02 May 2009

Jack Kemp has died

Jack Kemp has died

More from AP

More from National Review:

Jack Kemp, R.I.P.   [Rick Brookhiser]

Was there ever a man of such high spirits as Jack Kemp? Reagan was sunny; Kemp was a perpetual solar flare. He had an athlete's energy and an optimist's expectation that all would come out well. He also felt the respect for learning that only those who come to it late and under their own steam have. Ideas, he believed, really could save the world. Some of his ideas were half-baked—he put far too much credit in his friend Jude Wanniski—and his timing was bad. He offered himself in 1988 as Reagan's heir, but he was crushed between George H.W. Bush, who as Veep was the heir of record, and Pat Robertson, the GOP's Jesse Jackson, the cleric who wanted the White House because of who he was, not because of anything he had done. In Right Time, Right Place I tell the story of how John O'Sullivan and I went to DC to urge Jack to challenge President Bush for the nomination in 1992, but he had just been kicked in the head three years earlier, and had no desire to risk another drubbing. Bob Dole's picking Kemp as his runningmate in 1996 shocked everyone; his career had seemed over. He had a bad debate with Al Gore (Wanniski gave him terrible advice beforehand, which he followed). He was a great friend of National Review, and there was nothing more exhilirating than Jack at full speed: a combination of riding a great horse, and a roller coaster. RIP.

Proof in the graph, concensus to follow soon.

Shock: Global temperatures driven by US Postal Charges

The rise in global temperatures since 1880 closely correlates with increases in postal charges, sparking alarm that CO2 has been usurped as the main driver of climate change.

Graph here

Seen first at Mises Blog.

Amy Alkon has best SCOTUS comment this week

What Color Is Your Legal Ability?
I was disgusted by talk I heard on CNN and elsewhere by people who say President Obama should appoint a "person of color" or a woman to the Supreme Court. Shockingly, I think he should appoint the best legal mind for the job, and look for that person in a totally color-blind and vagina-blind way.
Discussion at the link

Interesting development on the DUI front

MN Supreme Court Backs Reasoned Requests For Breathalyzer Source Code

viralMeme writes with news that the Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld the right of drunk-driving defendants to request the source code for the breathalyzer machines used as evidence against them, but only when the defendant provides sufficient arguments to suggest that a review of the code may have an impact on the case. In short: no fishing expeditions.

Click the title for the whole story and discussion


Someone finally wrote a good article on 'torture'

Sorry, creepy bugs do not make it to the level of torture for me either.

I really liked this one:

As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came "walling." This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his "head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash." 


People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, "walling" may be the world's first method of "torture" in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price. 


As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn't cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a "loud noise": "(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise." (!!!) 
Nina Hartley gives a great, but NOT SAFE FOR WORK demonstration of woman-on-woman walling in the free video at this link.  (adult content)

nina hartley and a girl trying bondage brought to you by Tube8



The Chrysler bankruptcy


Update: Arguably the most interesting dimension to the story is the way the Obama White House is openly working the P.R. ropes against foot-draggers in this process.
Lots of good links in the article too.

The National Review notes: Oppenheimer Funds Didn't Cave

Yesterday, Obama said, “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities,” and not “those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices.” Does that mean he doesn't stand with the thousands of Americans who have retirement plans withOppenheimer Funds?

And Suki reminds me that I need to change a book detail.  Her Jeep is a 2023 Wrangler and I am quoted by her saying it is a collector's item from the last year of Nazi rule over that brand.  Need some different phrasing.  Mentioned in the Hit & Run discussion above too.

'May Day' was yesterday. Oh Joy!

Europe celebrates May Day with riots.

Copyright Update

Uploaded and paid for Copyright registration on 4/26/2009 for Suki I.
Still pending.

Gogs

I extended the concept of Bluetooth ear buds to adding visual along with data input and manipulation and called the system "gogs", short for goggles.

After having the book almost finished I found The Sixth Sense Project, while researching language & culture technology at my regular job.

'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
Same idea, just more advanced and compact two decades from now.  Users do tend to get immersed in their own little world of sight and sound, paying even less attention to what is going on around them than they do now.

The devices have a high processing and storage capacity.

Live video chat is not used much, since most people under the age of 35 are wearing their main communication device on their face.  People a bit older still tend to use "ancient" or "fossil" wireless phones and they tend to use video chat and text.

All of the devices can be "anonymous", but information collected as the device is in proximity of other devices quickly sets up targeted advertising unless the user takes the trouble to block ads.

The US government is prohibited from analyzing user data unless it is paid for on a government issued credit card, i.e., "stimulus card".

The Mesh and Knowledge Net

In Suki I, set in the early 2030s, I mention "The Mesh" and "Knowledge Net", aka K-Net.

Mesh is the name of the communications system that Knowledge Net typically uses.  It is a logical extension of WiMAX (props to catMoze for this Hit & Run comment).  Essentially, network connectivity equipment has gotten so inexpensive and K-Net so useful and critical, that almost anything that runs on electricity is Mesh capable.  Similar to how so many appliances since the 1980s included a digital clock.

It is difficult to get out of Mesh range, but it is not impossible.  Some remote ocean and desert locations only have access when certain public satellites are in view of the network device.

This situation does lend to some extremes in human behavior that are explored in Suki I and I plan to use more in the rest of the series.

Suki, you can stop picking on me now.

I finally found some time to post to the blog, after being nagged into it.  Suki, Amy does not recommend nagging, she recommends encouraging!

For my first few posts I am going to cover the technology I wrote about in Suki I and is not yet on the introduction page.

Hopefully, Suki is picking out quotes and other items, by chapter, to been used on the soon-to-come "Chapter by Chapter" page.

-- John

27 April 2009

Joe Biden Says the President Apologized to Him, for Biden's Gaffes

Joe Biden Says the President Apologized to Him, for Biden's Gaffes

I really do not need to expand on this do I?

Mises Article Rocks the Boat

Pesky Pirates

Mr Armstrong catches it right here: If the owners and operators of these vessels believe that they can get a government (thus taxpayers) to foot the bill for protecting their private interests, they have little incentive to solve the problem themselves.

Seems Mises has the right answer, as usual.

26 April 2009

These are the HOTTEST boots!



YUM!

Welcome to my First Post!

Hello everybody!  Thank you for visiting.

Let's see how well this works.

John and I have been working on a map for Suki I:


View Suki's World in Suki I in a larger map



Looked like it worked in preview. Had some trouble with it over at Google. Kept opening zoomed in too close and I had to click the "-" button a lot just to get an image.

The map has just about every location mentioned in the book and some that are only mentioned, for now, in the character bios at SukiSite.

Added the blogs of people mentioned in the book, should appear in my profile.

Publishing Update: John submitted the manuscript for Copyright Registration today. He already has an ISBN block and will be publishing on Amazon Kindle. It will also be available in PDF and XPS formats for non-Kindle users. Price for the over 600 page book (paperback form factor, electronic) should be around $6.69 in all three formats. No final decision yet on where to distribute non-Kindle.

The SukiSite pages are being updated and cleaned up. Should be reposted soon.

Thank you everybody from the following countries who have visited the website (listed on order of frequency):

1. United States
2. Sweden
3. Canada
4. Brazil
5. Austria
6. Ireland