EGLZFAN.com - Random Neural Firings

This is interesting to me. I am more and more coming to the conclusion that global warming, if it exists is a problem, is not understood properly enough for us to discuss rational solutions. There just seems to be too much junk science and disagreement about the causes at this point. I do appreciate the so called “green architecture” movement, and I think we need to do more of it.

I also think we should focus more on recycling. Critics of recycling tend to focus on two problems - it is not cost-effective, and it is not convenient. Assuming most of us agree recycling would be good but for these two problems, I have a solution: we should build prisons next to landfills and require prisoners to separate trash. Reclaimed material would then be auctioned off in lots once a month by the government. Two things that no one wants to live near would thus be located in the same place, and society can realize the gains of recycling at almost no cost and with no additional inconvenience.

Any holes in this theory?

Some folks find it curious that I love technology so much, yet inexplicably hate email.  Between outright spam and email that’s legit but irrelevant, the amount of “good” email I process is probably something like 2-3%, which is horribly inefficient.  One thing I really liked about email, though, was the concept of an electronic newsletter - specialized content pushed to me whenever there were updates.  I don’t get newsletters anymore, however, thanks to a great innovation called “RSS”.  A friend asked me about RSS earlier today, so I figured a post about it might be in order. (more…)

“See, it ain’t so fucking easy, is it?”, especially if that cynic was President Bush and he was talking to all the folks at Va. Tech who are catching shit for their perceived failure to properly secure the campus against a massacre perpetrated by (apparently) a pissed-off, lovesick college kid (I’m not going to dignify him or his acts by using his name). (more…)

A lot has been written/said - too much, really - about the whole Don Imus situation. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last week-and-a-half or so, here’s a quick recap: Don Imus was watching the Rutgers women’s basketball team on television and referred to them, on air, as “nappy-headed hos”. This obviously derogatory term should clearly never have been uttered, and it was quickly determined Imus was insensitive and should never have said “nappy-headed hos” over the air. I know this because there has been a media shitstorm around this controversy for over a week now, punctuated by the re-broadcast of the taboo term “nappy-headed hos” over the air several hundred thousand times. For his part, Imus reached out to just about everybody, appearing on Al Sharpton’s radio show to apologize, appearing on national television to apologize, meeting with the Rutgers women’s basketball team to apologize, and generally groveling at every opportunity. For his trouble, Imus - who has 40-odd years in the business and is involved in charity work everywhere, including a “cancer ranch” with his name on it (I’m too lazy to look up the exact name) - was shown the door. (more…)

Engadget had an article on Fujitsu’s commitment to solid-state hard drives, or “SSDs” that made me think of something that occurred to me recently about my predictions for the future. Specifically, about four years ago I remember sitting in my living room, bullshitting with my old college roommate, and saying that I believed SSDs were the wave of the future and would eventually outright replace disk-based drives (which have been dominant for decades now). My prediction at the time was for five years, and it looks like I might be right, but of course any credit I get for my amazing powers of prognostication depends completely on Jeremy’s memory. If only I had written this down back then… (more…)

Okay, I guess I should post about something a little lighter than the national tax issue today. Apropos, LifeHacker has a pretty good article on cleaning out your wallet, which is cool and all, but it led me to Just One Club Card, which is a VERY cool free service. You can take up to eight of those discount/club cards crammed into your wallet and boil them down to one “card”, which is itself the thickness of two pieces of paper. My Kroger, Best Buy, Office Depot, REI, Mens Wearhouse, and PetSmart cards are all out of my wallet, which is now literally 1/4″ thinner. Very, very cool.

Tax day is coming up soon, which makes me think (again) about how stupid and complicated our tax system is. I’ve always thought a flat tax system was logical, but I’m frankly not educated enough to know whether I’m right. So I’ll lay out my argument and let ya’ll tear into it. The disclaimer is that I have an economics degree but no accounting training. I have experience paying individual taxes (who doesn’t) (don’t answer that) but not from the business side of things. So this may be a way more complicated issue than I’m making it, but whatever. (more…)

Recently I took a family vacation to Pennsylvania to visit my brother and his wife. We drove, which gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of stuff. I decided I needed wanted a blog, not just because it’s the technology-du-jour, but because I’ve got too much shit floating around in my head and I figured I should try to get it organized somehow. Also, maybe my ideas are strange or wrong or right or whatever, and it would be nice to have feedback sometimes. And, who knows, somebody might even be interested or inspired, or at least moved to thought in some way, which is a good thing. So this is something of an experiment, on several levels. (more…)