I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but yesterday President-elect Barack Obama asked Congress to postpone the federally mandated switch to all-digital broadcast television, called DTV, scheduled to take place Feb. 17. People with cable, satellite or phone company TV services will continue to receive broadcast stations. But those who rely on antennas must have either a newer TV with a digital receiver or get a converter box. To offset the expense, the federal government allocated $1.5 billion to provide households with up to two $40 coupons. But Monday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said the program had used all allocated funds. The agency has a waiting list of about 1.1 million requests which means:
The nearly 8 million households that rely on antennas and are unprepared for the conversion face the prospect of paying full price for converter boxes during a recession — or watching their TVs go blank after the switch.
Am I the only one that reads that quote and laughs out loud? Why am I, the taxpayer, paying for a digital receiver box so my neighbor can watch TV? The same neighbor that doesn’t have health care, or a job, or a car. When did it become a right to watch TV in America – to the point that the federal government is paying billions of dollars (yes, billions) to pay for the transition and educate Americans on the switch?
If people want to keep watching TV after the switch then they can a) buy a TV made after 1990 or b) buy a $40 converter box themselves. In my opinion there is absolutely NO reason this should even be a concern of congress or the President. Wasting time and resources on a project like this just tells me that other issues such as Social Security, Health Care, and the Economy must have already been taken care of – otherwise we would be focusing all our efforts on those issues right?
There’s no denying the fact that I don’t answer the phone at home. It’s kind of my new “thing.” But there’s some logic to my actions.
A few weeks ago columnist Andy Ihnatko shared a piece of wisdom that his father shared with him: “The phone was created for our convenience” his father said. I’ve taken that pearl of wisdom to heart. Every time we hear the phone ring doesn’t mean we should feel compelled to answer it. If it’s truly important the person calling will leave a voice mail or try my cell phone.
As I was browsing the local news on my iPhone (have I mentioned how much I love that thing?) I cam across a story about local high school students who walked out of their classrooms in protest of the Alameda school district’s decision to cut funding for high school sports to help offset a $4.5 million deficit. After clapping (out loud) for their willingness to demonstrate for what they believe to be right, I began to think about the implications these budget cuts will have on this state.
First of all, the district cuts stem from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut at least $4 billion in overall education spending as a way to help make up the state budget deficit. Now I’m no genius, but here’s how I see this scenario playing out (yes, I know I’m making some sweeping generalizations with the following scenario):
As the funding to schools decrease, kids become dumber. Not having after-school sports, music programs, or other extra-curricular activities makes otherwise smart kids do stupid things like join a gang or light bags of dog poop on fire on the neighbor’s porch. These kids grow up with a sup-par education, don’t qualify for college, and end up working at McDonald’s 7 days a week at minimum wage where they earn just enough money to get married and have more kids who will have even LESS money for schools… and the cycle continues. Sure, that $5 million bike overpass their building by my house is looking pretty sweet, but my kid is dumb as a post! And since there’s nobody with a decent education in this state, there’s nobody smart enough to fix it later on!
If Governor Schwarzenegger really wanted to solve the state’s budget problems he would put money into the programs that are going to fix it for him! Dump as much money as possible into education so that those graduates can eventually help you balance the state’s checkbook! Stop funding bike lane projects and start to focus on the things that actually matter! Once the budget is fixed and the kids are educated THEN let’s focus on bike lanes and funding state-sponsored research projects.
I’ll admit it – the Internet scares me. But not in the way it scares other people.
Most other people afraid of the Internet are afraid for one of the following reasons:
It’s new and unfamiliar (where’s the send button again??)
There is too much violence, pornography, etc.
Big Brother is spying on me
Hackers are stealing my information as we speak
None of that scares me. In fact, I believe with the right parenting, my kids will grow up to be “Internet experts” and be able to avoid the Internet slums, sidestep Phishing schemes, and find the truth among the millions of splogs.
Nope, none of that scares me. The people behind the Internet scare me.
And I’m not talking about the tinfoil hat wearers who claim that there’s a secret society of rich oil tycoons who run the Internet only to spy and steal from you. I’m not even talking about the ISPs who throttle your bandwidth and refuse to let you use Bittorrent or even stream IP TV at an acceptable speed.
I’m talking about the normal people behind personal websites, blogs, Usenet groups, and forums. These are scary people. They’re scary for a number of reasons:
1. The Internet feeds their anonymity – If nobody has to see your face, or even know who you are, you’re more likely to say things you wouldn’t normally say. Your local forum member battlestargalacticafreak can say whatever he wants online because he’s sitting at home safe and sound in his Lazy-Boy eating a hot pocket. If you don’t like what he has to say you can send a nasty email, but in the end he doesn’t care because you don’t know who he is, where he lives, and can never do anything about it. This power of anonymity makes people inconsiderate, rude, mean, and scary – when they might normally be very nice people. battlestargalacticafreak might even be the nice 15 year-old boy who mows your lawns on Saturday… but online he can throw out rude comments, profanities, or even threats and never care.
2. Your information isn’t as secure as you’d like – It’s always a little unnerving to receive an email with the subject “WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE NOW!” I made a decision a long time ago not to hide my identity online. When I blog or post to forums, it’s with my real name. And anyone with some decent Google skills could probably find out more information about me.
3. Law enforcement is unprepared – My favorite example of this is one of my own. After writing a blog post about a local MLM company and warning my readers about the dangers of MLMs, I began to receive threats. At first the threats were mildly funny, with mention of my mental retardation and obvious lack of intelligence. However, when the threats started to involve my life and the life of my family, I decided to get the local police involved. I presented them with printouts of the emails containing the death threats, and even provided them IP addresses of those that had written the emails and commented on the site. What did they do? Nothing.
At first I was upset that the police weren’t doing anything to help me out. But after thinking about the situation, I can’t really blame them – they’re just uneducated and unprepared to deal with Internet “crime.” We read stories every day about cyber-bullying or cyber-stalking, but those stories usually only emerge after someone has been hurt or after a physical altercation has taken place. There’s usually no action taken on the threat because “it’s just an email.” And even with the right information (like IP addresses) the Police often have no idea what to do with it. Sure, if someone really wanted to keep their identity a secret they could (enter TOR), but most people making online threats are doing so from their home computer. And a quick phone call to Comcast could provide them with a home address. The police need to be informed and trained in how to deal with Internet crimes, before they become “real crimes.” It would be interesting to see some statistics on how many “real” crimes began with online threats or other online actions.
I believe the longer you spend online the more you realize what kind of “power” the people behind the internet have. And when you begin contributing or participating in a specific niche of people, such as I do through my blogging, you begin to tap a very passionate group of users. And for some unknown reason (at least to me) their passion knows no bounds. With some twisted belief that the internet will keep them safe people believe they can say whatever they want without recourse, and without a thought as to what that does to actual people.
I believe it was Dvorak (John C. that is) who told a story about a rude commenter on his blog. The person had written some rude or nasty comments with the belief that nobody would do anything. However, John sent a quick email to the person introducing himself and asking him why he was so rude… and the person’s tone changed completely. He was so surprised that John had called him on his rude behavior that he was immediately apologetic and took back everything he had said.
After hearing that story I often wonder what would happen if I tracked down all the people who track me down and showed up at their door and explained to their mom that their 27 year-old son living in the basement spent all day saying things he wouldn’t ever say to another person face to face. Hmmm…
You’d think it would be easy to maintain a personal blog right? You just write about, well, personal stuff. How hard can it be?
My problem is that I like to compartmentalize my life too much. I like to keep my work life separate from my family life, and keep my tech/blogging life separate from it all. This is why I own a dozen different sites, and try and keep them all updated with different facets of my life. My family site houses mostly family pictures for friends and relatives to see, my blog contains posts about my financial and accounting interests, and a few other random sites are maintained as experiments or just for fun. I also keep up a journal for my personal stuff – so what’s left for the personal blog?
I don’t want to get too personal because anyone could read it, including friends, family, or even potential employers. I don’t want to post too much family-related content because that’s what the family site is for. And I don’t want to write about personal finance because that’s what the blog is for.
Are you starting to see the picture? Is this the place I write about the latest episode of Lost? Or maybe my thoughts on politics and why I’m disappointed in California voters? Maybe I’ve spread myself too thin. One part of me thinks maybe everything should be a branch of one large site – a sort of Jason media conglomerate. But then the other part of myself laughs at the fact that I’m even having this conversation with myself. Who else but the nerdiest of the nerds has this problem? It’s definitely time for bed…
We’ve all seen the Dateline NBC episodes of “To Catch a Predator.” If you haven’t seen it, Dateline has made prime-time entertainment out of contacting would-be child molesters over the Internet, luring them to a meeting place, and videotaping their humiliating confrontations with reporter Chris Hansen. Sometimes we laugh at the stupidity of the men who are trying to seduce 14-year-old girls. Sometimes we cry when we see the predator is a Rabbi or a middle-school teacher.
But we all feel a little better when the show is over and the predator’s have received justice… except in Murphy Texas.
One of the 25 men caught in the sting — a prosecutor from a neighboring county — committed suicide when police came to arrest him.
The Murphy city manager who approved the operation lost his job in the ensuing furor.
And the district attorney is refusing to prosecute any of the men, saying many of the cases were tainted by the involvement of amateurs.
I don’t want to spend to much time on this, so I’ll keep my tirade short and sweet. If “amateurs” can do a better job at catching these pedophiles than local or federal law enforcement… then maybe we should be giving them the guns.
I wrote a little while ago on BeancounterBlog.com how to become a millionaire by starting a Web 2.0 company. Well, after a news article I read today at www.nytimes.com I think I’m going to change my recommendation on how to become a millionaire.
Instead of putting actual work – you know, the blood, sweat, and tears kind – into a web business simply follow the following steps:
1. Walk down the street of the nearest town and find a dry cleaner
2. Make sure the dry cleaner has a large sign saying “Same-day Service” and another one saying “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” If you can’t find both signs, repeat step 1.
3. Once you’ve found the dry cleaners, take in a pair of pants to be altered.
4. Come back a few days later and pick up your pants. When the clerk brings you your pants, start yelling about how those aren’t your pants.
5. Sue the dry cleaners for $67 million dollars (yes, that’s million)
6. Have a change of heart and sue the dry cleaners for $54 million (yup, still millions)
I really don’t know what to say. After reading the story about the poor dry cleaner shop owners I didn’t know whether to cry at the state of the American judicial system or to cry at the stupidity of my fellow man.
In cross-examination, Mr. Manning asked Mr. Pearson whether it was reasonable for someone to sue a merchant for millions of dollars for not receiving the satisfaction guaranteed by a sign.
“Without regard to the law, as a human being, as a person, don’t you think it makes sense to interpret merchant signage in a reasonable way?” Mr. Manning said.
Mr. Pearson, who is representing himself, eventually responded, “No.”
My friend just introduced me the my new favorite messaging app – Meebo.
Because I’m never at the same client location for very long, my web proxy settings are always changing and I never have very good luck running AIM behind the myriad of different firewalls. Enter Meebo.
Meebo is different from other messaging apps because it’s completely web-based. Simply login to Meebo.com and a web-based instant-messenger appears that you can then pop out of the window to behave just like any other messaging client. And, if you have multiple IM accounts, you can sign up for a Meebo account (free) and then login to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, and Google Talk all at the same time! This concept isn’t new, but the way Meebo has allowed anyone to login to their favorite messaging client (or all of them) form anywhere in the world with an internet connection is just brilliant!
Oh, and I almost forgot! If you’re worried about security, or your company’s local IT guy spying on your conversations, simply login to https://www.meebo.com (the extra ’s’ stands for “secure”) and you’ll be connected to a secure version of the client which keeps your conversation on the Meebo server instead of yours. Simply brilliant!
As Adobe announced its new lineup of CS3 flavors, I couldn’t help but feel a little confused. The myriad of options reminded me too much of the dozens of flavors of Vista that Microsoft came out with recently. I’m all about choices for consumers… but there’s a point when too many choices just breeds confusion. So since Microsoft and Adobe seem to have adopted the same business model, I figured why not join together and combine Vista with CS3 – offering consumers 4,232 configurations of vista flavors and CS3 versions.
But straw that tipped the scales in my little theory was my attempt to use Adobe Acrobat Professional during work today. After a lengthy boot time, I was prompted (again) to update the software which had accumulated 4 updates from the last time I had used it… yesterday. It was then that it hit me how bloated and heavy Adobe Acrobat was. Similar to many Microsoft products, the software started out great – useful, fast, innovative, small – but then grew in features and menus and widgets to scare any normal user.
So with both companies offering too many product options to count and both companies offering about a dozen updates a week… their combination would be a match made in heaven, wouldn’t it?
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but yesterday President-elect Barack Obama asked Congress to postpone the federally mandated switch to all-digital broadcast television, called DTV, scheduled to take place Feb. 17. People with cable, satellite or phone company TV services will continue to receive broadcast stations. But those who rely on antennas must have either a newer TV with a digital receiver or get a converter box. To offset the expense, the federal government allocated $1.5 billion to provide households with up to two $40 coupons. But Monday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said the program had used all allocated funds. The agency has a waiting list of about 1.1 million requests which means:
My friend just introduced me the my new favorite messaging app – 
