January 2012
1 post
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the day the google died
In 1998, I relied on two search engines, Alta Vista and Yahoo, each of which was radically different in how they worked. Alta Vista required understanding boolean logic and was very geeky, but if you knew what you were doing, it could produce amazing results. Yahoo categorized content very effectively, so in cases where Alta Vista failed because of search terms having multiple meanings, Yahoo...
November 2011
6 posts
1 tag
shop small
You know a store is too big when you need Google Maps to navigate it:
Some of the big-box stores such as IKEA, Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Home Depot have already been mapped, but not Target. Not Wal-Mart. And not nearly as many malls as you’d like to see, especially in this holiday season.
Support your normal-sized, local, family-owned retailer!
2 tags
"Young Blood" by the Naked and Famous →
2011 Single of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards. Pretty addictive. I might listen to the radio if they played stuff like that.
ATM, please don’t start beeping at me until the money/receipt/card is ready. It’s like shouting STOP to a driver a block before a stoplight.
1 tag
what is libertarianism?
Excellent and badly needed new website that defines and explores the history and current state of libertarianism.
It includes some pretty nicely done videos that explore the nuances and complexity of a political, moral, and social philosophy that many people consider antiquated, simplistic, utopian, or impractical.
October 2011
3 posts
1 tag
how homeopathy "works"
For a long time, I put homeopathy in the same category as organized religion. I felt both were based primarily on faith with little science to back them up. I believed that both were the refuge of the weak or less intelligent among us.
The problem is that even among smart people, homeopathy is very popular and many people swear by it. Heck, in much of Europe and Asia, homeopathy is practically...
1 tag
go green on your next renovation
Up-front disclamer: I have a minority stake in Greenspace, the company I’m about to plug here.
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and are planning to do anything from repainting a bedroom to a full-on renovation, I wanted to plug an amazing store in Santa Cruz that I used when I renovated my townhouse in 2005. Here’s my original posting. I also put up some stunning before and...
1 tag
the last time I saw Steve Jobs
I worked at Apple from April of 1999 through July of 2011. I’ve never written publicly about that experience, but I wanted to share a little moment that will always be with me, even though it’s not of any great significance. After leaving my job at Apple, I dropped in for lunch one day. I was exiting the main building, Infinite Loop One, and just ahead of me was Steve Jobs, walking...
September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
didn't we already have food freedom?
While this is a step in the right direction, it’s sad that anything like this needs to be proposed. It should already be 100% within our rights:
Resolution Recognizing the Rights of Individuals to Grow and Consume Their Own Food and to Enter Into Private Contracts With Other Individuals to Board Animals for Food
Just the title of the resolution itself points out the absurdity of the...
2 tags
21st century philanthropy
I babbled about philanthropy in an earlier posting called “wealth now, philanthropy later”, so I was thrilled to see this blog posting on the Harvard Business Review website:
Steve Jobs, World’s Greatest Philanthropist
Try to ignore the hyperbolic title of the article and just absorb the content.
Making the world a better place means making decisions your whole life that...
1 tag
the perils of watching time-shifted tennis
I record a lot of tennis on TiVo partly because it’s usually inconvenient to watch it live (time zone differences) and if I time-shift it, I can zap the commercials or skip through matches I don’t care about.
However (and this is where I begin to whine), it’s gotten increasingly difficult to not have the outcomes of matches I’ve queued up be spoiled before I’ve...
August 2011
4 posts
2 tags
arguments against ron paul
I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter on and off for 23 years now, casting my first ever Presidential vote for him in the 1988 election. Two things have remained 100% consistent since then:
Ron Paul’s convictions and beliefs
The arguments against Ron Paul as a potential President
For me, the arguments against him, however legitimate they may be, are an order of magnitude less significant...
2 tags
how the government worsens income inequality
Let’s say you have some friends that are starting a small business. They set themselves up as a Corporation or LLC and are looking for investors. You decide, sure, why not, I’ve got a few thousand dollars saved, I’ll invest.
Well, turns out you probably can’t!
Unless you have a liquid net worth over $1 million or earned more than $200,000 in the last couple years. To buy...
1 tag
how can I provide you with excellent service?
It seems like almost every time I make a phone call to the customer service department of a big company, I get an email, a return phone call (gah!), or a tree is cut down to email me a survey asking how my customer experience was.
In other cases, I’m asked before I even talk to someone whether I’d like to take a survey later, which delays my forthcoming excellent customer service.
...
April 2011
1 post
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if only plastic canoes were our biggest problem
Giant waka seen as ‘cheap’
If only our biggest problem here in the US were the government potentially wasting money on a plastic canoe.
Only $2 million? I guess it wasn’t a no-bid contract!
Instead, we have to wonder what country we’re going to bomb next.
January 2011
1 post
1 tag
new tennis faces for 2011
The highlight of the Australian Open this year for me was seeing three very promising players that I’ve never seen before, two of which I’ve never even heard of:
Bernard Tomic, who has a very unconventional style that really messes with people’s minds. You never know quite what he’s going to do. Does need to ditch his father as a coach.
Alexandr Dolgopolov, who also has...
December 2010
2 posts
2 tags
the seductiveness of net neutrality
It’s hard to be against something with such a benign and positive name like “net neutrality”. It’s like being against the Clean Skies Act, which, as it turns out, is one of many pieces of legislation whose name doesn’t accurately describe what it contains
Despite the seductiveness of net neutrality, I believe any government intrusion into the Internet would spoil the...
3 tags
return trip to new zealand
Eric and I made a second trip to New Zealand this year! Even though we got back in mid-October, I just now finished sorting through all the pictures and uploaded them to Flickr:
New Zealand - 2010
We hope to back again two years from now for another visit.
2 tags
the definition of transparency
People love to criticize libertarianism as impractical and idealistic, but few if any people have ever lived in a society that had anything approaching the level of transparency and access to “nearly perfect” information that is required for free markets to actually work.
Julian Assange, in this excellent interview, explains his organization’s very practical strategies to weaken...
1 tag
the patriot act for food
The Senate today passed a benign sounding, yet frightening piece of legislation recently:
Senate Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Regulations
The only heartening part is reading the comments to the article where it’s clear that many readers actually read the bill instead of just regurgitating the talking points that the article presented.
We’ve traded our freedom for safety in...
November 2010
7 posts
1 tag
here's to the crazy ones
Not sure how I missed this article when it came out, but this is a brilliant analysis of what passes for political discourse in the US currently:
Who are the real “crazies” in our political culture
This meshes in very nicely with Jon Stewart’s commentary on the manufactured “battle” between the right and the left that the media force feeds us:
The Maddow/Stewart...
2 tags
let the muslim rejoicing end
When Obama was elected, it seemed that no one was rejoicing more than Muslim communities around the world. It seemed there was some chance that our country would end terrorizing of Muslim countries around the world.
Seems that patience is running out, though:
Muslims say Obama failing to keep Cairo promises
As an aside, I’ve often wondered who the last President was that we’ve had...
3 tags
the win-win scenario that we'll lose
If there were some way to reduce world government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars a year, while significantly reducing CO2 emissions and igniting the alternative energy market, you’d think the government would be all over that, right?
Not so fast:
Call to Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidy
People think that libertarians don’t care about the environment or only care about money....
2 tags
another senseless caffeine death
A Man Dies After Overdosing on Caffeine
Funny how people die from abusing alcohol, prescription drugs, caffeine and pretty much anything you can get a high or a buzz from, but you just don’t hear much about the huge number of deaths from smoking marijuana.
Hmm, wonder why that is!
2 tags
cindy sheehan on the myth of the two-party system
Back in 2005, it seemed that everyone knew of Cindy Sheehan and wanted to hear what her opinion was on pretty much anything. While I don’t always agree with her, I ran across this very insightful piece in a publication that few Americans read, unfortunately:
US: Myth of the Two-Party System
It’s amazing what conclusions you can come to if you free yourself from alignment with one of...
September 2010
3 posts
1 tag
civil discourse and "tone"
Often when I people get into a vigorous debate of ideas, especially with those that disagree with them, it gets derailed by someone complaining about the “tone” of the debate or pleading for “civil discourse”.
As usual, Glenn Greenwald has a brilliant summation of this issue:
“One other point about this fixation on the “tone” of our politics. Political...
1 tag
plucky tree store shutting down
I’ve shut down the store that shares its name with this blog. To make a very long story short, I had a two-year cat-and-mouse game with my largest supplier, Ecolution, and their continued lack of organizational skills made it impossible to provide good service to my customers.
I’d like to provide a list of alternative ways to get the products we sold on the site over the years:
...
2 tags
AP still has some journalistic principles left
AP refuses to use WH/NBC propaganda terms for Iraq
In a country where there are no newspapers or news organizations left that do real journalism and where there are only a small handful of real journalists left, it’s nice to see AP take a principled stand. However, it’s also sad that taking a stand like this is considered newsworthy in the first place!
August 2010
1 post
1 tag
what's next, a sweater vest?
May 2010
1 post
2 tags
why is the BP oil rig there in the first place?
There’s blame being thrown around about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with the usual finger-pointing going on:
It’s BP’s fault, the evil oil company
It’s Transocean’s fault, the owner and operator of the rig
It’s Halliburton’s fault, who did construction on the rig before the explosion
It’s the government’s fault, for not...
April 2010
2 posts
2 tags
john dvorak accidentally makes some good points
John Dvorak is pretty much famous for being wrong about everything, but he hits the nail on the head when it comes to “net neutrality”:
Net neutrality becomes a dangerous issue
Even without this proposal from John Kerry, few people realize that the Internet has been almost entirely unregulated for most of its existence and likely thrived because of it.
The proponents of net...
2 tags
come for the tennis, stay for our captive breeding...
I played tennis recently at a “public” court owned by Valley Church in Cupertino, CA. I was browsing their website today and came across a page about the tennis courts:
Valley Church: Sports Ministry
I think the mission statement bears repeating:
“Building bridges with people through sports, introducing them to Jesus Christ, establishing them in their faith, assimilating them...
March 2010
1 post
2 tags
time to end another monopoly
Postal Service Urged to Weigh Three-Days-a-Week Mail Now’s a good a time as any to end the monopoly granted to the US Postal Service over mailboxes and non-urgent mail. Any company that can’t make a money with such juicy exclusivity doesn’t deserve to exist. Of course, it’ll never happen because they’ll have to let go some of their bloated workforce and that...
February 2010
1 post
2 tags
retroactive war for oil
The Falklands War in 1982 always seemed very suspicious to me. I re-read the Wikipedia page recently, searching for something relating to oil or gold or some precious resource that someone must have found and wanted to seize by force under the guise of a humanitarian mission (sound familiar?).
Well, unsurprisingly, there may be huge reserves of oil around the Falkland Islands! Wonder how long...
January 2010
2 posts
1 tag
wealth now, philanthropy later
Seeing this latest monument to Bill Gates’ ego reminded me of the following quote from the book Slow Money by Woody Tasch:
“Wealth now, philanthropy later” is an inappropriate response to the challenges of the 21st century.
It has long bothered me that born-again philanthropists are lauded for their contributions for society, while ignoring all the suffering they caused and...
1 tag
headline of the year
I know it’s only January 5th, but this headline should win some sort of award:
New scanners break child porn laws
In just one headline, it summarizes how utterly screwed up both the UK and the US are.
December 2009
2 posts
1 tag
a genuine christmas song
You may have noticed that most Christmas songs are sappy sweet, unrealistic, or filled with religious gunk. So, here’s a nice antidote to that, a YouTube (free) version and a link to where you can buy the song. Don’t let the title dissuade you.
Christmas Really Sucks (video) Christmas Really Sucks (iTunes)
The truth is a lot of people find the holidays a particularly depressing time...
1 tag
how do we tell if it's wartime or peacetime?
The period of 2001-2007 was known as a time of war
…when an out-of-control war-monger was in the White House and every 5 1/2 hours, a US soldier was killed in undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and illegal military actions in Yemen, Philippines, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Georgia, Djibouti, Haiti, Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia, and countless other covert actions.
From 1993-2000, we...
November 2009
1 post
1 tag
google versus mob rule
I can’t remember the last time I used Google to find a piece of factual information and ended up with the wrong information. The rare exception recently was a search I did for:
“I promise you I will” lyrics
I was trying to find the name of the artist whose song repeats that phrase over and over. Here’s what Google found:
Top result: Depeche mode 8 of the top 10...
October 2009
5 posts
2 tags
frontline on derivatives
Frontline has another great new show on derivatives and gives a good overview of the recent economic collapse:
The Warning
You can watch the entire show online, in addition to some web-only content. In an era where all the major news organizations are either afraid to criticize a sitting administration (or even a past one) or are politically motivated rather than motivated by seeking the truth,...
2 tags
ron paul on the nobel peace prize
We’re fortunate to have a few members of Congress that still deeply understand what words like “peace” and “anti-war” actually mean. Here’s an extremely thoughtful response from Ron Paul on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama: Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize
Sometimes Ron Paul does come across as wacky, but when he has time to formulate his...
2 tags
steal this idea: iPhone flickr slideshow app
So, there are a lot of interesting iPhone apps that use Flickr, but not one that does something that I think would be pretty stunningly cool. Here’s what it would do:
Using your current location, the application would cycle through full-screen photos that were taken nearby
Configuration would be extremely simple, perhaps only a preference for how long a photo would stay on screen before...
1 tag
steal this idea!
About 10 years ago or so, I thought of creating a website called Steal This Idea, inspired by the classic book by Abbie Hoffman called Steal This Book. Not being a web designer and lacking time, the idea never became reality.
The basic concept was very simple: the world is full of people with great ideas, but few become reality, but rarely because the person with the idea doesn’t want it to...
1 tag
happy imperialism day!
I’ve always been a big fan of giving holidays much more accurate names. For example, Columbus Day could be:
Imperialism Day
Indigenous People Extermination Day
Second (or Third) Person to “Discover” America Day
Claiming Lands That Don’t Belong To You Day
Sticking Flags in the Ground Day
I’m sure you can come up with some more good ones!
September 2009
1 post
2 tags
an eagle ate my baby
Good thing this hasn’t been widely reported in the local news here or parents would be keeping their kids out of any parks where large, soaring birds have been spotted:
500 Years Ago, A Giant Eagle In New Zealand Was Possibly Eating Children
Panic!
July 2009
5 posts
1 tag
a tale of two pharmacies
After spending much of my life going to big chain pharmacies like Longs, CVS, RiteAid, and Walgreens, my doctor recommended a small, independently-owned pharmacy in Palo Alto called Maximart Pharmacy.
It’s not that the thought of going to an independent pharmacy never occurred to me. I just assumed they were all long gone. In the case of Maximart, it’s way off the beaten path and...
1 tag
3 reasons to go HD
I used to think the move to HD television and Blu-ray was rather pointless and not as big a leap as we saw when going from VHS to DVD. However, three things changed my mind:
Seeing Planet Earth on Blu-ray was the first revelation, especially since I had previously seen it on DVD. It really is just stunningly gorgeous in HD.
Watching the French Open in HD on TV. I’ve always liked watching...
3 tags
compromise healthcare doesn't sound so bad...
When I wrote this a few weeks ago:
corporations and health care
…I never expected to see something like this happen:
The centrist alternative on healthcare
Even though it’ll never pass, because it wouldn’t siphon money away to politically powerful companies and organizations, it’s still heartening to see there are a few people in Congress that are interested in improving...