpless. It is not a good feeling - and living in New Jersey not every area is a place where you can walk to a house and ask for help.
3) My Honda Civic - 1992 - which I have since donated had 222,222 miles over 9 years. Its sticker (stick shift/manual trans) had 36/40 MPG. Sometimes you get better and sometimes you get worse mileage than the sticker. That car for the life of the car when I owned it - got 40MPG. The car broke down once - because the distributer finally crapped out at 160,000 miles. And Chevy wants to laud the Cobalt (similar car) getting 34 MPG! What a bunch of idiots - is the kindest way I can put it. And you know what - my parents had a 1986 Cavalier - and it was a piece of crap. In fact, it was the car that turned my family from American Manufacturers to - well Honda.
I could really go on a lot about this stuff. Really this is a case of macroeconomics and microeconomics.
On the Microeconomic side you have comfort, reliability and fuel-efficiency. This are all factors in favor of Honda vs GM.
On the Macroeconomics side you have jobs, GNP and global perception of Americans. These are things that if you lose the Microeconomics side - guess what you lose the Macroeconomic side.
Guess what, people in general are what you might call selfish. We don't want to be victims of being left on the side of the road. We don't want to be victimized by garages that charge lots of money to do repairs or dealers that charge even more to do repairs. We like it even if there is just a perception that by the things we do on a daily basis we are saving money.
So, people buy what is best for them - meaning foreign cars in general and my family - Honda in specific. My wife's Honda CR-V has 202,000 miles on it. Never broke down. Although once it wouldn't start because the 6-year old battery finally died. My newer Honda Accord Coupe that I replaced my Honda Civic with has 37,000 miles on it (my driving habits have changed a lot) and it needed the transmission replaced. It was on warranty and the new warranty on the new transmission is 10 years. So, I am relatively unconcerned about that.
So, nearly 500,000 miles in cars my wife have owned and one break-down. And I'm not even including the hundreds of thousands of miles my parents have put on their three Hondas that they have owned over time. A Honda Wagovan (great car, but butt ugly), their newer Honda CR-V and their 1996 Honda Accord which has 137,000 miles on it.
Sp, anyway, read this article for more information - including a little note from an analyst saying 'Clearly, they eventually need to make better products that are more competitive with their foreign competitors, but that's a long-term proposition'. The main problem is that GM does not have a long term proposition anymore. They need to make better cars, more fuel efficient cars - now, not next year and certainly not three years from now.
http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/markets/natworden/10253826.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Sorry folks. I went on a rand there. Nothing upsets me more than blatant stupidity. Yeah yeah - buy American and get stranded on the road. You know what - I'm in to limiting my risks. When you break down you could get in to a car accident, you could have a bad element come and rob or worse you and your car, and you could be trying to fix it on the side of the road and get hit by a drunk driver.
No thanks. I prefer to not break down in the first place.
RIAA Backs Rootkits
People are auctioning your privacy all the time. Apparently this guy thinks that anything on your computer is something that he has the right to take a look and see if everything is working just the way he wants it.
Everyone needs to send letters to these people and tell them they are allowed to make fair profit - but charging $15 an Audio CD, when everyone knows they can go to a store and buy CDs for less than 30 cents a pop, 50 cents a pop if you want a case just isn't going to float.
We just don't care enough about their profit margin. They should replace all these record stores with little machines that let you preview music and say 'burn it' and burns a quality CD. There would be no over supply or under supply of disks. People could conceivably know every track that they are purchasing and the entire disk should cost no more than $2.
Apparently stupidity is not exclusively an American trait:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/21/australia.tourist.ap/index.html
From the 'I want to torture people and my government won't let me. Waaaa' group:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/21/cia.prisoners.ap/index.html
Something nice to see - but maybe not so nice to smell.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/21/stinky.plant.ap/index.html
I have to say - if there was one that was 11 feet tall (or so) it would be neat to see in person. Hard to imagine a 11 foot tall dandelion...
So, if you have been up on the headlines lately - you may understand that there is a Darwin exhibit in a New York area museum. Due to the recent ID/Evolution debate - it attacted - $0 in businesses to fund the exhibit. Incredible. Stupidity spreads from individuals to large identities. It will be remarkable indeed if the United States will be able to keep up with other countries in science when we are apparently averse to what the science actually means and impacts life.
You know... Mazda went for a few years without the RX7 - its hot car. They noticed something - their sales slumped. Part of the reason they brought the car back as the RX8 - is that they needed something to attract people to the showroom.
Well, the United States of America's business is much like a car manufacturer. We have in the past had a lot to offer other countries. Our technical abilities attract people to do business here.
But, in this rapidly changing world - the United States of America in general is rejecting science. And our rate of scientific progress is slowing while places like South Korea are outstripping us in biology - once one of our main points of scientific progress. Science is no longer respected in the United States and we will not be attracting employers. Large companies like Intel are actually shipping high-technology jobs out of the country. Will India be the next powerhouse economy, South Korea or maybe perhaps China? It could well be.
Anyway, more than enough typing for now.
Alex
Friday, November 18, 2005
Torture
Torture - is not allowable under any circumstance. It is a violation of the rights of man.
It is not a violation of anything in the bible or Christian religious documentation.
This is expressed by the actions of our currently very Christian government.
Ex-CIA chief: Cheney 'VP for torture'
Even the appearance of impropriety is damaging to the person who claims to be the good guy. I would advocate total video observation of any prisoners recorded to hard drives and not alterable except by Congress and the Supreme Court. It should not be viewed except for the time periods any prisoner or person brings up that improprietary conduct happened.
Who watches the watcher?
All I can really say is that I cannot believe much of anything a person says once they say they are in favor of torture - except that person is capable of anything.
Alex
It is not a violation of anything in the bible or Christian religious documentation.
This is expressed by the actions of our currently very Christian government.
Ex-CIA chief: Cheney 'VP for torture'
Even the appearance of impropriety is damaging to the person who claims to be the good guy. I would advocate total video observation of any prisoners recorded to hard drives and not alterable except by Congress and the Supreme Court. It should not be viewed except for the time periods any prisoner or person brings up that improprietary conduct happened.
Who watches the watcher?
All I can really say is that I cannot believe much of anything a person says once they say they are in favor of torture - except that person is capable of anything.
Alex
Today in the News So Far
Well, I'm going to start writing a little free form about the news I see on a daily basis. I might mine this later for article topics for the things that really cause me concern.
CNN:
Suicide bombers kill dozens in 2 Iraqi cities
People appear to die every day in Iraq. The decision is made at some point that killing will acheive your goals or if your goals can be acheived through peaceful initiative. There is little excitement in solving issues through politics... The HERO wants the war - so they can be proclaimed a HERO by all and remembered. In the end, all wars end with politicians and agreements - the Hero's actions a turn in to just a political necessity.
This CNN article is ok - until there is a non sequitur in the middle of the article when they start talking about a democratic Hawk that is now requesting our withdrawal from Iraq. The placement of this paragraph makes the implication that somehow this democrats actions resulted in the attacks and deaths in Iraq.
The next paragraph repeats a White House official calling the democrat - a coward.
A former Vietname Vet - being called a coward - by people that never served.
It is not cowardice to want to back out of an unjust war. Cheney was noted in an article yesterday: Cheney: War critics are opportunists He says senators of both parties saw Hussein as a threat that he considered Democrats opportunists and that they were attempting to revise history.
This is patently untrue. Let's break it down shall we.
Truth - Everyone backed the war at the time we started it. At least in terms of congress and in terms of having enough votes to say - let's go kill some people for the just cause.
Implication that is False - that Democrats are changing their mind on the basis of no new information.
Listen folks, I don't know how to say this any clearer. If we entered the war under false pretenses, we need to apologize to the Iraqi people, today and not 150 years after the fact like we did to the native americans.
No, leaving Iraq immediately is not probably on the list of the top 10 best things to do. Neither, apparently was starting the war in the first place. Suddenly, people are soooo concerned about the USA doing the absolute best possible action when they weren't all that concerned when they started the war in the first place.
Personally, I don't think we should pull out. But, I don't think we should stay there either.
We should pull out because we look a lot like a invader at present.
We should not pull out because Iraq may well fall in to total civil war if we just leave.
There is a solution to this problem, I think. But we need to find a neutral party that is trusted by everyone willing to send their troops in to replace ours.
Problem is, the only neutral parties I can think of don't really maintain much of a military and at this point in time must view sending troops to Iraq like we should have when we started sending troops to Vietnam after the French were getting the snot kicked out of them there. Basically 'no way are we sending our folks there to die'.
Anyway, enough about the war. Just consider that we have a whole appeals process before we can execute a person, but to start a war we just need a bunch of a$$hole politicians who may or may not have military experience to say 'hey that sounds like a great idea'.
Technology saves the day - again - no supernatural beings necessary:
Sons save mom overseas with webcam.
Cheap laptops for everyone?
Windup laptops aim to bridge digital divide
Well, I suppose it isn't quite for everyone. Personally, they should charge $150 per laptop in the United States and make it a big seller this year. Take the extra $50 (assuming these folks are smart enough to be flush with money from $100) and give out free laptops instead of $100 laptops.
The wind-up laptop looks pretty neat to me - and if it is basically an internet only type of machine with basic functionality - I think it would be great as a second or third machine. It would also be a great advertising opportunity for Linux - the operating system I think will be on these laptops.
But you know, they'll probably only make them available in 3rd world countries and ignore the possibilities. Hell people in the US pay four times as much for a cell phone sometimes, people.
News in General
Sony's DRM woes expand to include copyright infringement
Now, Sony is a big company and they have a really big screw-up on their hands with their RootKit using DRM software.
I'm a programmer, and I've got to believe that Sony can at least afford to pay top-notch programmers. But apparently, they have a buch of coders that steal open-source code for commercial purposes! I mean, these guys didn't even bother to write their own software for playing MP3s.
This is nuts. I'm tempted to never by Sony stuff again after noting the things they are willing to try to protect themselves and the well poor quality in their ethics practices in using GPU license code and hiring people that can't code for crap when obviously they have money for coding.
Well, maybe after all the lawsuits settle they won't have so much money and they'll have to hire good people for more money instead of morons for $1.50 an hour.
Standard war for next DVD discs.
Blu-Ray snubs HP
Well, I hate to say this, but this whole argument about the next DVD standard is really moot. Yeah yeah yeah - higher quality DVD content for HDTV. You know - that's just not that important to me. New DRM built-in to the disks - either by Blu-Ray or HD-DVD - well, folks its hard for me to get exciting about something that is a benefit to the producers of content and not to me.
Its like getting excited about PMI on my house. Ooooh exciting I'm paying insurance so that when I go under financially the banks will have my mortgage fully paid off - but does this help me in any way - no - mortgage gets paid off and I'm still out of a house and probably a job.
Real nice. I can't wait for the cracks to come out for the new DRM these guys dream up. I think people copy DVD's now just because they can and because they are thumbing their nose at the 'man' than for any other reason. Commercial pirates - you know those folks should fry. But if I want to make a laugh/funny group of cuts from movies - how come its friggin impossible? If I want to do anything just for fun using these folks content - I'd have to spend thousands of dollars - probably more.
If I was selling that stuff, it'd be different, but you know these people are morons. They have no marketing sense. If I did make a funny movie composed of the actual funny bits of so-called funny movies and people saw it and laughed - that would generate interest and possible sales of those movies.
Review: New 'Potter' tries to do too much
I'll be going to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire today. I'll report what I can about the movie. I'm a big fan of the series, but the last movie was a bit too short given the actual content of the book. I do wish people had the attention spans they used to have during President Lincoln's time. They would go to a debate that lasted 8 hours long. Now its a struggle to get people to sit down for 2.5 hours to watch a movie. Hell, I'd love to see Sci-Fi channel pull off their magic and do a paragraph by paragraph Harry Potter... Oh, it'd be ages long (not the first movie so much, they didn't cut as much from that as the others), but it would be very enjoyable.
Probably have to wait 20 years for them to do something like that - because the people who have the current license for Harry Potter wouldn't let anyone else edge in for that long.
And to point - its probably a few years before the series wraps up in the movies.
By then, who knows - home movie makers may have enough technology to do it justice by themselves.
ok, well I guess that's enough headlines for today. Time to do some real work.
One more thing - anyone that has advice on how to draw anime/manga - feel free to drop me a comment or e-mail message. RhagamYgg@hotmail.com . I have a few story lines I want to write - and I was going to do them as books, but I suspect that the proper medium for them is Manga/Anime.
Alex
CNN:
Suicide bombers kill dozens in 2 Iraqi cities
People appear to die every day in Iraq. The decision is made at some point that killing will acheive your goals or if your goals can be acheived through peaceful initiative. There is little excitement in solving issues through politics... The HERO wants the war - so they can be proclaimed a HERO by all and remembered. In the end, all wars end with politicians and agreements - the Hero's actions a turn in to just a political necessity.
This CNN article is ok - until there is a non sequitur in the middle of the article when they start talking about a democratic Hawk that is now requesting our withdrawal from Iraq. The placement of this paragraph makes the implication that somehow this democrats actions resulted in the attacks and deaths in Iraq.
The next paragraph repeats a White House official calling the democrat - a coward.
A former Vietname Vet - being called a coward - by people that never served.
It is not cowardice to want to back out of an unjust war. Cheney was noted in an article yesterday: Cheney: War critics are opportunists He says senators of both parties saw Hussein as a threat that he considered Democrats opportunists and that they were attempting to revise history.
This is patently untrue. Let's break it down shall we.
Truth - Everyone backed the war at the time we started it. At least in terms of congress and in terms of having enough votes to say - let's go kill some people for the just cause.
Implication that is False - that Democrats are changing their mind on the basis of no new information.
Listen folks, I don't know how to say this any clearer. If we entered the war under false pretenses, we need to apologize to the Iraqi people, today and not 150 years after the fact like we did to the native americans.
No, leaving Iraq immediately is not probably on the list of the top 10 best things to do. Neither, apparently was starting the war in the first place. Suddenly, people are soooo concerned about the USA doing the absolute best possible action when they weren't all that concerned when they started the war in the first place.
Personally, I don't think we should pull out. But, I don't think we should stay there either.
We should pull out because we look a lot like a invader at present.
We should not pull out because Iraq may well fall in to total civil war if we just leave.
There is a solution to this problem, I think. But we need to find a neutral party that is trusted by everyone willing to send their troops in to replace ours.
Problem is, the only neutral parties I can think of don't really maintain much of a military and at this point in time must view sending troops to Iraq like we should have when we started sending troops to Vietnam after the French were getting the snot kicked out of them there. Basically 'no way are we sending our folks there to die'.
Anyway, enough about the war. Just consider that we have a whole appeals process before we can execute a person, but to start a war we just need a bunch of a$$hole politicians who may or may not have military experience to say 'hey that sounds like a great idea'.
Technology saves the day - again - no supernatural beings necessary:
Sons save mom overseas with webcam.
Cheap laptops for everyone?
Windup laptops aim to bridge digital divide
Well, I suppose it isn't quite for everyone. Personally, they should charge $150 per laptop in the United States and make it a big seller this year. Take the extra $50 (assuming these folks are smart enough to be flush with money from $100) and give out free laptops instead of $100 laptops.
The wind-up laptop looks pretty neat to me - and if it is basically an internet only type of machine with basic functionality - I think it would be great as a second or third machine. It would also be a great advertising opportunity for Linux - the operating system I think will be on these laptops.
But you know, they'll probably only make them available in 3rd world countries and ignore the possibilities. Hell people in the US pay four times as much for a cell phone sometimes, people.
News in General
Sony's DRM woes expand to include copyright infringement
Now, Sony is a big company and they have a really big screw-up on their hands with their RootKit using DRM software.
I'm a programmer, and I've got to believe that Sony can at least afford to pay top-notch programmers. But apparently, they have a buch of coders that steal open-source code for commercial purposes! I mean, these guys didn't even bother to write their own software for playing MP3s.
This is nuts. I'm tempted to never by Sony stuff again after noting the things they are willing to try to protect themselves and the well poor quality in their ethics practices in using GPU license code and hiring people that can't code for crap when obviously they have money for coding.
Well, maybe after all the lawsuits settle they won't have so much money and they'll have to hire good people for more money instead of morons for $1.50 an hour.
Standard war for next DVD discs.
Blu-Ray snubs HP
Well, I hate to say this, but this whole argument about the next DVD standard is really moot. Yeah yeah yeah - higher quality DVD content for HDTV. You know - that's just not that important to me. New DRM built-in to the disks - either by Blu-Ray or HD-DVD - well, folks its hard for me to get exciting about something that is a benefit to the producers of content and not to me.
Its like getting excited about PMI on my house. Ooooh exciting I'm paying insurance so that when I go under financially the banks will have my mortgage fully paid off - but does this help me in any way - no - mortgage gets paid off and I'm still out of a house and probably a job.
Real nice. I can't wait for the cracks to come out for the new DRM these guys dream up. I think people copy DVD's now just because they can and because they are thumbing their nose at the 'man' than for any other reason. Commercial pirates - you know those folks should fry. But if I want to make a laugh/funny group of cuts from movies - how come its friggin impossible? If I want to do anything just for fun using these folks content - I'd have to spend thousands of dollars - probably more.
If I was selling that stuff, it'd be different, but you know these people are morons. They have no marketing sense. If I did make a funny movie composed of the actual funny bits of so-called funny movies and people saw it and laughed - that would generate interest and possible sales of those movies.
Review: New 'Potter' tries to do too much
I'll be going to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire today. I'll report what I can about the movie. I'm a big fan of the series, but the last movie was a bit too short given the actual content of the book. I do wish people had the attention spans they used to have during President Lincoln's time. They would go to a debate that lasted 8 hours long. Now its a struggle to get people to sit down for 2.5 hours to watch a movie. Hell, I'd love to see Sci-Fi channel pull off their magic and do a paragraph by paragraph Harry Potter... Oh, it'd be ages long (not the first movie so much, they didn't cut as much from that as the others), but it would be very enjoyable.
Probably have to wait 20 years for them to do something like that - because the people who have the current license for Harry Potter wouldn't let anyone else edge in for that long.
And to point - its probably a few years before the series wraps up in the movies.
By then, who knows - home movie makers may have enough technology to do it justice by themselves.
ok, well I guess that's enough headlines for today. Time to do some real work.
One more thing - anyone that has advice on how to draw anime/manga - feel free to drop me a comment or e-mail message. RhagamYgg@hotmail.com . I have a few story lines I want to write - and I was going to do them as books, but I suspect that the proper medium for them is Manga/Anime.
Alex
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Google Adsense and this Blog
Well, I decided to add Google's Adsense to this Blog. It was not all that hard to do, and it wasn't even something I really did intentionally.
I just logged in to the blog and saw the ad for adsense. Followed it down the path.
Supposedly, adsense searches the blog and only puts ads on it that are related to the content. If it does a good job, please visit the linked ads at the top of this blog.
It could mean money for me - but you know, I'm not going to get my hopes up.
Anyway, the click of the ad on a page does not trigger any monetary gain. It is what you do when you get to the destination web page. If you click a few links on the destination web page it generates some numbers which in turn will generate a few pennies on my side.
So, if the links at the top of the screen look like they are something worth it for you, please by all means click on through and look around on those web sites.
The links there presently are of interest to the programmer in me - the IT business and things like that.
But as I have said in many articles - you need to be as aware as you can of how computers work so that you will not be a victim in a computer run society, but someone that understands what is going on around them.
Alex
I just logged in to the blog and saw the ad for adsense. Followed it down the path.
Supposedly, adsense searches the blog and only puts ads on it that are related to the content. If it does a good job, please visit the linked ads at the top of this blog.
It could mean money for me - but you know, I'm not going to get my hopes up.
Anyway, the click of the ad on a page does not trigger any monetary gain. It is what you do when you get to the destination web page. If you click a few links on the destination web page it generates some numbers which in turn will generate a few pennies on my side.
So, if the links at the top of the screen look like they are something worth it for you, please by all means click on through and look around on those web sites.
The links there presently are of interest to the programmer in me - the IT business and things like that.
But as I have said in many articles - you need to be as aware as you can of how computers work so that you will not be a victim in a computer run society, but someone that understands what is going on around them.
Alex
Recent Articles
Well, two of my most recent articles have been posted on Useless-Knowledge.
Here they are:
This article is about how the idea of Conception being the beginning of life and the rights associated with life would have severe consequences to a great many people.
Considering Life to Begin at Conception
This article was written at the request of another writer - it details the various things people need to do to protect their computer (and themselves) on the web - and the things that can threaten you on the web.
Things You Should Understand About Your Computer and People
Alex
Here they are:
This article is about how the idea of Conception being the beginning of life and the rights associated with life would have severe consequences to a great many people.
Considering Life to Begin at Conception
This article was written at the request of another writer - it details the various things people need to do to protect their computer (and themselves) on the web - and the things that can threaten you on the web.
Things You Should Understand About Your Computer and People
Alex
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Urusei Yatsura - Those Obnoxious Aliens
I have a new favorite show - and it is Urusei Yatsura.
I first discovered it on OnDemand on HBO - the movie "Beautiful Dreamer".
Excellent movie in the Urusei Yatsura universe - but the wrong place to start watching the show - as it appears to be after the TV series.
So, now I am renting through NetFlix - the TV Show DVDs.
Urusei Yatsura is written/drawn by the same person that wrote Inuyasha - another of my favorite shows. Rumiko Takahashi .
Inuyasha a dark and has its own flavor - one so completely different that Urusei Yatsura that it is astonishing that kind of breadth is contained in a single person.
Urusei Yatsura - of all things is a comedy. I suppose it would be considered an 'R' rated comedy by the sad state of United States of America standards. I believe it was originally designed for Japanese Teens and pre-teens.
It is excellent in the incredible amount of humor in the show - and the humor works so well it works even though I've got to read the subtitles.
So, if you are afraid of a little nudity - or teenagers behaving well like teenagers - specifically boys, but a little bit of the girls as well... I'd stay away from this one.
If you have a tolerance for nudity and don't believe it will burn your eyes out and that seeing what people really are like when they are teenages isn't going to degrade your moral values or the future moral values of your current teenager - I highly recommend this series.
And for everyone that is against this sort of thing because it degrades women etc (with the nudity) I remind you very strongly - this story is written by a woman.
Alex
I first discovered it on OnDemand on HBO - the movie "Beautiful Dreamer".
Excellent movie in the Urusei Yatsura universe - but the wrong place to start watching the show - as it appears to be after the TV series.
So, now I am renting through NetFlix - the TV Show DVDs.
Urusei Yatsura is written/drawn by the same person that wrote Inuyasha - another of my favorite shows. Rumiko Takahashi .
Inuyasha a dark and has its own flavor - one so completely different that Urusei Yatsura that it is astonishing that kind of breadth is contained in a single person.
Urusei Yatsura - of all things is a comedy. I suppose it would be considered an 'R' rated comedy by the sad state of United States of America standards. I believe it was originally designed for Japanese Teens and pre-teens.
It is excellent in the incredible amount of humor in the show - and the humor works so well it works even though I've got to read the subtitles.
So, if you are afraid of a little nudity - or teenagers behaving well like teenagers - specifically boys, but a little bit of the girls as well... I'd stay away from this one.
If you have a tolerance for nudity and don't believe it will burn your eyes out and that seeing what people really are like when they are teenages isn't going to degrade your moral values or the future moral values of your current teenager - I highly recommend this series.
And for everyone that is against this sort of thing because it degrades women etc (with the nudity) I remind you very strongly - this story is written by a woman.
Alex
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Recent Articles and Thoughts of More Topics to Write Aboue
Hi Everyone,
It has been a little while since I have written. When life - or work anyway - become more active it is hard to keep up writing on the blog.
Anyway, I have written a few more articles on Useless-Knowledge.
I wrote an article about the need for everyone to have a basic understanding of computer programming.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/oct/article387.html
This is the first article that I have written showing people how to write a simple article:
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article090.html
I wrote an article opposing the idea that these are the 'end-times'. I could probably write more on this topic.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/oct/article317.html
Here is an article about George Bush - regarding the idea that he is basically a paradox... How can he believe that all life began in the basic form that it is now - if he also believes that a bird flu can mutate in to a human variant and kill people? There is of course a lot more detail in the article.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article074.html
This is an article about the foolishness of authors and publishers in thinking that somehow Googles efforts to make all books searchable will harm them. It will by far make the money and increase the ability for people at home to start the research using books - legitimate resources - instead of just the web - where there are a lot of unverified resources out there behaving like factual resources.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article051.html
This is an article discussing the inability for there to be a common ground in terms of ideas in the discussion of Evolution and Intelligent Design. It is similar to comparing a drawing of a car on paper and a car that has been through the design process and completely built and is functioning.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article042.html
I want to write a series of articles on actions that would result in a better election process. Anyone that has thoughts on this - please make a response to this blog entry.
Also, I want to write about the legality of statements made by a certain Fundamentalist Christian Leader - threatening a Pennsylvanian town.
Abwägen
It has been a little while since I have written. When life - or work anyway - become more active it is hard to keep up writing on the blog.
Anyway, I have written a few more articles on Useless-Knowledge.
I wrote an article about the need for everyone to have a basic understanding of computer programming.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/oct/article387.html
This is the first article that I have written showing people how to write a simple article:
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article090.html
I wrote an article opposing the idea that these are the 'end-times'. I could probably write more on this topic.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/oct/article317.html
Here is an article about George Bush - regarding the idea that he is basically a paradox... How can he believe that all life began in the basic form that it is now - if he also believes that a bird flu can mutate in to a human variant and kill people? There is of course a lot more detail in the article.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article074.html
This is an article about the foolishness of authors and publishers in thinking that somehow Googles efforts to make all books searchable will harm them. It will by far make the money and increase the ability for people at home to start the research using books - legitimate resources - instead of just the web - where there are a lot of unverified resources out there behaving like factual resources.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article051.html
This is an article discussing the inability for there to be a common ground in terms of ideas in the discussion of Evolution and Intelligent Design. It is similar to comparing a drawing of a car on paper and a car that has been through the design process and completely built and is functioning.
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/nov/article042.html
I want to write a series of articles on actions that would result in a better election process. Anyone that has thoughts on this - please make a response to this blog entry.
Also, I want to write about the legality of statements made by a certain Fundamentalist Christian Leader - threatening a Pennsylvanian town.
Abwägen
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