Good For More Than Just Porn

Books I'm Reading 34 - The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

2011-05-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Psychopath-Test-Journey-Through-Industry/dp/1594488010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306482999&sr=8-1

Some of the things that Ronson discusses, like the use of Barney the Dinosaur's song in Iraq and LSD experimentation by the CIA, I've read about previously and pretty much take as fact. That said, I really hope that something in this book is fiction. If I were too take this entire text as fact, I think my brain would explode in a surreal psychotic break from reality ala The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.

From depictions of the involvement of psychological operations against the Branch Davidians in Waco through supernatural warfare against Noriega (and why the fuck isn't "Noriega" in my spell check dictionary???), all told through the historical lens of the First Earth Battalion, I find this way too taxing on my sanity if I take it as prima facie truth.

Also, being that I live in Hawaii, I kind of have to ask, what the fuck makes these isolated islands grand central for retired New Age Military? Seriously? I mean look guys, if you've psychically predicted massive Earth-changing catastrophe, whether natural disasters, man-made ecological destruction or alien-assisted Terrarism (pun intended) an island chain with a history of tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes and the ghost stories of multiple races, cultures and generations seems like a bad choice for a retirement community. May I suggest Nebraska? Or maybe Texas. Hell, your particular brand of occult nuttiness may not even stand out much in Texas, especially Austin.

I also read this in part as prep because I saw that he just published a book about psychopaths and at the moment social psychology is something of an interest area of mine. Now that I've read this I'm even more so looking forward to reading The Psychopath Test.

Books I'm reading 33 - Unfamiliar fishes by Sarah Vowell

2011-05-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/1594487871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306481197&sr=8-1

This is probably the most interest-maintaining books about the development of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the eventual overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy that I've ever read.

As part-Hawaiian and living in Hawaii, I grew up learning many these stories in school or as part of the general community knowledge that one just picks up, but I've never had the chance to view this history with the combination of outward objectivity and deep archivists interest that Sarah Vowell has.

It's not surprising that she brings a particular viewpoint to things that slants the story in a particular way; what is surprising is how well she blends a sympathetic and empathic caring for the history of the islands with a sort of comedic self reflection that makes the history of these islands gel into a personal story.

And to be honest, not all of this was stuff that I knew. The relationships between American interests in Hawaii and other imperial ambitions (e.g. the Philippines) was something that I had known in concept without any detailed connecting thread. As a person working in technology who did actually learn Morse Code (albeit briefly and I don't remember much of I now) I also find it amusing that Morse himself has a painting of people who I learned to dislike, hanging in a place that I actually do like.

Much in the same way that Howard Zinn will personalize and make a student reevaluate their own ideas of American history, Sarah Vowell makes it very easy to make me reevaluate those things about Hawaiian History that I though I understood...not well exactly....but with the comprehension of someone who got an A- in Hawaiian History in high school at Kam.

Dating

2010-02-02T21:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_cambridge/displayarticle.asp?id=481076

I was just reading this article about the increasing number of women in relationships who make more than men. Personally, I'm all for it. I was dating someone who made more money than me for a while. And her undergrad degree was fucking Sociology. It was just sad. But I dug it, it was nice not having to shell out for her shit too. Oh you want that $600 bag? Go for it. I mean hell, you make more money than me.

Just remember guys, if she pays for dinner and a movie, you better put out.

Books I'm Reading 32) Last Words by George Carlin

2009-12-30T20:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Words-Memoir-George-Carlin/dp/1439172951/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262234530&sr=8-1-spell

I was a child of the 80's but I came to become a teenager in the 1990's and just as George Carlin was getting into his greatest stride, I learned of his presence. I knew he had been around before (the hippy dippy weatherman), but the 90's was when I learned of him and thus, it's when I knew him best.

Last words was his 'memoir' a word he didn't like as it sounded too much like 'moi'. The interesting thing to me was the pacing of the autobiography and the tone. The entire tone of the book was as I know Carlin from the 90's and early 2000's, deeply thoughtful and self analytical, brutally honest and absurdly whimsical all at the same time. He had that way about his language that could disarm you. Everyone's got some childhood shit, and you get a lot of that for the first part of the book. In a way that it obvious that Carlin's rebel side formed early. You get the painful history of substance abuse as well. But neither of those is the part I really enjoyed.

He's got this section where he talks about becoming Mr. Conductor at Shining Times Station. I have to say, that small bit, above else, that gem of insight into the universal human condition of childhood, is to me the best part of the book.

Books I'm Reading 31) World War Z by Max Brooks

2009-12-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-Oral-History-Zombie/dp/0307346609/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

Being published after America's response to Sept. 11, 2001 gives this book a very moder perspective and while I actually got the audio book, not the hardcover, it's an amazing "history" to go through.

While I am a fan of zombie movies, this particular story is great, not because of its zombies but because of the personal (albeit fictional) stories associated with the doomsday zombie war.

While not making direct mention of US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan (calling it instead the "last brushfire" war) it's got the full range of human reaction that you would expect of a post second Gulf War America. But it takes it further, going across the world to touch on so many different nations and cultures and exploring with fearful detail, how the world might react to such a global crisis. That to me is the greatest part of all. It's one thing to tell the old Night of The Living Dead story from the point of view of one nation, like in 28 Days Later, but another thing entirely to expand the reaction across the globe to explore how world war of the zombie kind might effect a change of government in Cuba, or turn Honolulu into the new national keystone.

That's not to say it ignores America. Quite the contrary, it takes aim at America's modern consumer culture, the uselessness of the talking heads on 24 hr. cable news networks, our ridiculous national fascination with celebrities (by the way Max, shoudl you read this, thank you very much for killing them) and a host of other aspects that generally annoy the crap out of mean when it comes to today's America.

Plus, they got Alan Alda to read one of the parts, I mean c'mon Alan Fucking Alda, how awesome is that?!?! I mean they had like Mark Hamill in there which is neat on a couple of front (one of which being that his dad was in the Navy) and Henry Rollins which, good on you guys 'cause Rollins is all sorts of awesome in his ow right, but Alan Alda. Woot. As the kids say.

CD I need to go and buy now

2009-10-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Project-Tim-Ries/dp/B0009W5IYM

Tim Ries Rolling Stones Project is a bunch of covers. A while ago, someone...I think it might have been Coverville's Brian Ibbott...turned me on to a cover of the Stone's Wild Horses sung by Norah Jones. I have no fucking idea where that MP3 is but now I'm kind of jonesing for (pun intended) that track and it bums me out that I can't find it.

Books I'm Reading 29 & 30) Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson & Kenneth Blanchard and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

2009-09-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144463/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253937641&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Lencioni/dp/0787960756/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253937714&sr=1-1

Both of these are sort of little stories which I'm hoping will help make me view some work changes in a different light so I read and I'm now writing about them as a pair. They're both good independently but given some of the radical change at my current company, are probably better as a complementary pair.

Who Moved My Cheese is more generally about change and how to look at view change, not as a negative but as an opportunity and therefore a positive. The slightly hokey story about Sniff and Scurry (the mice) and Hem and Haw (the little people) does provide a safe way to reflect upon my own decisions. Even if some parts like seeing the "writing on the wall" just make me feel like I'm being patronized. Don't get me wrong, the book provides some lessons and I probably did gain some from it, if nothing else it did make me take a few minutes to reflect on things, but I don't consider this a worthwhile business book. I mean the lessons in the book and the primary message that "change happens" is something I expect any competent business person and any (even semi) successful professional to know. I find it kind of surprising how many people recommended this book to me. A lot of it seemed very common sense. Of course there are times where I let my frustration get the best of me and at that point sense, common or otherwise, pretty much goes out the window.

The second book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a much more appropriate book given some of the significant changes currently going on at my job and it's a book with both practical information and more conceptual lessons. This is one I would much more recommend for anybody going through change. It doesn't condescend to treat you like a five year old who needs a fairy tale to understand a lesson like "change happens" and it gives you some familiar, though fictional, descriptions of the personalities you're likely to have to deal with. Where Who Moved My Cheese was focused on the individual (and perhaps make sense for the individual sales guy who's trying to hit quota against all the other mice running the maze) Five Dysfunctions, is much more appropriate to business because it focuses on the importance of teamwork and the success of the team rather than the individual.

Books I'm Reading 28) Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

2009-09-02T00:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251877257&sr=8-2

One of the interesting things about growing up on an island in the middle of the ocean, aside from panoramic beach views and surf, is being unaware of a time in which you the effects of human migrations weren't blatant.

I grew up with the vague understanding that there were quite a lot of Hawaiians at some point in the past, then most of them died from disease or being accused of rape by some white Navy officer's wife. I've never really had an objective analysis of the impacts that farming and domestication of animals had, just an inherent understanding of times before the visit of Europeans and a time after.

It's interesting that Diamond's book grabs from so many different cultures and geographically disparate peoples as examples. In one sense it's good but in another it's somewhat blinding. When you have a larger sample pool to pick from its easy to ignore the exceptions. For example, Diamond uses the idea of domestication of animals to explain the effects of disease on populations. South and Latin American peoples like the Inca didn't have domesticated food animals like pigs, in fact the closest they could have had would be something like the llama (which by the way, awesome name for an animal) so you get Europeans who built up long histories of interaction with domestic animals and hence disease antibodies. On the other hand Asians and pacific islanders domesticated animals such as pigs and to some extend dogs, yet immunities were also lacking. Some of this is due to mutation and the time it takes to develop virulent strains and the antibodies to survive them.

While it's hard to ignore the evidence, and indeed I would actually agree with the fundamental logic and examples provided in the book, I just think it would have made a more interesting read to focus on a few specific examples and look in depths of the effects that agriculture, large scale social structures and eventual migration had on specific peoples.

As far as he social interaction explanations in the book, One of the things Diamond talks about is this concept of how ideas spread, rote copying of innovations vs. reverse engineering of concepts vs. natural innovation that seems to appear in multiple places. Some of the examples he gives like the invention of languages, the wheel and, eventually, nuclear weapons, show how ideas MAY have spread, but it would be of more interest to me personally to look at specific examples and see the progression of those innovations and then the effects of those innovations. Written language for example, does aid in the more accurate, more detailed and better preserved transmission of information, yet it brings with it it's own problems. I can't read middle English. Chaucer is a foreign language to me. How does that language develop over time to explain new concepts? I'm damn sure my Chinese ancestors didn't have the concept of "telephone" and yet, I walk through Chinatown (great franchise by the way, how do I get in on that?) and everybody is on a damn cell phone.

This was a good book as far as the evolution of human social development goes. It would have been great during those four or five early chapters of 10 grade World History where I was trying to remember what river valley's first sprouted large scale farming populations (Tigris, Indus, Yellow, etc.) but it's an overview where I was hoping for a more detailed peek beneath the hood and into the engine of that development. I'd like to understand more why isolated groups of small people like Rapa Nui could build ridiculous moai, which as a concept seemed to come out of no known precursor. I'd like to look more into migration patterns and think about people coming out of equatorial African then moving into more temperate zones where the latitudes involved might have caused vitamin D deficiencies in their blood. It's something of a puzzle how all the pieces of genetic as well as social evolution occurs, the relationships between multiple competing factors is what I find interesting.

Consider Star Trek, every time you see a Klingon, he's dark, really fucking scary looking and may quite possibly eat you. And yet, Klingons couldn't have developed interstellar travel if they killed all the Urkel Klingons (too old of a reference?) so there must be some social structure based on competing values of worth. Where's the short Chinese Klingon with the bad accent? The Jewish Klingon with the yarmulke? These can't be merely developments of farming and growing larger social structures because more food = more people, so what drives that innovation? What drives that societal development?

Books I'm Reading 27) Why We Suck by "Dr." Denis Leary

2009-08-26T00:15:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Suck-Staying-Stupid/dp/0452295645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251270867&sr=8-1

Am I the only one who finds it difficult to think of the guy from Rescue Me and Demolition Man as "Dr."? Don't get me wrong, Denis Leary is a great comedian who's commentary I thoroughly enjoy but damn if it doesn't scare me a bit to think of someone going for a checkup to a guy who's probably sucking on a cigarette while he does a pap smear.

Regardless, this was just what I needed to get past most of the bullshit that's been annoying me at work lately. Escape greatly appreciated. Plus he's got this great diagram of the male and female brains that I find logically, if not anatomically, accurate.

And I too find it difficult to order coffee in a Starbucks. Large, not grande, not venti, large. The one that's bigger than all the other ones, fill it with coffee, let me drop a couple of packets of sugar in it and I'm good to go. whilst I appreciate your highly addictive (I suspect crack filled) brownies, I just want fucking coffee, not a John Tesch CD, COFFEE.

Books I'm Reading 26) Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox

2009-08-25T00:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Man-michael-J-Fox/dp/B000NURAEQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251185126&sr=8-2

I'm not sure why it matters, but there are some things that I remember, things that just stick out in my head. For example the fact that Michael J. Fox's middle name is actually Andrew, which unless it's some weird Canadian spelling, doesn't start with a J. And there are other things.

I actually read his newer book, Always Looking Up, first in this set. And after watching some kind of TV special he did, decided it would be worth the Amazon purchase to go ahead and read the memoir written before Always Looking Up. It wasn't something I expected and yet that's not a bad thing. The "turtle moment" that I remember mulling over in my head when I read Always Looking Up, makes an appearance near the end of this book and the back story paints a more complete picture of a man who despite his fame, goes out of his way to try to stay low key and grounded.

This wasn't the typical Hollywood memoir in the E! True Hollywood Story sense, and maybe that's why I liked it so much. One of the things Fox describes in his post-Parkinson's diagnosis world is this, almost Taoism, sense of being and universal correctness. If you don't know what the correct course is, wait. Be still. Be patient. More information will be coming. That's something I recognize in myself as lacking. Oh, I know I need to slow down some. I even know when I'm stressed and when I'm burning out. That doesn't stop me. It's like watching yourself drive into a wall in slow motion. The "textbook definition of Inertia" his wife, Tracy, calls it. Almost a manic depressive sense of urgency and comatose-ness.

About the only negative thing I can think to say about this book is that I should have gotten the paperback. For some reason the dust jacket that came with my hardcover was for shit. Other than that it was that missing bookend to Always Looking Up. The thing that placed the lessons of the latter book in a perspective, the light shone into the room, just right, to give it that sense of depth and volume.

Crossloop

2009-08-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

There things I love about the Internet. Google for example, is my bitch.

And then there are tools like Crossloop which proide me remote access to computers so that when friends, family, and even customers call me, I can actually see what they're seeing.

For example, last night I ended up using it to walk through an installation of Adobe CS4 on a computer in Kona while I was in Honolulu. A couple of nights prior, to help someone fix a printer problem, before that, remote installation of some software.

In fact my only complaint isn't so much with crossloop as it is with the default User Access Control built into Windows Vista that keeps disconnecting my sessions at inopportune times. Much as I do like the improved security, I have yet to see UAC in Vista actually protect something, most of the users I deal with end up clicking on "allow" anyway which effectively does nothing to improve the security of the machine.

Solid product, easy to use, been a savior on more than one occasion. At worst all I have to do is walk someone through downloading and installing it over the phone then make sure they speak clearly and slowly enough to provide the access code. www.crossloop.com

Emmanuel Jal on TED.com - Music of a War Child

2009-08-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/emmanuel_jal_the_music_of_a_war_child.html

An amazing story and narrative told through music and spoken word. 18 minutes well spent.

Books I'm Reading 25) On The Wealth of Nations by PJ O'Rourke

2009-08-12T00:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Books-Changed-World/dp/B000RH0CB8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250060439&sr=8-2

I tried once, over a decade ago, to actually read Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Figured it was good material to learn when I was doing debate in high school and afterwards when I was coaching. I never did make it through the entire thing. It was better at putting me to sleep than the ABA's Guide to Wills and Estates. I'm glad to know that somebody who's writing I've always enjoyed actually managed to wade through the entire thing.

Ironically enough i think I started reading The Atlantic and O'Rourke when I was in high school as well. I still thinks it's one of the best magazines around and the content for the book was published as a review by the Atlantic a couple of years ago.

The real gem of the work isn't so much O'Rourke's explanation of Adam Smith, it's in the explanations of the 'diversions' that Smith takes and the ancillary people surrounding Smith, like David Hume and other thinkers of the day. Oh and yes, I do recognize the irony of my writing what amounts to a short review of a review of a book that was published nearly two and a quarter centuries ago.

We're I still coaching debate, I'd make this required reading for my LD kids. It's an easy read of complex subjects and provides a solid foundation for me to drill them on Hume, Kant even Locke and other social contract theorists. Locke's ideas on property and justice would have probably made a nice contrast to some of the other viewpoints like Hume that O'Rourke goes into, come to think of it.

Regardless, it was well worth the weekend going through this even if I don't put it to much actual use anytime soon. And I do agree that it's somewhat annoying that the term "bullshit" didn't come into the vernacular sooner.

racoon butt shelf - this is from a few months ago

2009-07-25T11:35:00.001-07:00

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/12/tenminute-raccoon-bu.html

Even if it is older, it's still amusing.

Books I'm Reading 24) The World According to Clarkson By Jeremy Clarkson"

2009-07-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Clarkson-Penguin-Celebrations/dp/014103520X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247470807&sr=8-1

I had this book in the stack for a while. I watched a couple of episodes of Top Gear on the Interwebs and like Jeremy Clarkson's commentary, so one evening while I happened to be in a Borders or a Barnes and noble with the kid, I picked this up and never got around to reading it. Come to find out it's actually a series of columns that Clarkson wrote starting back in 2001 and running for a few years, not hitting every week but about 80 of them over a period of a few years.

The content was so so, the writing was, eh, but there two things that made this stand out. First off, it's a nice reminder of some of the things that were capturing attention a few years ago. Whilst I might vaguely remember that Michael Moore published Stupid White Men some years ago, I wouldn't remember when.

Secondly and more amusingly, it's a wealth of British English slang, some of which I can understand, most of which I have to go through a few times because I have no idea if this is actually a term or if his editor is a crackhead.

But a nice read none the less.

Books I'm Reading 23) Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

2009-07-11T00:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Wishful-Drinking-Carrie-Fisher/dp/143915371X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247299204&sr=8-1

So to be honest, I didn't read this so much as listen to the audio book because she reads the book herself and has, at least in my opinion, what has got to be some of the best comic timing anywhere.

There's this portion early on in the book when she describes all the inbreeding that goes on in Hollywood and that's one part I kind of wish I had the printed version for because listening to it is amusing but very, very confusing and I need a map.

But it's amazing to me how someone who's gone through life in such an over the top manner, can look back on all the insanity of events in their life and laugh about it. I mean really, having someone die in your bed (not like that) and turning it into an running gag through what is effectively a 3+ hour stand up routine, is an impressive skill

The only thing I was frustrated by, no that's not the right word, I actually like it, I just found it confusing, was the disjointed nature of stories. It's not he typical biography that follows some logical progression of things. It bounces between the decades because the stories fit into the comic routine better. I actually like this because it made me pay more attention, but it could get confusing sometimes to have to temporally shift myself in time.

Books I'm Reading 22) Return on Customer by Martha Rogers and Don Peppeers

2009-07-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Customer-Creating-Scarcest-Resource/dp/0385510306/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247210339&sr=8-1

I actualy finishhed this book back on Apr. 17 but it took me this long to finally get all the notes that I wanted to remember into the computer.

Overall a good book, a little academic but with solid anecdotes and real world examples. And while, the authors make me really really want to drink a Dr Pepper or Mr. Pib right now, it's a good read. I kind of feel like it's something that more of the managers and management team at my current employer should be reading and taking notes on.

Notes from Return on Customer by Martha Rogers and Done Peppers

P2 Innovation and new products will temporarily solve problems of diminishing returns and maturing markets but these are not infinite.
- this also brings to mind the idea that too many choices can be a bad thing.

P4 The challenge is to balance short term goals and reporting against long term sustainability and success

P5 There are often people responsible for the short term goals. C-level executives responsible for quarterly profit goals or growth, but who is consistently responsible for the long term success of a company?

P11 In any business, the true scare resource is not money/capital but customers. Customers are the resource that may suffer the tragedy of the commons

P19 The key to retaining and growing customers long term is to build customer trust; how do you build customer trust in your company? Who is responsible for that objective and how do they measure it?

P21 DVD example. How do you avoid making shortsighted decisions to keep your customers satisfied in the long term?

P22 The Goldfish Principle. Customer’s are not like goldfish, they have a memory and will remember your actions today when they talk to you tomorrow.

P23 It’s not the revenue from the customer that’s valuable but the relationship value with the customer that’s important

P24 You need to retain a split focus. Focus strategically on tomorrow but focus tactically on today

P25 Customer relationships are two way streets. It’s not just somebody coming in to buy stuff from you. Even if you’re Wal-Mart of McDonald’s the relationship with your customers is a two-way communication.

P26. If you were your customer, would you do business with your company?
- in technical things, I have the “mom test” is it easy enough to use that your mom, or maybe Nikki’s mom, can use it? If not then, it’s not a technically a good product. Similarly, you need to put your company to that test. If you were looking for products or services, would you do business with your company?

P27 Customer relationships (really all relationships) are built on four principles: Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy (safety) and Orientation (self or other). Credibility is based on the words you say. Reliability is based on your actions. Intimacy is how safe the other person feels and you need to ask in that relationship whether your immediate focus is on yourself or the customer. Being customer oriented has reciprocal benefits.

P28 Treat the customer the way you would want to be treated if you were the customer.

P29 How do you take a commodity and make it more than a commodity? Look at what Starbucks did for coffee, it became not the coffee but the environment and ambiance…and really addictive brownies. Almost as addictive as nicotine. Which brings to mind smoking. All the different cigarettes, how do you choose between a brand? Once you do choose a brand, how do you decide where to buy them?

P31 Who is your target customer? ilbert cartoon and the “stupid rich”
And more importantly, how do you treat your customers?
Smart Dumb
Poor
Rich X

P33 Simplicity is the goal, transparency and honest are the way to get there.

P35 Business success has historically been described in terms of competitors and advantage oveer competitors. It’s also important to look at customer orientation of a company.

P37 Who is your market? What do they expect? What do they need? What do they want?

P38 Learn to see things from the customer perspective, how to view your company as your customers view it.

P39 Features are not equivalent to customer needs. Features are designed around the “average customer.” The ‘average customer’ doesn’t exist because the ‘average cutomer’ doesn’t accurately describe any ‘particular’ customer.

P43 You don’t build value by creating features, you create value by meeting needs.

P45 Identify the needs of your lead customers.

P47 Improve your memory of the customer to improve your relationship with that customer.
- eg. Think of the Visio’s we use at PLNI. Do they accurately detail the necessary information to interact with a customer with knowledge of their account?
-P48, for example the Amazon.com reccomendations engine

P49 Brand equity first requires building a worthy brand, and then requires you continue to take actions deserving of that worthiness

P55 Short term, contract term value is not the same as lifetime value. Telecom for example is a service industry, when the service sucks, I’d leave as soon as I can which means less revenue over the long term. I’d say the lifetime of the company but then if you fuck it up bad enough, the lifetime of the company may not be all that long.

P57 What is the overall value of your customers? How do you measure it? Who’s responsible for tracking it?

P58 What are the relevant metrics for you to measure customer value? You might say money but then is that monthly recurring revenue? Or lifetime revenue?

P59 Yes, you do still need to look at short term goals, but that can’t be your only focus

P63/64 – What is PLNI’s Lifetime Value for a customer?

P70 this means you must take the customer view of things. Have a sales message that is focused on the customer, not just selling to the customer. And do thins like problem resolution to the satisfaction of the customer, not just the satisfaction of the company.

P73 Realize that sometimes you have to treat different customers differently. Thee ‘long tail’ business model

P82 How much of our business is simply the result of a bad relationship with someone else? How much do you want to be the someone else tomorrow?

P83 When you focus on a customer’s need, you don’t focus on your products

P85 Categorize your customers by their needs

P93 Customer equity ultimately drives up the value of your business

P95 Changes through the lifecycle ultimately change a customer’s value to your company

P97 Focus on your customer relationships. How do you influence this relationship positively? Negatively?

P98 Customer satisfaction is ultimately good for you

P99 How do you build upon the trust relationship between your customers and your company

P100 do you keep reliable data about your customers based on your interactions with them?
-We don’t seem to do that well at PLNI

P100 Focus on your high value customers to keep them high value over the long term

P101 Have good account managers. Trust and empower them, they are your link to and interface with the customers

P101 A single bad experience can substantially color an otherwise good, long standing relationship

P105 Marketing falls to the law of diminishing returns when it comes to your relationship with your customers. Action and reaction count more than marketing

P105 You can measure the revenue a customer brings. How do you measure, what are the metrics for measuring the relationship with a customer

P108 Strategy: “a plan for succeeding in a hostile environment.”

P109 Sell on solving a problem for your customer to differentiate yourself from the commodity market. Again Starbucks vs coffee

P110 Narrow your focus. Don’t try to do everything for everyone

P112 Ask yourself, why do your customers buy from you instead of your competitors? Price better not be the answer

P112 If customer relationships are important, then focus on that and not the technology

P115 Differentiate yourself by product, price or service but keep in mind that the overall goal is to solve your customers problems.

P117 Which customers should you focus on? How did you come to make that decision, that is, how do you determined which customers are important do you?

P118 Pick customers who best align to your competitive advantage

P123 A good customer strategy and customer relationship strategy should be part of and are in service to your overall competitive strategy

P125 Cross-discipline, skilled people are important to success. What are their motivations for joining your company and staying?

P126 Everyone who interacts with your customers or touches a customer’s account, is a part of your relationship with that customer

P127 The “why” is just as important as the “how”

P128 What’s my motivation to change?

P128 Leadership sets the example

P129 Culture is key. Treat your customers like you would want to be treated if you were a customer

P130 Inspire your employees every day

P131 Change succeeds only if employees feel different, not just think or analyze.

P135 Successful change is not an employee issue or even a management issue. It’s a leadership issue.

P137 Learn to measure success differently

P137 Communicate and act with customer oriented values

P140 Incentivize your employees in alignment with overall strategy

P142 To change your customer’s behavior, first change your behavior
- How many lights do you see? If you turn off your light, can you still see? All lights are part of the same light

P143 Who? Job descriptions don’t matter when customer satisfaction is at risk. Everyone is sales, everyone is customer service, everyone is billing, etc.

P144 Stena AB example. What was wrong was in four parts: 1) Internal communication was lacking. 2) Training was insufficient 3) Change management was non existent and records keeping was sloppy. 4) Staff attitude was unprofessional towards one another (which probably just built on the lack of communication

P146 Poor implementation can be worse than doing nothing at all (status quo)

P149 We want customer’s out there selling for us.

P150 Gain a better understanding of your customer’s business, business practices, business neds

P152 Three criteria Orientation, Information, Configuration.
Orientation: the entire organization must be focuses on a common goal
Configuration: align the company with incentives, metrics, accountability and clear organizational structure.
Information: Information and technology alone do not mean success. Information is the tool to give you a better understanding by which you can properly align the company to meet your goals

P153 Your back office needs to deliver or all you do is show the inadequacy of logistics

P154 Connect supply and demand, the back office and the front office. Coordination is the key.

P155 Customize yourself for each customer.

P157 Customer value declines immediately upon unsatisfactory resolution

P159 Customer are a scarce resource. Treat them as such. Additional customers aren’t always available, even for good products. Customers are always available for good companies

P163 How do you invest in growing the lifetime value of your customers?

P175 Be relevant to what’s going on with your customers to be relevant to your customer’s needs

P182 Again, the mom test. If you or quit your company, would you still recommend its services to your friends and family? Platinum rule: Treat your customers as you would want to be treated if you were a customer

P183 Responsible stewardship of not just information but of customer relationships is important to your bottom line.

P185 Who’s responsible for managing your relationships? Objectives? Expectations? Across the board?

P187 Who will bear the responsibility of the task of maintaining the customer relationship?

P188 Assign different objectives and different strategies across different customers. Different does not mean unequal.

P191 Differentiate your customers based on their needs, not yours.

P194 Accountability may exceed authority. Should it?

P196 Focus on the customer, not the account or the product.

P198 Use the information, the history to better service the customer; to benefit the customer.

P201 The first rule of ‘wing walking.” Good product management takes good planning. Never let go of what you have until you’re holding something else. Don’t give up the old way too hastily, change = shock.

P207 It’s not about how many new customers you get but what kinds of new customers you get

P208 The Seven Principles of ROC
1. Customers are a company’s scarcest resource
2. When companies don’t treat customer’s like a scarce resource they focus too much on the short term.
3. ROC requires balance and focus
4. Looking from the customer’s perspective is the first step
5. Maximizing ROC requires treating different customers differently
6. Create tactical leverage for your competitive strategy
7. Success not only requires your CEO’s active support and advocacy but investor/shareholder buy in as well.

Books I'm Reading 21) The Pixar Touch by David Price

2009-07-08T02:52:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-David-Price/dp/B001JYSS2S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247046595&sr=8-2

I knew a little about the history of Pixar. How it started as a team of people at Lucasfilm and became a computer graphics hardware company and eventually moved to become a computer animation studio, but I didn't know the back story of the people and the culture. Those two parts, above the history of the company and key public figures like Steve Jobs, are the truly important parts.

The book is about a year old so it takes you from the history of the key founders and how they got together to form Pixar through the development of recent Pixar releases like Cars and Ratatouille.

Personally I think it focuses a little much on the role, often tyranical, sometimes benevolent, usually with hidden insight, of Steve Jobs on the company and brings to light aspects which, though important to the company, are not important to what makes Pixar an amazing place. The stories of the people involved and the long term passion they maintained for completing a computer animated movie for so many years makes me think of the story behind Eniac and how the computer was developed as a tool to further other interests. Similarly with Pixar, the creation of a computer hardware company served only as a tool to eventually develop a computer animated movie.

And then there are the lessons with the slow decline of Disney and the tough rise of Pixar. How a stagnant business gradually sliped from it's pinnacle because people forgot the primary lessons of the man behind its creation. Makes me wonder what will happen to Pixar without that first generation of leadership in place.

Books I'm Reading 20) Other People's Money by Neil Forsyth with Elliot Castro

2009-07-05T23:11:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Money-Britains-Fraudster/dp/0330446010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246860759&sr=8-1

I'm not big on money. I like it, I spend it when I need to, but I'm not one for instant gratification or excess. I do, however, like to read about the escapades of others. I heard about Elliot Castro's story whie reading some other material and the idea of such a young credit card fraudster having such sucess (Rolex Oyster President watch really? I mean damn) was impressive.

Light on the specifics of how and why he commited such crimes (the former being interesting but not something I would have expected in a book and the latter being something much more interesting that I really would expect in a book like this) it's still an amazing story, one which shows the amazing powers of a self-taught social engineer unleashed on the public. Kinda wish I could've had Mr. Castro on some penetration tests I've run or been a part of.

I actually had to read the book in small spurts, 15 pages here, 20 pages there. I wish I could have read it through in one or two sittings, it might have had more impact. Still the travels, the money, the arrests and the one in a million mistakes made by the police when they had him and let him go make for an impressive story.

Books I'm Reading 19) Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

2009-06-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Tuesdays-Morrie-Young-Greatest-Lesson/dp/076790592X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246119592&sr=8-1

I came across the audio book of this a month or so ago and after listening to it I went back to read the book. Text is the same but the pacing is different. Reading it instead of listening to it, or watching the movie adaptation (even if I do like Hank Azaria) makes the lessons stick more. The nice thing about the audio book is that you can actually hear Morrie in his own voice. It gives you a slightly different connection to the lessons. It makes you a part of the conversation.

Regardless of reading or listening, the lessons are the key. The key to life, as Mitch and Morrie determine, is to find someone else to take out the garbage. That is, to take the time for real experience and real depth in life. Personally, I coast. I know I coast. I have developed over a decent period of time, a habit of driving myself into complacency following by radical upheaval and progress. I don't know if I can become the type of person to appreciate the slow change, the methodical progress of a disease like ALS and the corresponding progress of an understanding of what's important. I hope that one day I'll have the capacity to look back at my life and have the same appreciation for it that Morie did. I hope that one day I'll be able to pass that lesson along. I wonder though if the speed of youth doesn't make that attitude something only achieved with the wisdom of age. Interestingly, one of the things this reminds me of is Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. He recalls a time when he had the kids in the clss he was teaching write their obituaries, the obituaries of their classmates and of their teachers. In a macabre way it made me laugh. That none of the teachers died peacefully, that such a dark idea would be a writing lesson, that the young have the view of life that they are immortal while an old ALS victim had such acceptance, to me is a great contrast.

Appreciate the past, don't dwell on it. Appreciate the people in your life, not the things. Appreciate the relationships in your life, not the accomplishments. The love is the accomplishment.

And what do I want on my tombstone? I'm not sure. At the moment, I'm vascilating between "he went kicking and screaming" and "he went peacefully and content." I'd like to think that whatever it says, my funeral will be attended by the people I care about.

Books I'm Reading 18) Marley & Me by John Grogan

2009-06-10T02:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Marley-Me-Life-Worlds-Worst/dp/0061687200/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244626893&sr=8-2

I will admit that I nearly got dragged to see the moive that came about because of this book and thankfully managed to avoid it.

The book itself starts out slow and unengaging. Even as someone who grew up with dogs and around dogs the story wasn't one which initially captured me very well. Don't get me wrong, the stories were touching and funny and referring to the basic obedience trainer as "Ms. Dominatrix" was pretty damn hilarious. But it wasn't a story I would have paid much attention to until near the end when Grogan and his family (I should not the story itself is a true story) move to Pennsylvania. At that point the dog is getting older and it begins to became apparant to the family that the dog is getting up there in years. At that point the lessons that you read beneath the story itself begin to be drawn out explicitly by the author. And when you get to the ending itself, after Marley is buried and gone, where Mr. Grogan recalls an enlightening trip to Shanksville, Pennsylvania on the second anniveersary of 9/11 and comes to his revolutions about the lessons he's learned, I will admit that I was biting my lip and holding back some laughter and tears.

I'm not a professional writer or a journalist of any sort so I shouldn't be critical here. And in truth the writing wasn't bad. It was just a little slow for my taste. It was written as a memoir should be. A witty and insightful telling of the backstory of an importnat person (which is somehow, how I view this dog now, much like my own pets of past) with a few larger lessons revealed in due course.

I should also menion that I'm pretty sure that despite the family John Grogan may be a little gay. Or at least bi-curious. I mean really, gardening? Living for so many years in South Florida? Either that or it was ghost written by a retired Jewish lady. But it was good book and one worth the time. I'm almost, but not quite, curious about the moive now as well. Curious to see how someone would have morped this into a large budget screenplay and curious to know how they would have gotten a manic dog well enough trained to do some of the things that Mr. Grogan describes. I will now have to train any future pets...perhaps even fish, to respond approriately to the command "incoming!"

Books I'm Reading 17) How to Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell

2009-06-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Love-Bruce-Campbell-Way/dp/B0009KQP3C/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244452709&sr=8-4

Okay so technically it's a CD, not at book but it's on Amazon so it counts.

The story itself is awesome. It's a B-movie in audio format which is great because it comes complete with sound effects and lets me imagine my own pictures to go along with the crazy goddamn story. It's fiction but has so many little nuggets of film production that it's a gem all on it's own. Considering I was having a pretty good weekend riight up until about half an hour ago, I have tto say that this was one of the reasons. It was a great way to just piss away a few hours while I went down to the beach and went grocery shopping. The story was funny, the acting was very Bruce Campbell and the fact that most of it theoretically, could, have happened, makes it all the more awesome.

Mary Roach is just awesome. TED 2009

2009-06-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/mary_roach_10_things_you_didn_t_know_about_orgasm.html

1. She approaches things with a seriousness and a scientific view but more importantly

2. She has a wicked sense of humor about the whole thing and a somewhat self depricating one at that

and most importantly

3. She somehow managed to score a copy of the DVD that Danish pig farmers saw and God bless her for sharing it with the world.

confusing math and crochet - Margaret Wertheim on TED.com

2009-06-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html

I can do calculus. I don't like to. I can balance my checkbook. I prefer to do it with a calculator. So when it comes to non-Euclidean Geometry my preference is to avoid subjects that have stumped the world's best mathematicians for generations. And yet as I look at some of the beautiful math at work in some of the art that Margaret Wertheim and her sister and many others have done, it doesn't seem as spooky. While I have to admit that the idea of a crochet reef is a little weird to me. If I want to see a reef I go to the beach. I'm in Hawaii. I have that option. But the idea of seeing a reef in a Ben Franklin Craft store seems pretty damn neat.

the most amazing data visualization I have seen EVER. Hans Rosling on TED.com

2009-06-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html

And to be fair, I'm including that Sixth Sense device in here. It's neat and the projector / gesture based interface is very Minority Report but if you want to take actual data and give it real impact to people you need something like the tools that Hans Rosling and his group of geniuses have devised.

I suggest that when you watch these you watch all three video's in one long set. It'll take you almost an hour but it's worth seeing. Seriously amazing. All my PowerPoints now look even more like shit.

Plus, you can see an old Swede doing sword swallowing.

I make irrational decisions all the time - Dan Ariely on TED.com

2009-06-07T02:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html

One of the books I'm in the middle of reading is a book called Nudge that gets a little into the psychology of how we as people make decisions. Some of the things that Dan Ariely talks about in his 2008 TED talk relate well to the book. He talks a lot about complexity and how we make complex decisions and how we often go with whatever the default is.

It's interesting to think about how we as humans can react to things and make decisions in an irrational but somewhat predictable way.

Spread the light - Alex Tabarrok on TED.com

2009-06-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/alex_tabarrok_foresees_economic_growth.html

There's some surprising lessons and even more so the statistic that back those idea, but I think the thing I gleaned most from this talk was the idea that yo can solve much if you resolve to be a positive force and share ideas with others. Spread the light.

Books I'm Reading 16) See No Evil by Robert Baer

2009-06-06T05:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/See-No-Evil-Soldier-Terrorism/dp/140004684X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244292566&sr=8-2

Back in the fourth grade I was really into submarines and so, for some class book report, I read Tom Clancy's, The Hunt for Red October. I recall at the time the teacher didn't believe me and I remember being asked with a disbelieving tone "so what happens at the end of the book?" Like a smart ass I said "he falls asleep on the plane." which was technically true, though not really what the teacher was asking. Since then I've been intrigued by military history and in particular, the history of different intelligence agencies. Even considered applying to the NSA a couple of times but I hate math.

Reading Robert Baer's account of his time with the Operatios Directorate of the CIA was, I have to admit, a little slow at parts. But through. In the way I would expect a experieced case officer to be able to provide you enough background to make an appropriate assessment of the overall picture.

Some of the stories of individuals, particularly the times he spent in India and with Russian military officers after the fall of the Soviet Union, are thrilling and almost unbelievable, but paint a vivid picture of an age since past.

With limited large state-based enemies for US intelligence services and a change in political atmosphere since the end of Reagan, it's hard to justify such crazy actions as would have been completely acceptable when facing the KGB. So even though I agree, and in fact agree wholeheartedly that the US has to devote more of it's efforts towards HUMINT rather than ELINT intelligence collection, it's hard to imagine The Company getting back to the heyday it had when Baer was in the field running ops.

Flash aside, the sattelites can only pick up so much and it's clear that we're lacking in many areas. In the coming decades, the surprise with which 9-11 took us, will happen again because we don't have many native Fujian Chinese, or Tagalug speakers. If this is century will see the rise of Asia, particularly Eastern or Southeastern Asia in terms of economic importance, it would benefit us greatly to start working those areas with human resources now. Similarly Latin America and the contstant flow of drugs and small arms seems like a valid place to try and devote human intelligence resources.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on TED.com talking about the future of Iran

2009-06-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_bueno_de_mesquita_predicts_iran_s_future.html

It's hard to think of predicting the future as a science. It seems more like that which divined by Gypsy's in tents or perhaps the Bene Gesserit if you're a fan of Frank Herbert's Dune. Yet Bruce de Mesquita's talk on TED.com provides some pretty astounding and counter intuitive future milestones for Iran. I'm almost anxious to see how some of these pan out in the next five years or so.

Definitely worth watching and looking back on in a couple of years to see how accurate the predictions are/were.

Tim Ferriss on how to overcome fear and learn anything on TED.com

2009-06-02T01:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tim_ferriss_smash_fear_learn_anything.html

an amazing talk, as are most TED talks, from Tim Ferriss. Tim's blog is one of the few I follow closely. A vast majority of it I read through or watch completely as it's filled with a wealth of information and insight. In the talk he goes trough some of the fears he's overcome and how he's turned those fears into motivation to learn and expand his horizons. It's a skill I don't know that I have but one that I certainly admire. And overall Tim's outlook on things is one of unfailing optimism and impressive sucess.

Books I'm Reading 15) Always Looking Up by Michael J Fox

2009-05-25T06:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Always-Looking-Up-Adventures-Incurable/dp/1401303382/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243257791&sr=8-1

It's hot tonight. Stifling hot, so I figured I'd take the opportunity of sitting in my bedroom/sauna to finish off this book. A while back I read Lucky Man and I have to admit a certain level of interest just based on that, but I read it because I'm constantly amazed by how someone who has faced living with Parkinson's for nearly two decades now can still be so optimistic.

I'm not an optimistic person and to read the little stories that Fox tells, well to be honest, they kinda make me want to smack him. The last thing an angry person wants to see is a happy person and despite my lack of degrading neurological illnesses, I'm still kind of an angry person.

But I did like this book. At times it's disjointed. It jumps between different periods in the life of someone who's been in the public eye for, well for quite a long time. I mean hell, my kid may not know the reference to the "Barack to the Future" t-shirt, but I do. The temporal confusion aside, the stories are heartwarming and the lessons numerous. If only I can make myself remember them tomorrow given that it's 3:30 and I'm still a little drunk.

But it's also the story of being able to triumph over adversity not by doing something gargantuan. I mean he is, the foundation he has is doing astounding amounts of work to find a cure for Parkinson's but this book is more a reflection. An appreciation of so many things that we do in our lives and take for granted. It's an appreciation for memories and experiences that bring meaning to life. And in that it's a great book and a great inspiration to take stock of my own life.

One thing I do have to remember though. It's been stuck in my head since I came across it in this book, there's a section where Fox talks about making the decision to leave Spin City. He was at a beach and saw this turtle. For whatever reason, that idea of a "turtle moment" sticks with me. Perhaps in part because it reminds me that sometimes the random does have to have a pull in our lives. That sometimes it pays to be fate's bitch.

Books I’m Reading 14) Striking Back by Aaron Klein

2009-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Striking-Back-Olympics-Massacre-Response/dp/0812974638/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241874954&sr=8-2

I’m a fan of the CBS show The Unit, which incidentally appears to be on the chopping block for next season which kinda bums me out since it found a good cast and a nice niche in TV drama, but I digress. This book is something of an interesting mix between historical recount with good research and a dramatization of Israeli assassination missions stemming from their response to the terrorist attack against the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics. I say it’s well researched and I’m pretty sure it is but honestly didn’t really go through many of the notes. Still it sounds good. I bring up the TV show here because the commonalities of the fictional team in that show and the real Israeli team known as “The Unit” are less commonly realized.

The first half of this book is mostly devoted to historical recount of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorism event and an analysis that pretty much slams the Germans. In something of an irony, the German anti-terror groups since then have developed a solid reputation since the fallout of this sad event.

And I have to admit I’m feeling like kind of a wuss while reading some of this getting choked up during the recount. I’m pretty sure that some of the dramatic liberty is taken with the actual recount, rather than a simple bland historical recount, but it serves to better tell the story.

A little more than half of the book is devoted to a recount of different Israeli missions that came as a result of the 1972 attacks. It’s told less from a historical perspective and more from a dramatic angle. Repetitious at times (for example there’s multiple mentions of the fact that Mossad SOP is to have the getaway car exactly two 90 degree turns away from the site of an assassination, and honestly do I care if it’s two or three? Not really) it still tells a compelling narrative, especially to those who aren’t very familiar with it.

Overall it’s a good book but one that is missing in some key areas. There’s a little discussion of the political debate regarding Israel’s terrorist assassination policies but not much on the moral side. Klein does a quick brush over talking about the three justifications for such action (deterrence, prevention and revenge) but no real discussion of the moral nor the practical consequences of such action. While I have great respect for the skills of Israeli commandos, I think a greater discussion of state sponsored vs non-state terrorism is warranted. There’s a significant difference in how one can react to state vs non-state actors that deserves to be flushed out. How does one react to a group which has no bases? You can’t launch an airstrike against a group which has no physical buildings to destroy. How does one attempt to minimize the inevitable collateral damage and what is an acceptable level of collateral damage? How does one objectively distinguish between the justifiable (personal opinion here) deterrence and prevention rationales and the pointless (again personal opinion) actions of revenge?

Overall it’s a good read and one worth the time if you’d like a good dose of military history but told as a drama. And anyway it’s always nice to think about a future Israeli PM (Ehud Barak) as a cross-dresser.

Playing for Change: A Change Gonna Come

2009-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Seal did a cover of this song and if boinking Heidi Klum isn't a good enough reason to learn this song, I don't know what is....I swear every single time I see or hear a reference to seals or Seal there are two things I think about: Heidi Klum and Canadians clubbing baby Seals, both of which are just great thoughts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvayzIktTJ4&feature=channel

Books I'm Reading 13) Round Ireland With a Fridge by Tony Hawks

2009-05-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Round-Ireland-Fridge-Tony-Hawks/dp/0312274920/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241326305&sr=8-1

A man walks into a bar with a fridge...and that's not the start of a joke. It's a story that brings as much amusement as it does confusion.

I should start by noting for those like me who are more familiar with Tony Hawk that the author of this amazing story is a Brit performer, comic and musician, not a skateboarding market unto himself. And this small fact should make it clear that I love the absurd. And considering it's the first day of my vacation this a was a great way to start.

The back story is this: on his only previous trip to Ireland Mr. Hawks saw someone hitchhiking with a fridge and so make a 100 pound bet with a friend that he could similarly circumnavigate Ireland with an unplugged household appliance.

From cattle auctions to surfing (not a typo) to drinking with the fridge in tow, Mr. Hawks writes what is probably one of the best travel books I've ever read. I'm not sure if it's the notion of finding out about the people of Ireland though following through on a drunken bet or the fact that it worked but this is a highly amusing and whimsical read. Besides free beer and being able to dodge parking tickets seems like a nice thing to me.

Makes me think something of Will and the time wasted trying to make the perfect black and tan and makes me want to try my own lunatic wandering around Ireland.

Books I'm Reading 12) Minority Report by Phillip K Dick

2009-05-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

This one I don't have an Amazon link for. I'm sure it's available, but probably only in some kind of collected works volume.

I was sitting last night drinking and Pat had brought up this thing that MIT is developing called the "sixth sense" which is an incredible piece of wearable technology. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html TED.com has a nice little demo video. It's impressive.

Anyway so Pat has seen the demo and mentioned how the little built in projector and gesture based interface was like something out of Minority Report and it got me thinking about the book so when I got home I had to pull out my copy and read it. Took a little while to finish.

I have to be honest, I've never been able to actually watch the whole move but I love the book. PKD has a great way of imagining the future without really giving away all the details so his ideas inspire others to fill in the details on their own and thus build the future that he imagined. And if that's not a big enough mind-fuck, consider the topic of Minority Report is that of precognition being used to stop crime. And in the book, the three precognitives have three different "reports" each of which is impacted by knowledge of the others.

The idea being that knowledge of the future will invariablly change the future. Now jump back to the idea of science fiction giving ideas to scientists and those scientists then being able to create the future from what was once an imagined fiction of the future. Kinda trippy huh? Or maybe I'm just still drunk.

Books I'm Reading 11) ENIAC by Scott McCartney

2009-04-27T03:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/ENIAC-Triumphs-Tragedies-Worlds-Computer/dp/0425176444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1240826440&sr=8-1

A few years ago while I was leaving engineering, trying to decide whether or not to pursue IP law, I was reading a story about a guy named Eckert who's name I recalled in relation to being the primary engineer on the first computer (ENIAC) but who's story I didn't really know. By chance I came across this book one day and was surprised how much of the narrative of Pres Eckery and John Mauchly that I didn't know.

I had always associated the first computer with John Von Neumann and didn't even recall the name of John Mauchly in the whole story. Reading this book the first time is something like revising history. But in a good way. There's something comfortable in the idea of computers coming about because of some eccentric scientists desires to predict the weather.

Overall the book is a well written historical narrative. There are pieces of the lives and stories of Eckerty and Mauchly that I think could be expanded to better understand the men, but given that the focus of the book is on their work, it's an oversight I can excuse.

As far as history goes, I actually came across this book because at the time I was looking at pursuing Intellectual Property Law and the patent case filed with regards to some of the earliest computers was an interesting case. Invalidated by the federal courts mostly because it was the right social decision at the time (for the newborn computer industry) and not really on the technical merits of the case, the patent lawsuits and the many indignities before and after would have made anyone bitter.

Overall a good book and one worth reading if you're in a computer field. Understand where you come from and it gives you a better idea of where you're going Pres Eckert was an astounding engineer and I'm astounded by how his predictions with computers have turned out.

Books I'm Reading 10) Catch Me If You Can by Stan Redding and Frank W. Abagnale

2009-04-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Catch-Me-If-You-Can/dp/0767905385/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240584266&sr=8-5

I've been on this crime thing lately. Reading a couple of books by con artists, social engineers, and some books on things like cheating, how to bypass locks. I have no idea why this current topic hold fascination, but it does. The social engineering aspect for some reason is holding really big on me recently. I think it's because as I've been doing security research as a side/off-hours thing for work, the consistent thing I've come across is that you can't secure anything against stupid people. You can encrypt the fuck out of your data but one nimrod with a bic and post-it note can nullify the whole process.

So anyway, I just finished Frank W. Abignale's book. You'll recall the name, if the not the title from the move of same title starring Tom Hanks an Leonardo DiCaprio (spelling??? fuck it, I'm too lazy to go look on IMDB). It's actually a surprisingly good read. In part for the stories which I find amusing, and in part for the understanding you can get by being in someones head like that. There's an angle to things that I never quite see that seemed to come inherently to Abignale and it's just damn impressive. I do have to say though that I did a quick Google image search and if even half the women he mentions are even half as hot as he portrays in the book time has not been a friend. He must have looked very different in the late 60's. Or everyone was still stoned. Either way.

The book itself is a great look at something that I can't quite put my finger on yet. It's delving into the mind of someone who just views the world differently. and he keeps coming back to this idea of the doing it for the challenge of it. I get that. You don't necessarily commit crime for the crime or the payoff. I mean some people do, but in general you do things because it breaks the rules, because you have to find a way around the systems. This guy was like the ultimate human pen tester and it's a fucking impressive story.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I also like to think he squirreled away cass somewhere that the FBI, Scotland Yard, and everyone else didn't find. That somewhere, like the box left in the field at the end of Shawshank Redemption, he's got some cash stashed away so he could have gone off to zihuatanejo.

As far as the quality of the writing, I'm not impressed but neither am I left wanting. The story is told as a story, As a grandfather might tell his grandchildren about the past, about reflections from years ago. And it's told in a way that gives you just the little tidbits that, even though they may not matter now, provide those little details that completely make the story one that you can't ignore. This ain't a college book, unless maybe your in sociology (which he once taught under false credentials which tells me that universities will fucking hire ANYONE) or criminology. Andd if you're in the latter subject this is a must read. It gives you a view of the world which you're not going to get from your future training officer or ASAC.

Books I'm Reading 9) State of War by James Risen

2009-04-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/State-War-Secret-History-Administration/dp/0743270673/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240064684&sr=8-1

It's nice to have a book that's obviously critical. I mean really, you read this and have no doubt that Risen is not a fan of Bush. To be fair, he beats Clinton some too, and let's be honest, Clinton didn't exactly make all the right calls.

It's fair to say that this book isn't completely groundbreaking but it also brings to light a number of things I didn't know before. Some of the stuff, like operation Merlin were quite surprising and rather alarming. And there are a few other nuggets of rash neoconservative stupidity in the book. But overall I'm not overly impressed.

It's well researched but makes some large assumptions to the state of mind of some key people, notably the former President, that I think take away from the overall value. It's a good book, just a bit lopsided and that disappoints me.

It's easy to look back at past mistakes, and Bush II made a fuckload of them, but it's another thing entirely to understand the context and situation of the moment those mistakes were made. I like the fact that it provides good back story but it glosses over many of the mistakes made in Iraq proper during the months immediately following US troops taking Baghdad. I understand that's not the focus of the book; it's driven towards the broader implications of the Bush Administrations dealings, but so much of the book focuses on mistakes made post-911 with regards to the middle east that it misses many of the key issues that have broader implications. Global Warming, economic mistakes and the failure of the US economy to be effectively regulated, the US relationship to China, Korea and other Asian nations. And it's surprisingly lacking on ties to oil interests. I would have expected much more on that front. It covers some of the Saudi ties but does not delve much into them and glosses over US relationships to other OPEC nations.

All in all, it made for an interesting read that I got to finish while I had some downtime in the judges lounge at the debate tournament last night and it was worth the money but it's not really what I expected. Worth the read if you happen to pass it in the library though.

Renny Gleeson on TED.com - antisocial phone tricks

2009-04-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

I almost constantly have my desk phone forwarded to my cell phone. I don't use SMS but I do use voicemail...a lot. So while I can't relate to all of the stuff in here, I do really like Renny Gleeson's TED talk on the sorts of antisocial behavior that occurs from this "always-on", always connected society that we live in now. I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting at a meal only to be interrupted by a text message or a call from someone who "just wanted to leave a voicemail" and it drives me fucking insane.

Ueli Gegenschantz and his badass wingsuit...and no, I don't know how to pronounce his name either.

2009-04-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Every kid has a dream of flying. Some kids want wings like Icarus, some kid want a jet pack like James Bond or the Rocketeer...and even when that's the only thing they ask for for Christmas and and incredibly heartbroken when they get a new boogie board instead, although I do have to admit a boogie board looks like a flat jet pack...but I digress. Ueli Gegenschantz is quite possibly insane but most certainly a fucking genius. He's got this wingsuit that is just incredible.

I have to imagine that it sjust about as close as people will come to trully flying. Or as Buzz Lightyear might say, "falling with style."

David Pogue on the convergence of the mobile phone and the Internet from TED.com

2009-04-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

I work in telecom, it is that which I spend the majority of my awake time on. Well, telecom and drinking coffee...and masturbating...but I digress.

David Pouge has this short but neat TED Talk on the convergence of the mobile phone and the internet. He shows off some neat apps, like google mobile and GrandCentral (which I personally use and fucking love) and shows off some quite amusing musical skills.

Wired for War - PW Singer on TED.com

2009-04-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Have we learned nothing from Battlestar Galactica? Robots are fucking dangerous. Actually in PW Singer's 2009 TED Talk on the use of robots on warefare one of the smartest things he does it to tie together the distance and experience of robots in war. If I can blow up a building from 6000 miles away, then mentally, it's just a video game to me. And not something cool like Rock Band, but something fucking dangerous like Grand Theft Auto with the hot coffee mod.

Did You Know

2009-04-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

Some fascinating numbers, that if they prove true, are...just...astounding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY&feature=player_embedded

Popularity Dialer and TrapCall - stuff for work

2009-03-28T19:09:00.001-07:00

http://www.popularitydialer.com/. I am so using this to get out of meetings and shit.

http://www.trapcall.com/. And I bet this uses the ANI number to determine the "true" caller ID

Speech to Text Services

2009-03-28T09:48:00.001-07:00

sites to remember for work...

http://www.jott.com/

http://www.phonetag.com/

http://www.spinvox.com/

Books I'm Reading 8) 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time by Michael Brooks

2009-03-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Things-That-Dont-Make-Sense/dp/0385520689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238146005&sr=8-1

The wonderful thing about science is it's constant search for insight. Religion as well searches for insight but at times where things are uncertain, religion often takes the out of saying that it is impossible to know the will of God. In this book, the topics covered, things like homeopathy, cold fusion, the varying of values that science calls "constants", the origin of life, there's a good level of discussion and explanation but an infuriating lack of conclusion. And I suppose such should be expected from something that discusses mysteries of science.

I did learn some things and some of it I already knew and that is, in the end, as much as I could hope for. Yet I am distraught by the lack of conclusion. Perhaps it's just a flaw in my personality that likes to see conclusion. For example, I'm not a believer in the placebo effect. And yet I'm sure that in some ways I've seen the success of the placebo effect in my life. I know better, or like to thing better, and yet still can't explain the conclusions I've experienced in my own life.

If you want a complicated but interesting read, this book is good. If you want to walk away with answers...go be a researcher and get a doctorate in astrophysics and find out how to find dark energy and the Higgs boson. Or go find God.

Books I'm Reading 7) I Can't Accept Not Trying by Michael Jordan (yeah that Michael Jordan)

2009-03-27T00:35:00.001-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Accept-Not-Trying-Excellence/dp/1892866005/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238139299&sr=8-1

This is actually an old book. Back in 1994 I had my first eye surgery for a retinal detachment. When I first went into the eye doctors office downstairs from the office was a bookstore and my father got me this book. Which is kind of ironic when you consider that it's a book and after surgery for retinal detachment your eye is basically covered in gauze for a few weeks. But yeah....

I guess I was reading this again because it reminded me of something: you need to be aware of consequences but not be afraid of them. Too many times in life we're afraid to take chances because we're afraid of failing. Now there's a difference here between being afraid of the consequences and owning up to the consequences. Failing to own up to your failures is why I have to pay 25% fucking interest on my credit cards when Citi is getting 5% loans from the federal government with MY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES.

But that doesn't mean it's the same thing as not taking risks. You need to be smart about it. You need to be aware of what the consequence of action is. You need to be prepared to eat those consequences, but in the end, I can't accept not taking those risks because it prevents me from succeeding. And that I suppose is one of the great lessons in life that we all need to learn. Some people learn that quicker than others. Sometimes we forget it and need to be reminded.

And don't get me wrong, there are lots of things in life that I regret doing, but if I had to do it all over again, I would do it all the same...except maybe I would try harder to punch a dolphin. But I don't regret taking those chances, I don't regret the actions, only the inactions; and as much as I hate to waste my time, I also hate to waste an opportunity. What can I learn from an experience? What does that experience say about who I've become and who I can become? Where does the journey take me? And so this book serves as a nice reminder to always be open to the possibilities...and be ready, at a seconds notice, to punch a dolphin.

domain names and TV shows

2009-03-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

so I'm watching the show How I Met Your Mother and one of the characters mentions a website (see link) and I really appreciate the fact that either the writers or proucers (and I'm guessing not the network) actually took the time to register the domain name and create a fake site. I am most impressed by the fact that the fake site uses pictures of Alan Thicke on the website because it's incredibly hilarious
http://canadiansexacts.org/. Awesome!

Books I'm Reading 6) Stardust by Neil Gaiman

2009-03-23T03:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Stardust-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0061689246/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237804242&sr=8-3

Yeah, yeah. it's cliche to say that the book was better than the movie. But it's usually true. The Hunt For Red October, Sphere, Jaws...Well okay maybe not Jaws, that movie was badass but still, with regards to Neil Gaiman's work, it's true. I remember seeing but not reading the initial DC print in the mid-90's and it looked interesting but not interesting enough to buy over whatever I didn't have in my John Grisham or Tom Clancy collection.

So to be fair this was also an audiobook. I love audiobooks more than movies. They let you create your own picture in your imagination and I'm tied to whatever crap some director is putting on a screen (that you Michal Bay you fucking tool) and in this case you get to hear the Author read his own work. You hear things as the author heard them in his own head when he was writing it. And that's a wonderful thing.

There are some pretty significant differences between the novel and the movie. Al Pacino's character doesn't exist in the book, there's no fight with the witches at the end and the book takes on a different mood. It's not a fairy tale as much as it is a tale about the beauty inherent in the journey and the wonder of exploration. It takes place over the course of many years and not a week or so as in the movie and this allows the story to take on a much different flow. You wander with injured characters (Yvaine for example broke her leg when she fell and walks with a limp for the entire story) through decades of exploration and travels.

But the big idea of the book isn't in the differences between the book and the movie, it's in the key similarity of forcing you to wonder what would happen if you took that step to cross the wall? Most of us live in a box. Hell, I do, but that which lies beyond the wall and that which the community says you need to be protected from, may hold your destiny. Also it's got a stroke of reality since there's a few spicy bits and in the end of the novel Tristan dies and Yvaine is immortal so she lives on, where in the movie they both fly off in the typical fairy tale ending.

Again another selection of escapism. In reality I've got a few different books I'm reading at the moment. I just happen to finish these escapist books faster. Trying to digest a book like "Return on Customer" which is probably my next to finish, takes time and I want to take notes so I can write up a nice 20 page report entitled "Stop fucking doing it wrong!" that I can leave on my boss' desk for him to give to the President of the company.

But I digress....again. There are for whom a little escapism is necessary and who find that growing up isn't always what you need to do. Should you find yourself in a situation where you think your life can use a little more of the faery tales and the fantastic, this is a great book to read...or to listen to Neil Gaiman read as the case may be.

Books I'm Reading 5) The Ninja Handbook (I Look Forward To Killing You Soon) by Douglas Sarine

2009-03-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Ninja-Presents-Handbook-Forward/dp/030740580X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237637587&sr=8-1

I have lots of questions and the best place to get answers is from a Ninja. Hence I'm a huge fan of the Ask A Ninja podcast. It's important to get accurate information about killing people, how to deal with three-headed, demon infested, man-eating manatees, and how to make the perfect Mojito.

the Ninja Handbook is the next best thing to having a real Ninja to ask questions of in person. Why? Well because if you work at it hard enough, you may just be good enough to break the laws of physics and become a Ninja too. Or you might just get lazy, thumb through the book then go back to Saved by the Bell reruns.

The book itself is hilarious and was another one of those diversions I've been finding important lately. So look, you can download the audio version for free, but go buy the book. It's that good. Hell, buy two copies of the book. One for you and one for your boss so you can leave it on his desk with a post-it note that says "I look forward to killing you soon!"

Dan Ariely on social norms and cheating @TED.com

2009-03-20T05:19:00.000-07:00

In a talk entitled Our Buggy Moral Code Dan Ariely discuesses cheating and social norms. Of significant note

0. Intuition is usually bullshit. Prove it.

1. a lot of people cheat just a little bit
2. when we remind people of their morality, cheating goes down.
3. when we can distance ourselves from the objective of the cheating (for example money) cheating will go up
4. when we see people cheating around us, and those people are part of our community, cheating goes up.
5. when we see people cheating around us, and those people are a part of an oppoistional community, cheating goes down

Books I'm Reading 4) The Bro Code by Barney Stinson

2009-03-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Bro-Code-Barney-Stinson/dp/143911000X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237436692&sr=8-1

I should start by saying that I find it amusing anytime a fiction sitcom character is given author credit for a book. It's one thing to write under a pseudonym, it's entire another thing to give author credit to a fictional character. I mean, it's like granting George Jetson the patent for the Sprocket. That said, I needed something funny. I'm not in much of a fuuny mode lately and this was a nice little interlude to my ongoing self pity streak.

Now I should say here that I'm a big fan of Neil Patrick Harris. Great comic timing and totally knows how to play over the top characters...and Barney Stinson is entirely an over the top character. It's also important to remember kids, before you act, think: WWNPHD?

The nice thing about this book is that it's not just a long running joke that's just a printed tie-in to the show How I Met Your Mother. I mean, it's got a deeper meaning if you enjoy the show but it's funny all on its own. But that's part of the beauty of the show overall. There's little things like websites mentioned on the show that (I presume) the producers and writers have actually taken the time to build semi-credible websites for, so it's not a single thing here or there but all a big tie-in. Cross platform marketing, gotta love it.

Now I'm generally of the mindset that rules are meant to be broken and certainly some of these are but there's a few that could totally work. The Lemon Law, for example, I think should be a real law. Things not working out on a date, you can walk away in the first five minutes, no questions asked, no reasons given. It's beautiful. And it's probably that kind of thing that make me horrible at dating.

I'm not saying it's the greatest piece of comedic fiction, but it was a nice distraction and damn hilarious. And come on, I can't get books published under my own name but they give author cred to a fictional character. I mean really...

Books I'm Reading 3) I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert

2009-03-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Am-America-So-Can-You/dp/0446580503/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237346272&sr=8-1

So to be honest I actually just listened to the audio book version because it was on Audible, so I should probably put up the Audible link but eh whatever. It was interesting, I guess I prefer America: The Book more but this was good. I don't often watch the Colbert Report anymore. I understand the appeal it's just not my kind of thing. I prefer the Daily Show. Theis book however was good, the way in which Colbert lays out a lot of social structure of America is hilarious and the over-the-top way in which "his character" plays out his vision of America is always entertaining. All in all worth the purchase on Audible, might have been better to buy the actual book and see what kind of graphics they had to go along with some of the material.

beersuggest.com

2009-03-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

more useful than google.

WWNPHD?

2009-03-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

'cause it's AWESOME!

America's Next Top Broken Nose

2009-03-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

happens when you get a melee at a casting call

TED.com Storytellers

2009-03-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

A nice channel to go through on TED.com.

Of the ones I've watched thus far, Mike Rowe's is pretty interesting and surprising, Ed Ulbrich's was interesting for the techno geek in me, Newton Aduaka's story about a child soldier is amazing, Carmen Agra Deedy is an incredible storyteller, but they're all just ridiculously good.

Free Diver Kills Shark

2009-03-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

okay so a free diver killing a shark by hand, underwater. That is the new definition of badass.

TED 2009 - Willie Smits

2009-03-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

My background is technically electical engineering, I always liked to think of it more like systems engineering. It's all about how things interact and how the overall system works. This talk from Willie Smits about restoring a rainforest is one of the best examples I can think of for overall systems engineering. How do the different forces that would naturally be competing work together to form a system that benefits all. It's goddamn amazing.

TED 2009 - Pattie Maes demos the Sixth Sense

2009-03-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

you know it's scary when the world gets closer to the point where a Tom Cruise movie is reality. Touch and gesture sensitive devices which at mass production prices would probably cost less than the iPhone. Damn. That's just geek sexy.

TED.com - Mike Rowe - Dirty Jobs Sheep

2009-03-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

I put this here because of what Mike Rowe describs as talking in pictures. Now granted I find it absolutely fucking hilarious but still, it's also one of those important stories.

Of important note, the big thing I take from this is to question the normal thinking. They're often misconceptions.

Don Norman TED Talks fro 2003

2009-03-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

3 ways design is tied to emotion

Depth first = stress.
Breadth first = happy. Prone to interruptions and out of the box thinking.

The Importance of Storytelling

2009-03-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

Even if it involves crazy internet romance with Australians sometimes there are stories that just need to be told

Genetically Happy People

2009-03-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

...and of course now I have REM playig in my head...Tiny Happy People....REM....Seriously, I'm not that fucking old.

People genetically predisposed to being happy.So all you happy people need to realize genetically predisposed to my outlook on life and smiling at me does not fix it. And I won't try to change you by pouring my half empty cup of tea over your head.

Books I'm Reading 2) Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey by Ken Schoolland

2009-03-06T07:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Jonathan-Gullible-Market-Odyssey/dp/817188444X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236353349&sr=1-1

This was the other book I finished, actually finished it this morning. Okay first off for a guy that teaches at HPU and a book that was published in Hawaii, I have to say that to the best of my knowledge there is no flower called a "pikaki" and you're editors should be fucking shot. It's a "pikake" and yes it's only one letter but then it's the differece between an author named kin and an author named ken and in this case his family should disown him for writing such a lame book.

To be honest I don't even remember where I got this book> i've had it for some time and never read it because it looked like it was written for 10 year olds...and maybe it was. Maybe I just think that the entire message was completely bass ackwards. The whole thing revoles around some idiot kid who gets swept away in a storm and ends up in a strange land but gets all confused by the backwards ass culture he finds...think gulliver's travels but like for poli sci 200 level classes.

I mean I get it, government can be corrupt and the free market should be allowed to....blah blah blah, the entire thing is full of crap. Because at any point in human history people would not put up with a 10'th of the crap the people on the island have to go through, they would fucking riot and overthrow the government. Hell the French beheaded the bad leaders....THE FRENCH!!!!

Look, maybe I'm just not the intended audience, I mean the book wasn't totally horrible it just offended all the parts of my brain that want to, you know, think. Here's the thing Ken, I don't like government much either but you need a balance. You know why it's called a 'free market'? Because we like to lie all the fucking time. If we didn't have regulations imposed on the free market you have no basis on which society can be forme. I think the current state of my portfolio and the lack of decent government oversight into financial markets should serve as some evidence that an unregulated free market isn't exactly a bright fucking idea.

My problem isn't with the idea that the free market can be beneficial, my problem is that the entire parable was so fucking one sided that government is corrupt and government programs are bad and people should be allowed to choose and....just fucking shut it. It's not that I wouldn't reccomend this book. It's that I don't find the desire to recycle so strong that I would go and buy the copies in print just so the paper could be put to better use.

Books I'm Reading 1) Grace Under Fire by Andrew Carroll (ed.)

2009-03-06T07:26:00.001-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Under-Fire-Letters-Faith/dp/1400073375/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236352589&sr=8-1

So i'm going to try to start something here mostly because I have time to kill. I've got this stack of books that I have but haven't read yet and I'm going to try to write a short note about them as I finish. In the past two nights I've finished two of them. If I can burn through them fast enough maybe I'll hit up Amazon for more. There's like half a dozen other titles I have on my list now. Plus since I'm not really watching TV any more, it's nice to have something to do in the evenings since the someone I used to do in the evenings happens to be moving to Cali next week....and I'm not bitter.

Okay, so Andrew Carroll never served a day in the military. He has however edited a ridiculously fine collection of letters from people who have. I read his other book "War Letters" some time ago and picked this one up at a Borders because I recognized the name. I'm not particularly religious. Hell, my religious veiws pretty much end at "I have to pay child support but God doesn't doesn't and that doesn't seem right." But I digress. The book is awesome...wait I said I was going to try to use that word less. The book is amazing.

The letters, particularly of some of the ones from older wars, he's got this set of letters from the Civil War for example, are just something I never really thought much of before. It's a glimpse into the moment of someone's life that you don't usually get to see. A letter from a father to a son he's never met in person trying to figure out where God is in some of the most Godforsaken conflicts in modern history. They tell stories that need to be told.

Things to remember - get back up

2009-03-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MslbhDZoniY
via Tim Ferriss's blog something to remember

I have a new hero

2009-03-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

his name is Sergei and he died of a heart attack after fucking for 12 hrs.

I now believe in God

2009-03-01T18:05:00.001-08:00

seriously Kirk all it takes is banannas to make me believe in God. Well Kick Cameron and banannas

Klingons are invading...and robbing our convenience stores

2009-02-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18637190/detail.html At least two convenience stores in Colorado were the targets of some nerd who tried to rob them with a batleth...which is a fictional (though pointy) Klingon sword from Star Trek.

2008 Stuff That I Procrastinated on Posting, mostly from BoingBoing

2009-01-11T23:42:00.000-08:00

Tax stuff. Not that I like taxes, but I do pay them. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/tax-facts/

Saudi Court denies divorce for 8-year old girl http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/3884696/Saudi-court-rejects-plea-to-annul-8-year-old-girls-marriage-to-58-year-old-man.html

How to Make Cocaine via BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/16/how-to-make-cocaine.html

Woman gets on the sex offender list for sex she had in high school. http://www.theagitator.com/2008/11/23/woman-may-lose-home-over-decade-old-blowjob/

Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart making mahsed potatoes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ocre0kXgvg

Alcohol laws for all 50 states http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_the_United_States_by_state

8 years of Bush policy teaching abstinence only sex education in school. Anybody want to guess the resluts...I mean results? yep, teen birth rates up in more than half the stateshttp://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/01/07/teen-birth-rate-up-in-26-states-in-2006.html

Former Beauty Queens and Guns

2008-12-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6179771.html

So Miss Sinaloa down in Mexico got arrested with a truck full of guns. Upon further consideration she's basically an ethnic version of Sarah Palin right? I mean former beauty queen, likes to shoot stuff. give it a decade or so, maybe she'll run for Mexico's Vice President too.

10 tech quotes

2008-12-01T11:46:00.001-08:00

stealing this from Windows IT Pro mag, something to remember.

10. Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand - Archibald Putt

9. We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan

8. The real problem is not whether machiens thhink but whether men do. - BF Skinner

6. Never let a computer know you're in a hurry. - Anonymous

5. Technoloy is like fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desireable it becomes. - Andrew Heller

4. Windows is just DOS in drag. - Anonymous

1. For years there has been a theory that millions of monkeys typing at random on millions of typewriters would reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. The Internet has proven this theory to be untrue. - Anonymous

Are you fucking serious? baby + microwave????

2008-08-30T00:20:00.001-07:00

Not that I've had much change to pickup a newspaper lately but you'd think I would have heard this one. Seriously now. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7589247.stm

I had to find this out from the BBC? I mean damn, what kind of fucktard to you have to be to microwave a kid. Your own kid no less. Talk about some serious mental issues.

Atlantic June 2007 - How to scam an email scammer

2008-03-25T00:56:00.000-07:00

Great story from Ron Rosenbaum about the "culture" if you can call it that, that's risen around combatting the "419" email scammers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200706/cyberscam

This is the best movie poster ever

2008-03-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesweetchuck/2275749694/

TV

2008-02-29T00:28:00.000-08:00

Not that I watch much TV, but I was watching the episodes of Love Monkey that I had on an external hard drive. Great show from a year or two ago about a music industry A&R rep at an indie music label played by Tom Cavanagh. Good show, decent story lines. Sometimes a little odd.

But I was watching a new show ABC is running now called Eli Stone. Also a good show, decent storylines, this one about a lawyer. Anyhow, same guy plays this alcohlic father of the title character. They share the same brain aneurism (spelling?) which gives them prophetic visions. Anyhow, it was just interesting to me that I came across the same actor in two very different but very well written (and performed) roles in two different shows that I like. Especially considering I don't watch much TV. Plus Eli Stone has Natasha Henstridge and she still looks awesome.
Despite the creative liberties with the legal process and rules it's a good show.

Space: Above and Beyond

2007-12-10T22:15:00.001-08:00

Someone passed a DVD along to me and if you can find it, there's an old show that was on TV for one season (on Fox I think) back a while ago in the mid-90's called Space: Above and Beyond. Essentially it's SciFi but it follows a group of "space Marines" through a war. Some of the writing is highly contrived and the special effects and only so-so but there are some nuggets of pure writing gold in these. For example one of the episodes (ep. 22, near the end of the season called Sugar Dirt) follows the group after they were ostensibly abandoned by their carrier group. For those familiar with the history of Guadalcanal or WWII there's a touchstone there. Surprisingly there's a lot of tie in to WWI and WWII. For example it makes reference to the Christmas Truce in WWI which, coincidentally, I was also thinking about recently.

if you're into SciFi or just into repeating history, it's worth a look.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Space-Above-Beyond-Enríquez-Alcalá

Christmas Truce -

2007-12-09T20:35:00.001-08:00

I have some friends who are teachers. I have some freinds who are historians. I'm not sure who among them knows this story, but I think more people should. As Christmas nears in a year of war, it should be something on everyone's mind.

Peace is not won or lost. It is earned with the blood of the few who die for the many. It is kept in the souls of those who live on, because those who lie dead do not complain.

For those teachers I do know, your students should understand the legacy of war and peace of their history.

wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

2girls1cup

2007-12-05T02:12:00.001-08:00

I have to admit, I haven't seen the video, I saw a description when it first came out and figured I was blind enough already, didn't need to be that blind. But if you feel like throwing up a little in your mouth or a lot on the floor and you aren't familiar with it, feel free to google for 2girls1cup.

That said, for those of you who are familiar, http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2118/2086073362_b9ca71a07e_o.jpg I realize you can bullshit a lot in college, but I'm glad to see there are limits to bullshit even in Freshmen arts classes.

Smell Yo Dick!

2007-12-05T02:04:00.001-08:00

Okay so it's way too late, but via Coverville, here's the top 10 songs to NOT cover. http://www.bestweekever.tv/2007/11/26/the-top-10-most-impossible-songs-to-cover/

11 Nov 2007 - Stuff in the news

2007-11-12T01:30:00.001-08:00

Apparently there are falling cows in Washington State. Not that that's the amusing part, the amusing part is that the cow fell two hundred feet off a cliff onto a van and apparently survived. They actually killed it at the scene.

Boxing I know of, Chess I know of, kickboxing I know of. Chessboxing, I've never heard ofbut I have to admit, it sounds quite amusing.

From the, 'it could only happen in Florida' files, a grandfather picked up the wrong kid from school

This one I actually like because I'm kind of feeling sappy today. a guy in New York elicits the Interwebs to help him find a sort-of-lost love.. Granted it's not exactly the best story, but I have to think that somehow things work out they way they should.

Hell, which is an actual town, hasn't yet frozen over, but a couple from Hell won the lottery anyway.

So a while back I was lamenting about the fact that Spiderman was sexist because there's no Spiderwoman. Like Superman has Supergirl and Wonder Woman, Batman has Batgirl and Robin, etc. So yeah, I was wrong, a girl in India was born with four arms and four legs. And all jokes aside, that's just impressive. If they could make chickens with four legs and four wings that would be awesome.

Al Gore Wins Nobel Prize

2007-10-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

Now I know most of you are too young to remember when eight years ago America had a choice between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Consider. We GOT a fucking retard. We could have gotten a future nobel prize winner as President. That's right kids, hate your paretns, they fucked up yet again.

Tues. 25 Sept. 2007 - Buncha fucking update edition

2007-09-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since the last setup and unfortunately I'm not feeling very witty tonight but there are a lots of things to pass along. For example, shooting like a girl isn't necessaarily that bad. The frames on my glasses are gunmetal gray. Apparently though I may have to get pink frames because now they're selling pink guns. As long as the HK MP5, Glock 9 and S&W 10 mm all still come in normal colors I'm fine, but think about that for a sec. Pink Baretta. 'Nuff said.

Buncha fucking pansies. I already know that pain meds don't work. The fact that fake acupuncture works better is somewhat surprising. But only somewhat

Buncha fucking idiots. Like wanted criminals who decide it's a good idea to go to a party thrown by the policy. Just because it's the last place they might expect to look for you, doesn't mean they won't fucking look you moron.

Buncha fucking lawyers. I studied law. Granted I quit, but still I like to think I would have been the type of judge to swear at people during a trial. Or at least the type of judge to swear at law professors constantly.

Buncha fucking smelly Chinese people. And I can say that because I'm damn near half chinese. but when you need to take a bath in the damn airplane bathroom, there's something fucking wrong. Particularly if you have the balls to ask the stewardess for shampoo.

Buncha fucking crazy Texans. Yeah okay so that describes, like all of Texas, but seriously, Texans are supposed to be gun totting, crazy ass motherfuckers, they're not supposed to listen to the troubles of the guy robbing them, and especially not while having breakfast with the motherfucker. They're supposed to shoot him in the head. With anything but a pink gun.

Buncha fucking smuggled lizards. yeah okay fine, more like three of them, but still when you smuggle lizards in a hollowed out wodden leg, that's newsworthy. Even more so when you get caught by the same Federal Government that won't let you take more than three ounces of jello on the airplane because it might kill people.

Buncha more fucking smuggled lizards. And because one set of smuggled lizards just isn't enough, a Russian woman decided to smuggle an Iguana in her bra. Lucky iguana, well she was Russian so maybe not.

Buncha fucking smart motherfuckers. I have to admit using the Boston Globe's crossword to ask someone to marry you is very romantic. If you're a fucking loser who has nothing better to do than crosswords, who find the vocabulary word of the day sexy as all fuck, who gets all hot and bothered by figuring out the clue for 5 UP instead of getting the clue that your girlfriend wants to get DOWN to a 69.

Buncha fucking yellow. This one makes the update just because it's Simpson's related and Moe is one of my favorite characters. It's the real life guy who's the inspiration for Moe the Bartender.

Buncha fucking crazy chicks. Well okay lets be honest, if you're still talking with your ex wife, that's strike one. If you compare her in bed to your much hotter second wife that's strike two and if you're willing to lie down next to the crazy bitch in a bed whilst comparing her to your sexier younger new wife, that's strike three. You're dick is out. But of course that's why she's his ex wife. That and she sucks in bed.

Seriously....I.....Just.....I really....Look, just watch it. Because you should Leave Britney alone

Buncha fucking marriages. But only because they're only going to last for 7 years so you have to keep having them. I guess that means my first wife could also be my second wife, and my third.

Buncha fucking electrons. Which only make the news when they're in the form of lightning and they strike someone in the cock. Even more so that the person is Croation. Because that's a funny name for a country.

Buncha dunks and idiots. But it only makes the news because a goddamn retiree can't buy a bottle of wine because he couldn't prove he was over 21.

Buncha high holy motherfuckers and lawyers. There's this great independent movie from Australia called The Man Who Sued God where a guy sued God for sinking his boat with a lightning bolt. It's a good movie. But seriously, when a politician from Nebraska sues God that's just funny as all fuck.

Buncha crazy Aussies. So what do you get when you cross a bottle of detergent, a vacum cleaner, a rubber glove and drugs? One sexed out Aussie robber. He got sentences to 12 months of community service for whacking it with a stolen vacum but still. nice job son.

Buncha people who need better acronyms. South Lake Union Trolleycar. Think about it for a second SLUT. That how I got to work today folks, I rode the SLUT. I don't even have to go beyond that do I?

Buncha more smuggled reptiles. Because you just can't get enough smuggled reptiles. The only difference is that these were dead. And there wer birds.

Buncha fucking bad songs. Not that all of his songs are bad. Mandy, that was pretty good. I knew a Mandy, she was cute. That doesn't mean I'd want to listen to a song about her as punishment from a judge. There's got to be a cruel and unusual arugment here. Well, okay, just unusual. CRUEL AND unusual would be Yanni.

Buncha Aussie boobs. I have a friend that's in the Navy, US, not Australian, and not that it matters in her case but sitll , when a Navy decides to foot the bill for breat augmentation, it should be news.

Buncha awesomeness. So not only do guns come in pink now but hair dryers come in gun now. And pink gun at that.

Buncha sperm in a libary. Just to clarify, it's not very good to loko at porn on a computer in a public library. Maybe not necessarily illegal but not good. On the flip side, spanking it in a public library is bad AND illegal.

Buncha Nebraskans talking to Thai hookers. Yep, that's right 8 students from the University of Nebraska (good football team, good corn, good steak, everything else sucks), Got to visit the Red Light District in Thailand. And you know a country where the capical is prounced bang cock, that's like the best field trip EVER!.

12 Sept. 2007 - Short Update

2007-09-13T01:10:00.000-07:00

I'm tired tonight, not much in the way of funny but here you go:

Don't choke the chicken. They shouldn't be drinking bottled water anyway.

Motherfucking overachiever Chinese math kids. The "I can do the Calculus in my head" people are just annoying, they make the rest of us look bad.

He's got a bridge to sell you as soon as he gets out of jail.

Bees + breasts = bad.

Lots of great uses for tennis balls. I've also seen them be used to open car doors. Seriously. Google it.

-out

26 Aug 2007

2007-08-26T03:33:00.001-07:00

I would quit my job too if I won a date with a pron star. Actually I would quit my job for a lot less, but I'd still take the date with a porn star

Besides, sex is a great growth business. Otherwise you wouldn't have people willing to spend 10K each year to let someone else pork their wife. Well, then again the guy is a lawyer so you never know, it could have been part of a settlement.

Which makes America a great country because is any other country women would set fire to a guys dick for messing around. In this country, they pay for it.

It's about 12:45 in the morning and it's like 90 fucking degrees in this room with about 800% humidity. I need to get one of these shirts with the built in fans. Actually, at this point, even that shirt would too warm unless it has little pockets to put dry ice in.

More amusing shit from the Defense department that makes me believe that I should be working for a goverment contractor that sends small machine parts overseas.

I used to complain about my doctor's office, having to sit for two hours in a waiting room for a Rx that wasn't even for weed. But I've never been told to just 'walk it off' after getting shot. I've actually never been shot, so I'm not sure what the real reaction would be if I did. I just like to think that my insurance would at least cover bullet removal. Then I'd spend the rest of my money to put the bullet back into a new casing and shoot it back into the motherfucker who shot me first. And a good insurance company would cover THAT too.

8 Aug. 2007

2007-08-09T00:56:00.000-07:00

So to start tonight I'd like to display the first real evidence of a serious iPhone related injury. That right folks, your iPhone can kill you...or almost kill you. Whatever. Still a good reason not to get an iPhone.

Growing up as a kid I had an allowance of $3 each week for which I would do dishes, feed the pets and do a couple other small things. But this ended around the time I was 12. Apparently I should have grown up in Italy where you can be 61 and still collect an allowance until your mom takes it away because you stay out too late.I don't really have a joke here, I'm just totally pissed I actually have to work.

I go to my bank and cash a check I figure maybe they have a couple hundred thousand in cash sitting around. But to have 3 guys steal $300 Million from a bank in Bhaghdad is just insane. I mean how the fuck do you do that? Even if that was $100 bills, that's still 3 million bills, it would take a good dozen whole fucking TREES to make that many bills, How do you carry out that much paper and not get noticed by somebody? Gee, we're in the middle of downtown Bhaghdad and nobody noticed the huge fucking semi truck with the pieces of paper sticking out the corners? By the way 220,000,000 Iraqi dinars = about 150,000 US Dollars. How's that for a fucking exchange rate. "Yes Mr. Bank Teller, I'd like that in 10,000 dinar increments, you know small bills." "What! my bar tab was 200,000,000. Holy fuck how much did I drink!"

In keeping with the theme of the military leaving around a bunch of stuff where random people can just come get it without any real security, some people fucking a Patriot missile in a Florida scrapyard. Yep, a patriot fucking missile. So do the people in the Pentagon just not have enough space to store stuff? Gee, I'd like ot hold onto this fuckload of paper, but we simply don't have any place to put it. Oh, I'm sorry, our supply closet is full, I can't store this missile. Let's just leave it here. Somebody will come by and pick it up. You know what. I should be happy they didn't leave the fucking missile in a bank in Bhaghdad. At least at the srapyeard there was probably a dog guarding it so nobody could steal the goddman missle and shoot down an airplane. Oh, in case you were wondering, the military's response was that it was harmless because it didn't have "the part on top that goes boom", according to Lt. Omar Villarreal, the spokesman for MacDill Air Force Base. But even without the warhead, it still had the fucking rocket engine and the guidance system, so yes, it would be a bad idea to fly over Florida in a blimp.

On any given day you might hear a joke start out "so this naked blonde chick in a high heels walks into a gas station...." Except that it's actually happened. I don't have a joke here. I'm just kind of bummed that I wasn't in Germany. Now granted, it doesn't say that she was a HOT naked chick in high heels, but come on, a naked chick in gold high heels steps out of a Ferrari, she better be hot. You don't get a fat, ugly chick to step out of a Ferrari in nothing but gold shoes and a bracelet unless you're on Melrose, she just finished giving you a blowjob and you convince her to walk you to the ATM then you peel away real quick as soon as she steps out of the car.

So I think that the motherfuckers who stole the $300M from the bank took a flight to London to live it up and pay off a bar tab. Supposedly, some middle-eastern businessman racked up a bar tab of $210,000 in five hours and granted, London is an expensive town, but fuck man, I get annoyed when my tab comes back with a couple hundred bucks the only way you can pay a tab like that for a night of drinking is if you rob a fucking bank.

If I was to spend $200,000 on five hours it would be for a lap dance. And the nice thing about it is that I'm young enough to not almost fucking die from it. 'Cause see, the problem is that when the stripper has to revive you during the lap dance you have to tip her extra. Does anybody know what the stripper etiquette is for that? Like for a normal lap dance it's $40, to see a little more it's like $50, but if she has to revive you it's like $100. And she can touch you but you can't touch her.

I was a Boy Scout for like a year or two when I was a kid and I don't know how they do it in the UK, but I am totally in favor of granting Girl Guides a 'safe-sex badge'. I think when it comes time to sell cookies they can take the opportunity of door to door selling to earn their 'revive a guy you're giving a lap dance to' badge as well.

Of course, I have to toss in my own little homage to the whole drunk astronaut thing. I'm just impressed that they were still allowed to fly even after the tests said they might pose a flight risk. Next thing you know Lindsay Lohan will be doing a stint on the International Space station after piloting the shuttle. Seriously though, somebody needs to send that bitch into space.

I'm not a big fan of the amusement parks and things like that. I mean I've done the Disneyland thing, but I prefer things like the Aqaurium. I keep waiting for the big fish in the tank to eat the little fish in the tank but it never happens. Zoos, Aquariums, things like that. But I have just now decided never to visit anything remotely fun in China. When the souvenirs are made out of Panda shit it's just not a place I want to visit. You don't go to Disneyland to get the Mickey Mouse ears and the picture frame made out of Pluto the dog's shit. You don't go to the aquarium to get the stuffed turtle and and the coffee mug made out of Nemo's crap. I mean China, come on! You just fucking don't do that. I will find you a middle eastern businessman to buy you a lapdance from a stripper that knows CPR, if you just fucking knock that off. I'd say knock that shit off, but frankly you've already done enough with shit.

And finally in something neither poo or stripper or money related, but simply one more thing to chalk up to cracked out New Zealanders, I add my vote of support to the couple who want to name their newborn son Superman. I think they should be allowed to if only because some government asshat turned down their initial name of "4Real." No matter what, I already feel sorry for the kid, so fuck it, at this point whatever they name him is going to lead to beatings at school. At least with a name like Superman it'll scare off the dangerous bullies for a couple of years. Once the kid hits puberty he's just fucked anyway, but it'll help him early on.

Octosquid

2007-07-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, look, when there's news from Hawaii, it's usually one of two things. 1) volcano explodes, burns homes, yada yada yada. 2) Submarine sinks foreign ship. Military hi tech not so bad ass after all...or on occasion 3) Secret Service agent gets his ass kicked. but the discovery of an octoquid off of my home town of Kona. In fact I probably know some of the people at OTEC that sucked the thing up, is just too good.

By the way, there's some desalinated water now that goes primarily to Japan. and they sell the salt taken out as a food supplement, that's the water this was found in, so next time you drink some expensive bottled water, remember, it's probably been pissed in by a Hawaiian octosquid.

Thurs. 28 June 2007 The "I'm Home Sick Edition"

2007-06-28T13:24:00.001-07:00

That's right, I'm coughing and have a runny nose and feel like crap so what better way to spend my time than hunched over in front of an LCD display.

Perhaps I should be forced to write "I'm a retard" 100 times

Or I suppose I could just use my time to do something like find a bride on YouTube. But that would likely require some effort, and I'm not a big fan of effort right now.

But I'd probably only end up finding a hot Jewish girl with an Glock.

Oh, my fucking God, I just found the perfect food...drink...no, scratch that, this deserves to have it's on word as a category of consumable items. it's pizza flavored beer. Food + drunk = funk. That's what it is.

When I was a kid in school, I never got to take cool field trips like these guys who went to a Planned Parenthood after school. I can imagine that mot of them were thinking "gee, you know if my parents had some here, I wouldn't have to be putting up with this bullshit." On second thought, these are probably dumb kids, it's more likely they were thinking "ooh red car."

If I didn't totally feel like shit right now I'd totally fly to Gatwick.

>31 May, 2007

2007-05-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

I don't remember what movive it was I was watching where there was some evil guy who threatened people by putting a rat on somebody's stomach then putting a steel bucket over it then heating the bucket. Essentially the rat get's hot and decides it's easier to chew it's way out through your stomach than it is to chew through a steel bucket. They need rats like this one that can chew through fucking concrete.

Scientists in Argentina doped up a bunch of Hamsters to see the effects of viagra on time zone changes and apparently viagra helps with jet lag. I wonder if it also helps promote more hamster fucking.

stuff like this bat in Wyoming having rabies is why 1) you don't keep bats as classroom pets and 2) Natural selection has weeded out the smart people from the state of wyoming leaving only the dumb and bat-shit insane.

In all likelihood, this is the state where they say that prayer can help you lose weight. Because the Lord said, "let there be fewer fat asses," and hark, there were fewer fat asses.

No, I think the TRUE sign of God is something like a beer train derailment because you just know that there was some vagabond hopping a ride cross country on the train, then it dertails and he drowns in a river of beer. Now that's the true work of God.

There are a number of reasons why I miss living in LA. Having a 6 1/2 ft. gator running around for two years is just one of them. Too bad they caught him though I have to admit, the fact that the news treated it like OJ in a White Ford Bronco is pretty amusing.

Shit like this guy trying to smuggle 700 snakes onto a plane in Egypt however are why I do not at all mind not living in fucking Egypt. Where's Sam Jackson when you need him?

On the other hand this study that whether or not your gay affects navigation ability just confuses me. I mean if straight men are better than gay men and gay men are better than lesbian and lesbians are better than straight women at reading maps, then why is it that gay men have such an easy time finding such a small hole without a map?

Ananova Update 29 Apr. 2007

2007-04-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Because I haven't done it in a while and I felt like doing it now...

If I could get it here, I would use this soap.

Only in Texas could an ass literally be a key witness in a court case. But then, it is Texas, so go figure.

Just about the only way I'm going to get laid now is if I try to move to Holland.

You always hear the shit about cigarettes killing peoeple, but you don't hear enough about them saving lives.

I would hold out for the wedding dress from Little Mermaid. Because honestly, who wouldn't want the entire wedding party to see the bride to be in nothing but two small shells.

Further reason why you put casino's in places with nice temperate weather. And why you don't marry a crazy bitch if you have a disability.

Next time, put the hash in the tampon box instead of the sex toy.

And in other random sex news, This is why a blowjob from a stranger sounds like a good idea until you actually try to get one.

The people in China seems to get away with a lot of crazy shit for an oppressed people. Maybe they have too much free time.

on Vonage...something I posted on EE

2007-03-23T20:31:00.001-07:00

Couple of things to consider in the ruling
0. Lawsuits
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/technology/24phone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
if the injunction against them gets the nod, Vonage is screwed. either they retool some of their fundamental systems and high cost or they close shop. This is in part a bad application of IP law and it's in part a bad due dilligence by Vonage. Poor research has been a problem with them from the begining. They've had E911 and other lawsuit issues before this. As for the injunction, if you want to take a bet that they won't close shop, nows a good time to buy stock. The shares are dropping faster than Paris Hilton's remaining brain cells. At the moment though, shares have stopped trading, so yes, they're "dead but don't know it yet" for a public company. One final thing to mention here, Virginia is a common docket for IP law cases in part because of the tendencies of that circuit to decide in favor of protection. Is that gaming the system? Sure, to some degree it is, but there's no way around it and both sides have ways to game the system in their favor.
1. finances.
The acutal penalty against them in this lawsuit probably won't kill the operation of Vonage. That said, they have also had lawsuits and issues with E911 that does cost them quite a bit more E911 compliance is probably on par with, if not greater than the cost to the patent infringment.
2. business model
the Vonage buisness model, is one where they cannot control the full network connection to the customer. In fact this is what they bank on. This means they cannot control voice quality and as kode99 points out, this will hurt them. It already has. Since the adoption of TDM telephony took nearly a century there was a longer period of time to socialize expectations of getting dial tone. With a regular phone I don't have to troubleshoot all these extra things. I check the phone (did it break? did my kid spill soda on it?) and i check the phone cord (did i unplug it, did the girlfriend accidentally plug it into the toaster instead of the answering machine?) and as long as those two things are okay, I should get dial tone and my calls should be clear. With VoIP you need to reset those expectations. Among more technicaly inclined users, this is probably okay, but for a mass market audience, this doesn't bode well. So yes, the retired parents in Boca can probably pick it up and get it to work, but what happens when I go off hook and suddenly there's no dial tone? or when all my calls sound like a cell phone underwater? A month of consistent bad service can be enough to discourage adoption of the technology and this kills the business. So unless they can figure a way to make Vonage service as reliable as the POTS tone you get from Ma Bell or one of her babies, you're likely to see less business.

Spam

2007-02-24T00:10:00.000-08:00

I received this email recently. Here is my response:
-------My reply------------------------
Ok, to follow up.

1. this isn't science it's sociology and it shows how many people are sheep.

work in a school - no,
have kids - one not plural, that i know of.
like science - yes, but this isn't science
nice - only after four shots of scotch and today was more like one of those days that reminds me why i drink.

just out of curiousity, what kind of science project is this? determine how mych spam is on the internet? 'cause if you really wanted to do that, porn spam or via-gaKra ad's are much better.

-reid

--- Bob wrote:

Sorry, guys, it's quick and for a kid's school project! (and you are the ones I thought might follow through, either because you work in a school, you have kids, you like science, or you're just plain nice). This is for a science fair project. If you could do this I would appreciate it! DON'T ASK, JUST PLAY! Copy and paste this letter into a new e-mail (PLEASE DO NOT hit "Forward"), then read the list of names below. If your name is on the list, put a star* next to it. If not, then add your name in alphabetical order, put no star. Send it to ten people and send it back to the person who sent it to you. Put your name in the subject box! You'll see what happens - it's kind of cool!

Please keep this going. Don't MESS it up, please.

----------------------------------

Sheep. You're all fucking sheep.

Free Music

2007-02-13T01:52:00.000-08:00

via the Internet Archive where you can actually find some pretty good shit once in a while...aside from the occasional pirated movie I mean. http://www.archive.org/details/js2007-02-10.js2007-02-10.flac16 There's a live recording of Jake Shimabukuro playing at the palace of Fine Arts. Good Stuff.

15 Jan 2007 - Jetlagged and Tired

2007-01-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

I got back from Dallas at 3 AM yesterday, my schedule is all jacked up. That said, here a couple more stories to add to the fun.
Before I start though, some travel tips from A Whole Lotta Nothing

I would like to offer that if the religious right is so intent on joining church and state together they move to Poland where a number of people have suggested that Jesus be named King because being King of the Jew's isn't enough, now he's got to have Poland too.

Whereas I will be moving to China where they don't have Chinese food, they just have food, and where one night stands are apparently no big thing. Ok, choose your own joke here: 1)well, they're Chinese, of course it's not very big, for that they'd have to be with someplace with more black porn stars. or 2) Which would probably increase my chances of getting laid from none to slim.

Either that or I move to Belgium and offer a breat enhancing beer to every woman I meet.

So not only are Americans fat, they've even got fat pets. Does Jenny Craig do salmon and chicken liver dinners?

Leave it to the New Yorker to tell parents all the things they didn't want to know about how much action their kids are getting. What the hell kids are these and why couldn't I meet any of them when I was a kid?

I used to teach computer science and my background and education are technically electrical engineering so I'm kind of conflicted seeing this explaination of the differencs between EE and CS. But only a little conflicted, the ending is still correct.

9 Jan. 2007, helpful people are nice but are stupid and so they should be fucking arrested

2007-01-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

Like helpful drunk people for example. Like say a guy mistakes a police spot check for a broken down car and offers to help. He should get brownie points for that right?

Who knew a bra could save your life. Must be a really smart woman who realized you could wear lace body armor.

Much smarter than the helpful druggie chick who did her civic duty and reported a bad crack purchase to the cops. See what happens when bad people tell on other bad people. They both end up getting laughed at.

And so much smarter than the guy who had to call 911 on himself when he got lost in the car he stole. I mean really, if you're going to steal a car you should at least have some place to go. Otherwise steal a bus.

Only in Japan could music sooth the savage beast or get your ass thrown in jail. But in all fairness to the Japanese, nobody appreciates good music these days.

I used to do speech and debate in high school. I still coach it once in a while. But man if the BBC says that sex helps debate perhaps debate can help sex? Shit, wait, that doesn't work. Foiled by logic once again. I'll have to rely on the old methods of alcohol and lies.

9 Jan. 2006 - The random shit that appears in my RSS feed edition

2007-01-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

Why someone would want to take condoms filled with flour on a airplane is beyond my, but you shouldn't get arrested for it. Which just further proves my point that TSA is full of shit.

And if you don't believe me and need futher proof, TSA put a goddamn baby through the X-ray machine at LAX. I mean I know my laptop has to go through separately, but my infant too?

But you come to expect that of the US where the largest cash crop is weed.

And this is of course the same country that has tens of millions of fat asses but still thinks it's goddamn pets need the diet medications. The last time my fucking dog needed a diet pill, I let her ~~lick my balls~~ run around more. See people that's what your animals need. More exercise, not more pills. Heartworm, fleas, ticks, your dog does not have an eating disorder that needs medication too. It has an owner disorder tha it needs to escape from.

And just to be clear about what your pets do and do not fucking need. Water? Check. Food? Check. regular exercise? Check. The occasional flea bath? Check. enough bank credit to buy a used car? Um. proably frucking not.

My newest vote for shittiest job in the world goes to diving in raw Mexican sewage for $400 and manually unclogging "blockages". I mean really, it's fucking Mexico, drink the water and get the shits. What POSSIBLE blockages could there be in mexican sewage? Dead taco bell Chihuahua?

I've been feeling particularly violent lately and I guess its spreading, 'cause when characters at the 'happiest place on earth' starting beating Mickey's fans you some shit's going down. Maybe they've been drinking Mexican water?

It has always been my dream to one day own my own island in the Carribean where I can sit all day and eat lobsters the size of small children. but I'd settle for my own country. Now to just find the $65 million dollars. Fuck it, it's my own country, I'll make up my own currency and fuck with the exchange rates.

You may have heard of the One Red Paperclip project. Where some guy trades himself up from one paperclip to a home. I say the guy who traded from a bottle of beer to a car did better. Of course it WAS a pretty good bottle of beer. So maybe not.

Oh my fucking God, I have found my dream job. Now all I have to do is marry well instead of rich and I'm set for life.

See this is what pisses me off about government. Even Norway is taxing art now. I mean really, you're trying to get your fat greedy hands into my pockets and I'm not even wearing pants. I mean damn.

And of course aside from taxes, I certainly don't trust the goverment for education. Public education systems are the things that produce college geniuses like the two nimrods who decided that it would be nice to get buzzed off of the Helium in a hotair ballon. I'm betting they got accepted to Yale too. Fuckers.

No, the only good college students are the ones you know are actually smart. Like the 11 year old sophmore at Cal State. Except little overachieving bastards like that make the rest of us look bad. Way to go kid. I'm going to go suck on a hot air balloon now and wallow in my stupidity.

If you have a friend who's going to get married, save the poor bastards life and make sure the fiance is as much of a smart-ass as this lady. 'Cause if she's not, it's a lot more work to save your friend.

Man, I never got these kind of Christmas presents. Merry Christmas indeed.

20 Dec. 2006

2006-12-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

And this is why I don't now, nor have I ever trusted cafeteria food. And why I avoid salad.

Merry Christmas everyone. Be sure you go and buy all your presents early. And make sure they're age appropriate. For example, if you're getting a brand spanking new Microsoft Zune for your 12 year old daughter, make sure it's cums pre-loaded with a gay orgy video. Otherwise it just wouldn't be spanking new.

My Vote for President

2006-12-20T23:17:00.001-08:00

Ken Jennings. He might be odd, he might be Mormon, he might be odd because he's Mormon, but I'd still vote for him over Hillary.

the Big Update 13 Dec 2006

2006-12-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Lots of random shit's been going on. I've been busy. But here it is again.
The latest dose of stuff that ranks high on my weird-shit-o-meter.

Quite possible the best street sign in the world.

That's right the federal government says no sex until your married or 30, whichever comes first. But honesly if you haven't gotten laid by 30, you'll need more than just advice from your government.

Then again, what the fuck is it with kids today that they're committing armed robbery for legos? I mean really. Legos? You can do so much better. What about the new Power Ranger toys? Stil, it's nice to see some kids are becoming felons to improving their engineering skills.

and in further pursuit of science, if my kid ever decides to find out how many condoms he can put on at the same time he deservse whatever may happen to him because of three pounds of latex on his junk.

And of course he could become a felon for wearing a condom too, at least if he's wearing it while joining the mile high club and gets busted for violating anti-terrorism laws. And yes, I would be terrified of finding some random passenger walking out of the tiny bathroom with a chubby.

But then sex and pizza, that could work. But unless you've got Spanish Fly Deep Dish or a fat chick sending branded condoms with your personal pan pie, might be a little odd.

so the next time you walk down to get your carry-out order, make sure that just in case some strange looking guy walks out of the pizza place with a calzone and a funny grin you're wearing a jacket that will shock the living shit out of him. I'm so getting one of these for all the groupies that keep trying to molest me. Like the Pope.

At least the Jedi don't try to molest me. And being recognized by the Un as a religion means that if they ever did, they could totally beat the crap out of Crusaders. Plus when they try to molest anybody they'll do it telekenetically or sodomize you with a lightsaber.

And for all my Muslim groupies, I would suggest some sexual counseling, perhaps by Dr. Heba Kotb, the Jihadi's answer to Dr. Ruth. Becuase if you're not sure what to do with 87 virgins when you get to heaven, it's nice to do your homework before you get there.

Of course if Dr. Hotb was really good she could play CSI and help people in South Africa figure out how it is that a penis could wind up outside of a house

Perhaps he was just some guy trying to commit a crime, like the moron in Kansas that blew off a testicle trying to kidnap someone

And in random medial news, the illness I wouldn't wish on anyway, but would totally love to know someone who's got it. Spontaneous orgasm. Walking down the street, you don't know whether your coming or going or cumming. Okay, yeah, that was just too easy of a joke.

Finally, some school spending I can support and motivation to get back into teaching. I mean damn if I can spend school money on strippers and booze why wouldn't I want to be a teacher?