Category: General

I have been a long time gangster fan. Not the wannabe gangsta thugs running around today but the real 1920’s and 30’s gangsters who invented and funded the original US crime syndicate before getting booted out of it. I was excited about seeing the movie Public Enemies because I heard it was historically accurate and I liked the idea of Johnny Depp as Dillinger.

Depp didn’t let me down in his role but as far as historical accuracy this movie could not have been any worse. From the opening scenes where Dillinger helps break his new gang out of the Indiana Penitentiary it’s all wrong. Dillinger was never present at the break out even though he did help arrange for the weapons to be smuggled in.

The scene introducing Agent Melvin Purvis was about as far off as it could be too. It’s said Purvis never fired his gun in the line of duty even though he was a crack shot. Despite this information he shoots and kills Pretty Boy Floyd at the beginning of the film. Charles Floyd was actually killed in October of 1934 almost four months after Dillinger. Three different accounts exist of how he was killed but none agree it was in an apple orchard.

The film also shows Baby Face Nelson getting killed during a chase following the gunfight at the Little Bohemia hide out which occurred in April 1934. Lester Gillis, AKA George Nelson, was actually the last of the notorious three killed in November of 1934. Purvis didn’t shoot him either. In fact, he wasn’t even there.

I can only guess these changes were made to glorify Melvin Purvis and compress the demise of these criminals into a time line suitable for a feature length film while interconnecting their associations and deaths. It made for an OK movie. It would have been a better movie if they had actually vilified Dillinger and Nelson through portrayals of heavy violence. Instead they concentrated far too much of the film on the romance of Dillinger almost to the point of making Melvin Purvis and the Bureau of Investigation looking like a bunch of buffoons getting lucky.

My smart phone doesn’t make me feel very smart.  I don’t like the constant chirp alerting me to new email.  I don’t like the inconvenience of a touch screen keypad when responding to in-call key prompts.  I don’t text, ever, and I don’t like responding to emails requiring lengthy explanations on a 4″ QWERTY keyboard.  I feel bad for allowing myself to become so mentally dependent on a device.

I really want a phone that has good battery life, doesn’t require a slide and 10 taps to dial and makes noise only when it’s suppose to.  Like when a call is coming in.  The problem is I’m an IT Director.   I’m suppose to be “geeked out” with this hi-tech stuff.  The owner and CFO of the company carry smart phones, an iPhone and a HTC Tilt 2 like mine.  Wonderful.  Now we can all struggle to communicate at once.

Does anyone care if I update Facebook or Twitter announcing what restaurant I’m in?  Is it critical I take pics of my kids with a poor resolution camera to upload immediately (I don’t do that anyway)?   And how has it gotten to the point where I feel obligated to pick up my phone and check an incoming email whenever I’m driving the car.  Which is really cool since it’s illegal now.

Truth is I want a phone to be something unique in the modern world of technology – a phone.   Because of corporate image and communication expectations I will carry this convoluted gadget around so all the high school kids will think I’m important because I’m a really connected guy.  You know, hangin’ out, texin’ whanot…..

It’s just after 10 AM on April 19th.  A date near the top of the Dept. of Homeland Security’s domestic terrorist watch list.  Will we make it through the day without a major, newsworthy event spawned by anti-authority activism?

• In 1995 Tim McVeigh blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people including children in the buildings day care.
• In 1993 the Branch Dividians burned themselves up, and took the lives of 20 children, ending a standoff against federal agents.
• In 1992 Randy Weaver gave newspaper reporters an interview to state that he had not fired on Geraldo Rivera’s helicopter flying over his Ruby Ridge cabin, then surrounded by federal authorities who later killed his dog and 14 year old son.  The helicopter pilot himself, Richard Weiss, gave the FBI FD-302 interviews denying that Weaver fired on his helicopter.   Rivera’s false media reports of coming under fire became a large part of the justification later cited by federal agents when drawing up the Ruby Ridge Rules of Engagement, a major event spawning anti-federal activism.
• In 1775 Minutemen in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts stood their ground against tax collectors sent by the King of England and the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired.  Although Minuteman Captain John Parker orders the colonists not to fire unless fired upon to this day it’s not clear who shot first.  Modern day anti-federal activists use the anniversary of this event to represent justification for resistance to what is perceived as unjust government authority.

Let’s see what the rest of today brings.  Whatever the wingnuts do, let’s hope they keep the kids out of it next time.

“Ask yourself this, when was the last time you thought seriously about a problem this country has (political, economic, health care, taxes etc) and found yourself changing your mind because you discovered some new fact you previously did not know or you arrived at a different understanding. If you can’t remember the last time this happened, then you are part of  America’s problem. Strict ideology has no place in a well run nation and that includes strict adherence to our constitution, a document that was written hundreds of years ago when society had no cars, planes, TV, internet, railroads, or anything else that makes up our modern world. Not to mention the fact that it permitted slavery and did not permit women or blacks to vote.” – Guest @ cnn.com

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/14/tea.party.rally/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

There are so many reasons Blackberry’s suck that it’s not even worth the effort to generate a yet another list on the interwebs. You can just Google “blackberry sucks” and you’ll see what I mean. Their parent company, Research In Motion or RIM, has been responsible for more data service outages to the phones than any Exchange server administrator would be allowed while keeping his job.

RIM puts obscure middleware servers between the phones and mail servers, called Blackberry Enterprise Servers, which connect to the RIM network.  The polling process by these systems put a lot of overhead on the Exchange server(s). Meanwhile the users are stuck with God awful handsets with unintuitive user interfaces, evil scroll wheels, lack of quality document support for Word and Excel, and very few units support 3G which doesn’t matter because the browser makes the surfing experience pathetic anyway.

The Blackberry brand will fail for RIM very soon without drastic changes. Compared to other smart phones they just don’t match up. Most younger consumers who are in “touch” with technology realize the limitations and clumsy interfaces of the Blackberry OS and laugh at it. Meanwhile I can tell you from direct corporate experience the only people who continue to want them anymore are old men. To define old I mean the 55+ crowd. They don’t know any better, they’re scared to be misinterpreted as hip or cool with a modern touch screen smart phone when their fellow executives (also old men) whip a Blackberry out of their golf bags with strong, conservative business pride.

That’s why I now call Blackberry’s “hearing aids”. They’re for old men who think that an iPhone’s and Droids are just toys for teenagers who want to watch Hulu videos all day. The blackberry will go the way of the aging members of its support base.  And just like the hyper-conservatives who carry them Blackberry won’t make a comeback because anal-retentive is not something that’s going to come back into style for at least a few decades.

It looks like many mobile versions of facebook and google gadgets that depend on the mobile interface are broken today thanks to new code introduced by facebook.

I really think that in terms of user interface changes, consistency and reliability facebook is one of the absolute worst web 2.0 site in development. It’s like they constantly fix what isn’t broken just to keep people employed.

I have been getting up with Logan between 4:30 and 5:30 AM every single day for a month. No sleeping in, at all, under any circumstances. I have even been very late to work on a few occasions because I must lay back down after Amy leaves to take the Connor to school in the morning. I have no choice, my stomach is in turmoil sometimes. Crohn’s disease and 5 hours of sleep do not go well together. What’s that you say? Go to bed earlier?

Well, Logan and Connor generally both go to sleep between 8:30 and 9 PM but Amy would like for me to stay up so she can have someone to talk to until 10:30 or 11:00 at night. Which is just fine if you get to sleep as late as 6:00 AM or if you get to lay down and take naps during the day if you’re exhausted beyond the point of being able to count to 10. But I have no such luxury. My body has now learned to wake up after approximately 4-5 hours of sleep. I hear stories on the radio where folks are complaining they don’t get 8 hours of “uninterrupted” sleep. Well boo f*#!ing hoo. I haven’t had 8 hours of “uninterrupted” sleep in probably 6 to 8 years. I’m certain I cannot sleep that long under perfect circumstances with medication.

Sleep is over rated until the drive home on I-540 at about 6 PM. This is where I will die and we all need to hope I don’t take someone with me. I have come very, very close to falling asleep at the wheel during my 45 minute commute.

But I’ve just got to deal with it. Can’t go to bed early and no way under any circumstances I’m I going to get to sleep late. Even when Logan wants Mommy in the morning instead of me, I’m up…changing pull-ups, making milk, and finding the right episode of Special Agent OSO or Mickey Mouse for Logan.

This morning I went upstairs and tried to lay back down at about 5:15. A few minutes later I heard Logan walking around downstairs calling “mommy…mommy…I need you to change me…”. I waited a few minutes. Finally I went downstairs to change the pull-up. Meanwhile Amy’s sawing logs.  I heard Logan all the way upstairs.  Amy didn’t hear him in the hallway outside our bedroom.

Amy has hard mornings. By hard I mean she does not agree with the beginning of the day. She can sleep through a hurricane and once she’s up you’ll wish she had. Sometimes it’s bordering on evil. In fact I’m not sure I want her getting up at 4:30 AM with Logan because I don’t think she would be able to deal with the fact that he’s up, not going back to sleep but up for the day.

Meanwhile I will just focus on making the evening commute without taking anyone else out in my Tundra.

My third son, Zachary Taylor, was born on January 14th at 8:08 PM weighing 8 lbs. 1 oz.   Since everyone asks… no he wasn’t intentionally named after our 13th President.  All three of our boys were born at the Rex Birth Center in Raleigh.  Below are pictures of each just about five minutes after they were born.    Zachary has been the quietest baby of all three.  He better learn how to get loud fast if he’s going to keep up with Connor and Logan.  He’ll always be our baby.

Zach was the only one Amy had without an epidural or any pain killers at all.  He came too fast.  We arrived at the hospital at 7 PM and he was here one hour later.  They nurse hardly had time to get an IV started.  We have a lot more pictures on facebook.

Within the next decade scientists believe they may find planets with atmospheres capable of sustaining life as “close” as 63 light years away.  So just exactly how far is a light year?  Pretty damn far.  Here’s the math:

5,000 years ago the Myans (and Egyptians) determined the earth completes one orbit around the sun (1 year) in 365 days 5 hrs. 48 min. and 46 seconds.
365x24x60x60=31536000
5x60x60 = 18000
48×60 = 2880
46 = 46
_____________

That’s 31,556,926 seconds in one Julian calendar year.

Light travels 186,000 miles per second.  So an interstellar body one light year away is about 5,869,588,236,000 miles away. That’s five trillion, eight hundred sixty-nine billion, five hundred eighty-eight million, two hundred thirty-six thousand.  Give or take a city block or two.

The fastest speed that can be reached by a space shuttle is 17,500 miles per hour.  At this speed it would take slightly over 38,263 earth years to travel one light year into space.   Or if someone wants to make the trip in six earth years we will need a ship that travels 111,600,000 miles per hour.  Consider that nuclear fission occurs at about 7% of the speed of light that’s much faster than our greatest source of power will ever achieve.  Of course this is all based on perspective because traveling in a space craft at these speeds would slow time compared to a stationary object on earth.  You know, that pesky relativity formula Einstein discovered.

While science fiction is cool, it’s just that….fiction.  Man will never travel 63 light years from earth in our current form.  All the more reason digital and electronic storage technologies will continue to progress as a part of human evolution.  Once the human psyche can be “digitized”, as in dumped on to a hard drive, we will not only be immortal but we may be able to travel in forms that could one day take us to these planets capable of “sustaining life”.  So in all probability the mere act of searching for such biologically hospitable planets or moons is pointless in terms of travel.  By the time we achieve a way to get there we will not even need a environment capable of sustaining life in biological form.  However such environments could sustain other life forms….. which have very little probability of ever meeting us.

So if there is other intelligent life out there it can’t get to us unless it (they) know how to fold space and time.  As depicted in the movie Dune they would need to be able to “travel throughout the universe without moving”.

This chart by Columbia University Statistician Andrew Geldman pretty much sums it up.  When the Congressional and Administrative idiots in Washington look at a chart like this and think that nothing more than a mandate for all Americans to buy into an already broken and overpriced system it’s beyond ignorant and partisan.  It’s practically criminal.  And once Obama signs this catastrophic mandate into law any remaining support I have for him is over.  That’s $7681 per person, per year folks – sick or not.  It’s embarrassing.  All of the corporatist ass-clowns supporting the insurance and health care provider profits are an embarrassment to the nation.  We should be insuring peoples health, not profits to shareholders.