32 posts tagged “rants”

My wife asked me to help find evidence and arguments to turn around a climate change critic in our family. He had some evidence that Arctic sea ice is re-freezing at record pace. That would be great news for a warming planet except Arctic sea ice has been drastically shrinking. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, "Arctic sea ice in 2008 was notable for several reasons. The year continued the negative trend in summer sea ice extent, with the second-lowest summer minimum since record-keeping began in 1979.  2008 sea ice also showed well-below-average ice extents throughout the entire year." According to this data, one winters record re-freezing will be undone by another summer's record thawing. So did I send these actual facts to the climate change critic? No. The problem is not his lack of scientific knowledge but a conundrum of social psychology.

Most all of these critics are not scientists or more importantly are not climate experts. I learned years ago working on legal cases with experts that in any given subject, they will know more than I ever will. There are many reasons (that I have observed) why good people refuse to believe an experts:

1. The expert challenges their pre-existing beliefs.
2. They don't like some "poindexter" telling them what to believe.
3. They have a $$ interest in the opposite point of view.
4. They believe they actually know more than the expert does.
5. They feel like the expert is accusing them of doing something wrong.

Basically, if a climate change critic admits that climate change is real, the critic has to feel bad. No amount of evidence or reasoning will change that.

So when a critic of climate change says things like "scientists are doing science all wrong" or "its all a liberal conspiracy", just tell them that whether climate change is real or not, they are good people.

Certainly my cheapskatery, a.k.a. frugalness, has been a constant topic of mine. Maybe I am frugal because I lived below the poverty line during a decade of my college and post graduate studies. When you have little spend, you learn how to get by with less. What if everyone was frugal like me, I used to think. Back in June, I ran across an on-line article that asked this very question: What Would Happen IF Everyone Was Frugal? This mental exercise was fun back in June but terribly relevant now. As credit markets collapse, jobs become scarce, and the future becomes undertain, more and more people are becoming frugal just like me! Sure, the economy will take a big hit as people save their pennies and drive their cars until they become scrap metal. Over time, though, we will all benefit from fewer bankruptcies, foreclosures, and disposing of piles of waste produced by our pre-economic metldown consumer driven society.

I wonder though, what if people were more like me in other ways too? Many industries would cease to exist. Say good buy to the alcholic beverages industries . . . and drunk driving accidents. The soda (or pop) industry would implode and with it a sizeable demand for dental work. Coffee and tobacco growers would need to find new crops to plant. Illicit drugs would disappear completely, and morticianers along on the Mexican/Amercian border would have to find new jobs. Green products would become the industry standard. Without early adopters, new consumer technologies will take longer to develop. Sales of used goods would spike. Medical costs would fall some as more and more people would only go to the doctor when they absolutely had to.

There would be massive cultural changes as well. Micheal Bay would stop making movies, no one would see them. The internet would become the primary means of all entertainment and non-internet based entertianment would be at risk of extinctions. Top 40 radio would stop broadcasting. Discs in generally will become a dead media. Comic books would move out of their niche. Videogames would continue their increasing domination of media. The term "literally" would be used in its proper sense. Saturday Night Live would be cancelled and thereafter made reference to in association with something that was meant to be funny, but is not. "That joke was SNL".

I would like to think that the rate of hear disease would fall, as all people would at least try to exercise. Organic and natural foods would supplant foods with chemicals like MSG in them. Sure, cookies would become a staple food but we would all at least try to have a vegatable course at dinner. Kids would spend more time playing outside. Crime would near non-existence, espcially violent crimes. Volunteerism and charitable giving, however, would reach all time lows :(

Does everyone hope that they are good people making the world a better place to live? They would if they were more like me. At least, I hope so.

Hardly anyone likes bailing out a failed company. I too would not cry in my sleep if AIG, Fannie and Freddie, and The Big Three automakers all failed. We live in a capitalist world and some other company would replace them eventually. Look at those who support the bailout, however, and you will find a group that consists of the President-Elect, his Republican Opponent, our current Chief Executive and the entire cabinet, an overwhelming majority of economists, and the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). I mention this last group because i feel they are unfair targets of anti-bailout fervor. You see, conservative thinkers WANT American auto-makers to go bankrupt so they can fire all of UAW workers and replace them with lesser paid workers.

What is so bad about unions? Do we not, as citizens, have the right to congregate, to bargain, to contract? What is so bad about getting the best deal you can for your labor? You can believe Bill O'Reilly negotiated the best deal he could with FoxNews. You know Rush Limbaugh rakes in as much revenue as he can for his "talents". How many of George Bush's campaign workers and donors received high paying political appointments? The answer is: as many as Bush could appointment! Why shouldn't autoworkers also get themselves the most money for their labor?

Understandably, most of us non-conservative regular type thinkers do not care much about unions either for the simple fact that most of us do not belong to one. But understand that if union member wages fall, the wages of all comparable workers will fall as well. If you think you're making a pittance now, just check out how much a worker makes in China or India. Unions slow the the race to the bottom, and you can bet your bottom dollar (literally, soon) that there is a deep bottom compared to what we have now.

So You can be against the bailout. That's fine with me. But why pick on the people who actually make our economy run? Not to slight the labors of the workers in the financial markets, who have already been bailed-out, but those office jockeys are just pushing around paper. I should know, as an attorney, pushing around paper is my business. All of us should be grateful for everyone who plays a direct hand in making the products we use, growing the food we eat, teaching the children we so adore, and cleaning up the mess we make before we go home. I say to these conservative economic geniuses: question not why the UAW workers make too much, but instead why The Big Three did not make enough.

Now that the 2008 Presidential Election is over, it sure is nice to see President-Elect Obama's name reappear on FoxNew's website. But curiously, FoxNews still lives in a November 4th world where devout Republicans believe that Senator McCain has a chance to win. Way to keep it classy FoxNews.com.

The world is filled with mediocre computers that cost $500 or less. Some look better than others. What I want, indeed, what would set the world on fire is a $500 computer that looks great and can play games. Considering the onset of digital TV in February of 2009 will create the need to encode and decode HDTV streams, a computer with decent graphics is more useful than ever. You have to think about the total package when you buy a computer: who want's to end up with an expense e-mail machine?

To me, the perfect candidates for an inexpensive, good looking, productive, and high gaming perfomance computer are be the Apple Mac Mini and Xbox 360. The Mac Mini looks great and was a decent gaming machine by 2005 standards. The current version, hover, creates negative pressure around spheres. Perhaps Apple could upgrade the Mac Mini with some decent graphics, but on the subject of $500 computers, the CEO of Apple recently had this to say: "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk; our DNA will not let us do that." Interestingly, the original Mac Min cost $499, making it, in Steve Jobs's words, junk. Maybe they've had gene therapy since then.

The Xbox 360 is another decent looking computer but it has the opposite problem. It is a great graphics platform that can't be used for anything productive. It has the cability to do other things. Behind the svelte case is a triple core PowerPC processor, 512mb (i.e. barely enough) RAM, and up to a 120GB hard drive. Yet Microsoft, because it also creates negative pressure around spheres, has locked down the Xbox 360 and limited its use to games. I do note that the PS3 plays games as well as the Xbox 360 and Sony generously lets us peoples load up other operating systems. Too bad the PS3 only has 256mb (i.e. not enough) RAM for productivity applications.

There are some able contenders for a svelte $500 dream machines. The cheap looking Acer X1200 and X3200 cost less than $500 and have decent integrated graphics that can be upgraded using fancy hybrid SLI technology. The HP Pavilion Slimline looks better than most computers, can also be upgraded with decent graphics, and some deals are available. An upstart Linux machine claims to be the next big thing in gaming, and it may eventually cost less than $500. The Asus Essentio is the most jaw droppingly good computer I've ever seen. I think it looks ever better than the Mac Mini, and if it ever offers decent specs for less than $500, it'd be a game changer. Although all of these contenders run Windows, an arguably crappy operating system, they can also run linux. Some games run native on Linux and other will, with a little help. As noted in the comments, a great small computer can be built from scratch for even better performance for the cost.

But maybe with the recent price drop of the Xbox 360, it may make more sense to buy two computers: a $200 Xbox 360 arcade for playing games and something like a $300 KPC for productivity. $500 gets you two pretty good looking little computers, and for a bonus, a the productivity computer  can stream audio, photos, and video to the Xbox 360. Movies are best watched on the couch, y'all.

But don't take my advice. I've decided to buy (with my wife's blessing) one of them new fangled MacBooks. They cost way more than $500. Good thing I've been frugal.

A $220,000 verdict against an allegedly innocent file sharer was thrown out by the district court handling the case. The court's reaffirmation of the standard of evidence in a copyright case is good news for human beings like us.

Apparently a copyright owner needs to prove actual copying. Who knew? Oh yeah, I knew because I'm an IP attorney. The RIAA had argued that providing access to copyrighted music was sufficient to prove actual copying. Think about that. Should a music store be liable because a customer could buy a CD, pull it out of the case without breaking the seal, copy it, and return the original? How about the library? What about the the possibility of a hacker busting into your WiFi and making copies of your iTunes files? Should you be liable for not securing copyrighted material? Of course not; copyright law does not recognize attempted copying and hopefully for us it never will. You can store all your CDs on the outside of your front door if you want to.

Huzaa to Judge Micheal Davis, who raised this issue (referred to as *sua sponte*).

Most of the time being a dad like me is routine. I help little man eat, brush his teeth, and learn to use the potty. I look forward to his smile everytime I come home. We take short walks when the weather is nice. At night, I read him stories as he lays his head on my chest. Everything is alright most of the time.

Sometimes being a dad is like last weekend. We were at a friends house to celebrate a birthday. I sat little man at the head of one of the tables so he would feel important. He loved the attention from everyone. Suddenly, his chair tipped backward down a few steps to lower level. KABAANG! Little man slid down the high back and onto the hard floor. He was screaming and tears shot out his eyes. I knocked my chair backward as I rushed to him. I thought about those instructions that say you should leave a person where they lay after they fall.  I immediately picked him up anyway. A blood ran down his face like it was coming out of a faucet. Oh crap!

Dad's are great but when the s*** hits the fan, kids want their mom's. My dear wife was right behind me if only because she was one chair farther from little man or she would have been right in front of me. not more than a second after scooping little man off the floor, I handed him to his mom. He clutched her with all his might. My poor wife has an autonomic nervous response to the sight of blood, but she kept it together. She is a super trooper.

Another dad at the party found us towels and helped us get in the minivan. Go dads go! The host and his fiancee prepared an ice pack. Go hosts go! My wife ran into the minivan shoeless. We left little man's shoes behind. I spent an eternity lacing up my sneakers. Why-o-why didn't we where sandals!

I curse those damned child restraint laws! My wife had to kneel in the backseat holding pressure on little man's head. All the while baby sister was cyring in her carseat, unbuckled. My wife was buckling with one hand and holding pressure with the other.  Flooding had a closed a nearby road and I had no idea how to get around it and get to the hospital. Blessed be lucky left turns.

Emergency rooms are no fun at all. Blood, crying, hungry baby, parking, finding my family, and we still had to check in at triage. We were quickly sent to one of the child friendly rooms. I sat with little man on the gurney while the nurse cleaned up his head. My son's little hand was tight around my big finger and more than once I held back tears. The nurse gave him some topical pain medication. After thirty minutes of reading and watching a "Thomas" video play on the ceiling, a doctor stapled a deep cut on his scalp: little man's first peircings. He barely winced, that boy of mine. That night I woke him twice to make sure he didn't have a concussion. I asked him if he know my name and his own. He did. And for good measure he told me his mom's name, his sister's name, and that of all his grandparents.

This wasn't little man's first owie. He has had eye surgery, skinned knees and elbows, a cat scratch, rashes, colds, flus, and the occasional freakout for no reason at all. Everytime I see him suffer my heart breaks. Yet, these are not the worst times to be a dad. They are the very best.

Huzaa to my children and hoping I will always be there for them.

While setting up my Ubuntu Linux desktop, I noted a plethora of dark desktop themes, as in white text on a black background. It's not only old school, it serves some very good purposes. Let me count the ways:

1. White on black is easier on the eyes.
2. Dark desktops are easier to see at night and wont' ruin your night vision.
3. Dark desktops might use less energy than bright desktops.
rainbows.
4. Black is different and totally non-conformist until everyone starts doing it. Then we will start using a rainbook look, then denim, and back to white.

For my part, I have adjusted my iGoogle screen and this blog to embrace the darkness. I suppose I could use blackle for even more possible earth saving awesomeness. On my own desktop, I chose  the Mac-like grey on grey over the darker themes. I could not find a useable black theme. Sometimes menu items were whited out and other times text boxes were entirely black. So is the way of aesthetic progress.

Let me know what you think of this bold new look.

The following is based on my experiences in gifting to others and what I've observed from other's gifts. All the gifts I have received rock!

Don`t buy your loved one:

• anything that requires work on their part like pottery kits or unmixed cookie ingredients guess what stays in the back of the cabinet for years, just give them the cookies instead
• anything that requires further expenditures of money like a collector`s starter pack, a printer requiring ink, or a humidifier requiring replacement filters.  Don't do this to them!
• a book about something they would rather want instead: let's face it, bookstores are the chincy last minute gift givers favorite haven
• a donation to a charity they never heard of or don`t care about  (quite different for charities they do care about) Ahhh, whocares what they think, charity is charity
• productivity software I admit it. I once gave a girlfriend PrintShop Pro. She later dumped me
• cheap art it will end up in the dumpster when better art comes along
• cheap jewelry how tiny can a diamond get? Best to save up for a bigger one next year
• anything more than 1/2 off if its marked down that much, it must be crap
• anything that looks cute and fun in the store it will soon become tired and boring in their house, dusty in their storage box, and completely disgusting in the landfill
• anything you already own even if they didn’t know you owned it they will figure it out
  

So what does this leave? Cash. The best gift is cash money. Second bests are tools for guys and Lucinda Williams CDs for girls, but girls also like tools (the ones at Sears, not the ones at bars)

Happy holidays!