Recently in Miscellaneous Category

So I am standing at the meat counter in Whole Foods. I want some chicken for a BBQ.

They have a "100% natural chicken" and for a little more money they have an "organic" chicken. What is the difference, I ask.

"The "natural" chicken is from Washington and its fed corn. The "organic" chicken is from California and its fed soy. I think the corn chicken has more flavor."

Hmmm.

Buying local is good because there is less transportation but corn is evil and chickens dont naturally eat corn.

Chickens dont naturally eat soy either and its more expensive.

The natural chicken looks kind of yellow. The soy chicken looks kind of white or greenish white.

You are what you eat and so is chicken...

Hmmm.

So I bought them both and cooked them both in our Traeger grill.

20 minutes on high; 70 minutes on medium; 10 minutes on smoke; with regular basting.

Both chickens tasted good but the corn chicken was a little greasier. Maybe that is the flavor? The taste test was a draw because they both tasted good.

The difference came when I picked all the meat off the bones.

The organic chicken was perfect. Perfectly cooked. All the meat came of easily.

The corn chicken however still had pockets of uncooked fat inside. It was stringier and greasier even though the organic chicken was actually larger and they cooked for the same time.

So I will be sticking with my "no corn" rule and paying a little more for soy chickens in the future. Bon appetite.

Two weeks ago I wrote about why I have not been blogging this year. Answer? I have been busy.

One of the things I have been busy with is finally over. A beta release of Messenger for Mac.

A year and a half ago, I left Amazon to work for Microsoft on Mac software. My project since then has been Messenger for Mac.

Messenger for Mac (or MM) provides real-time communications (like IM chat and video calls) and presence information for Windows Live users (ie normal consumers like you and me) as well as for enterprise customers using Office Communicator Server.

This is my first product release at Microsoft as well as my first corporate blog post and thus a big deal for me personally. (When you are in the software business, any time you actually ship something is a big deal.)

Releasing the beta does not mean that things have slowed down at work or that I am off relaxing on vacation. The real accomplishment will be our next full release for Mac Office 2011 and we are still working hard on that but I wanted to at least mark the moment of the beta release.

With the iPad release coming up this week and Valve's announcement of Steam for the Mac, there is a lot of news to discuss. Hopefully I will find a few minutes to turn some of my recent discussions into posts. 2010 is turning into an exciting year.

Here we are again in the best time of the year. No not Christmas. It's college basketball time!

I can wake up on a Saturday, drag myself to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee and then drag myself to the couch and behold some terrific basketball on television. It does not get any better than that.

Except for Dick.

If I died today and never had to hear the phrase "diaper dandy" again, it might be worth it. Every year I wish for the same thing for Christmas - Dickie V to retire. Not yet it seems. Another year of those annoying phrases, stupid pizza commercials and hearing him plug his charity when the other commentator asks him about Michigan State.

Dick Cheney. Dick Clark. Dick Vitale. Do not name your child Dick.

A few weeks back I got to watch UNC dismantle my Spartans fairly easily, although not was completely as the championship last year. Finally Tyler Hansborough is gone so I can at least root for UNC when they are not playing MSU.

Like today when they played Texas. In past years Texas has been ranked highly and MSU has gone down to Texas to beat them. This year that seems unlikely. Texas is a monster and they made UNC look easy today. Not good for MSU next week.

After that great game, CBS is showing Duke against Gonzaga. Two observations:

1) The HD camera's on CBS seem different this year. The picture quality is different. The picture seems closer and more intimate, more like a hand-held than the traditional TV-camera-from-afar look Im used to. Could be a good thing.

2) Duke continues to recruit the best playing, worst looking basketball players in the nation. What is up with that?

For the first time ever, MSU was ranked #2 for 3 weeks. Before they started loosing.

It is just not normal for MSU to be ranked highly. They are never the best team in America and they are never consistent. I think that is part of what I enjoy about them. They are always emotional and you never know what they will do. It makes March Madness even more fun and they almost always deliver in the tournament. Having them in the championship last year was a bracket buster for my office pool competition.

I really thought they would not be very good this year after losing Suton so I was surprised by the high ranking but its over already. Top 20 is ok but top 10 is a distraction for the boys in green.

The other notable difference about this year is that we dont have cable TV and havent for months. Thanks to free over the air HD broadcasts and free games online with ESPN360, I am seeing all the sports I normally would. ESPN360 is not great picture quality, about comparable to analog cable, but the price is right.

Next month I will have to decide how much the Big10 channel and HD content matter to me and whether it trumps my dislike for cable TV companies.

I dont know who The Oatmeal is but I enjoyed this quick read about coffee. Especially the "tons 'o milk" part. Starbucks, I'm looking at you!

There have been a number of news stories recently about the "backlash" against banks regarding bank fees. Here is my story: a $70 charge on a $10 bill that got me to cancel my Chase visa in anger.

Unfortunately, its a long story...

Here is the background: I have had this credit card from Chase for at least 5 years. I used to use it often but the past year or two I never use it. In the past, I got sick of late fees so I connected it to my BofA bank account with their automatic payment system. I never have to worry about being late: the card pays itself.

Another thing I have had for a long time is a $99 subscription to Apple's mobileME (originally .Mac). I bought that plan when I bought my first Mac and I used the email to register with iTunes for my iPod and iPhone.

I got an email that my subscription was about over. I thought about it and realized that I have never used mobileMe for anything. What the hell am I paying Apple for? Its a waste of money.

But I wasnt sure what would happened if I canceled. Would my iTunes music stop working? Or my iPhones? I thought I wanted to quit but I hesitated and got distracted with life.

I felt safe though because I also got a notice that the credit card on file with Apple was expired. I assumed that the transaction would not go through. By stalling my problem would solve itself.

Except it did not. Apple charged my Chase card and I found out about it a month later on my credit card bill. Again, I decided to resolve this issue and cancel the service - but I was tardy.

And Apple does not make it easy. There is no phone number on the credit card charge. There is no phone number on Apple's website. If you search enough, you will find some help pages.

That is when you will learn that Apple does not allow cancellation after 45 days. Unlike every other service I have ever heard of, Apple does not pro-rate. If you are within 45 days, the webpage will include a cancel button; if not, there is no cancel. See you next year...

I was just over 50 days late. So Im pissed. I get to pay $99 for another year of useless mobileMe.

But it gets better.

The bank account that I had linked to my Chase account is from California. Since I havent lived there in over 6 years, I had recently closed that bank account and removed all the money. It turned out that BofA had not closed the account but there was no money in it.

While I was trying to figure out how to cancel with Apple, my automatic pay period with Chase had passed. I hadnt worried about paying the bill because I was planning to get the charge removed but Chase withdrew $10.

Or tried to. Milliseconds after the charge, it failed since there was no money in the account.

BofA charged me $30 for bouncing a payment. Chase charged me $29 for bouncing a payment and another $39 for a late fee.

First I call BofA. They make me wait on hold for EVAH, but the person I talk to is totally nice. She reverses the charges and tries (again) to close the account. I am feeling good about BofA.

Then I call Chase and get a totally different experience. They don't make me wait on hold but the person I talk too could not care less about my situation. I owe them money. No discussion.

I have talked to credit card companies in the past and they always remove fees like this. It costs them nothing. I have good credit, pay my bills and rarely have weird issues like this.

But not this time. Chase wanted their $70 fee on the missed $10 payment. So I got angry and cancelled the card.

I am still angry. I have just paid $170 for a service I never wanted in the first place and wont use. Plus I have been stressed out and leave with a bad taste for Chase and for Apple.

It is a glimpse of the future - where you are at the mercy of massive corporations which are all pretty similar. 10 years ago, there were a lot of banks. Now there are fewer every day. I got rid of my Chase credit card but they bought my bank account when they purchased WAMU so I am still a customer.

Not a life and death situation but a reminder that capitalism has reached a point where things dont always get better and you dont always have a choice.

So I hope Congress runs these banks over the hot coals of bank reform but it will be a Pyhirric victory as I will doubtlessly pay either way.

Trying not to take it personally but I am on an extended bad luck streak with devices...

First it was moving my HTPC to Windows 7. I had problems with the file permissions and ultimately I got an HTPC that only works with one channel - PBS. I dont think this was a statement of taste by my television so it remains an unsolved tech problem.

Then the PC at my office died. Our tech support group worked on it for over 2 weeks before returning it to me partially fixed. (If it goes to sleep, it never recovers.)

I moved my email to Google. At least half of it. I used their "groups" feature and it is not working - instead it is bouncing email. Unresolved tech issue for this weekend.

On vacation, our Nikon D40 died. It has an autofocus lens which stopped focusing. Since there is no manual focus, it was useless. No photos.

Last night Claire picked up my iPhone while I was talking with someone. 5 minutes later my iPhone is dead. It wont power on or hold a charge or sync with my iMac. Dead.

On the list of things one did not spend time on 25 years ago? All these computer and device problems.

We have been without TV for a while now but I was starting to get excited about the new TV season, specifically the return of my favorite show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The last season of TSCC was just getting mind-blowing with an interesting story line.

So I went to the Fox website last night to see if the new shows were up and it wasnt there... I got a bad feeling.

This is the third time my favorite TV show has been cancelled. Twice on Fox no less.

First was Enterprise.

Then it was Serenity.

And now TSCC.

Apparently the show was dropped back in May and I didnt hear about it. Im so disappointed.

I can only imagine that the show was too costly to keep. Much better to show more reality-crapola or shows with people that fall down or get hit in the nuts. Capitalism, you dont have much taste do you?

It is finally here!! After months of waiting, I get a week off work for our annual family vacation. This is it. Half of my annual vacation...

I finished up as many loose ends at work as I could and now I am ready for a week of sun, surf, and drinks in balmy Puerto Vallarta, Mexico....

What is the weather like?

As if I didnt get enough rain at home here in Seattle... Sometimes you just have to laugh.

This was not a great weekend.

Among other small calamities, Friday night my cat did not come home.

That is not normal. In fact, it never happens and was alarming. I walked the neighborhood around 11pm looking for him. I did not sleep well. At 6:30am, I got up (also not normal) and walked the quiet neighborhood again whistling for him.

My cat is not the kind to wander off. I checked the roads for an accident; nothing.
Maybe he got stuck in a garage or something but he is a good meow'er and I could not hear him.
He is micro-chipped and had a collar so if anyone turned him into authorities, they would call.
That pretty much leaves other people, as in foul play. If someone took him, there is not much we could do about it.

Saturday was pretty miserable as I worried about him. Even my three-year old could not cheer me up. "It's ok, daddy. Now we can get a yellow puppy!"

Around 10pm Saturday night, he showed up at the front door like nothing had happened. He didnt seem anxious or even very hungry (again, not normal). I was worried sick but he knew there was nothing to worry about. Meow.

So my story ends well but such experiences always cause me to reflect and give thanks that this mishap was a minor one.

If this is how I felt about a pet, I cannot even begin to imagine what it would feel like to lose a child, young or old. A loss is one thing but not knowing is so much worse.

What happened? Are they alive and suffering? It gnaws at you. You cannot focus or think straight. Every few minutes you think about it again and worry.

Every year there are thousands of lost children. There are thousands that die far from home in the military or are victims of crime.

My heart goes out to those families and I give thanks that mine are safe.

A week after they came to our house to pick our our cable box I got a threatening letter about returning any equipment and then a phone call to say that we haven’t returned our equipment.

So I have to spent my time on their "automated" response phone system to inform them that they already picked the damn box up.

Unbelievable.

Then the automated call system called me back!!

Imagine Bill Gates decides to write a self-help book on how to succeed in business.

Step 1: drop out of school or quit your job
Step 2: start a software company
Step 3: Find a dumb customer that will help you turn your ideas into the largest, most profitable software company in history
Step 4: Become the richest man in the world
Step 5: retire and create the largest charity in the world.

"Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time" (Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz)

Thus we learn that not every life creates a path that others can follow. I found myself thinking about that as I started reading "Never Eat Alone".

I happened to see the author speak about his new book a month ago and it got me interested in his first book. The Amazon reviews included a few strong criticisms and as I read the book, I found myself agreeing with them.

In the first chapter the author explains that he got into Harvard Business School even though he had no business education or training and he wasnt good with numbers. It appears that spreadsheets gave him migraines. But it gets better. With the MBA at his side, he then landed a job at a top 5 consulting firm where he was unable to do the work. Since he couldnt do his actual job, he started doing a completely different job. Instead of getting fired, he got promoted and soon became the head of marketing. This lead to more promotions and executive level jobs.

That story alone was enough to put me on edge. But I find the book to be an interesting read nonetheless.

The book is similar to another experience I had last year. I listened to a senior software developer who left Microsoft, went to Google, and 2 years later returned to Microsoft. This guy was speaking about the different cultures. I did not agree with his conclusions but I did appreciate his observations which let me draw my own conclusions.

So it is with this book. The author's life story is hard to take at times. It seems that he has had a career of "falling up" while others have made him a success. He is totally unselfconscious about telling us the details of his good fortune.

I dont agree with all of his conclusions or all of his advise but I do think his observations about how some things in life work is spot on. And worth consideration.

After only a few chapters, it seemed clear to me that the author is clearly someone I will never be. There are different social systems in life and "sales" is one of them. Many sales people become successful and many people use sales techniques to become successful. I personally find them to be very foreign but it is useful to be aware of them and use them whenever possible.

His idea that successful network is the result of generosity is intriguing. As is his idea that the more you give, the more you give; networking and contacts are not a scarce resource to be hoarded.

But I also think it is true that it takes a certain kind of person, say someone that gets a migraine from spreadsheets and math, that really excels at the world of "you wash my back, I'll wash yours."

Remember that whole global "warming" hoax people used to talk about?

105 degrees in Seattle today.

Triple digit heat is nothing new in Southern California but up here at the Canadian border, as far north as Maine? Damn, its #$%$# hot! Miserable, unpleasant hot.

We have 90+ degree temperatures for a whole week. Yuck.

If Gatorade wants to be "G", I am fine with that. Honey, can you buy me some more G?

If Pizza Hut wants to be "the Hut", well Im still gonna call them Pizza Hut.

Companies across the nation are having a midlife crisis and changing their names to something shorter and cooler.

But turning the SciFi channel into the SyFy channel? Ugh, give me a break. Im not down with that. I hate the logo. I hate the improper English. I hate it.

The 4th of July.

Yesterday was a holiday and I listened to some radio specials on NPR. The shows talked about the history (versus the common myths) about our nation's struggle for independence and they talked about the great depression.

Not for the first time, I just sat there listening, fascinated by how little I know about our nation's actual history.
How terms like "republican" and "freedom" have been twisted around over the decades.
How little I know or think about our national holidays.
How incredibly wealthy we are and we dont even notice.

Like most people, national holidays to me are about beer and bbq and not going to work. I dont think about what they mean or the words to the songs we sing - the way men like Thomas Jefferson did. Shit meant a lot back then, at least to the learned. Words and ideas were important, were worth fighting and dying for.

As I lay on the couch watching TV and eating chocolate, it strikes me that people back then had so much less and yet thought so much more. Its hard to prove but at reflective moments like this, I feel that we are getting dumber even as we learn more stuff. Sure you can work a cell phone but what does a word like "freedom" actually mean?

But Jefferson was a long time ago. Much more relevant and fascinating is the history of just the past century. You would think we would know more about it.

I heard a show that talked about the Hoover/Roosevelt election and the things Roosevelt did to give people work.

The sanctity of work. That was a big deal then. Not just giving people money but giving them labor for a wage. It makes a lot of sense to me. I am not sure it translates to brain work (banking, stock market, computers) but it makes sense to me.

Another big deal back then was nature and learning life skills. How to start a fire, catch a fish and cook it. Basic manual labor skills.

The stories, some from people still alive, were really touching. 15 year kids who lied about their age so they could go to work and earn food money. The CCC which sent poor men around the country. Men who got food, a little money and who built just about everything, from the first ski resort in Vermont to the Hoover dam.

It was a fascinating tale far from the politics of today and our "debates" about the stimulus plan and bailing out the banks and home "owners".

Listening to some 90 year old guy talking about how poor, hungry and desperate his family was then and how the CCC saved his life, it was really touching. And it was like another world.

We have come so far, prospered so much this past century that the idea of so many homeless and hungry is unimaginable. Our wealth, wealth I grew up in, is unimaginable but so omnipresent we dont even see it. We take so much for granted.

And that is what I like about our national holidays. Spending at least a few hours thinking about how much we have and being thankful.

when the car next to your 15 year old Toyota in the office parking lot is a Tesla...

"No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine" (Rob Merritt, Brooks Brown)

So there is some event. You read the paper and watch the TV news. You think you understand what happened and you feel good.

Then you hear another source who informs you that everything you thought you knew was BS. The truth is totally different.

This scenario is a mainstay in movies but it happens in real life too, all too often. It is unsettling. "If I thought that was true and it wasnt, what else do I think is true and isnt?"

This is a video game podcast for parents but this particular episode is about the Columbine school shootings. Specifically it is an interview with one of the kids, Brooks Brown, who was there and who intimately knew the two shooters. Guess he wrote a book too.

Great 30 minute interview. Worth your time.

The gist is that these two kids were in trouble for a long time and the police had been warned about them for over a year. When the police then said they had had no warning about the shooters, and Brown pointed out that that was not true, the police went after Brown. Holy real life cover up, Batman! A scary tale of how the authorities sometimes have their own interests at heart over yours.

Are you watching the NBA playoffs?

Some of the worst officiating I have EVER seen. Game-changing calls that favor the home team and extend the playoff series.

Makes me not want to watch.

Or in one breath?

A: Come to our house any day and Claire will demonstrate

Just got back from a trip to Miami, Florida. The whole week I listened to news stories about the swine flu.

I also listened to the reactions of some of my relatives. "*derisive snort* This is so overblown."  "If we worry so much now, what will happen when there is a real outbreak."

I kind of agree with the cry-wolf problem but we will see what happens. Like the 1918 (or was it 1908?) pandemic, it started small in the Spring and then hit hard in the Fall.

What really troubles me is how this flu virus spread despite so much media attention. When I left Seattle last week there were no cases in the Pacific Northwest or in Miami. As we returned this week, there were confirmed cases in Washington, Oregon and Florida.

Thankfully this outbreak does not appear to be deadly but it sure did spread around the globe like the 12-Monkeys version. People going along with their daily lives willfully ignoring the risks added to fast, long-distance travel and there is no way to stop the spread of a contagious disease.

As I was relaxing on vacation, the flu reactions make me think about how we have lost touch with natural rhythms.

So what if school is closed for a week or you have to stay home and not go to work? When it was hot hot hot in the summer or cold cold cold in the winter, we used to slow down and stay home. These days, our linear, hard charging lifestyle makes any interruption seem like the end of the world.

We are silly. Frankly, I miss seasons. I miss fruit once a year when they are in season and not every morning because it is flown in from god knows where. Life has changed.

Is this it? Really?

For years I have heard health professionals say:

a) like earthquakes, deadly disease pandemics happen with regularity
b) we are overdue for a pandemic
c) the next deadly strain of influenza is likely to come from pigs and from China where lots of people live closely with pigs

And then *bamm*, here comes swine flu from Mexico. Makes me think of 12 Monkeys or those other disease movies. A big map with cities on it, watching as the disease spreads by airplanes from one city to another. Scary stuff.

We are just about to get on a plane to Miami. I really wish I had the guts to wear one of those silly surgical masks. They just seem so out of place on a white guy in the USA...

Let's hope this swine flu passes and that pandemic experts are predicting waits another few decades.

I've been meaning to offer more commentary on the economy and housing in particular but where is the fun in that? Let's talk about TV.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

We have been enjoying Lost again after a long break but there is only one TV show that leaves me delighted each week, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. (Their site is all flash so no cool photos to show here.)

I really enjoyed The Terminator when it came out in the 1980's. It was awesome. For the first time ever, I imagined what it would be like to fight a machine. An implacable, unstoppable machine. Scary stuff.

The effects in the movie have not aged well with the decades but the sequel, Terminator 2 was also fantastic. It set a new bar for computer effects and unlike most sequels, had a great story.

Terminator 3? Forgettable. Forgotten.

I was a huge James Cameron fan until Titanic. The Terminator movies are some of the best sci-fi but Im not a huge fan boy. I rarely watch the movies over again and I had very low expectations of the TV show.

Which makes my love of the show so surprising to me. I dont like it because it beat my expectations. I like it because it is so well written.

You get great casting. You get some action, some Terminator robots, some good looking stars but mostly you get a deep story, with complex characters. You get a lot of character development. You get some thought into what it would be like growing up and knowing the future, knowing the disaster to come.

And the show is not a cookie-cutter formula. Lots of main characters die. They take risks with the show. They surprise and I love that.

This is also one of the only shows to focus on time travel and not come off as retarded. It keeps my interest. I wonder what will happen next. While Lost has also become a story about time travel, TCS and Lost have totally different approaches.

Battlestar Galactica lost my interest. Stargate, et al. are simplistic one-hour solve the mystery kid shows. Star Trek does not exist anymore. Fringe has a great cast but is mostly just gross. Heroes is a been yawner. That leaves TSC on Fox, a dark, adult-oriented sci-fi show that entertains and does not insult your intelligence.

You probably are not watching it but you should.

Krod Mandoon

The other show I have been enjoying for just a few weeks is Krod Mandoon. A completely over the top silly spoof of D&D fantasy. No work of art but good for a few laughs.

Why does it feel so disappointing to be #2? MSU made it all the way to the championship game!! And fell short of a title.

They had a great season and I got to watch almost every game so why do I feel so let down? They did great, I just hate to see it end.

Dick Vitale said he would grow his hair back before MSU was a #1 seed and two weeks later, MSU had beaten two #1 seeds to get into the championship game. Izzo's record of taking every 4 year player to the Final Four is intact.

Unlike Vitale, I saw most of the MSU games and I knew that this was their best team in years. They had what it takes but UNC was just better. That first half was brutal. MSU played like they always do and UNC played like champions. No mistakes. Almost no misses. The second half was a normal game but it wasnt enough for MSU. Maybe if there had been a third half or the refs had called a few fouls on UNC in the first half... but life isnt about maybe.

This was the best MSU team in years but now the season is over. This is the end of the year for me. The end of basketball on TV. The end of cable TV period. Im another year older. I wont see some of my friends anymore - Suton, Walton, Ibok... The senior class is gone for good.

It wont be the same team next year but hopefully they will still be a good one. This year they had a lot of young players - freshman and sophomores - and it showed. They were inconsistent during the season but they got their shit together for the tournament.

And that is a hallmark of an Izzo team. Sometimes I dont think Izzo cares about the regular season. It's just the practice for March Madness.

Izzo's teams are always tough on defense but they usually struggle with offense. Offense and defense are two totally different mindsets and I have begun to wonder if the teams struggle because of the players or because of the coach.

This year they struggled to score but had the best players in many years. They also struggled because Izzo played 10+ players a game. Playing so many guys makes it hard to figure out who will score. UNC had three guys that average 18+ points a game but MSU never knew where the points would come from. Despite that, they got the points more often than not. One game it was Suton, another it was Walton (amazing), another little Lucious. Maybe next year the offense at least will be more clear even though we are losing many of the big guys to graduation.

So long Sparty. See you in November.

I heard a story about how our college system is doing well in part because people from other countries continue to send their children here for college.

In poor countries like Vietnam, the extended family will save cash for years to send one kid to college.

While we burden our kids under a ton of college loans, villagers in Vietnam will save $200k USD to send a kid to the USA.

That story about Vietnam gave me pause for thought. Other countries have a very different relationship to saving, cash, debt, and the value of education.

It is kind of shocking to think of poor people saving so much cash up front for college but that was only part of a larger bargain. It was expected that the child sent to America would use that education to pay back their family and help their siblings.

While many Americans see college as one extended Girls Gone Wild drunken binge, these people saw college as both an opportunity and more importantly a responsibility.

I then tried to picture these two types of students in class and how different that must be. The one who takes college as a given and another step in extended adolescence (Americans seem to think childhood now extends into the late 20's) and the one who sees college as a serious responsibility.

As a parent of a small child, I find myself wondering what is right for my family.

Would I have done better in college if I had felt some responsibility from my parents? If I had known my actions had consequences for my family and not just myself? If college had been more than just "what do you want to do?"

The irony of boundaries is that they can be both confining and rewarding. It is nice to be free but it is also nice to know that you matter, that your actions are contributing to a larger whole.

My personal opinion is that our culture has gone too far on individuality. We seem to feel very little group responsibility or even closeness anymore. Its one big party but get beer for yourself before the keg runs dry.

And I think that party feels a little empty. Some people never grow up but at some point I think most people ask if there is more to life than entertainment.

So what to do?

Teaching children about responsibility and consequences can start at a very young age. Like 3. And that is rather unfashionable. I've met many parents that want so much for their kids to be happy, for their kids to like them as friends, they spoil them to death. And they are offended when other parents dont. It creates a tense situation which kids immediately exploit by pointing out that so-and-so's parents let them do that... And dont fool yourself. It's much worse today than it was when you were a kid.

Our child is too young for this but I know it's coming. Although maybe the economy will get so bad, the party will be over by the time we get there.

Today I was at the gym shooting baskets. Its a full basketball court with a hoop at each end and one in the middle.

At one end there is a little kid, maybe 4, and his mother. At the other two baskets there is an adult like myself shooting.

In normal times, all three baskets co-exist in harmony. People know to to respect their space and share.

I join one of the guys and he soon leaves, leaving the basket to me.

The next thing I know, the little kids' ball whizes over. He is trying to kick the ball into my basket.

A few minutes later, he is trying full court throws and his misses are bouncing onto my court again.

I am annoyed. This kid has no respect for boundaries or others. It's all about him and his mother, standing right there, is enabling it.

Shortly the mom is calling for "Dylan". Its time to go. He ignores her and keeps running around and kicking the ball. Dylan doesnt seem to respect his parents either...

There seem to be a lot of indulgent parents out there that teach their children that they, the child, is the center of the universe. Everyone else revolves around them and they get to do what they want. There are no consequences; no responsibilities.

I have read about this. I have seen it. It is a bad thing. Children need to learn to share and to respect boundaries. If parents wont teach that, who will?

The kicker of the story for me is the name, Dylan.

I have learned from my wife, a grade school teacher, that every class has a trouble maker or two. There is always a kid with problems at home that become immediately obvious in class. In the better schools the cause is usually overly indulgent parents (or divorced parents) who dont set any boundaries for their kids. As a result, the kids act out and act up. They take the teacher's attention away from the rest of the class.

None of this is probably a surprise but what I did find surprising is that these trouble kids often have the same names. Dylan and Zachary to name two.

I love patterns. Why would the trouble kids have the same names? I know that names are fashionable and follow trends but what is the connection between the decisions parents make to create trouble kids and the decision they made to pick a name?

It annoyed me when I heard this interview this week but listening to the CBS reporters today, I just cant let it go.

UConn played on national TV today, and both CBS announcers went out of their way several times to take Calhoun's side.

Calhoun is a winner who has done so much to help the state and charities.

It was inappropriate to ask him about his salary in an after-game interview.

WTF?

I am sorry but it is unseemly for the highest paid state employee to be a sports coach. Not the governor or a Senator or a judge. A coach of amateur college sports.

It is wrong and recent economic events only make it more obviously wrong. College sports are not the most important government activity and they should not be rewarded as such.

Oh but they arent "amateurs" *wink* *wink*, they bring in money for the state. I am sorry but forget that. As much as I love college basketball, its wrong to treat college sports as an education one day and professional sport the next. It is wrong to pay coaches millions of dollars when the students get, what?, free tuition to a subpar education?

Our system is hypocritical and its just to much to bear when the coaches turn out to be assholes. Sure, we are going to lay off thousands of state employees but hell will freeze over before the coach takes a pay cut? You are a real role model, Mr Calhoun.

Another thing that really pissed me off was Calhoun's glib answer that he needs millions of dollars because he "wants to retire some day." I want to fucking retire some day too, coach. Does that mean that I deserve millions of dollars in salary? Wait, let me email my boss right now.

Everywhere you look, you see blatant examples of individual greed and entitlement. What happened to American values of modesty and fairness?

Enjoy your $1.6 million dollar salary coach. I will now root against your team and will be praying to God that you see that retirement soon, as in next season.

How about this Stanford guy?

With one hand he is operating a fraud and making a lot of money doing it.

With the other hand he is using that money to lobby politicians to get his taxes reduced. His taxes?

Turns out even criminals dont like paying taxes. What a country.

Seriously. Why do people like this story?

This year we will get the big budget Hollywood treatment of the Watchmen as well as a video game. Before I had heard about the movie, I had heard about the comic. People kept raving about it so last year I bought the graphic novel.

I read half of it before putting it down, as in a horse with a broken leg down.

As far as I can tell it’s a very slow paced Orwellian story about how miserable people are. Well I already knew that and its not much fun to be reminded, slowly. When I read a comic I want a little fantasy, a little fun, and even a little “I wish I could be…” None of which was in the Watchmen.

Maybe it is unfair to criticize a book you didn’t actually finish. Maybe the ending is smashing. But I also think it says something if you don’t like a story enough to actually finish it.

As I have noted before, our entertainment is becoming increasingly bleak. (Just watch the 4th Season of Battlestar Galactica for recent example.) The Watchmen, although it is from the 1980’s, fits in perfectly with that bleak tone. I wonder if it will sell.

Check out this album cover!

If you allow your eyes to unfocus a bit, the image squirms and moves. Guess I havent seen an interesting optical illusion in a while, only financial illusions...

This Christmas break was great. Since we were not trying to travel anywhere and we never lost power (or heat), getting snowed in for a week was a nice treat. yay! snow!

During the break I got to play a lot of Fallout3 and watch a few movies. We started watching season 2 of Rome again - terrific show. And I saw two movies that I really enjoyed.

Its hard to be an MSU fan on the west coast. Just getting to see the games is a struggle.

After watching UNC blow them out on ESPN, I was so excited to hear that the next game would be against Texas and it would be on CBS. We dont have cable TV so a game on CBS means I can watch it in HD in the comfort of my own living room.

Saturday arrives and the TV shows me that CBS is actually going to show the Duke game instead. Crap. Having to watch an 11am game in a bar is an inconvenience but doing so when Seattle is locked down in snowy wonderland is a test.

Just before game time, I get a present! CBS College Sports All-Access is showing the game. I had heard that CBS was switching to Silverlight so I could watch the games on my Mac. Could this be the first time I can actually watch a game on the Internet?

I try to get the game loaded. First it makes me download and install Silverlight. Then I have to create an account. Then I have to PAY $10 to see the game. Then I find out they arent actually showing the game - I just paid to hear it on Internet radio. WTF. Even worse, the Gametracker is completely non-functional - it loads but wont update. Gotta love the quality of Internet apps.

So I put on my fuzzy hat and head out into the ice fields. My car wont start. The battery is dead. No juice at all. Ugh.

Plan C, or is it D?, I get in my wife's car and drive to downtown Kirkland. There are several bars there including a "sports bar". Its freaking cold. The bartender at the sports bar is exactly who you expect to see drinking for breakfast. They have DirectTV but no CBS games. Next comes a frigid walk around town. CBS locally, sure. CBS somewhere else? Duh, what do you mean?...

So I drive my frozen butt back home and sit down to suffer through the Duke game... That's when I get my first glimmer of good hope. The Duke Xavier game is a blowout and CBS switches to MSU!!!

Glory glory hallelujah! 10 minutes left in the game, HD and its a 2pt battle. Even better, Dicky V is not announcing. Christmas come early!

2 minutes left.
Its a 1 point game...
and they switch it back to local CBS to hear people talk about the NEXT game, Gonzaga and UCONN. TWO MINUTES LEFT!!! 1 POINT GAME!!! ARE YOU INSANE!!!

Now I am back at the PC with the broken game tracker and the crumby internet radio...

Amazing finish and MSU wins it in a last second nail-biter.

So I got my Xmas present. State wins a close game against a top team. I got to watch part of it.

But sheesh, does it have to be so hard to watch a game? Year after year I stand in amazement that there is no provider of streaming college sports games on the Internet. I would gladly pay for something that worked but year after year, nothing does. CBS? Amazon?? Netflix? Come on, can't someone make this happen?

Basketball is back and I am not sure what is worse.

Watching my team lose by over 30 points.

Listening to Dick Vitale ramble on about the Perfect One, Tyler Hansbrough.

It is always great to watch my team play but sometimes it is painful too.

In the run-up to the summer Olympics, I found myself thinking that the Olympics were silly. They are so Reagan-era. Dated and boring.

But did you see the opening ceremonies in high-definition TV? Wow. OMG WOW.

The drummers. The dancing. That LED screen creating moving artwork. The machine animation thing that was really people. We had rented a movie but our house was riveted to the show. One of the coolest things I have ever seen.

China really invested in this thing and it showed. The opening ceremonies were incredible. Their facilities all look fantastic. (Although I kept expecting the stadium to collapse from shoddy, last-minute work. Added an element of suspense.) I came away from 8-8-08 with a real sense that China is a super-power. They have arrived.

I even got sucked into the events themselves. I found myself watching sports I didnt know existed and a few sports I thought (and still think) were incredibly boring. But I still watched them.

Sadly, not everything in the Olympics glitters like gold.

What exactly are the events and why are they events? Synchronized diving? Ping pong? Beach volleyball? Really? It seems that the actual events in the Olympic games continues to change and evolve. While the event has been going on for a century, the actual games are not all so historic. That changing nature kind of diminishes it a bit for me, not sure why.

Im a fan of team sports like soccer and basketball - neither of which are that important at the olympics. I was particularly disappointed by the basketball. The LAST thing I want to see is an NBA All-Star team playing in the Olympics.

The Olympics are about innocence and youth and the purity of sport. You know, 12-year old girls who have slaved since they were 3 in training camps. That sort of thing.

Its cool when a foreign team has a single NBA player but I dont want to see a team of millionaire prima donas on the court. I dont want to see Kobe "Im an adulterer not a rapist" Bryant drive his ferrari to the game. Play college players. Play high school players. Play the kids that are still dreaming not the ones that already made their dream. Olympic basketball should be Hoosiers not ESPN.

Disappointed with the basketball. But most of all, Im disappointed with the Phelps guy.

Well not actually with him but with our media and perhaps ourselves.

Isnt winning a gold medal a big deal? Like a CRAZY big deal? Like OH MY GOD I WON A GOLD MEDAL PINCH ME I MUST BE DREAMING!!!! Isnt it a dream-come-true to stand on the podium and win ANY medal?

Well you wouldn't know that by watching TV. I've seen some American athletes on the podium, the ones who got second or third, looking absolutely miserable. They arent thrilled that they placed; they are miserable that they did not get first.

And then you have Phelps. Winning EIGHT medals? "Oh sure, 3 or 4 is easy but eight is a real honor." Call me crazy but how greedy are we? When winning 7 medals is defeat, you have to wonder what they whole thing means anymore. We take individual performances and winning too far sometimes. Respect the game. Love the sport.

We happened to watch some of the swimming events on the Canadian CBC channel. Their team got 7th place and their announcers were excited and thrilled to death. They know how to enjoy the olympics.

When the dotcom bubble was blooming, there was constant chatter about how the internet was replacing mortar and brick stores, how Amazon was putting the little-guy out of business. It seemed a little overblown hyperbole at the time.

It is some eight years later and Im finally starting to see the hyperbole become reality.

I have had two experiences recently where retail stores have failed me and the internet satisfied my needs -- for a price.

First I wanted to replace my favorite mechanical pencil. I went to several stores only to leave empty handed. "Maybe they dont make it anymore?" was one helpful reply. But it turns out they do indeed make the pencil and it is available from the manufacturer Pentel. (Amazon also sells it but only through 3rd party stores.) After being unable to replace that pencil for months, I finally did replace it and I paid full retail plus a large shipping fee to do so.

This year I started swimming laps again. I got tired of wearing my big surfing shorts but my speedo was a bit tired. (It was quite sad actually.) Try to find a speedo in Seattle. Im sure someone sells swim gear somewhere but after two trips to "the mall", I finally gave speedo.com a try. It cost me 30 minutes, retail price plus big shipping and taxes but a suit is on the way.

Especially for the suit, I would rather have tried on something locally before buying but one only has so much time for driving around and shopping. Returns are a total pain (especially with Amazon) and there are a lot of things you want to see/try before you buy but retail seems to play an ever decreasing role in our lives.

We like to walk for coffee and food and drive for groceries but a huge portion of our other provisioning is now coming by USPS or UPS. Times are changing. My only wish is that manufacturers would improve their websites and cut those ridiculous shipping and handling charges... Im already paying full retail, you know.

As a parent, I find myself reading children's books. A LOT of children's books. Over and over and over...

In the process, I have noticed a real difference between modern books and classic ones like Peter Rabbit.

Modern kids books are about fun, funny pictures, making friends, feeling good about yourself, and merchandising.

The classic stories are warnings about life's dangers. "Dont go out in the woods alone" kind of stuff.

Look at Peter Rabbit. Peter's mom tells him not to go into the Farmer's garden. His father went in there and got eaten. Think about that. Not only did he DIE but he got EATEN. Hmm, this is not a fuzzy tale about self-confidence, this is a warning about life and death. Of course, Peter does go in the garden and barely escapes with his life.

As I read this story, I have wonder what my daughter thinks it is about. Eaten? Kids dont see animals get eaten. Meat that looks nothing like actual animals; it comes wrapped from the grocery store. For that matter, how many kids ever see a garden let alone work in one and worry about rabbits eating their food? Lost in the woods? When was the last time you saw any woods that wasn't a park.

Times have really changed even from 50 or 100 years ago. Reading these stories one can see how easy life has gotten. Very few kids here die of diseases or wild animals or brigands. The concept of life and death seems far removed from everyday life. In the Bible, people got married at 13; Romeo and Juliet were what? 15? Oprah is never short of sad stories but overall it is easy to see how adolescence has now expanded in the the mid-20's.

Other countries dont have these benefits. It is a good thing to reflect on how far we have come and how safe and easy life is here.

It has been several years since I read TGC. I really could not remember much about the books except that I loved the first two.

"The Golden Compass [Blu-ray]"

The movie was surprisingly good. A nice review of the story for me and the movie worked well by itself.

The CGI and other visuals were terrific. I was really pleased with the imagination of the alternate world and the variety of characters and places. It always amazes me to think about how good computers have gotten at creating visuals.

The voice overs and casting were equally terrific with a ton of stars a few good new faces. It was a bit odd to see "James Bond" in the movie but it was even more odd to see a main character with yellow, bad teeth. Seeing anyone who isnt perfect (unless they are a villain) just feels out of place in movies. Not a bad thing just notable because it is so out of the norm.

I dont remember hearing much about the movie which probably means it did not do very well. I wonder if that has anything to do with the overtones of religion and fascism. I dont remember the strong religious message in the first book but I do remember it being a major part of the final book. The message is hard to miss in the movie.

My only complaint about the movie is the violence. Good grief. Even though the main character is a child, I cannot imagine my child watching a movie with so much violence.

Orlando, New Orleans, Boston and Utah.

How exciting the NBA playoffs could have been with all new faces in the final four. Or not.

Only Boston survived so now we have to suffer through watching the Lakers and the cheatin' cry baby San Antonio... again.

I guess my basketball enjoyment is over for the season.

Childhood memories are tricky.

My two favorite comic books in the early 1980's were Xmen and Iron Man and of the two, Iron Man was my favorite. Who wants to be a freaky mutant when you could be a millionaire playboy genius like tony stark? Not this 12 year old.

I just saw the movie Iron Man. I dont know why it took this long to make a movie but wow. It was so much better than I expected. It was worth the wait. It was great. Just like the first Xmen movie, when this one ended I wanted more. (And the preview after the world's longest credits ever! made me want more even more.)

One of the reviews I had heard said the movie had 3 writing teams and was terrible. I just dont see it. The casting was great (excluding for the blonde "reporter" from Brown with the imposible beaver teeth), the writing was great, and the special effects were great. This was an adult comic book come to life.

Iron Man could be a terrific new franchise. I just hope they dont screw it up like they have screwed up other comic franchises: they keep the summer blockbuster schedule and scrap the director, the intelligent writing and the casting. One movie is not enough. I want some continuity.

Ironically, the previews before the movie (all 15 minutes of them) were also about comic heros, Batman and Hulk, and showed just what I mean about continuity.

The next Batman movie appears to be a rendition of the graphic novel The Dark Night. Which is to say a (hopefully better) remake of the first movie. They have the same batman as the last movie (the 3rd one I think, after Val Kilmer and that other guy), a new Joker (who looks a hell of a lot freakier than Nicholson) and a new female lead!? Ugh. They get props for sticking to the serious storyline and not turning it into a family-friendly load for McDonalds merchandizing, but they lose big for casting. If you are going to restart the franchise, keep the same freaking cast from movie to movie. It wont be the same without freaky mothership Katie Holmes.

The same can be said about the Hulk. I wasnt a big fan but I enjoyed the movie with Eric Bana and total hottie Jennifer Connelly. Now both are gone and Dr Bruce Banner is Ed Norton?? Are you kidding? Death to Smoochie Ed Norton? *sigh*

With Xmen we saw that even keeping the same cast is not enough. Change the director and the writing and even the combined powers of Magneto and Xavier cant stop the the walk of fame from turning into a walk of shame.

On the other hand, I was surprised to see the previews of the next Indiana Jones movie. When I heard they were making a movie with Harrison Ford, I had to groan. Ford? Isnt he in some trailer-park retirement home in Florida with Callista Flockhart? No? Well I wish he was. But seeing Karen Allen again! What a treat. Watching the two of them in original movie, one reflects on how much casting has changed for leading ladies. Seeing her back on screen is enough to pique my interest as well as my sense of nostalgia.

I had a really nice weekend but it was thought provoking.

On Saturday, we had a birthday party for my 2-year old daughter.

On Sunday I went to the funeral of a friend's mother, who died young and unexpectedly.

There is a lot of circle of life hokum out there but it is true. And it is good to be reminded once in a while so one can adjust their priorities.

Perhaps a bit macabre, but think about your own eulogy. What do you want people to think of you when you are gone? If you died tomorrow, would you be happy with the way you lived your life? The things you did, the people you spent time with, the choices you made? What are you doing to invest in the next generation? To teach and nurture and enjoy 30 years from now?

life happens.

Do predictions of doom and gloom disaster ever come true?

A month ago there were serious questions about whether the US banking system was solvent, but now things look rosy. After another week of banks announcing multi-billion dollar loses, the Dow Jones is still healthily above 12,000. No disaster there.

Then you have the weather. Its called global warming but its fucking cold in Seattle today. This is the worst springtime in the five years I have lived here. In the past 2 months there has been one single day of warm, sunny weather. You know, the weather people call "spring". And now today they are predicting snow.

And dont forget fish. States along the West Coast are getting ready to ban salmon fishing this year. It appears the salmon are gone and no one knows where. If you thought $4/gl was a lot for gasoline, get ready for $50/lb salmon.

Food in general looks bad as well if you are non in the USA. Rice shortages and food riots are breaking out in countries around the globe. Will it lead to famine?

2008 is proving to be an interesting year.

It is time to admit I was wrong.

I really thought Memphis and Conference USA were overrated. Oh brother.

I was counting on my Spartans to get their shit together and do major damage in the playoffs. Although they did get to the Sweet 16, it was Memphis that really has playoff focus. Free throw problems? Forget it! They are playing like champions, which I expect them to be after tonight.

After seeing them dismantle the Spartans, it felt pretty good to watch them do the same to Texas (definitely overrated) and UCLA. Memphis is just playing at another level from everyone else. They literally blew by UCLA, taking every possession strong to the hoop. Although I am disappointed that my Spartans arent playing at the same level, Memphis is a LOT of fun to watch.

Until this past weekend, I had not seen Kansas play. Tonight's finals game could be interesting as both teams got there the same way. Although this was the first time all four #1 seeds made it to the Final Four, this weekend's games were totally unbalanced. Kansas and Memphis both man-handled their opponents with speed and muscle.

With similar playing styles, one wonders how tonight's game will turn out.

There are two reasons it is hard to be a Michigan State Basketball fan.

First of all, Dick Vitale announces almost all of your nationally televised games. And he never talks about MSU or the game. He rambles about Duke, or his charities or Duke or the other team or the students (girls) that love him. And he never shuts up talking about things other than MSU. Listening to Dick Vitale makes me want to kill myself.

The other problem with being an MSU fan is MSU. They are so darn inconsistent.

The only two things that are constant with MSU are that they play great in March Madness and you have no idea how they will play during the season. They never win the Big 10. They rarely do well in the Big 10 tournament. But somehow they keep ending up in the Final 4.

As a fan, its just plain nerve racking to watch them during the season. One night they play awesome. The next night they play like ass. Some nights they do both in a single game!

The worst part of this season is that they have the best team they've had in years. And they are still totally inconsistent. Some games are great and then they lose to Iowa and Penn State.

This week, they lost two games in a row. Against Purdue they played like ass, then they played awesome, then they lost. Tonight, they just played like ass. Clearly they dont know how to handle a zone defense.

Ugh... Where is the alka seltzer. Its a long way to March...

The price we paid for a gallon of diesel this weekend. The most we have ever paid for fuel.

Interesting to note that this was $0.60 more than the price of gasoline. Even though the cost of oil is at $100/barrel, the cost of gasoline has been falling quite a bit lately.

It was my understanding that diesel is easier, ie cheaper, to make than gasoline which has me wondering why the price of gas is so much less than the price of diesel...

Could it possibly have something to do with the election? Hmmm

What a Christmas present!! MSU put the serious beat-down on #5 Texas!! I will give a big W00t! for that.

After watching MSU pummel UCLA only to let them come back and win, this was a great treat. (Although watching Texas nail 4 NBA 3-pointers in the last 2 minutes made me wet my pants.) Even more so because this game was fun to watch. No more plodding slowness, MSU can run and gun this year. This was the best I have seen them play since Mateen Cleaves was there... :)

12/22/07
Key First-Half Run Powers No. 9 Michigan State Past No. 4 Texas
Freshman Kalin Lucas scored a career-high 18 points, including an acrobatic layup to ignite a key first-half run, to lead No. 9 Michigan State to a 78-72 victory over No. 4 Texas on Saturday night.
recap

For Christmas , I treated myself to a new video card for my game PC.

I purchased a new card from the same manufacturer I had before, so all I needed to do was install the latest drivers, swap out the cards and reboot. But is it ever that easy with Windows?

By the time I got the card configured and ran my benchmark program, I was really excited to see the gains. This card ought to be 2x my previous card. The results? It ran like ass. Serious ass. Instead of a 2x improvement, the card barely worked at all.

Just like that, my exciting Christmas treat turned into a lump of coal we all know as Windows XP troubleshooting. Ohhh god.

the re-install boogie

Since I build my own PCs, I have a general rule: re-install Windows every year. For various reasons, this time I only bought a new video card and not a whole new PC so I just didn't want to re-install windows. A video card swap. Easy?!

With the video card problems, I did not know if I had a hardware problem or a Windows XP problem. To answer this question, I needed to rule out one of them and the easiest one to try is Windows.

I had to do a clean install of Windows to get to a known state. Sadly, this is a major pain. Because of the way Windows is designed, you lose all the records of your old programs. Even if you use the same drive and keep your old programs, many if not most of them will not work properly unless you re-install them too.

So before doing anything, you have to make a list of all the software you bought, record all the license keys, find and save all the savegames from every game you want to keep playing (of course, these are not stored in any standard place so you also have to find them all first). After you are confident that you wont lose anything, you can wipe the drive, re-install Windows, re-install all your programs, get the latest drivers and Windows patches, and hope for the best that you didnt forget or lose anything in the process....

I didnt have the time to deal with this process so I kind of cheated. I installed Windows on a second drive. If the test proved that Windows was the problem, I could go back and fix my main hard drive.

Every time I go through this exercise, I look at my old setup and marvel. When did I install all this junk? I dont remember half of these programs. How does a PC get this cluttered?

digital clutter - the new American pastime

Which gets me to my main point - digital clutter.

If you have a basement or a garage and you haven't moved in a few years, you know what Im talking about. The piles of "things" that you have accumulated. Things you haven't used in a few years, things you don't even remember buying. Stuff. Piles and piles of stuff.

But at least with physical stuff you can see it. There is always a visual queue alerting you to the problem. And if you move, you are forced to face your "stuff" and either pack it or deal with it.

Not so with digital stuff. It is amazing how much digital clutter collects over a year or two. Little programs you tried. Attachments someone sent you. Not to mention all the email, documents, music files and photographs. Some of it you really want to keep but a lot of it is just trash, stuff you kept "just in case". Then there are all the generous little programs that you dont care about who want to "help you" by launching themselves in the background - and slowing down your PC in the process.

Nerds shrug their shoulders as if this is not an issue. "Storage is cheap!" But you still have to organize it all. You still need to remember that you have it. And if you care about it, you need to back it up in case your drive goes south or, like me, you find yourself forced to do a clean OS install.

I continue to be amazed at how much time it takes to organize my digital stuff. That is a task that did not exist 20 years ago. No one spent hours organizing their digital photos into albums or so they could migrate them from a Windows PC to a Mac. No one worried about losing their MP3s or the ratings they spent hours giving them in iTunes. Bookmarks were little slips of paper that actually lived in books.

Despite the time I spend cleaning, I also continue to be amazed at how quickly the digital clutter piles up again. When your basement is full, it forces a decision but our computers really do have infinite space. And Heisenberg's Law of Clutter? Clutter will expand until it fills all fillable space. Even my game PC, which does nothing but play games is a total mess. My daily computers are a disaster!

the need for digital maid service

So happy holidays. Odds are, you will be taking part of your limited vacation time organizing your own digital clutter and resolving to be more organized next year. A 21st Century "vacation" if there every was one.

The video card? Well the good news for me is that I did a clean install of Windows on a 2nd hard drive and my new video card runs like a dream. Now I know that the problem is something in Windows, the fix is to do a clean install of my main drive. So I will be gathering my passwords, making lists of my software, finding the install discs, and calling Microsoft to confirm this install is "genuine".

Eventually I will get to enjoy my clutter-less (and speedy) Windows XP install. At least for a few days.

I have always liked to travel but I have always hated flying. It tires me out, I get sick, and the whole airport thing is a drag.

And that was before I had a kid. Traveling with a child is exponentially more difficult that traveling solo or with a spouse. It is exhausting and stressful and when you add in the bad treatment I have received on two trips by the TSA - positively infuriating.

This past week we went on vacation and I find myself asking (again) what the fuck we need the TSA for? Since 9-11, airport travel has become a nightmare.

This article indicates that I am not alone in my dissatisfaction with the TSA but that is small comfort.

Complaints Against Airport Security Surge

New Numbers Don't Bode Well For Holiday Fliers, but TSA Blames Faulty Counts in Past

By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

November 20, 2007

Wall Street Journal

Complaints about Transportation Security Administration screening at airports have surged in the past several months -- and the reason depends on whom you ask.

Recent tallies of complaints about TSA service (not counting baggage-damage reports) suggest the agency did have a difficult time keeping up with big crowds this past summer. Complaints to the TSA about security courtesy, procedures, processing time and personal property fell sharply during the first five months of the year, but began climbing in June, with a 9.2% jump in the total number of complaints, compared with June 2006. By August, total service complaints were 88.1% higher than a year earlier, and September, the most recent month reported by the government, saw a 71.4% increase in TSA complaints.

Mr. Hawley says that's largely the result of a change in May that increased the TSA's capacity to receive complaints. That month, the agency moved its customer-service department out of its headquarters to a new site, adding telephone lines, computer bandwidth and better software to track complaints. "Now we're able to receive all the input everyone calls in," Mr. Hawley says.

In my entire life, there has been one terrorist attack on US soil - 9-11. Although thousands of people died, shouldn't that single event be considered an aberation? Was it really justification to change the entire flight system? And did we have to do such a half-assed job?

Our airports are not built for security.

The TSA procedures are totally inconsistent from one airport the next.

At one airport they made my 1-year old daughter remove her shoes for X-rays. Seriously? You are going to fit a shoe bomb in a 2-inch shoe? Or my flip flops? At first, it was only shoes with thick heels that could conceal something. Now even my sunglasses are suspect of being a concealed weapon. Give me a break.

Things have gotten out of hand and the seeming randomness of the process does not inspire confidence.

Have they caught a SINGLE terrorist with these search procedures? Oh right, they cannot tell us that - the information is classified...

All we can know for sure is that we have created another huge, annoying government agency that costs a lot of money, inconveniences millions of people and delivers very questionable results.

Holy crap! I didnt know they made a movie about Dick Cheney back when he had hair.

I was expecting a fantasy story, perhaps even an allegory about war, like LoTR. I was not expecting a war movie about fascism, torture, and the dangers of blind obedience. There is a kid in this movie but this is definitely not a children's movie. It gave me nightmares.

You should see it.

Why would a just God create people like this?

The Watchmen on the Wall's unabashedly Taliban-esque mission—built on the theory that all of society's ills can be traced directly to the evil that is homosexuality—is well expressed by one the Lynnwood convention's featured speakers, the internationally reviled Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively:

"If we allow the people who hate God to take control of all the centers of power, then they will change all of the rules and they will put barriers in the way of the Gospel. But if the people of God can step forward and take control of the centers of power, then we can make the rules work in favor of the Gospel. We can use the government to help us tell the message of Jesus Christ. And we must do this!"

I have always thought of religion as a source of hope and human compassion. I just dont understand how so many people are able to turn religion into hate.

I just watched the 2007 season finale of Doctor Who. It was a 3-part, 3-hour episode. It was fantastic!

This 2007 season in particular is some of the best writing on TV.

• I love the latest actor playing the Doctor (David Tennant).
• They finally got rid of Rose (blech!) and replaced her with Martha, a likable character who is both a strong female and black (two exceptionally rare things on TV).
• They brought back Captain Jack - the best looking gay hero in sci-fi (possibly the only gay hero) - who has a new twist now and is impossible not to like.
• And for the finale, they even brought back an evil villain from the 1980's series. As a lifelong fan, that was a great twist.

I dont know the details but the writing of this season has just been superb. I can only hope it continues. More than most series, they have been weaving in a lot of foreshading early in the season and pulling in story threads from years past to create a very rich storyline that is quite rare on TV.

But most of all, this is still the only sci-fi series where the hero never wins by using a gun. I cant wait for my daughter to be old enough to watch them all over again with me (which she will undoubtedly hate doing :).

Well the secret is finally out: Amazon has an MP3 music store. And the store totally rocks!

What a lot of people do no know is that for the past six months I have been working at Amazon on the MP3 music store. Amazon made a real effort to keep the MP3 store a secret so I never really told anyone or updated my LinkedIn bio. But now it is time to come out of the music closet.

My interview experience at Amazon was kind of amusing because they could (would) not tell me what the job was or what the product was. It's a "secret". I took a leap of faith and am pleased to say that I hit the hot tub not the rocks.

The music team is a very small one within Amazon and that has been terrific. It really has been like working at a (good) startup, which I totally enjoy. Not only is the team small enough that we all know each other well but everyone is a rockstar at what they do and the feeling of teamwork is palpable. My job has been in operations so I get to exercise my old process improvement muscles again, which has been a pleasant trip back to my TPS 1990's. Although the work load has been pretty intense, it turns out that I am pretty intense so it worked out. (If I never emailed you back - now you know why.)

When we finally did launch and the rave reviews (here & here & here) started to come in... It was a terrific feeling to see the payoff for our hard work. A lot of people work hard but few get to read about their products in the newspaper. After reading about other people's products for years, it felt really good to be reading about a product I contributed to. This is not the first product I have shipped by any means but it is by far the biggest one. Even though I was not in a development role this time, launch week was a good one.

It is also neat to be a part of history. Amazon MP3 is going to hasten the music industry onto a new place. As I have written before, the music monopoly is going to have to change or die and Amazon is a big part of that ecosystem.

This job has also allowed me to learn about the Amazon culture. I have been a happy Amazon customer for years but unlike our Seattle neighbors Microsoft and Real, I never knew much about Amazon's culture. We dont have a Mini or Extreme but there is definitely a strong culture here that warrants a few posts of its own in the future.

I am no fan of the cable companies but my hats' off to whoever is doing their advertising. The Slowskies and now grandpa -- good stuff.

This weekend, I watched the end of season 1 of Rome along with a brief extra on Roman life and I watched 300.

300

Netflix finally sent me a copy of 300 on blueray. After hearing so much hype I was curious about this movie.

Visually, it is pretty interesting: definitely captures the comic-book visual feel. I also liked the absence of famous stars who would distract from the already shallow plot (Troy anyone?).

The script is another matter. The description says it all: "A faithful adaptation of ... a graphic novel." Not an adaptation of history; this is pure comic book stuff. This is a story for 12 to 17 year old boys who still dream of being the toughest soldier, ever!

Im no historian but I am fairly certain there weren't trolls or ogres in the Persian Army. I seriously doubt Xerxes was 8 feet tall. He might have been effeminate but I doubt he had the voice of a Goa'uld from Stargate. The Immortals looked pretty cool with those silver masks but were they really all disfigured freaks? And where did they get those Japanese swords?

Something just bothers me about completely ridiculous retellings of historical events. If you want to tell a big fantasy, be a real author and make it up like Tolkein. Don't distort history.

After 4 years of war in Iraq, I also wonder about a movie where the enemy is a Persian Empire (that would be Iran these days). And I wondered why the heroes were white but so many of the enemies were blacks or arabic. Am I reading too much into it? It would seem that I wasnt the only one.

This story about uncompromising principles, the corruption of a foreign empire, death and glory is total Marine-corp recruitment material. Too bad it isn't real life.

If you haven't seen 300 yet -- read a book.

Rome: Season 1

Much better was Rome. I liked this series enough to buy it but we never finished it. This weekend, we watched the last 2 episodes of Season 1 and I was immediately sucked back in. The characters are great and the story is just so compelling. And in complete contrast to 300, I feel like I am learning something about Roman history by watching.

Beyond the drama, I particularly enjoyed the featurette on Roman history. I found a comment by one of the actors most intriguing. She pointed out that ancient Rome was truly foreign to us because of two things:

• Romans were totally steeped in religion but religion had no ethical component to it. Their culture predates the Judaeo-Christian doctrines that are inseparable from our culture.

• Slavery was omnipresent but not based on race. Slavery in our culture is still a touchy issue and was completely race-based such that it is hard to imagine any other system of slavery.

Rome also touches on political issues such is the conflict between "tyrants" and the republic and class issues. The "republic" was nothing like we think of democracy (although we seem to be becoming more like the republic every day), but rather is was an oligarchy where only the rich (who are born rich) rule. This theme is just starting at the end of season one and is another interesting thread for contemplation.

When you tire of reading that middle school history book on Sparta, pop in this DVD and treat yourself to a few episode of high drama in Rome. All roads lead to Rome.

I clip articles so that I can read them later. Since I never keep up with the clippings, I periodically go through the pile and toss the articles I dont want to read anymore.

It is interesting to read the headlines from 12 to 24 months back. Boy, the media sure gets a lot of things wrong.

2005 predicted the triumph of the cell processor? Not so much.

2005 lauded the genius of Terry Semuel building a media-empire at Yahoo!? Fffff-ired.

I guess everyone projects confidence whether or not they have a clue.

While the movie looked terrific on my upscaling PS3...

Holy mother of god!! Water is the best looking, most depressing film you will see this year. If you are tired of the mindless Hollywood drivel about action heroes and sadistic hostels, watch this movie and learn something about history and humanity.

As an American and as the father of a young girl, it is so demoralizing to see the condition women live in in many parts of the world. If you thought your life or childhood was tough....

The ending of this movie will stay with me for a long time (as a nightmare). (And be sure to watch the brief "making of" chapter that shows the controversy of just telling this story.)

Back before the Battlestar Galactica redoux, before Lost, before Star Trek: TNG, way back two years before Star Wars, there was some super whacked out shit goin' down in space!

Way back then, we had an actual base on the moon but we lost it after some nuclear waste blew our moon to god knows where. Defying the laws of physics and common sense, the moon became an actual space ship and it flew around into some freaky stuff - like planets that (also) fly around without a sun, mysterious time-bending gravity anomalies, and vindictive suspended-animation hippies, I mean, aliens.

Way back when, we had Space:1999.

Although I don't remember watching this show on our crappy 1970's TV, I do remember the Alpha and the cast (Landau and Bain). These days I enjoy watching old movies and TV shows as a reminder of what things used to be like. Comparing then and now highlights a lot of things we take for granted or have forgotten.

What does Space:1999 have going for it? Where do I begin?

• Funky sideburns and mustachios on the men (and a few of the women)
• A pudgy, balding, unfit cast of (un)sex symbols
• Awesome polyester jumpsuits in fun colors (decades before polyester was re-branded as Rayon or "microfiber")
• The superbaad funk soundtrack (my favorite part actually)
• Credits with scenes from that actual episode (not the whole season)
• Special effects ... on film not CGI
• A "computer" that talks but displays its output data on strips of paper -- niiiice
• The masterful "slow walk" to simulate zero g
• Space suits that really look like space suits
• Long, dramatic pauses and actual silence
• An overall mood of somber weirdness
• Amazingly realistic moonscapes with genuine grade-A moondust

This is not a great show by any means but I am impressed with the stories they were able to tell given the limits of their technology. This is not for the Jerry Bruckheimer crowd but it does have something few TV shows today have: acting. Acting, imagination, and enough pauses for the audience to use their own brains. If you want a break from today, go back to the past and check out the future.

Driving home from work I was shocked to hear about the I-35 bridge collapse on the radio.

My first thought: god, that is terrible!

My second thought: Isn't this exactly the kind of thing we have been warned could happen to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and to the Viaduct here in Seattle?

Followed by: Dammit, why is there a blank check for spending on Iraq but the idea of paying taxes for infrastructure in this country remains political suicide?

For years there have been quiet tales of warning about our own aging infrastructure -- everything from public schools to power lines to mass transit to bridges that were predominantly built during the cold war years. These facilities are something we take for granted and use every day yet no one wants to spend on their maintenance or replacement. Nothing lasts forever.

Even discussions of digital infrastructure, like a national fiber optic network, have gone nowhere. Tax money was granted to the big phone companies but the network was never built and none of our leaders seem to care.

Leaving aside safety, how are we going to compete economically with China and India when those countries are building brand new state of the art infrastructure while ours crumbles from neglect?

How bad does it have to get here before we see real political leadership and voter support for improvements?

Aging Infrastructure: How Bad Is It?

By NICK TIMIRAOS

August 4, 2007

Wall Street Journal

How serious is the problem of aging infrastructure? The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, a major artery used by 141,000 daily, was first deemed "structurally deficient" by state engineers in 1990, a designation that requires repairs but doesn't mean the bridge is unsafe. Nearly one-quarter of the 600,000 bridges in the U.S. are listed as structurally deficient or obsolete, down from one-third in 1992, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. Obsolete bridges don't meet certain traffic standards due to older design features, but aren't necessarily unsafe for all vehicles.

While bridge failures remain rare, one-third of some 40,000 highway fatalities every year result from substandard road conditions, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. The group also warns that one-third of major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Congestion delays in the 85 largest metropolitan areas cost the average traveler 47 hours in 2003, up from 16 hours in 1982, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

As the nation's infrastructure ages -- last year marked the 50th anniversary of the Interstate Highway System -- growing congestion on the roads, rails and in the skies has spurred calls for a new national transportation plan.

How much could an upgrade cost? The American Society of Civil Engineers puts the total price tag for improvements to the nation's roads, bridges, dams, water systems and airports at $1.6 trillion. Repairing deficient bridges alone would cost $188 billion over 20 years.

But finding money for transportation projects has grown more difficult, in part because the federal gas tax, which pays for improvements, hasn't risen since 1993. Also, highway construction costs have risen 50% since 1999. The federal Highway Trust Fund is projected to run a deficit of nearly $4 billion in 2009.

Ahh the NBA playoff memories. Watching my Suns lose. I remember this game quite clearly...

Hey David Stern,

Do you remember that smug interview you gave NPR where you stated that NBA refs are the most watched and reviewed refs in pro sports? Remember when you said it was impossible for NBA refs to make bad calls because you have a team of impartial judges that review every single call or every single game?

Maybe you dont remember but I sure do. Bet you feel more like a Dick than a David now, eh?

I have no idea if this Tim Donaghy really caused a difference in games but it sure doesnt sit well for those of us who felt our teams were punished by bad officiating.

Questionable and bad calls for the past two years have been really noticeable to me. Nice to see it wasnt just my imagination.

After hearing John Dvorak rave about this movie on TWiT, I was curious. It was hard to picture myself agreeing with Dvorak but I like Mike Judge's other products so I rented it.

This is not Office Space 2. It is not the best movie you will see this year. You may be turned off by the crude jokes (they only lasted 30 minutes before hitting stop).

But I will be darned if I cant stop thinking about it. I see the issues from this movie everywhere in the news.

This week, the new CEO of Electronic Arts stated that the problem with the video game industry is that the games are too hard. Apparently we consumers are "paying for content we never see" so the game makers should make the games easier, i.e. dumb them down for us.

Also this week three surgeon generals made statements about how the Bush Administration has been substituting political policies for science. (The same thing NASA scientists have been saying for years about global warming science.)

Yes, it is true that every generation feels that young people are different and dumber than people used to be. Some of that is surely a reaction to change and aging, but still it is worth thinking about. Especially here in the USA, where we have so much power and influence yet seem so ignorant about so much. Take the recent global Pugh Research poll that showed that the USA is the least concerned (or informed) about global warming of all developed nations they looked at.

If you like sarcasm and farce, you will find the movie funny. It is not often you see a movie that is funny and thought-provoking. I enjoyed the mixed up wordplay (people continuously use words incorrectly), and that seat with the built in food tube, toilette and TV. The President in all his professional wrestling/porn star glory was a hoot too as was the Extreme Court.

rent it on Netflix

Then read Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason".

HDTV content is mighty scarce these days. After watching some terrific NBA playoff games in crappy analog TV, the finals are here and in HD. But does anyone actually want to watch San Antonio? Seriously, does anyone want them to win?

I hate the Spurs with a passion, each and every sorry one of them.

Tony "Have you seen my wife? Seriously, have you seen her? She's my wife!" Parker
Manu "Watch my flailing-drunking-imbecile style" Ginobli
Robert "5 rings and Im still gonna try to hurt Steve Nash" Horrey
Tim "I just know there is a penny on this floor somewhere!" Duncan

Bah humbug. This was Phoenix's year and they were awesome. They were FUN to watch. A Cavalier-Suns NBA playoff? Now that had me excited.

Watching the Spurs win night after night? That is enough to get me to turn off the TV and read a book. Football season seems a long way off...

Remember when the LA Lakers were Showtime! basketball? Seems like ancient history now.

Tonight's Lakers-Suns game was simply amazing. For the Phoenix Suns. They just blew the doors off LA, playing the most exciting, fast-paced hoops around.

Amare Stoudamire is back and its a pleasure to watch. Forget Showtime, this is Suntime! Go Suns!

Well it was not a pretty game. In fact, it is downright painful to watch MSU struggle to score a basket sometimes but a win is a win. Maybe that #1 defense will actually do some damage come the big dance.

What a game!!

One of the main lessons I took away from business school was concern for the customer. Build a relationship with your customers and it will bring you both rewards.

With that in mind, what kind of relationship is our landlord building with us? Cant you just feel the love?

In a capitalist system like ours, one votes through their purchases. Like a lot of families, we try to support good products and companies through our buying behavior.

For instance, we encourage others to shop at Costco and to avoid Wal-Mart. We also try to support small if not local companies whenever it makes sense.

One product that makes sense is coffee.

CES, the new Democratic Congress, a Presidential speech, and Mac Word Expo...

I just finished watching the final (un-aired) episode of Threshold on DVD and you can add it to my list - the list of TV shows that I enjoyed but got cancelled in their first season - right behind Firefly and Over There.

I never heard about Threshold when it was actually on TV in 2005, instead catching re-runs on SciFi Channel long after its demise. A combination of sci-fi, horror and police drama, the show was well written, creative and had very high production values.

The premise of the show is that some alien race sends a probe to "contact" us and it follows the format of a Greg Bear novel, ie the aliens are not ET trying to phone home; rather they kick our ass and we are powerless to stop them.

Sadly, the show had to be cancelled to make room for such wonders as Dancing with the Stars, Armed & Famous and CSI: Cincinnati. While a bit too graphic at times, it definitely a lot of creepy suspense and was much better than Invasion. Definitely worth a DVD rental.

Which leads me to another thought. What is up with Hollywood the past few years? Lost, Invasion, Threshold, Jericho on TV and a whole slew of horrible slasher movies like Saw I, II, III not to mention Mel Gibson's contributions or the never-ending string of "serial killer" cop shows like CSI.

For the past several years there has been an unending series of TV shows and movies with the same basic premise: we are under attack by unknown forces, we are totally vulnerable and we are losing the battle.

No more Bosom Buddies or Andy Griffith - the themes today are not light, funny or optimistic. Instead they keep trying to one-up themselves depicting violent, bloody deaths. Lighten up already, America!

What I would like to see is a global warming show. Here is my screenplay:

The USA elects Jed Bartlett, who takes a global leadership position on global warming. Instead of building his personal oil fortune waiting for the global tsunami, he unites the nations of the world to take a serious, global stand on the environment. Democrats and Republicans remember that they are both Americans and put aside the hate and petty politics to work together on a threat that faces everyone on the planet. Scientists are recognized for doing science and the world is educated about the undeniable threat, not about intelligent design or creationism.

The US and others move trillions of dollars that were earmarked for unnecessary defense projects into developing new technologies. Laws are passed that both prohibit business as usual and create new markets for green technology. Cars are completely replaced with light-weight vehicles that generate zero emissions; coal plants are converted to clean technologies or shut down; the transportation industries down-size and completely stop burning petroleum.

When the ice caps do melt and the ocean rises 15m, the world is prepared for it. Food production is saved and people are safely relocated to higher ground. Instead of destroying ourselves, we admit the problem and face it head on only to survive the challenge and create a better future.

Ya, how about a show like that Hollywood? I know, I know, it will never fly. Alien invasions are much more believable than Democrats and Republicans working together.

One of the big ideas on the web lately has been this idea that there is "wisdom" in the collective actions or decisions of groups of people. This is the so-called "wisdom of crowds".

Well I cannot speak for the Internet, but flying back from the holidays and spending time in the airport shows me that there is very little wisdom of any kind in crowds. In fact, crowds are rather short on common sense, courtesy and patience. Instead you get people walking around with phones surgically attached to their heads, acting as if they are the center of the universe and making decisions that inconvenience everyone else.

You see this in the rush to get on the plane, the rush to get off the plan, and the totally inefficient way people herd around the baggage claim conveyers, effectively keeping anyone else from seeing, let alone getting, their baggage. And you see it in the way people drive everyday.

Wisdom of crowds? Humph.

I fully expect CAFE standards to remain unchanged until some cataclysmic event causes world governments to ban engines that burn fossil fuels. Until that time however, Americans remain obsessed with "power" in their vehicles while being aware (at least in the back of their minds) that they ought to be getting better mileage in their cars.

With high performance AND higher mileage, I keep wondering: where are the #$%# diesel cars?

This article implies that they are (finally) coming. And they have more power and better mileage than even the new performance hybrids. Whenever they get here, cannot be soon enough.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is still raging (not to mention breaking the bank) and people now routinely refer to the opportunity lost in 2003 due to bad decisions. A new Defense Secretary gets confirmed. The so-called "outside panel" reports with 73 recommendations for Iraq moving forward.

But the number one news story on google is about some guy who froze to death in Oregon last month?! 2400 articles on this personal tragedy so far and growing...

Sometimes I just dont understand our priorities at all.

In a similar vein (but not as serious), I dont understand the fascination Apple users have with the Zune. There is a steady stream of articles about the Zune on Apple rumor/news sites. No reports about Creative. Few comments about Vista or Xbox but the Zune reports just keep coming and coming.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Apple fans just want to gloat about the iPod success and rub it in a little on Microsoft. Microsoft may have 95% of the OS market but Apple sells more iPods in a week than Microsoft hopes to sell in a year. Ha! Double Ha!

But seriously, who gives a shit? Enough with the Zune reports.

Why wife finds it completely baffling but the one TV show that I genuinely look forward to every week is re-runs of Doctor Who.

"The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest: A Novel" by Po Bronson

First off, I just love Po Bronson's writing style. It is very personal and eminently readable. Having said that, this book sat on my shelf for months before I read it. The title just didn't interest me as I assumed it was another interview book about Valley millionaires. Yes, I judged a book by its cover and (once again) was wrong.

Angela and I watch our fair share of television. Here are some comments about my favorite shows of the new season.

I've been on a movie binge lately. Saw two this weekend.

If there was ever any doubt that I am out of touch with mainstream America, just look at the TV shows I like. Specifically, look at the stream of TV shows that I liked so much they got cancelled.

Farscape? Cancelled.

Enterprise? Cancelled.

Firefly? Cancelled.

One of my big past-times is watching Michigan State Basketball. The week of my wedding they surprised everyone by going back to the Final 4 but last season they played terrible. And now they have lost 3 of their stars to the NBA, including Shannon Brown, a junior.

Wow, this is gonna stink. And it is not the first time.

Why do players from some college teams leave early to get into the NBA while other schools, notably Duke, almost never have that happen?

In a previous post, I complained about the way Seattle roads are built. Since that time, the website I referred to has removed their map, which makes it harder to see, but today's paper had a comment on the very same intersection. Apparently it is "known" as one of the most confusing intersections in the State!

Dont you love it when an engineer says the problem is not really a problem, it is actually "correct", ie user error? Their advice is also great. Instead of building roads that arent confusing, they advise that you "keep your eyes open". Nice.

My MBA is finished and my first foray back into the working world is a marketing internship at a Seattle startup called Smart Desktop. Today is day two of my internship (and the company). Today also is the day SD was officially announced to the world by way of an acquisition. Exciting stuff!

July 06, 2006 09:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
Pi Corporation Acquires Smart Desktop, Inc.; Former Microsoft Executive's Start-Up Will Help Smart Desktop Deliver Innovative Software to Make Information Workers More Productive

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 6, 2006--Pi Corporation, a software company focused on creating better ways for people to organize, share and access their data, today announced that it acquired Smart Desktop, Inc. Pi Corporation was founded two years ago by Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive, and Warburg-Pincus of New York. Smart Desktop, which will operate as a separate brand, will create and bring to market in early 2007 innovative new products that increase the productivity of information workers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Smart Desktop will commercialize the results of the "TaskTracer" project of the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory at Oregon State University (OSU). The research group, directed by Professors Tom Dietterich and Jon Herlocker, developed new technology that uses machine intelligence to automatically classify, sort and organize information for people by observing and learning from their interactions with their personal computers. Smart Desktop negotiated an exclusive worldwide license to the TaskTracer technology, patents, and intellectual property from the University.

Smart Desktop's management team includes:

-- CEO John Forbes, who has more than 20 years of experience as an executive in the software industry at leading companies including Visio and Autodesk.

-- VP of Engineering Dr. Jon Herlocker, who has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota and was co-inventor of the technology commercialized by Net Perceptions, a pioneering company in collaborative filtering technology.

-- Chief Scientist Dr. Tom Dietterich, who is one of the most respected experts in the field of machine learning and is the current president of the International Machine Learning Association.

I have a full beard. This was pretty cool back in college but it is just a pain now. I have to shave regularly or I start to look shabby but shaving every day really irritates my skin, especially my neck.

As someone who likes to try new things, I have been curious about "sophisticated" shaving kits that are getting more attention recently. Nice razors, that funny brush thing and shaving soaps. I've been curious about them but not curious enough to actually purchase one. Recently I did switch to an expensive shaving cream from Aveda (I used Edge for decades), which took a while to get used but gives a good shave and is softer on my skin.

Here is a great article that sings the praises of these old fashioned shaving methods. I havent seen an actual razor blade since my grandfather died but it sounds like I might be buying some of my own soon.

Claire had her 2 month checkup today. In addition to jamming some gigantic needles into her Buffalo Wing thighs followed by some wide-eyed screaming, we got statistical data on how Claire compares to other babies.

Turns out she is shorter and fatter than her peers and has a giant head.

Nice to know that she got a little something from both of us :)

This article offers some interesting advice.

Since I am job searching, I tried it out. After being turned down for a job that I really wanted (and thought I would get), I asked for feedback and got it. What I learned was not pleasant to hear but I think it was useful and I plan to do the same thing in the future.

But having gone through the experience, it strikes me that not many people are mentally tough enough to do it because it is so painful. One has to be introspective enough to really listen yet strong enough to take it. And lets be honest, most people dont really want to know what others think of them and find it very hard to assimilate their internal self-view with the views others hold.

Even so, this is good advice for job searchers and practicing it builds awareness and inner strength. After all, "no pain, no gain" is just as true for your brain-muscle as your arm muscle.

Have you noticed how simple life is when you are ignorant?

The more you know about anything, the less black and white it becomes. There are extenuating circumstances. There are pesky details. There are decisions that have to be made and no easy answers.

Take the death penalty. It seems pretty obvious. The Old Testament tells us that God is ok with "an eye for an eye" justice. If you kill someone, you should be put to death too. The problems set in once you learn a bit about the death penalty.

What an interesting movie.

Recently I have been wondering why people are so resistant to seeing a psychiatrist for help. Most people are willing to see a doctor when they are physically sick but when they have mental problems (which everyone does), most people avoid help. We recognize that cars need regular maintenance but not people, who are infinitely more complex than a car.

We have this crazy idea, that admitting we need help ("Im not crazy!") is worse than actually getting help to address the problem. We have this other crazy idea that we can fix ourselves, (which no one thinks about surgery), without recognizing that the people around us who we would talk with for help may be the source of our problem in the first place.

This movie is about the relationships of black men and women. The director presents the idea that black women are raised in single mother households where they are raised listening to constant complains about black men from their mothers and the media. As a result, these women are angry with black men and their inability to turn off that irrational anger prevents them from having a healthy relationship with a black man. So black men turn to white women, and that only makes black women angrier.

This makes total sense to me and I see the same thing in a lot of other situations.

Did you watch Stephen Colbert address the White House Correspondent's Dinner? (It's available on C-SPAN)

It started off slow, then it got hilarious, and then it got really awkward. Colbert was using sarcasm to level some extremely serious criticism at the President and his Press Corp poodles - and they were IN THE ROOM. It's one thing to laugh at people behind their back but it's another thing to publicly call attention to someone misdeeds.

I kept watching and I kept thinking: someone is going to get fired for this...

Im into teams.

I spent a year studying teams in the workplace. I always pick team sports over individual feats like running. I cheer for the Pistons and hiss for Kobe. I think the most rewarding experiences in life are team experiences. Even losing can be a good experience if you share it with the right people. Which is probably good because I think most of life, including work, is a team sport. We are all in this together.

On the other hand, I have been thinking recently about how miserable life can be when one is on the wrong team. Or more precisely, how one person can completely ruin a team experience.

One of the things I really enjoy is applying (or observing) a concept from one field to another, unrelated field. Its a pattern thing.

This morning I had a good conversation with a patent attorney. He was telling me that legal fees were under price pressure from clients. In response, law firms are outsourcing some of their work to India. Indians speak english, are highly trained, and most of all, are willing to work for a fraction of our costs.

We have all heard about white-collar outsourcing. This morning I realized that this situation was an example of transport costs, a concept that I learned about in real estate.

It is not Sunday but I have a confession to make. I have a weakness.

If we are being honest, its probably fair to say that we all have weaknesses. The Republican mayor of Spokane cant seem to stop himself from soliciting minors for sex in gay chat rooms. Me? I cant keep myself away from sweets and I spend way too much money on computers.

I hate to admit it but I think about getting a new car. I think about it all the time.

Im almost 40 years old and I want to move up to a luxury car. I know that you think about it too, so I dont mind sharing.

When you think about "luxury", what do you want?

In the Jewish tradition, a boy becomes a man at the age of 13. The event is celebrated with a bar mitzvah. I just heard that George Washington was leading troops (badly) at the age of 22.

Today, children often live at home with their parents until they are 30 and General Casey in Iraq is many years past 22.

Thinking about age and maturity, I ask: does it take longer to "grow up" today?

Maybe 2,000 years ago, one could learn all they needed to learn to survive by age 13. Maybe 200 years ago, it took 18 years. Does it take 25 or 30 years today?

Does the complexity and technology levels of society today mean that it takes longer to master life skills? When I was studying engineering, it seemed like 4 years was just not long enough to learn all the material and science has come much further in the past 15 years.

I woke up this morning to a story on the radio about the new Hip Hop museum in the Smithsonian. I knew all the songs and all the people they interviewed. What a strange feeling that was.

In the early 1980's, I was a kid living near Detroit. At summer camp, I listened to the Sugar Hill Gang. Late at night I would listen to this Detroit radio station and hear all this krazy, awesome music. I didnt know who did it, and i never saw it in a store but I loved those tapes.

Years later, rap exploded. Run-DMC, Ice-T, Curtis Blow... It's funny to think about it now because I am so totally out of touch with the baggy-pants, Kangol hat, hip-hop crowd that is in style today. I imagine that if you asked any of my MBA classmates if I listened to rap they would laugh out loud.

Then again, I guess that makes sense since the music I liked is now in a museum.

At the Smithsonian, Hip-Hop Is History

Museum Launches Collection of Genre

By David Segal Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Ice and a handful of other urban legends packed a conference room full of television cameras and reporters Tuesday at a Midtown Manhattan hotel to unveil a Smithsonian initiative for Washington's National Museum of American History, "Hip-Hop Won't Stop: The Beat, the Rhymes, the Life." The goal is to gather artifacts donated by rappers, dancers, DJs and record executives and amass a definitive collection, one that captures hip-hop's 30-year journey from inner-city subculture to international phenomenon.

I often question myself about what i should say here in the blogosphere. How much of one's personal life is it safe to reveal to people in print? How personal is still "professional"?

This morning I listened to an interview with Rosanne Cash. She talked about her parents and their deaths. Wow, it was so raw with emotional.

The interview was an epiphany for me. I never really saw what has been right in front of my eyes (and ears) for years. While most people hide themselves as much as they can, some people are out there, sharing their pain and their past with everyone. Those people are writers of all stripes, songs and books and movies.

There is so much pain in the world. So many terrible things that happen to us as children, as adults, things that we do others. Trauma's both mundane and horrific occur and their effect are often passed down, unthinkingly, through generations. To break the cycle, someone needs to recognize their feelings and speak out about them to begin the healing.

I am still unsure what I will say in this forum, but I wanted to thank the people who are strong enough to share their pain with us, the people who are out there leading the way and helping the rest of us face our own feelings.

Link

Rosanne Cash: 'Black Cadillac'

Weekend Edition

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Rosanne Cash is the daughter of country legend Johnny Cash, but has been a singer-songwriter in her own right for more than 25 years. Her family history couldn't help but play a role in her own career; but on her latest album, Black Cadillac, it takes on a different tone.

Within the two-year period preceding the album, Cash’s mother, father and stepmother all died. Their names are listed in dedication on the CD's liner notes, and the album is suffused with issues of mortality and mourning. Family plays another kind of role on the album as well: Cash's husband, John Leventhal, is a co-producer.

Cash talks with Scott Simon about family, music, and the new movie about her father, Walk the Line.

I attended a presentation today with one of the founders of Ethos Water. I am convinced.

If you buy bottled water, buy Ethos. It is a painless and free way of contributing money to charity which provides clean drinking water to some of the billions that need it.

One of my professors regularly tells us that 'business is personal'. I dont think she meant it this way but this article about Nike shows that for many corporations, management is personal, and sometimes it is an actual person.

I have no idea if Perez got a bum deal here or if he is another CEO windbag/bum but it sounds like a difficult situation. Makes me wonder how Apple and Microsoft will handle their own transitions when they finally replace their founder-CEO's.

He Said/He Said: Knight, Perez Tell Different Nike Tales

By STEPHANIE KANG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 24, 2006

No matter who holds the CEO title at Nike Inc., one thing is clear: The world's largest athletic firm is still Philip H. Knight's company.

Nike yesterday confirmed that it had replaced Chief Executive and President William D. Perez -- an outsider who joined the company just over a year ago -- with a veteran insider and Knight ally, Mark G. Parker. In making the change, Nike and Mr. Knight were blunt about the reason: Mr. Perez did not quickly enough translate his experience in the consumer-products industry to the athletic-footwear giant. And Mr. Knight was unwilling to let him learn on the job.

"Maybe it's a little bit cruel," Mr. Knight said. "Bill was brought in here to mentor Charlie and Mark to someday step into a higher role. A lot of days they were mentoring him. It wasn't going the right way."

In an interview, Mr. Perez had his own blunt assessment. "The fundamental issue was very basic," he said. "Phil didn't retire. When I joined Nike it was with the understanding that Phil was going to retire. I honestly believed he was going to step aside and let me move the ship in the right direction."

He added: "You don't need two CEOs. One is redundant, and I happened to be the redundant one." Mr. Perez said he and his wife "have found this experience to be extremely painful." While he praised Nike employees and the company's range of athletic technology, as well as Mr. Knight whom he describes as a "visionary leader," he also found Mr. Knight's operating style frustrating. "There were a number of situations, where I found out that he didn't agree with me through a third party."

I really enjoyed this article on the waterfront. (Be sure to check out the pdf file for the pictures/plan.)

Seattle's waterfront really shows the city's roots as an industrial town that always picks the cheapest solution. From Vancouver to San Diego, Seattle has the worst waterfront of any city on the west coast. We seem to be the only people around that would rather have old piers, parking lots, train tracks, freeways and industry than beaches, parks, walkways, and views.

I think these proposals are very exciting but i have been hearing about them for the 3 years i have lived here and have no idea how likely they are. If they ever do happen, perhaps it will be enough to prevent Seattle from winning the "most overpriced city in America" award, year after year...

Viaduct's demise could turn waterfront into urban oasis

But vision of parks and promenades comes with a price

By JENNIFER LANGSTON SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

read it here the PDF plans

"Like many uneducated people who become fabulously successful, he was utterly confident in his view of the world and never appreciated what he did not know."

What a great quote. It is actually from Steven Watts' recent biography of Henry Ford but I can think of many other people that it appears to apply to.

Yay! Good news for consumers, who need factual information in order to make good decisions.

Major Changes Set for Food Labels

Starting Jan. 1, Companies Must Add Listings For Trans Fats, Allergens; Revisiting Serving Sizes

By JANE ZHANG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 28, 2005

With the arrival of the new year, a host of additions and changes are in store for food labels. The presence of eight major allergens and the amount of trans fat in a product will have to be disclosed on labels as of Jan. 1. But that's just the start.

 

Among the other changes on the horizon, the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees most food labels, is considering giving calories more prominence on the food label -- by increasing the type size of the calorie listing, for example -- and requiring that nutrition information be spelled out for an entire package, not just for "servings." Already, Kraft Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. are labeling nutrient information in dual columns on some packages-one side for the serving and the other for the whole bottle or box. A 20-ounce lime-flavored Coke now says that it has 26 grams of sugar based on the "standard serving," but 65 grams in the whole bottle. Also in 2006, the FDA will likely update dietary intake references for nutrients like vitamins to reflect new scientific reports from the National Academy of Sciences.

The flurry of label activity reflects several factors, from regulatory changes such as the implementation of a 2004 allergen law to food companies' own efforts to court health-conscious consumers. Consumer activists have met with some success in their quest for more informative labels. Meanwhile, certain health issues have gained more attention, such as food allergies and obesity.

Ive been waiting for these stories to show up. With all the price pressures and bankruptcies in the airline business, how much maintenance can they afford? How much risk can they afford? Were we being too careful before or will plane start to crash? Scary stuff.

New Concerns on Plane Maintenance

Government Report Says Significant Work Is Done By Noncertified Shops

By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

December 27, 2005

Would you want a maintenance shop that isn't certified by the Federal Aviation Administration replacing an engine on the plane flying your next airline trip? How about working on the flight controls or replacing aircraft doors?

The Department of Transportation's inspector general released a report last week documenting serious maintenance work done on U.S. airlines by maintenance companies that weren't FAA certified. The report also found that non-certified repair facilities are widely used. The practice is allowed: Airlines can outsource maintenance to noncertified contractors as long as the individual mechanics who do the work are FAA licensed themselves. The FAA said that most of the work is minor, like oil changes, and major work is only done in emergency situations.

But by looking at shops that do work for six airlines, the inspector general's investigation found otherwise, including the three examples above. Non-certified companies did major scheduled maintenance work, the inspector general said. The audit found six domestic and foreign facilities doing scheduled maintenance and 21 that performed maintenance "critical to the airworthiness of the aircraft."

"Non-certified repair facilities are now performing more significant work than anyone realized," the report said.

To cut costs, U.S. airlines have outsourced more and more of the $4.9 billion they spend annually on maintenance work, and there's been concern that the FAA and its inspectors aren't keeping up. The DOT says more than 50% of the maintenance work at U.S. airlines is now outsourced.

Despite the furor this year about the "holy-days" dare i say holidays, its my feeling that Christmas in America became a pagan holiday devoted to Commerce many years ago. If course the excess of gifts is disguised with a family reunion and a meal but the religious element has long been a minor note.

China just seems to be one-upping us again. We may be capitalists but they have taken our lead and gone further to become super-capitalsts.

China's Yuletide Revolution

Nation's Yuppies Embracing Christmas as Time for Love; Ms. Ji, Romance and KFC

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and JUYING QIN Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 22, 2005

Last Dec. 24, Beijing resident Jessica Ji had one Christmas wish: a date.

The 25-year-old Web-site editor was determined to avoid a repeat of Christmas 2003, when she waited for two hours in the bitter cold to have dinner with her parents at a Pizza Hut, whose ostrich pizza is a yuletide favorite in the Chinese capital.

So Ms. Ji lined up a Christmas Eve rendezvous. She and her date ended up talking for six hours over dinner at a trendy coffeehouse. Things went so well that at 11 p.m. they decided to go to the movies. Ms. Ji sent a text message to her mother's cellphone: "I am not going back home tonight. It is Christmas Eve."

For China's yuppies, the true spirit of Christmas is romance.

Despite its commercialization, Christmas in the West is still centered on the family, with obligatory festive dinners and, often, churchgoing. In mostly atheist China, the holiday is increasingly celebrated by young urban couples, and on the street rather than at the hearth or the altar. To the Chinese yuppie fascinated by exotic foreign ways, Christmas is about oneself and one's personal relationships -- two aspects of life that both traditional Chinese culture and communist ideology play down.

At a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location in the southern city of Dongguan, customers leave handwritten love notes as ornaments on a plastic tree. "I don't have a boyfriend now, but I wish I had one for next Christmas," reads one. Nearby, a skinny Santa mannequin sits at a table for two, complete with candles and a bottle of wine. In another display, cans of spray snow are arranged in the shape of a heart.

Shanghai's unofficial capital of Christmas is Ikea, where young professionals gather to listen to traditional Swedish Christmas carols and taste free ginger cookies and saffron bread.

Last night in Episode #10 of ABC's show Invasion, I saw the worst thing I have ever seen on TV. Forget Janet Jackson's breast - the event that spawned the most FCC complaints in history.

In the final scene of the show, a character is asked to chop his own arm off with a chainsaw as a test of his faith in God... and he does it. The commercials start to roll as we hear the chainsaw and his screams.

*Ugh* This is not the kind of image I want in my head as i head off to bed and my unlikely-to-be-sweet-now dreams. I expect this kind of gruesome thing in lame movies like Saw but not on National TV. You cant even swear or show a breast on National TV. I just dont understand why we Americans are so accepting of violence in the media and so unaccepting of sex.

I for one can do without arm chopping and grisly CSI episodes. Real life has enough horror already.

I just found out about this website tool. After only a few minutes of playing with it, I have to say that i am impressed. This is a very cool way to find new music that you might like and much more sophisticated than Amazon's "other people bought this" system.

I started keeping a list of blogs related to University of Washington MBA's. If you have corrections, please let me know and i will update the list.

Here is the list I have so far, in alphabetical order.

Class of 2007:
James Bennett http://thechiefbrief.blogspot.com/ 
Chris Howard    http://chrishoward.typepad.com
Suresh Sathyamurthy http://sureshcs.blogspot.com

Class of 2006
Ian Bergman (Denmark)    http://denmark.ianbergman.com/
Andy Boyer (England)    http://mancunianhusky.blogspot.com/  (Mancunian = a native or inhabitant of Manchester, England)
Jason Meaux (India)   http://jasonmeaux.blogspot.com/
Chris Natsuume (Singapore)   http://www.livejournal.com/users/ninesquirrels/ (Phronesis?? No ideas there)
Micall Rylander (Japan) www.spaces.msn.com/members/micall
Keith Vaitkus  http://www.keithvaitkus.com/pvision/ 

Class of 2005
Tarun Bhalla    http://tarunsdrishtikon.blogspot.com/
Gavin Shearer        http://www.gavinshearer.com/weblog/
Joanne Hughes    http://spaces.msn.com/members/jojo2454/
Cintra Pollack    http://cintra.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Mark Sullivan    http://www.markksullivan.com/

Class of 2004:
    Char Popp    http://charpopp.blogspot.com/

UW Faculty
Shiva Rajgopal     http://shivarajgopal.typepad.com/shivas_musings/

Eye-witnesses are notorously inaccurate. The FBI says that torture and forced confessions dont work. Now fingerprints come under question...

What's left? Is there no proof anymore? As Pope Benedict (Ratzinger) alleged, are we trapped in a spiral of relatism? What would Mattlock do? Sure CSI:Idaho will have the answer?

For such a liberal town, Seattle is surprisingly prudish and apparently increasingly racist. Two articles in the local paper today illustrate these points.

When I learned about how much doctors resist public records of their performance, I was appalled and a bit amazed that they can get away with such secrecy. In theory, doctors police their own but the reality is that many mistakes are made and those bad apples continue to practice because of loopholes in the system.

The numbers paint a picture of what's really happening and i am heartened to see that metrics for medicine are slowly starting to appear.