armchairinventors.com

Iron Man reminds me of the man/machine concepts of the Robocop movies except the vulgarity and gore are substituted with comedy and the usual Marvel characteristics.  Great work from Robert Downey Jr.

Aside from casting Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, this movie conveys the reasons the US provided military aid to Afghanistan. Perhaps the main reasons was to defeat our cold-war enemy but the movie purports that Charlie Wilson cared about the people being slaughtered by the evil Soviet Union.

Neat idea. Instead of charging people $2/min to talk dirty on the phone, charge for services of professionals instead. $5 for an email reply from an expert in a given field. Looks like they’re off to a good start:

Liveperson.Com

Reminds me a bit of Prosper.com

My clicker finger is getting tired. This may be just what it needs: dontclick.it

Then we just need to abolish capitalization so my left pinky can have a rest too.

Cholesteric LCD panels and flexible OLEDs… I can’t wait.

Apparently PDT (the PHP IDE) can be used with Aptana, which is a great IDE for JavaScript and HTML.

I haven’t researched the exact steps to integrate the two yet but did find this post.  I need to get back to this topic soon and move this article off the blog and onto the wiki.

Here is code which shows how to add and remove HTML elements dynamically with JavaScript.  My only complaint is that is that the one comment in the code and the paragraphs surrounding it made it very difficult for me (as a noob) to learn exactly what the code was doing.  there are no comments.  My college professors would have been horrified; perhaps career programmers don’t really use comments?

Serversideguy has an excellent post dissecting the AJAX code behind Google Suggest here.  Need to read through this some day.  The code, specifically, can be found here.

The Optimus Maximus keyboard is the first application of organic LEDs (OLEDs) to catch my attention. It’s not worth $462 in my opinion but it is exciting to see the technology evolving.

Whatever you call them, they’re here… Living content.

After trying out all the web-server-installable XML aggregators I found NewsGator/FeedDemon to be the best solution for me at this time. Local, offline reading with FeedDemon synchronized with the similar NewsGator web service. A users “clippings,” which are similar to favorites, can be shared. Feeds themselves can not be shared. For this functionality, visit Bloglines, where you can also publish a blog and easily add content from XML feeds into it.

Here is a link to all of my clippings. Unfortunately, category data is not provided with that link, which means you will see the “terrible world news” articles alongside the “cool new technology” and “humor” articles.  I’ll link each category individually in the future.

Scott A. Masters stole a donut and allegedly pushed a lady out of his way when she tried to stop him from fleeing the crime scene.  Now he faces up to life in prison.  More details here, definitely a story to follow.

Should he be punished? Yes. Is it wrong to push someone? Yes. Should he spend years in prison for it?  I don’t think so.

SOAP.  Will it catch on?

I’ve been promoting the GroceryGame since starting to use it about a year ago. Most people don’t want to take the time to learn how to collect, organize, and shop with coupons. It’s a shame since it does not take much time at all. I think most individuals have images of spending hours clipping and flipping through fliers. The truth is that it takes only five to ten minutes a week after some practice. Couple that with a $50 weekly savings and I say it’s worth the effort.

But there’s more…

Restaurant.com looks like another great money-saving website. Consumers can purchase gift certificates for half the value of the certificate. I’ll be trying this one in the future!

Does anyone have the privilege of living a life where they do not year sentences that start that way on a daily basis? Should we care about what our country spends money on? Sure. Should we personalize the issue, identify and associate ourselves with that money, obsess about the government stealing our money, and get worked up each time we hear that the government spent a billion dollars? I don’t think so.

No matter how differently the rich are treated with our tax system, and regardless of if you believe they should or should not be treated that way, there is one undeniable truth. As a group, the ‘filthy rich’ pay most of the taxes for this country. The following fable does a great job reminding us how the system works. There are several serious problems with the illustration and I posted a few forum discussions below it to start referencing them. At times this story is passed around with phrases like “and that’s why we need tax cuts for the rich” attached to it. Please note that I do not support specific tax policy changes based on this fable. I know only enough about economics to be dangerous and I won’t begin to guess as to what the “best” tax policy for “the country” is.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all comes to $100.If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing like they do now with the present income tax structure.
The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59 of the bill.

So that is what the ten men decide to do.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you all are such good customers I am going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20”. Dinner for the 10 men now costs just $80…
The group still wanted to pay the bill the same way that they paid their taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men — the Paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everybody would get his “Fair Share”?
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal…So, the restaurant owner suggested it would be fair to reduce each mans bill roughly the same amount; and proceeded to work out the amounts each man would pay.
The fifth, like the first four now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings)

The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings)

The eight man now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings)

The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings)

The tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings)
Each of the six was better off then before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings…
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10”…“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. Its unfair that he got ten times more than me!?”“That’s true”, shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploit’s the poor!”The nine men surrounded the tenth man and beat him up…
The next night the Tenth man did not show up for dinner, so the Nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half the bill!

Find discussions about this story here, here, and here.

During the Leading High Performance Teams seminar which I took through SAE, the instructor mentioned that airline pilots and long-haul truckers were found to have the highest job satisfaction. I’m not sure how long ago this study was performed but with diesel over $4 a gallon I have heard that truckers aren’t very satisfied. I found a single reference to the study after ten minutes of Googling. More recent studies

From a USAToday.com article:

A survey released in February by the Conference Board said that job satisfaction has declined during the past nine years. Yet 17% of those making less than $15,000 a year say they are very satisfied with their jobs, vs. 14% of those who make more than $50,000 a year.

This page references a missing WSJ article that found, in 2006, that these were the careers with the highest job satisfaction in the US:

• Curriculum and instructional coordinators
• High school special-education teachers
• Hospital and clinic managers
• Management consultants and analysts
• Medical researchers
• Physical therapists
• Sales, marketing, and advertising managers
• Social workers, counselors, and related managers

Compared to a 2005 survey in the UK which found the following to be the “five happiest professions:”

• Hairdressers
• Clergy
• Chefs/Cooks
• Beauticians
• Plumbers

I would be surprised to find airline pilots or long-haul truckers grouped with the rest of these careers. That being said, I’m no statistician but I do realize there are always issues with surveys. I hesitated to post them since I think too much emphasis is placed on survey results to begin with.

On an individual level I think job satisfaction comes down to, among other things, which way your ‘demand-curve’ bends- some people would like to work less after getting a raise, others would want to work more. This brings me to the following story:

The Banker and the Fisherman

An American businessman was at the pier of a tiny coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican (I think his name was JUAN !) on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said that he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my
children, take a siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each
evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a
full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should
spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would increase your profits and sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this tiny coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then to LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

The American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is
right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public
and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a tiny coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the
evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

I think EEG computer control holds quite a bit of promise.  I need to get around to working with the OpenEEG project some day.

Here is a good article discussing all the major changes in Web 2.0.  We know most of them to begin with but this summarizes them nicely.  The first page contains a nice chart which shows what the internet has become.

It is impressive just to watch skill like this.  There is a second video on YouTube as well and facts about it can be found on the artist’s web site.

I was tempted not to put the words “global warming” in the title because even I find myself ignoring anything with such words in them- in fact, I was fooled into watching this video.

That being said, I think everyone should watch at least a few minutes of this video. It isn’t your usual pro or anti global warming propaganda. It doesn’t teach you anything you don’t already know, it just helps you look at global warming from a risk-management perspective.

June 30, 2008- that’s the date Microsoft has set to stop making new license available for Windows XP. Downgrades, if you want to call them that, will be available. Start stock piling XP licenses today!

There is a Save Windows XP petition which has over 75,000 signatures on it over at Infoworld. I don’t have high hopes that it will change Microsoft’s mind but hey, it only took a minute to sign.

Anytime I purchase a computer from a major manufacturer, my first step is to remove the bundled software. Since the vanishing of included OEM CDs, more and more bundled software has been included on the manufacturer’s “reinstallation” discs. In case you haven’t heard of it, nLite is a wonderful tool that helps remove such software from reinstallation CDs (it doesn’t look like they support Vista quite yet).

Why should I be jumping through hoops to remove bundled software from fresh OS installations in the first place?

I commend Sony for offering “Fresh Start” PCs without bundled software on them. The only problem is they decided to charge $50 for this service. This reminds me of phone companies charging customers to NOT print their information in phone books. Perhaps there was a bigger demand to be omitted than there would have been to be included if it was an opt-in service.

Back to Sony… Apparently enough of a stink was raised that they decided to drop the fee. Hurray.

Why should you buy a $300 power cable for you stereo equipment? Virtual Dynamics says it best themselves on their Power 3 product page:

“A growing trend in the audio industry is to price products outrageously high and then see what happens. Prestige established through price.”

“Consider the following; if I take a bottle of wine and charge $10,000 for it, will that make the wine taste any better?”

Where is the fancy graphic showing the “five dielectric layers?” Perhaps this Gizmodo article will shed some light on the subject.

I would love to see a blind experiment in which the “audiophile” in question must determine if the $300 power cable is connected by listening to music.

What is obvious to me from all of this is that it makes complete sense for some companies to focus more on marketing than on quality. I would hope that the internet is changing all of this but with websites that look as good as Virtual Dynamics, I have to wonder if it has simply made things worse.

Almost as fun as Sparta…

I love this cat…

With NewsGator releasing FeedDemon for use free of charge (I looked long and hard for a “buy” button or the word “trial” before downloading), I think RSS is finally well on its way onto most computer desktops.

With blogging being as popular as it is to start with, RSS only makes sense. It sholdn’t take too much longer for the various PHP forums to get on bored (there are plug-ins available for some). I imagine it will be some time before many websites start offering entire articles through their RSS feeds. I understand they just want us to visit the site but having content come to me makes much more sense; send the advertisements along with it, I don’t care!

I spent several days toying with the various PHP and Python RSS feed aggregators available for installation on web servers and found Gregarius and rNews to be the best.

ReadWriteWeb criticized Apple for adding an option to install the Safari web browser to iTunes updates, with the option to install selected by default (opt-out).

Personally, I won’t go near iTunes with a 10-foot pole. I lost respect for Apple as a company over their decision to market the iPod with batteries that must be replaced at the factory. The horror stories I’ve heard about iTurnes…. have little to do with this blog post.

I think an opt-out software installation is basically shoving a feature or third-party application down a user’s throat.

Apple may not be as sneaky as some other companies but we all know that Safari is going to be inadvertently installed on many PCs because of the decision to use an opt-out installation option.

After seeing users who know little about computers end up with so many toolbars installed in their browser that the toolbars take up over 50% of the window and have twenty or so system tray applications running at boot-up, I am against any opt-out installations. Sure, these users would have installed some of these applications regardless (what newbie could resist the cute, useful, life-saving Weatherbug?), but why make it worse?

We do not need more PC formatting taking place in this world. Perhaps if we start measuring the carbon offset produced by formatting PCs we can end up having the practice of opt-out installations frowned upon by the mainstream media. Steve Jobs, aren’t you thinking about our kids?

Many of us have become loyal Firefox users over the last decade. I never feel quite right using IE now days and even find myself adapting to pages that will not load properly in Firefox (can we say Outlook WebMail) instead of using IE. Something about IE’s tabs doesn’t look right to me- maybe it’s the fact that the X icon (to close the tab) disappears when the tab isn’t active. But that’s not what keeps me using Firefox.

Aside from the fact that Firefox is not written by the same company that has released an instant messenger that takes upwards of five minutes to install, the plethora of add-ons available are what keep me coming back for more Mozilla.

The popular ones end up being ported to IE but the new ones are always available to Firefox first.

Those that I can not do without (some of which are available for IE) are:

IE Tab allows Firefox users to use IEs rendering engine to display pages that are problematic to FF.

Firebug is indispensable for web development. It is akin to adding a debugger for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and more.

Web Developer is useful for web programming and design. A good compliment to Firebug.

Cooliris Previews allows users to see a pop-up of a webpage or image before navigating away from their current page. Many pages are building similar behavior in and Vista has integrated a similar feature into the new desktop. It took me a while to get accustomed to but now I find it a very useful tool.

StumbleUpon is a fun add-on that is great for finding content in a general area. Social networking is a part of the package and users can easily share their favorite sites with others.

Answers is a great reference tool.

Semantic applications look intriguing and promising for the future. While researching Semantic Web Applications I came across BlueOrganizer at the ReadWriteWeb blog. After taking a closer look I realized BlueOrganizer would be storing my surfing information on Amazon.com’s servers. Bah- marketing. When consumers start writing applications like this, for consumers, we will have some useful software on our hands. StumbleUpon is a good start.

I started to think of semantic-based search-engines might look like in the future and babbled a bit here.

Penni Crabtree, a Staff Writer at the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote a piece discussing the suspected fraudulent kitty-trading behavior that Simon Brodie and his Delaware-based company, LifeStyle Pets, may be involved with. What I find shocking about this is that Yahoo is featuring an article an article written by CNNMoney.com Staff Writer Jessica Dickler which announced the Ashera as a new “designer cat.”

Chris Shirk claims a cat sold as a Ashera to a Dutch couple is actually a Savannah F1 bred by Cutting Edge Cats. He states he recognized the Savannah F1 in a photographs he saw in De Telegraaf and has photographs and documentation of his own that proves the cat is not a Ashera.

The cats are beautiful, none the less, but apparently Savannah F1s are sold for about a quarter of what Brodie has been selling Asheras for. As of Feb 5, 2008, the Netherlands General Inspectorate was investigating if the cat trade violated an international treaty.

The case itself interested me enough that I may have blogged about it alone. The fact that Yahoo is running a story which identifies these cats as the next “designer pet” is what amazes me- it’s right there on their home page! The CNNMoney article is not dated so it is difficult to determine if the article was written after Feb 5. It would be nice if the media realized the importance of dating articles on the web by now but apparently the importance of doing so has continued to evade people.

Following-up on what happens to Simon Brodie is not a goal of mine.

(photo: Keith Marshall)

One thing I do not look forward to is eating dry chicken for dinner. Baked, broiled or fried chicken usually tasted rather dry to me. The Ronco rotisserie oven has changed that- no kitchen should be without one.

It does a so-so job on some foods but chickens turn out absolutely amazing. There’s no need for a fancy model, the ST3001 works great. The unit is nothing more than a toaster oven with a motorized gear that turns a skewer. A 5 lb chicken cooks in approximately one hour.

The ST3001 is available on eBay for $80. I picked mine up on sale at Meijers for $60. It is well worth twice that price.

The Ronco chickens still don’t taste quite as good as Boston Market’s. I tested out a oil/honey/lime juice/paprika basting sauce that was supposed to leave me with a chicken similar flavor but instead I ended up with a chicken covered in a black, burnt-honey substance.

(photo: Fortinbras)

Banquet Dessert Bakes can still be purchased from Bruno’s Supermarket in PA. I’m not sure how long they’re good for but these are among the last of them. I loved these things but am probably better off without them since they contain high fructose corn syrup.  It’s so tempting to order one… case.  For now I will resist.

Most Americans are familiar with Liebeck v. McDonald’s, or the “McDonald’s Coffee Case.” It is a common topic anytime frivolous lawsuits and disclaimers are discussed.

I’ve been irked at how many people have their fundamental facts wrong.

There are lottery lawsuits against corporations that are ridiculous and then there are justified lawsuits that are understandable. How anyone can place the McDonald’s Coffee Case in the former category is beyond me.

I’d like to first set the record straight:

Liebeck was the passenger in a stopped car when she removed the lid to her coffee. Liebeck suffered third-degree burns over six percent of her body from spilling the coffee in her lap. She underwent skin grafting and debridement treatments and was hospitalized for eight days. Liebeck initially asked McDonald’s to cover her medical expenses, a mere $20k- McDonald’s refused.

McDonald’s franchises kept their coffee at 180 to 190 °F prior to the coffee case. McDonald’s knew of over 700 burns from their coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some of these burns were third degree, similar to Liebecks.

You can read more facts here. In the end this case was about a company’s disregard for the safety of its customers.

After a few of my co-workers measured the temperature of coffee in our office to be 170 °F I almost agreed with them that McDonald’s should not have been responsible to pay medical bills for Liebeck. My stance has not changed, however. Liebeck’s coffee was 10 - 20 °F warmer. McDonald’s knew of the dangers. Liebeck did not ask for $20k out of greed.

Fast food beverage cups are often split when lids are removed- I’ve ended up with soda in my lap just from transferring a cup between the drive-thru window and my cup holder. Why would any executive make the decision to keep coffee at such an unnecessarily high temperature knowing that it could very likely end up in someone’s lap through similar drive-thru experiences?

At times I feel that I’m in the minority in thinking that McDonald’s decision to serve coffee so hot was negligent but I am reassured when I remember that the jury of Liebeck v. McDonald’s felt the same way.

(photo: CarbonNYC)

You would think that a company would think twice before claiming their product has the ability to cure or prevent the common cold.  Airborne learned that this was a bad idea the hard way: they’ve now agreed to pay $23.3 M to settle a class action lawsuit brought against the company for false advertising.

I am not familiar with the court case but I do wonder why Airborne was not able to claim that since a placebo has the ability to cure or prevent the common cold that their product most certainly could too.  Perhaps sneaky advertising is best left for non-medical products.

The interesting aspect of this case is that Airborne will be paying up to $63 to each consumer who purchased several Airborne products between May 1, 2001 and November 29, 2007, even if those consumers do not possess a proof of purchase.  Apparently if one fills out this form they will be reimbursed for up to six of the products involved in the class action lawsuit.  Is this a first-come-first-serve deal or could Airborne ultimately pay more than $23.3 M?  Either way, I’m sure the executives at Airborne are hoping American consumers are more ethical than Airborne’s marketing division.

On a side note, I highly recommend using Halls Defense drops during the cold and flu season.  It may be my imagination, it may be a placebo, but I find I get sick less often when I take these Zinc/Vitamin C/Echinacea drops.  I only wish the sugar-free variety included Echinacea.

While writing about children and the internet I took a glance at Perverted Justice’s website to find they busted 27 sexual predators in Detroit, MI last week.

Perverted Justice worked with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office to arrest 27 sexual predators between 3/7/08 and 3/9/08. I’ve found it frustrating to link to articles on Perverted Justice’s website (it looks like they’re using a home-made blog) so here is a small excerpt discussing the Detroit busts:

In the Detroit area, dogged determination was the hallmark of these sexual predators. During a harsh wintry weekend, we saw predators arrive by every type of car imaginable, five came in taxi’s and one predator rode a bike through snowy freezing temperature in the middle of the night… ten miles… to the sting location. One predator even got a flat-tire on the way to the bust house, drove a distance on it before stopping to fix it with the help of a nearby policeman. He told the officer that he was going to meet a friend before continuing straight to the bust house operation.

Good job Perverted Justice. My hat is off to these guys. Their forums consist of a cult-like community but they are effective at what they do.

If you take the time to read about Collin County you’ll probably find yourself as amazed as I am that a prosecutor’s office in the United States of America would refuse to prosecute a large-scale bust which Perverted Justice orchestrated. This is a politically-charged case which involves an assistant district attorney from a neighboring county who was exposed as a child predator himself. It almost seems like fiction but I can’t imagine someone making something this ridiculous up.

We are all too familiar with the dangers that are presented to children on the internet today… A 13 year-old girl is innocently surfing the internet and meets a 40 year-old man who disguises himself as a 13 year-old boy. The two of them become good “friends,” and before long the two are planning to meet up at a local mall.

The problem is that this stereotype is not true. Reuter’s Julie Steenhuysen writes of this reality after interviewing Janis Wolak of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Based on 3,000 telephone interviews with children who use the internet and 600 interviews with law enforcement officers, Wolak found:

- Internet predators claimed they were teenagers in only 5% of the cases studied

- Almost 75% of the children surveyed who had met internet predators did so multiple times

You won’t be surprised if you are familiar with Dateline’s To Catch a Predator or Perverted Justice. Just spend a few minutes reading the chat logs at Perverted Justice- you’ll find that predators graphically share exactly what is on their mind with children, time and time again.

Tonight on Ruth to the Rescue, Detroit Local 4 WDIV News’s consumer advocacy division, Nike’s shoe return policy was put on the spotlight. Apparently if a consumer purchases defective Nike shoes which were manufactured more than two years ago they can not return them. Nike’s shoes expire after two years!

Ruth interviewed Steve Lehto, a Consumer Protection Attorney. Steve works to defend consumers from companies that engage in unethical practices while competing for our dollars.

Most stores allow returns within 30 days of a purchase but for some reason the man featured in Ruth’s segment had difficulties returning the shoes to the store he purchased them from. These details were not discussed in the segment. My guess is the shoes were slightly used. I can understand a store refusing to return them at this point but this does not get Nike off the hook if they were defective when purchased.

If you’re thinking about purchasing Nike shoes you can find the manufacture date on the upper left-hand side of the “tongue tag,” according to internal Nike documents that Ruth to the Rescue obtained.

Maybe this return policy helps keep Nike shoes popular with kids since it certainly isn’t going to make them more popular with adults. Now I have a reason not to wear Nike shoes.

What a story to wake up to. A YouTube video purports to show a a Marine, who recently returned from Iraq, throwing a puppy off a cliff. The end of the Pittsbur