The Shallow End

Jamey — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:39:00 +0000

Here in northeast Indiana we sprung forward for the first time since I was a little kid.

I worked all afternoon at the office, then went to my favorite "casual dining" restaurant, Bandido's. Then I had the opportunity to watch my 6-year old play Lego Star Wars on the Xbox. A little eccentric, but entertaining. She had a good time, anyway.

Jamey — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:18:00 +0000

Happy April Fools Day!

My son wasn't too happy when his mom fooled him with a fake weather forecast. When she told him it was supposed to snow 6" tonight he had a mini-tantrum, complaining that it wasn't fair to start Spring Break out this way. Fortunately, she was kidding.

We had a nice time tonight celebrating April birthdays and my parent's recent anniversary at O'Charley's. The food and service were both terrific.

Jamey — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:09:00 +0000

I recently read an article about one indirect effect of ever higher steel prices: theft and sale of used beer kegs to salvage yards. It seems that beer kegs are going for as much as $25 each at junkyards, no questions asked. With a replacement cost of $90, stolen kegs are a major inconvenience for large beer makers and distributors. But while the big guys consider it a cost of doing business, keg theft can be a matter of life and death for small brewers.

That's why some small beer makers have their own keg police forces to rein in this problem. They work to discourage theft by tavern employees by threatening legal action. They mark their kegs in obvious and unique ways to make them more identifiable. And they work with salvage yards to diminish the market for their kegs, and buy back their kegs on the cheap.

But here's a part that seems odd to me. Some of the salvage operations checked out by the reporter had hundreds of beer kegs stacked up ready to crunch. Yet nowhere in the article is there any mention of criminal liability on the part of salvage operators. Why is this?

After all, if you are a pawnbroker and you accept stolen goods, you can be charged as a fence; you certainly have no right to keep any items stolen from someone else regardless of how much you paid for them. And beer kegs belong to the manufacturers or distributors, the only ones who have the right to dispose of them.

So the lesson seems to be this: If you regularly buy stolen goods for resale, just call yourself a salvage company and you can get away with just about anything.

Jamey — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:23:00 +0000

I'm a long-time broadband user. I started with both dial-on-demand and nailed-up ISDN services for my business. Later I switched to ADSL for my office - but I couldn't get it at home. So I got Comcast High-Speed Internet as soon as it was available in our area, and have had it for several years.

Just recently I had Verizon install FiOS, the fiber to the premises Internet service that's rolling out in a few markets. I got the "low-speed" option (5Mbps) and have been very impressed so far. For $10 more a month I can triple the speed, and more options are promised in the future.

This week Network World published an article about FiOS here in Fort Wayne, with emphasis on how the mayor worked to get Verizon to install FiOS locally. Interesting read.

Jamey — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:59:00 +0000

Here's something a little different that ran recently in the local newspaper about a husband and wife team running a dog poop scooping business. The husband is the brother of an old friend of mine. Welcome to the service economy!

Jamey — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:26:00 +0000

Here are my predictions for the NFL Divisional Round:

Seahawks over Redskins, 35-14
Broncos over Patriots, 24-21
Colts over Steelers, 28-14
Bears over Panthers, 17-14

Jamey — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:15:00 +0000

From the December 2nd WSJ:

Paul McCartney has learned how dogs and cats in China are killed for their fur, and says he'll never perform there and will boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics in protest. "This is just disgusting," the BBC quoted him as saying. "It's just against every rule of humanity." So is China's imprisonment, torture and murder of Tibetans and other human-rights activists. Just not disgusting enough to provoke Sir Paul.

I looked up the original BBC News story and found that I was repulsed by the description of the practices involved. So I guess you could say, I'm with Sir Paul on this as far as it goes. But the writer above makes an interesting point: When will the plight of millions of people around the world who live with horror every day be worth the ongoing attention of the media and of our rock stars (Bono excluded, of course)?

Jamey — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:56:00 +0000

Here's a birds-eye view of Brest. It's especially colorful at night local time - about six hours ahead of us here in the Eastern time zone.

Jamey — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:44:00 +0000

From the WSJ today:

Several relatives of Citigroup Inc. executives each were paid annual salaries ranging from $143,900 to more than $2 million in 2003, according to the company's 2004 proxy statement.

Doesn't this strike you as somewhat obscene, or is it just me? After all, I don't begrudge Citigroup executives their paychecks, but is it really necessary to pay their husbands, wives, kids, etc. on top of that? Whatever happened to anti-nepotism rules? Do they only apply to the rank-and-file?

Jamey — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:43:00 +0000

Some tech blogs recommended by Lee Gomes of the WSJ:

John Battelle's Searchblog focuses on new media and search technologies.
Tech Crunch by Michael Arrington is focused on new web products and technologies.
tech.memeorandum by Gabe Rivera is a weblog/news aggregator that Gomes calls a "blog-tracking service".

Jamey — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:20:00 +0000

So I'm in my local Taco Bell this morning for my 9am Pepsi, and the folks inside are scrambling about as usual (i.e. I had to wait on them to setup the register). What wasn't so normal was the conversation I overheard between a management type (her) and one of the shift leaders (him). She was saying things like "unfortunate incident" and "unprofessional behavior" and "saving your job", while he was trying to explain ... what? I don't know, but I kept wondering if nobody could see me. I'm pretty large and fairly noisy, especially when dispensing ice. I don't envy that guy.

Jamey — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 04:48:00 +0000

6-4, 285 - ding! (see Dan Patrick show on ESPNRadio for obscure reference)

Anyway, I'm back and hope to get back in the swing of things again. Thanks for reading!

Jamey — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Here's something to check out, compliments of Scott Bradner in Network World. It seems that Axis cameras use the same URL suffix wherever they might be: view/index.shtml.

Just go to Google and search on it this way: url:view/index.shtml.

One thing I found quite interesting is the number of European cameras I found, like a Finnish university, several with German city views, a British street corner, a number of small shops, etc. Granted, the images are low res and slow scan - at most refreshing 2 or 3 times a second - but it's still amazing to watch people 5000 miles away at work or play, oblivious to their Internet onlookers.

Another thing I found interesting was the number of computer cams. You can spy on datacenters or workshops that you might think would want to stay hidden - oh, well. Here are a few of my favorites from the technology realm:

GNax datacenter

Webcows

European "Funkcam"

Datacenter cabinets

Warning: You can get into some stuff you might not want to see, so use caution.

Jamey — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Patriots win 24-21. I got the Eagles score right, anyway. I had to root for the Eagles, though - I hate the Patriots.

Jamey — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 21:00:00 +0000

SuperBowl Pick: I wrote before that if the Eagles don't score more than 27 points, they won't beat the Patriots. I still don't think they can do it. Patriots 31, Eagles 21.

Jamey — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Here's something we need more of - American Ingenuity!

Carl E. Person has a website called Law Mall. He's written a book called Saving Main Street and its Retailers, 20 Things You Should Know - and 3 Plans - to Protect Your Town, Local Property Values, Local Employment and Business Opportunities.

His premise is that, by establishing the office of Town Attorney General and going after corporate villains like Wal-Mart and Best Buy and Home Depot, small towns and villages can protect their "independent retailers" (and subsequent higher prices) while collecting cash (a.k.a. bribes or extortion) from the aforesaid corporate villains.

Sounds like interesting reading. Conceptually it may even be brilliant! Economically speaking it's unworkable on a large scale, but it might work for a small percentage of hamlets.

Jamey — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Elephant blamed in circus fatality - that was the headline in the evening newspaper tonight.

The circus was getting ready to leave town. Handlers were loading elephants in a truck Monday afternoon, a routine event for them. With the last elephant in the truck, two handlers left a third to finish closing the gate. It took awhile for anyone to notice that the man had been injured, apparently crushed in some mortal way. By the time he arrived at the hospital, it was too late.

A tragedy caused by that most human of sins: Assumption, the carelessness that is brought on by routine due to the expectation that nothing will go wrong. An unnecessarily sad story.

So I'm listening to a commercial for the 11PM news sometime this evening, and here's what they say (or something close to it):

"An animal handler was killed yesterday by an elephant as the circus was preparing to leave town. We'll hear what local animal rights activists have to say about the tragedy tonight at eleven."

What?

Jamey — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I have to give it up for the Boilermakers! Yesterday's win against Michigan was long overdue, and it was a complete blowout! A pretty exciting game for fans who were cheering the team on for just its fifth victory of the season.

I wrote about our low expectations in an earlier post, so it feels great to get a win for Coach. I just hope it doesn't cost Tommy Amaker his job. He's a class act, something Michigan needs right now. Firing him would be a loss for both the school and the Big Ten conference.

Go Boilers!

Jamey — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 23:00:00 +0000

It snowed something in excess of 4" yesterday. Here in the northern part of the country it's getting tough to remember what warm weather and sunshine are like. But a picture of my son from last summer cheers me up and lets me daydream of a time in the not-too-distant future when I can jump back into the pool on a hot summer day ...

Jamey — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 04:00:00 +0000

My wife and I watched Troy this evening and I was very impressed. After reading many lukewarm reviews - and some worse, like Ebert's - I was expecting a really poor movie. Instead, I saw a film that, while not entirely faithful to the letter of The Iliad, was faithful to the spirit. I actually liked the 2 major changes in the plot - the placement and timing of Achilles' death and Agamemnon's satisfying demise. The story was well-told and well-acted, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Ebert suggests that we needed more gods to be faithful to Homer. I don't entirely disagree with that. But I've seen Clash of the Titans and it was a fine B- movie, but most of the god action plays like bad soap opera, and that's what most people would do with it. Troy didn't need it.

There were a number of fine performances, and I especially liked Peter O'Toole's King Priam of Troy. His part was small yet essential, and he made Priam more fragile and sensitive than my imagination had pictured him when reading the book. Very interesting!

Sean Bean was Odysseus in a crucial but thankless part, always second fiddle to others, but displaying the great leadership that the character had in both of the Homeric epics. Nice job!

But let's face it, Brendan Gleeson turned in the best performance as Menelaus. He was believable, whether playing a jovial host to his enemies, a loyal brother to a great man, a bitter husband to an unfaithful wife, or a fearless warrior in battle. He made Menelaus so real that, near the end of the scene in which his character fights Paris, I was so deep into the action that I actually cheered out loud when Hector killed him. This guy is great!

Jamey — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:00:00 +0000

From the "things you find when looking for something else" file:

The Dark Secrets behind the Monopoly (R) board game uncovered!

This site uncovers the sordid history of the all-american staple, Monopoly. You'll learn how the evil corporation that spawned Monopoly used an stolen idea (from Quakers, no less!) to leverage over a billion dollars in extra profits at our expense. How the evil corporate owners have fought to keep others from capitalizing on the Monopoly franchise, and how one heroic economics professor stood up to the dark powers of the Monopolists - and lived to write a book about it!

You'll laugh, you'll cry! Or not.

Jamey — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 04:00:00 +0000

I was reading the WSJ today and came across an interesting article by Walter Mossberg, the Journal's computer guru, concerning a new type of search engine. Answers.com gives detailed infomation from a variety of web sources concerning 1 million different topics. The site doesn't simply give you a list of links about your topic of choice, it provides text and pictures compiled to help you get the background you're looking for.

I thought I'd check it out by doing some searches. I started by checking out a couple related to the article I'd read (i.e. Wall Street Journal and Walter Mossberg). Both were in the database with brief but informative articles. One thing I noticed right away is that the site is very fast, a crucial factor for its future success.

After that, I tried a couple of searches related to recent posts I've written. For instance, I ran the senior senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, from my WT/ANC post. A little longer than the Mossberg piece, with lists of staff members and committees, brief bio, and links to his congressional websites. A good start.

Then I ran Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, two key players in my ThinkSecret post. That was a little more fruitful (couldn't resist). There is a lot of information about both parties from multiple sources, and a decent list of links and references that would make follow-up research very simple.

I thought it was interesting that when I hit the Answers.com home page, I found a prominent link to the Mossberg article online. It's understandable, since Mossberg was mostly complimentary toward the site. But he did point out that one of the possible weaknesses of Answers.com is its dependence on Wikipedia (the free-content encyclopedia) - at this point in time, at least. That may lead to a bias toward information related to information technology, and may explain the abundance of material on Jobs and Apple vs. some of the other topics.

My first impression is that Answers.com is something fresh, and I look forward to using it as one of the starting points for my online research tasks.

Jamey — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 18:00:00 +0000

One of my colleagues sent me this picture from the Accuweather website last Friday, the day of the big snowstorm. Where we are, in northeastern Indiana, is covered by the blue band that says "Worst of Storm". Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view, the storm, when it did finally arrive late Friday night, only dropped about 6 inches on us and cancelled some Saturday activities. I was prepared and was kindof hoping for a day off work or something, but it was not to be.

I just now figured out how to get this picture to show up here, so that's why I'm posting this so late.

Jamey — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Washington Technology is a computer trade publication that focuses on sales and service opportunities in the government sector. The magazine is full of news about the information technology appropriations process and various technology procurement programs, mostly at the federal level.

Two of the more irritating tendencies exhibited by bureaucrats (and regularly uncovered by WT) when purchasing technology are:

1. Chasing too few goods and services with too many dollars (gross inefficiency).
2. Finding ways to circumvent the myriad competitive bidding regulations imposed from outside intended to combat this inefficiency.

Partially to quell these tendencies, partially to foster competition for the big boys (the oligopolists), Congress regularly enacts provisions to set aside work for small businesses, minority/women owned businesses, and, more recently, native american businesses.

Alas, far too often the programs intended to help a broad group of businesses only enriches the very few who have leaders with connections. So a "small business" turns out to be a 1000-person division of a major government contractor, or a "minority/women owned business" turns out to be a front for a much larger organization that "subcontracts" from the MWOB prime contractor. And none of these things is considered fraud because somebody's lawyers always made sure that they met the letter of the law, and the final draft regulations are almost always written by the bureaucrats that they are supposed to regulate.

WT reports that another group has emerged in the past few years and appears to be up to these same tricks. Backed with legislation sponsored by the senior senator from Alaska, Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) and other "tribal organizations" receive special treatment when going after federal government business, even to the extent that they can be exempted from competitive bidding. So a senior bureaucrat can hire an ANC to run a project, have the ANC hire the bureaucrat's firm of choice as a subcontractor, and never be forced to have that firm bid for the work at all. As a result, ANCs now dominate the top spots in the annual IT vendor survey run by WT.

It's a sweet deal - for the few who have the inside track. The smell of fraud and corruption always seems to permeate the domain of big government, doesn't it?

Jamey — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 04:00:00 +0000

My sister's website is called CanaryNoir. It focuses on DC Comics Birds of Prey family, more specifically on Black Canary with a smattering on Oracle, two of DC's feminine superheros. While I don't share her interest in comics/graphic novels, I've found a lot of other types of content there, as well as interesting links to other sites. Good place to stop once in awhile - check it out!