Immigration Reform: Be Sensible
I was thrilled to read an editorial in the New York Times this morning that took a common sense approach to the hot button issue of immigration reform. CNN and other major news networks have been causing a ruckus about immigration lately, and no one doubts that our current stance of ignoring the issue or going after immigrants vigilante style is idiotic at best.I have worked a day labor job recently, mainly for some quick cash but it also turned into an interesting social experiment. In the back of a truck, my white skin offset by the dark tans of my new immigrant friends, my broken spanish was more than enough to find out that my co-workers were just like me. They just wanted to work for a real wage, and they were willing to all but break their backs to do it. They all had families to support, in the U.S. or back home. Their paychecks were wired to wives and mothers, and they lived a spartan life while enduring the racism and culture shock of America.
We are all immigrants here. Just because your parents came on a boat two or three generations ago gives you no more inherent rights to this country than someone who wishes to escape an endless cycle of poverty and live the American dream. It's not just your dream, and America has no right to deny entry to immigrants who simply want a better life for their children. We need to welcome these new Americans with open arms and incorporate them into our society. There won't be an illegal immigrant burden on education or health care if we make them part of the system; tax-paying, law-abiding citizens just like you or me. We have a huge, rich country here that only needs smart management and smart policies to remain a world leader. So let's elect those officials who will make good things happen. If no one is stepping up in your district or your state, do it yourself. The key word to participatory democracy is the one that starts with a P.
Future Tech and Toys
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Hey, buy me this camera. No, really. I want to take some pictures, and it's only 3 grand! Or just click on it and go buy one yourself, then I can get a neckstrap for it or something, 'cause I get 4% y'all.While I was working as a professional poker player, I dreamed of a system like this. Many online pro players have four or more tables open at one time, often spread across two monitors but you almost always have to deal with "table overlap". Just think of applications for this multi-input touch screen - from art, to design, to well, poker. As a musician, I love the section in the clip with a touch screen MOOG and what looks like music composition software. Can you say productivity boost?
Do you find yourself drinking an ever-increasing amount of coffee in the morning? I sure do. Maybe I should pick up some of this self-cleaning, caffeinated soap. It's organic - and no, you don't have to eat it.
Riggedy Rigged?
I'm not saying that the 2004 election was rigged, but stuff like this makes you wonder what the hell was going on down there, or in many other districts around the nation that used these same electronic voting machines. We are just now hearing about this?
You know it's not good news when the article starts with: The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night. -thx metafilter
New Video Ipod
From the "My Wishlist" Department -
Looks like someone published a photo of the new video Ipod with it's bigger screen and touch-click wheel interface... Nice. Okay so this, a PS3, and a 60-inch flat panel. Christmas is only 10 months away!
Laugh More
Take a few minutes and just laugh. It's good for your body and mind. If you can't do it spontaneously, maybe check out one of these sites.
Everyone remember Jackass? That was so 2002.
These guys didn't get the memo.
Chuck Norris Facts Overheard in New Yorkmy favorite comic strip -
The Boondocks
The Robots are Coming
The robotics pioneers over at DARPA are coming out with some crazy stuff... Here is a 20-ton robotic tank.
Pointing to the bristling array of sensors on the vehicles, Jaczkowski said these vehicles incorporate second-generation ladar-laser radar, forward-looking infrared sensors, and advanced computers to handle autonomous navigation.
For the autonomous follower, engineers are going beyond Global Positioning Systems to link terrain data from the lead vehicle back to the follower vehicle to augment data the follower vehicle gathers from on-board sensors.
"We have a major emphasis to create systems that can operate without GPS. We know that electronic interference can easily jam GPS in a battle zone.
The future of warfare will be these unmanned vehicles, much like the Air Force is using the Predator drones now. thanks engadget!
Or take a look at this US Navy swimming spy plane, which could give new life to the large fleet of Ohio-class submarines previously only engaged in nuclear deterrence.
None of these robots are autonomous, meaning that there is a human in the loop at all levels. The goal is to make them operate without someone's finger on the trigger, so that the robot can identify and eliminate a target without human intervention. The smart AI for these systems isn't science fiction, and it's not that far off. It might sound a little bit scary, but it is only the beginning of the robotics revolution that we will see in the next twenty years.
The first successful home robots are simple. They sweep and mop your floors. In the next few years there will be more of these simple machines taking over chores and easy tasks, growing increasingly complex. I finished reading Ray Kurzweil's latest book, The Singularity Is Near. In this 672-page tome he discusses the three upcoming revolutions that will change our world. Not a little bit, but change as significant as the Industrial Revolution. These three revolutions are the Genetic, the Nanotechnology, and the Robotic. I will post a review of this book in the near future.
His premise is that human technological advances are exponential, while we are still stuck in a linear mode of thinking. Most policy and decision makers simply cannot fathom the awesome advances we will make in the next fifty years, and that we as a society need to change our thinking so that we are prepared for these advances. For a visualization of exponential growth, take a look at this Malthusian population graph.
As is stands today, we are at the base of curve, ready to take off and capitalize on exponential technological growth. On some level it can be argued that not just technological progress, but economic, social, and political growth and understanding will follow this same trend. I'm excited and optimistic about the future of human societies. It is difficult to remain positive sometimes, and humanity needs some good fortune and good luck to survive into the next millenium. There is a fair chance that we might just blow ourselves up. I think there are more reasons look forward with hope rather than fear, however.
For some great short stories and information about robotics and future possibilities, check out Marshall Brain's Robotic Future. Be sure to read his story Manna. The future is near...
I heart Google
I have been a Google devotee for a long time now. I search, I shop with Froogle, I fly all over the globe, I use their blog software, and I have a couple of Gmail accounts. I have been following this company for a long time. I was an "early-adopter" before they went public and blew up into billions of dollars of market cap. I told everyone I knew that they had better jump on the bandwagon at their IPO.
When the stock hit 65 the next day I said "Buy, buy". Of course no one took my advice, I'm not some big shot analyst. If they had, they would have made a nice chunk of change. GOOG is still a good buy, hovering around 370. Their business model, P/E, cash and position are exceedingly solid. They are the 800 pound gorilla of Internet search and advertising, and on their way to dominating many other markets as well. They have the cash to buy up any innovative young companies that might add to their long term plan, which is basically to be the operating system and front end for every click and every transaction.
Recently there has been a small uproar regarding Google's censorship of search terms in China. There are certain costs to doing business with the PRC, and this is one of them. The fact is that the censorship is easily foiled just by misspelling a word, or a Chinese citizen can log on to an anonymizer website, then conduct searches or post about human rights violations from there. The situation just requires some creative work-around for a while. The Chinese government won't be able to keep their billion citizens under such tight control in the information age, at least not for long. Information wants to be free. It will be. Plus as far as I know, google hasn't helped get anyone thrown in jail, like their buddies over at Yahoo.
The philanthropic arm of their company is getting off the ground now, and I expect it to not only contribute vast sums of money to worthy causes, but hopefully establish a corporate model for intelligent, responsible philanthropy. They recently named Larry Brilliant to head this effort. He has a great bio, but an even better name.
some links from Metafilter
Mars (I am a big nerd)
When I was 15 I went to the second annual Mars Society convention in Boulder. It was a 2 day conference filled with scientists, astronauts, and a few nuts talking about their plans for organizing a human Mars expedition. The panels ranged from how to motivate politicians, to privately funded heavy launch vehicles, to sustainable life systems on the Martian surface. It was neat - I got to meet Buzz Lightyear (err... Aldrin) and Dr. Zubrin, the founder and Mars Society pioneer, signed two of my books. President Bush talked recently about sending humans to Mars, but any interplanetary trip for humans is still 20 years away or more. After reading this press release about Dr. Zubrin visiting China, (not to mention NASA's misguided spending/efforts) I'm fairly sure the U.S. won't be the first ones to the Red Planet. Zubrin will deliver a public lecture at Beihang University's School
of Astronautics on February 28, and also have a seminar with
professors and graduate students.
The topic of Zubrin's talk will be "A Plan for Achieving Near-Term
Human Mars Exploration."
Several meetings with prominent individuals associated with the
Chinese space program to discuss this subject are also planned.
Speaking about the invitation, Zubrin said; "The Mars Society
welcomes China's interest in human Mars exploration. The Chinese are
a very talented people, who have contributed numerous inventions,
from printing to rockets, that have greatly furthered human progress.
Without question, they can, and soon will, make many valuable
contributions to the exploration and development of space." After spending time deployed in a fast-attack submarine, my motivation to go to Mars pretty much vanished. Spending that much time locked in a steel tube just isn't fun. I guess if there is a new planet instead of the Persian Gulf for a destination, it might change things...
Pageflakes, Computer Clean-Up
I have been using a new start page for the last couple of days, and so far I'm really impressed. Pageflakes has a great interface, tabs, and drag and drop modules on each tab. You can configure anything from your Gmail account to your Netflix queue on each page. A cool feature is the ability to act as a RSS feed reader as well, and you can set up as many feeds as you like. There are integrated To-Do and other lists, and a ton of other "Flakes" or modules you can add. There is a nice developer forum and help section as well, so you can create your own "Flakes" to your hearts desire. The only thing missing are stock quotes, but I'm planning on writing a script for this task sometime this week. Overall it's a nice tool for the GTD crowd - and everyone else. Pageflakes is still in beta, like all the other cool software I like. I had been using Google's personalized home page for a while, but this looks better. I'll give you more of an evaluation in a couple of weeks.
Almost Spring Cleaning
My apartment gets super dusty. I have to clean my cool desk and monitor every day, and it's tough to keep all of the horizontal surfaces clean. At least I only have 600 sq. feet to keep up. Since I'm a sweaty guy, my mouse and keyboard get gross after prolonged use. You know what I'm talking about, that funky mouse smell? I use Clorox disinfecting wipes once a day to keep it smelling fresh and clean. I saw this site while digg-ing this morning, on how to disassemble and clean your keyboard. If you've had your computer for a few months or so, especially if the CPU sits on the floor, your motherboard is probably filled with dust bunnies just waiting to cause trouble as well. First, do the physical clean-up. Next run your utilities programs to do all of that maintenance - exciting stuff like deleting unused programs and files, defragging, and backing up your data. Not the sexiest job, but your computer will thank you, and you will thank me when you see how fast your computer is. Like new!
Lazy Sunday + CrackDonalds
"Lazy Sunday" SNL videoRemoved from youtube, you can still find this video on a few websites. Ummm, I love it? I figure there hasn't been a better SNL skit in, oh say, 3 years or so. Plus, the video does a great job of summarizing just about every single day I lived in NYC, not just Sundays. Mmmm cupcakes. (if the link doesn't work for you, do a bittorrent search)
Brokeback to the FutureHilarious mash-up video, here on youtube.
A lot of my friends are musicians, or at least audiophiles. Some of you guys have a significant amount of vinyl sitting around collecting dust. I guess most of them don't have the money for this sick laser turntable, but it's a cool concept. Yes, vinyl does sound better than any cd or mp3 you burned and never paid the artist for. courtesy: BoingBoing
CrackDonalds
I went into a McDonalds the other day for the first time in about six months. I ate two double cheeseburgers and promptly vomited all over their filthy restroom. When I lived in Brooklyn there was one a block away that was always filled with screaming kids and ghetto thugs getting their McRib on. I ate there a few times a week and never got sick. I didn't get fat either, but I have a crazy high metabolism and I go through fitness junky phases. 
The McD's by my apartment in downtown Denver is filled with the homeless and low-income families. Could this have something to do with the marketing of their low-priced, ridiculously unhealthy food to the poor urban population? Of course back in the BK this was the same scene, especially in gentrified Williamsburg. Here is a great history of
Interesting fact: All McD's in Hawaii serve Spam and Rice - Spam is a local favorite "meat".This is my real attempt at writing a readable, entertaining blog. Not for you, silly reader. Wait, come back. I was kidding. These days I find myself sending so many emails to friends and acquaintances saying "Hey, saw this site you might like" or "Thought this article was interesting, check it out" that I have decided to jump straight on the blogging bandwagon and just post everything. Yes, everything I come across, that I read or want to read or think is interesting or have an opinion on. In the future I will be updating with more original content - for the time being this will most likely be a collection of my reading material and interesting news stories that I like. I'm learning how to write, how to start a business, how to get out of debt, how to go back to college, how to have a relationship, how to be an adult.... I am feebly attempting to learn good design so this site will be undergoing "experiments" quite often I hope. (I know the design sucks right now, I am just starting)
I have a myriad of interests and pursuits at the moment so my posts will probably be wide-ranging and disconnected at times; just like me. Enjoi.
