Sep 06

I hope someday, maybe soon, that most of the 18 wheelers rolling down the Interstate will be replaced with airships like this:

image thumb1 Airships… Faster please

Wouldn’t that be nice?  A stream of these things all chained together heading somewhere without tearing up our roads?   Imagine the money we would save by building roads that would last decades?

Will it happen? I’ve no idea.  But anything we can reasonably do to keep trucks off our roads while maintaining our commerce lines of communication would be a huge win.

In the Artic, where there aren’t any roads, they are considering airships for freight movement.

British airship manufacturer Hybrid Air Vehicles has announced a major contract with Canada’s Discovery Air Innovations to build airships capable of lifting as much as 50 tons, delivering freight at one-quarter the cost of other alternatives. Though various militaries have expressed interest in airships, this is HAV’s first commercial contract. The first ship is expected by 2014.

Fingers crossed. I’d love for airships to flourish to the point where I could get an airship RV and cruise America, or the world, without driving.

Jun 03

These tips, from Popular Mechanics, work.   I’ve seen my Expedition get north of 20 using them on longer trips in mountainous areas of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Gas tips…

image thumb Gas  saving tips

Apr 19

image thumb10 Society didn’t crumble

Paterson, NJ laid off 25% of its police force.

And society didn’t crumble.

Legalize drugs, stop sitting around waiting to give people speeding tickets, and put real criminals in jail for a long long time and you don’t need all those coppers.

I suspect, strongly, that the rest of Paterson’s municipal work force could be cut even more without societal crumbling.

Right now I view municipal, county, and state workers as a financial threat that far outweighs any gain they provide. Cut them!

Apr 04

Brian turns 14

Good Ideas Comments Off

image thumb3 Brian turns 14
An earlier edition.

My son Brian turned 14 yesterday.  He spent most of the day working on pistols that folks in our shooting club have him tuning, improving, or just figuring out what is wrong with them.

His knowledge and skill in that area far outweighs his years.

His gifts this year were some funny t-shirts, a polishing wheel and compound (useful for polishing up steel parts after working on them), and an NRA life membership.

HIs goals for his 14th year are to:

  a) not harm any of his fingers  (something that has plagued him the last couple years)

   b) make A class in USPSA shooting

   c) be high junior B or A Class at a major match

This week he, his Grandpa Wayne, and I are taking an epic cross-country tour with the ultimate goal of picking up a 1960 Ford Starliner parts car and trailering it home from North Carolina.  Along the way we will see museums, Nascar shops, the Grand Ole Opry, and tour some of the leading pistol and rifle manufacturers in the country.

He’s a good kid, and I’m lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with him.

Mar 09

image thumb6 Is tough reading good for you?
Try it.

This Productivity 501 column advocates reading stuff you don’t understand:

Sometimes information is so readily available that we don’t really bother to remember or even understand it. We trade the convenience of a Google search for the hard-won knowledge that comes from wrestling with a subject in a struggle for comprehension.

I’m not sure I should really comment on this, as there is very little I read and don’t understand, well except for anything Barack Obama has written in recent years (-:

But, yes, I think this is a decent idea, and I do this from time to time. But it doesn’t always work out.  I once read two books on a hot new software technique (of the day) called Design Patterns.  I finished both and felt I knew LESS about Design Patterns than when I started.

And periodically I dip into Quantum Computing literature. Which I understand in concept but do not really think we will ever sort out to usable form. I know, rumor has it the NSA already figured it out, but trust me… they haven’t.

What is the best approach for reading tough things?  I believe it should be a small percent of your reading, maybe 10%.  And I model it after interval training used in athletics, short bursts of high intensity pay off more than long steady work.  At least in terms of comprehension payoff.

In other words, go forth and stretch your mind. But do it is in small bursts of high intensity.

Feb 25

image thumb43 I’m glad Google noticed and acted

I’ve noticed of late that Google search results were getting less useful. I’d search on something, say “Les Paul”, and I’d find myself going off to worthless websites that have content cribbed from other sites but that have magic keywords that attracted Google.

Fortunately, Google noticed and acted to clean up their search results, an action they claim will affect 1 in 10 of Google searches.

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

And so the SEO war continues…. Google wins a battle here. Time will tell if they can stay ahead of the folks who live to screw things up for others.

Feb 16

image thumb24 Cup 26

Megan, a student at Michigan State, is drinking a cup of coffee a week with someone (anyone), and writing about it.

I randomly selected “Cup 26”. Here, after a visit with H&H automotive repair, she reflects on what she learned:

My neglected, winter-worn car was in dire need of an oil change. I could have had H&H do it, but old habits dies hard. Without second thought, I headed down the road to the franchise service shop I’ve been to at least a dozen times. When I walked up to the counter, the man asked if I’d been in before.

This happens every time. Never has anyone there remembered my name, offered me a ride, or asked about my family. They know me as a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee, not Megan.

That’s when it hit me, the moment Cup 26 made sense. As the characters in Cheers know, it’s nice to have a place where everybody—or at least somebody—knows your name. Especially in today’s increasingly technological world with self-checkout, pay at the pump, online banking, online shopping, email, etc.

Life is faster than ever, but it can also be isolating.

Nice project Megan!   I love the concept. I subscribe to the “never eat alone” concept and regularly break bread with all sorts of folks, just to learn something.

Feb 10

image thumb16 Rats jump ship

5 Senators are not going to run for office again.

It must be NO FUN to cut budgets and not spend other people’s money.  You know, to act like a grownup, all responsible and thrifty…

Good riddance. Don’t le the door hit you on your way out.  I’d LOVE, btw, to squash your pension – like your decades of crazy governance has ruined so many normal folks lives.

I would be DELIGHTED to get rid of all of our Senators. The handful of good aren’t good enough to offset the buckets full of bad.

Feb 09

Thanks Doc!

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image thumb9 Thanks Doc!

We had an odd event last night…

My son’s doctor called around 9:30PM to check and make sure my son was doing okay.

He had gone to the doctor that afternoon with non-stop vomiting, an aching back, and a low-grade fever.   They treated him for food poisoning, but also took some blood and urine to check for kidney infection.

He was doing much better at 9:30, which we le the doc know.

But we thought it was a useful, considerate and rare (these days) touch that our doctor had done.

Thanks doc!

Jan 31

image thumb90 Review: Roku Streaming Video Box

Summary: Super easy to install. Works great. I’m quite impressed.

Longer:

See the summary… I’ve got shows to watch (-:

Oh… okay. On the recommend of Glenn Reynolds I snagged a Roku streaming player from Amazon Prime. It cost about $70 bucks. It arrived in 2 days, shipping free.

I took it home and had it installed to my HD TV in about 2 minutes. I had it on my wireless network in about 3 minutes. And I had it updated and browsing channels in another 5.

It required I get an account at Roku.com, which was easy.

I then hooked it up to my Hulu.com account, my Amazon account, and our Netflix account. Again, super easy and very well thought out.

I sampled some of the HD trailers on each system, and they all look great and are flicker free.

I also added Pandora Radio, and links to Picasa and Flickr for picture viewing.

Then I bought Season 1 of a show I’ve started liking recently for $10 bucks and I’m watching Episode One.

Come on… leave me alone, I’ve got TV to watch (-:

Update:  A couple days later, and I’m still very happy with it.  In fact… my TV hasn’t switched back over to Dish/DVR yet.   I’m sure it will.  I’m very impressed with Amazon Video. It has amazing, flicker / halt free HD programming. Hulu+… well, it works well enough, but I have seen irritating pauses / restarts.  This matches my experience with Hulu+ on computer and iPad.

Jan 11

As I look around the global scene, pretty much every player is screwed up. Us included.

That, to me, smacks of opportunity. If we get OUR act together, we can reassert our global economic dominance, and and reap the benefits that brings. And we can do so when it is hardest for our competitors to respond.  It’s like in a running race, when everybody faces the hill, and the smart runners PASS on the hill. That is where opportunity lies….

Readers of my past posts know I believe we have structure problems, stemming from flawed amendments to our Constitution, that have taken us to this brink of disaster.  And my preference would be to eliminate those amendments (16th, 17th) and clarify others (14th). 

But that will take time, and given the political gerrymandering, may not even be doable.

So what should we do, short of Constitutional solutions?

  • Simplify and broaden our tax base. I mean bone simple. No deductions, except perhaps charity (and I’m dubious of that).  Two low rate tiers – everybody has to pay something.   This would spark economic activity. Due to competition it could be the BEST thing we could do for the rest of the world, as they follow us to fiscal sanity.
  • Cut our defense obligations. Leave Iraq. Leave Afghanistan. Leave Korea. Leave Japan. Leave Germany. Leave England. Return our foreign policy to one focused on our direct needs/benefits. And one that treats our enemies with lethal precision.
  • Outlaw public unions, and any kind of political donation (money or service) from public sector employees.
  • Require super majorities to spend on any kind of public or private sector bailout.

And long term, we have to get rid of the temptations presented to our political class by the wallet exposing 16th amendment, and demographic shaping 14th amendment.

If we do most, but preferably all, of the above bullet items, we will see both economic troubles AND our competitor nations in the rear view window.

And as a bonus… freedom will continue to ring.

Dec 30

NewImage61 What the Tea Party Should Focus On

The Tea Party amazes. It confounds. But will it “work”?

First… what does it want?  I’d submit, two things, primarily:

  • a fiscally controlled government
  • a constitutionally controlled government

Both, by the way, I agree with whole heartedly.

But… what if the two conflict?   How can we have a fiscally controlled government when the Constitution that runs it gives it unlimited taxing and commerce regulatory powers?  The two can’t co-exist.

Ultimately, the Tea Party has to change the Constitution, mainly the 16th Amendment. But it should also add in, perhaps in the 16th’s replacement, perhaps in a separate, a direct and detailed limit on the governments “Commerce” and “Common Good” roles.

Tactically, I think the focus on state government assemblies is brilliant. That is where an Amendment must pass 2/3rds. They are tantalizingly close to having a lock on that many, by the way.

My preference is a new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that reads like this:

* The 16th amendment is repealed.

And a second new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that reads like this:

* An income tax may be levied on adult individuals only. Such tax shall be proportionally equal, there will be no deductions, and no credits. The Congress shall set a minimum fee that any adult, competent, citizen must pay set at the proportion of the governments spending to the Census national based population. Any non-tax fees charged to individuals or businesses must be simple and equal.

Finally, a third new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that goes after the culture of careerism in politics:

* No individual may hold political office more than 2 terms without at least a 2 year interim not in office or in the employ of the public.

There, that about does it.  We can fund government, but all share the pain. And more of us will be serving in government, and it will be service, not career.

If the Tea Party got that done… they would rank with George Washington, Plato, and Newton in terms of service to humanity.

 

Dec 28

NewImage47 Unsolicited Advice on Getting Things Done

Productive… You will be.

 

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m an unusually productive fellow. I don’t have a “4 hour” plan for you, but I do have some simple advice that may help you if you have productivity problems. Some of it was learned in the Army, some by watching other productive people, and a lot by the school of relatively hard knocks.

  1. When facing a big problem, always first consider having somebody else do it.  In the Army, this meant Sergeants. In my professional life, employees and co-workers.  Check in with them shortly after they start, and then periodically as necessary.
  2. When facing a big problem, that you must do yourself, you have two choices. Do the hardest thing first. Or do the thing with the biggest payoff first.  Which you do depends on the situation, but at a minimum doing the analysis breaks the big problem down into smaller problems, which is really the first step to success.
  3. When facing a big problem, that you must do yourself, do something. Anything!
  4. Learn to say no. Revel in it. Be polite. Be encouraging. Your time is SUPER VALUABLE.
  5. Always review what you do and how it worked. Note what worked, what didn’t, and what tools you need to do better.
  6. Be physically fit. Exercise, walk, run, bike, work out. These activities set up future productivity.
  7. Always learn. I’m organized about this, I pick things to learn each year. 2011 could be the year of welding for me.
    2010… kayaking…. 2009…. pistol shooting. See how it works. Learn. Learn. Learn!

There… the secrets of the hyper-productive. Also known as how I earn a good living, having fun doing it, have very little stress, and lots of time to enjoy my family and other interests.

Now YOU can be productive too.

 

Dec 26

image thumb5 Review: The 4 Hour Body

 

The 4 Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

Short:  A chaotic, but interesting and perhaps life changing book. Read it if you want to lose weight, or gain muscle, or both of those. But also read it if you are just interested in the philosophy of doing the most with the least – with efficiency focused on the purpose of life, whatever that is for you.  There are also sections related to sex and extreme sports that I won’t be reviewing.

Long:

4 hours isn’t really the key to this book. That title just leverages off the success of Mr. Ferriss’ last book, the very successful “4 Hour Work Week”.

Mr. Ferriss compulsively measures and self-experiments questing to find how he can improve the most using the least.   The book is NOT a comprehensive guide for exercise and diet. Instead, it simplifies the recent paleo diet trend, down to simple, minimal, plans for weight loss without exercise, massive weight loss with minimal exercise, and weight gain with emphasis on strength.

Here is a summary of the diet from a “how to” I wrote for my family:

Only calories that reach fat cells matter. The diet has you eat as much of you want of foods, mostly proteins and slow carbohydrates, that do not reach fat cells easily. A binge day is encouraged, both to ease emotional needs and also to cause the body to reset in ways advantageous to the diet.  Simple pre-meal exercises move fat directly to the muscles on binge days.  The diet also requires you drink water almost constantly.

His goal is to make it simple and make it something you can easily stick too.  And he succeeds.

The book is not meant to be read comprehensively, although I did read it entirely. Instead, just pick your need, and read that section.

The book also has other sections unrelated to body composition that make it unsuitable for younger readers.

Summary:

I followed “the lose weight with no exercise” section for the week preceding Christmas.  I was never hungry, never uncomfortable, and I liked what I was eating. I lost 6 pounds.  And I felt GREAT. This, you should know, is a rare feeling for me since I’ve had endocrine system problems related to a head injury 2 years ago.

Christmas arrived with me dreading the departure from the diet. I was feeling really good on it.  I did eat as is typical on Christmas, pie, fudge, chocolate, calorie dense, fast carbs. I felt icky, lethargic, and longed to get back to the 4 Hour Body Diet.   No, compliance shouldn’t be a problem.

In the end three of our family decided to try this diet. My wife, my son, and me. To keep it simple, my son and I will do the “lose body fat/gain strength” diet, which is quite similar to the “lose weight with minimal exercise” version my wife will be doing.  

There is a chemical component to what Mr. Ferriss advocates, which my wife and I will be doing. My son, just 13, will stick to clean eating and exercise.

I’ll report as we go along.

Dec 09

NewImage5 Good Idea: Followup.CC

If you are like me, and zillions of others, your life now revolves around e-mail.  When I used Outlook I had an easy way to tag a reminder on to an e-mail, but for some unknown reason, Google Mail doesn’t have that feature.  Never fear… Followup.CC to the rescue.

http://www.followup.cc/

Here is how it works… sign up for a free account at the link above. They don’t spam you. In fact, I’ve no idea how they make money to pay for this.

Now, let’s say you want to remind yourself of something. Just forward an e-mail to followup.cc with when as the prefix of the address. So, for instance,

3weeks@followup.cc
tomorrow@followup.cc
4pm@followup.cc
30Feb@followup.cc

Simple. And don’t have to forward an existing message, you could, for instance just send a note “remind me to check pool water” to 30days@followup.cc and it will e-mail you to check the pool water in 30 days.

Slick!