I’m a pretty big fan of Keith Olbermann. His show format is not my favorite but he is a straight shooter and doesn’t put his foot in his mouth as often as other new commentators (they all do it eventually so that’s about the highest praise I can give them – heck, it’s about the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Soapbox’
Respect is hard
Respect is a hard thing. Respect is something we want and even demand from other people. Respect is something we hold in reserve and give sparingly to the people we know. Respect is difficult to define and is our definition of respect is often different for someone else. Respect for an person may change over [...]
Warner Bros in HD-DVD vs Bluray
Yesterday, the big news in many of my technology blogs was that Warner Bros had decided to switch from producing both HD-DVD AND Blu-ray movies which satisfy all customers wanting high definition content to deciding on only a single format. In a way, it doesn’t matter what the format was because it eliminates some portion [...]
Ebay and Paypal
I just made a purchase on ebay (see a previous post on Philips Pronto NG remotes). Ebay and Paypal are part of the same corporate family and it is always amazing that corporations put in artificial barriers that slow things down. I mean when we are talking money in 2007, it is primarily data so [...]
Copyright continues to be misunderstood/misused
About a week or so ago, a video called “Richter Scales” was put out and then soon after taken down because of take down notices. Unfortunately, the take down notice from photographer, Lane Hartwell, seems to be a bullying tactic. Read the post from the link (which still had the video in it too) for [...]
Donut Shops
One thing Kathy and I noticed while we were down in sunny Southern California is that they have Donut Shops. In fact, they have a lot of Donut Shops and while we didn’t do a scientific survey we did notice that it was very difficult to drive more than 2 miles on city streets without [...]
To Retrospect or Not?
I was having a moment this morning while I was working out. All in all it was pretty wierd. I think it was because, having a moment to think while I’m focused on working out and while I have a movie blasting (which I always do) just seems unlikely. That is too many things that [...]
Intuit really doesn’t get it…
There are a lot of software companies out there and there are a lot of people who develop software out there. Many of these people get it. The basic principle is don’t make it hard for your customers. You do your best to make the UI simple. You always make sure that file conversion is [...]
I heard something interesting yesterday…
We were at Church yesterday for Xander’s first communion. First communion is the ceremony allowing children to begin taking the “Body of Christ” within the Christian Church, or more specifically the Catholic Church. It was a nice ceremony. Father Kevin, our pastor (the head of the local Church) lead the service with the help of [...]
Violate copyright? $150,000. Violate free speech? $0.
I’ve taken this headline directly from a Hyperorg post on penalties that come from the DMCA. This post talks about penalties for both infringers – meaning those who post material that is in violation of copyright and have a cease and desist against them but fail to comply – and those who post a cease [...]
Teaching – some thoughts
Recently, Steve Jobs spoke on education and what’s wrong with it. Steve is quite a pontificator but in my observations, he over simplifies. I think he does this because at heart, he’s a marketing guy and it’s all about bullet points, key messages and sound bytes. In this instance, this over simplification is more than [...]
DMCA, Copyright run amuck!
As, I’ve mentioned in the past, our country and perhaps the world is letting corporations decide how democracies should determine laws. Democracies are supposed to be governing systems run by people where as corporations are not people though in some fake sense, they have some legal rights that are similar. The differences though are what [...]
Rights and Protections
Teaching our children about important elements of our government seem important.? I was just watching a podcast (which one is not really important) and they mentioned something that got me to thinking.? The idea they mentioned was that many of the younger population doesn’t care about freedom of speech protections. Now, of course, whenever I [...]
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a long standing American Holiday.? I think Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday and since it’s been around that long it must be an actual tradition.? I find it a mixed time though heavily weighted in the positive side.? Thanksgiving gives us a time to be with our family.? Even when our [...]
School and Uniforms
My 2 boys will be going to public school. Their school doesn’t require uniforms but I wonder if somewhere along their grade’s, maybe it should. I just finished listening to a show on NPR (our local) which was mostly discussing dress codes and how the school and kids interacted. During the show, I was impressed [...]