Movies

Seabiscuit was a good movie. Toby Mcguire is an excellent actor. I also learned a little bit about Buick's early start which was interesting.

Google News

Google News is much better with this filter: -Iraq -bomb -israel -palestinian -abortion -murder -bribe -sex -marijuana

I guess I just don't want to know about it.

Shopping

So, I bought a costco card last weekend for $45 and today visited a costo to purchase supplies. $340 worth of supplies should last about a year and a half. I'll still have to buy some perishables but major items have been accounted for in bulk.

Efficiency, planning, and profit win the day. The 45$ was paid for with savings and there is an estimated savings of 50$ above and beyond that.

In other news....the bookstore didn't carry any books on Spring.

Java J2EE Spring

Now I'm learning Aspect Oriented Programming, J2EE beans, and the Spring environment. As long as I can keep up with it, my powers will grow.

In other news, Republicans in Virginia are trying to ban gay civil unions in their state by writing it into their constitution. Legislating morality is a terrible thing. Between that and various anti-pro-choice changes that are proposed I feel that a huge leap backwards is happening for our country. What happened to freedom? I hope that this will be resolved sooner than later.

Computing Power

So, its about time for me to buy a new computer....or build one. The following trends come to mind: Moore's and Kryder's.

Of course, I haven't been sticking to my budget like I should so I don't have the money saved up to buy a computer. I'm looking at a December timeline. In the meantime, I can do research and decide on laptop versus desktop versus server.

For my birthday 2 years ago, I was going to buy myself a new desktop (1/4 years) but the aforementioned Moore's law had failed and I was peeved about not getting my 4.0 ghz processor. Actually the measurement that I need to keep track of is FLOPS. How many floating point operations can my new processor do with the available RAM and system BUS? I have time to do the research.

Focus

Wax on. Wax off.

Random thoughts

"The buying habits of Americans would benefit from change that comes from mindful consideration about what we really need, where things are made, and how we're going to afford things in the long term. " ./ post

Isolation

Today, I feel isolated. Someone should say hi to me.

Valentines Day

I had a wonderful Valentine's Day. I hope the same goes for everyone else. :)

Meritocracy

"So to me, the case for retaining the estate tax more or less where it ends up next year ? a 45% top rate on estates over $3.5 million ? if you index that limit for inflation (and recognizing that with by-pass trusts the $3.5 million becomes, in effect, $7 million)is overwhelming." -- ATobias, WBuffett

I think 3.5 million in today's dollars (adjusted for inflation moving forward) is more than enough for any one person to inherit. If the taxes on on estates result in lower taxes for everyone else in the community, and encourages a meritocracy then we're in the right place.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

The sad thing is that FUD works. By addressing our most primal fears for our safety, the welfare of our children, and the threat to our wealth political parties abuse the public.

one example: http://www.walken2008.com/ . creates fear about all of these things with no need. Terrible soundbites that work.

XSL Translation

Today, I took it upon myself to do a simple thing in microsoft word: create a device by which certain words are autmatically spellchecked or translated. I had three options: do it by hand, do it by xslt, and do it via a macro.

XSLT is a translation language that XML is displayed in. Since most of the web is written in XML, XSLT becomes a very powerful tool. Finding and using a regular expression change for a microsoft word doc translation should have been relatively easy. 8 lines max apply translation and keep going. I'm still working on it.

Snow

There is snow on this Sunday morning. My old war wounds told me that it wasn't going to snow Friday night. I was right. I made no prediction about Saturday day or Sunday. Today I get to stay inside and do the spring cleaning thing. That and code.

I should be snowed in more often.

7 Trillion $

What will the increase in American public debt from 1-2 trillion $ to 10 trillion $ over the last 6 years do? The current administration has spent a great deal of money and doesn't look like it will be stopping any time soon.

This brings up the question: where is the money going?
Its being injected into the world economy. This will have a few effects.
1) The further devaluation of the dollar.
2) ?
3) While spending as a % of GDP isn't horrendous and growth of GDP still outpaces inflation, things are fine. The growth of the world's GDP will also increase as more and more people move from the poverty class and into the consumer class.

I anticipate another strong 30 years for the world economy, with the USA playing a lesser role as consumer culture spreads to the rest of the world.

However, fiscal responsibility requires a surplus. There are many countries that are not in debt. Norway is the country that impresses me most, though all of Europe is now recovered from WW2. Norway has systems to generate wealth for itself. Once a surplus is achieved, you can then lower taxes or increase services...depending on the need and political climate.

A second question: where will it end up? is also relevant.
All money is just a symbol of debt transferred throughout the world in different formats. When you create a large amount of debt and distribute it, it will end up in the pockets of those companies that produce things throughout the world. These companies are either publicly owned or privately owned. The privately owned businesses will profit better than those traded on the open market, but in any cyclical spending and taxation economic model, the money will eventually filter out to companies or individuals who own stocks. So, in short 7 trillion$ dollars is going to end up in publicly held companies which will pay portions of it out to their stockholders. This is a good thing and a risky investor can position themselves to benefit from this influx of cash into the market.

Socialism +1

There's a book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?", which, altho not really being about Kansas, addresses this all-pervasive phenomenon here in the south. Wage slaves vote against their own interests, and those of the families, because of their distaste of "socialism" and "big government".

Early Bird

Got in early this morning which is great. 7am and I hit the ground running. I haven't been able to get into a groove yet in the new place.



WeBlog...shortened to blog because it's about "I" not we.

Gambling

The people screaming over the other cube every day are gambling on sports. While people in my company are generally intelligent, I doubt that this particular 'testing team' has done any sort of programming to statistically back up their bets. It might be a great way to make a shitload of extra cash.

Gambling is a vice...time to punish the stupid.

Dave

Forgiveness

The greatness of religion lies in its readiness to forgive you for things you can't forgive yourself for. Be a priest, forgive someone(yes, you are a someone) today.

Today, I forgive myself for being stubborn and failing to be perfect.

I also forgive those who have caused the murder of another person on 2006-02-08. Perhaps, I'm the indirect cause of a death on 2006-02-08. I'm not strong enough to forgive all attrocities throughout time, so I'll start with one day. I may never have met these victims but their loss hits me harder than if I had been able to know them. The sheer scope of cruelty , stupidity, and evil overwhelms me. I mourn their unrealized potential.

I can do no less today than live as best as I can for myself and others, in the memory of those who didn't have the same opportunity. I can meet my potential today.

Absolution. Rest in peace.

Cats still suck.

song of the day: Beatles, "I Will".

Dave

Make Magazine

Make magazine vol. 5 arrived yesterday which was an even greater boost to my week because I wasn't expecting to get any more volumes.

Building random structures in public places and encouraging grafitti.
Burning Man spin off.

The military powerpack that generates energy as you walk. -- Larry Rome.
http://www.lightningpacks.com
mods: NanoLithium Batteries to double capacity and lighten the weight load.
Add device to either side of a cow and let them wander off into the fields.
when they return for food, drain the e-.

Flying fruitcake: Have an event at Aberdeen Proving Grounds to catapult fruitcake.
mods: Add a computing module called the ENIAC module that computes firing tables and accounts for weather changes. The first USA computer was hosted at APG in Aberdeen, MD to compute firing tables for projectile cannons. The first computer was created by a German: Zuse named the Z3. The second was the Collossus created by the English secret services.

Locost Sports Car.
mods: Fuel Cell, Modifiy to be an all electric vehicle. make the engine push from behind instead of pull from the front.

Use old clothes to make friends and scare maintenance people when they invade your home.

Design a giant Mobile....because its fun...and you can add microelectronics.

Rocket event. "Blow shit Up". use butane as a liquid fuel.

Fun stuff.

Optimism

Studying the technologies that are on the horizon brings a youthful excitement to my day. I can't wait to see what then next 40 years will
bring.

Energy Efficiency

This discover article was enlightening:
Lost link. Sorry.

Important notes from the article:
1) 15$/barrel of American Oil by the year 2025...not 61$/barrel
2) Creating Efficient American made technology and energy would employ Americans in Rural America which has been suffering from a brain drain since the 1970s and the decline of the Industrial Age. (i'm a big fan of small town america...theres something about an old 1920s town that feels like home to me. However, there just aren't any jobs out there anymore...all of the factories have closed down and nothing has replaced them).
3) Distributed energy generation systems (solar, wind, geothermal) remove the cost of transporting the electricity to the useage site which often involves many conversions of state.
4) Hydrogen is an optional component in vehicle development.

Cy the Cyclops Cat

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2006/01/11/ap/strange/
mainD8F290T82.shtml

A cyclops kitten. Interesting to see myths and legends substantiated by facts and proof.

The Only Universal Constant

This too will change.

Traffic Court

Today, I visited court to contest my traffic citation for speeding 53 mph in a 35 mph speed zone. I failed miserably at presenting my arguement. I attempted to plead guilty with explanation but was rebuffed by the judge's dislike of my reason. Following that, I switched to to pleading not guilty to 53 mph.

My intention prior to getting there was to plead guilty with explanation and bank on the fact that I hadn't recieved a speeding ticket in 5 years and that at that time it was thrown out of court. Stagefright struck me when standing in front of the judge and all I was able to do was repeat the phrase...'not 53'. This was not a particularly effective handling of the situation.

There were some benefits to the way I managed the lead up to the court case, and a 75$ fine was reduced to 35$ (since it was prepaid, I'll be
recieving a 40$ refund in the mail). I believe that my license will
have 2 points assessed against it.

This hour, I found these sites:
http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html#tolerance
http://www.speedtrap.org/

There is much more to be presented on this topic: discussion, related interests, morality, legality, civic safety, police abuse, ideas generated for new business (classes on how to present a case, preparation material, law consodiation across world juristictions, and best practice implementation for localities that don't have a complete legal code yet). However, in the interest of time, I'll end here.

The bald frog and a wig

This story began one rainy day. When the clouds had chased all of the creatures indoors and away from his kingdom. He, being a simple frog, set out to see the world that everyone else had shunned. In his travels, Newton the Frog, made a discovery. He was hopping along a most treacherous path by a seaside cliff when he saw hanging off the edge a cliff a marvelous stick. As the waves crashed in the distance, Newton took a closer look at the stick. Hanging off of the far end of the stick was a wig. Not an ordinary wig, a fantastic wig of flowing golden locks. The frog captured the image in his mind and then continued along his way mindful of the treacherous cliff-side path. Soon, the rain stopped and Newton went home listening to the sounds of all of the other creatures emerging from their hiding to reclaim the bits and pieces of his kingdom that he had claimed in their absense.

Natus Sum (ltn. - 'I am born')

Today, the thoughts swirl into the mists and return at random times to spark ever growing ripples in the mind of one very humble digital monk.