The Breeze

So many things have been going on I've barely had time to slow down and write about it all. My last two weekends have been incredible. Morgan and I went camping in the Angeles National Forrest....First we stopped by Erin & Joel's house in Long Beach on the way...Erin is Moving to Paris for three months! Crazy...Their Spanish style apartment is VERY cool...We all had lunch at the Open Sesame Grill...The food is almost worth dying for!...We took creepy fog pictures as it slithered through the mountains...NEXT WEEKEND...I learned how to sail...on this little guppy in San Diego Harbor...I also finished building my first fixed gear bicycle. Damn! Yeah, it's been like that and I'm not going to mention work.

Sailing was the best part of it all though. The class was all weekend from 9-4. On Saturday four of us left the dock around 10. Our boat was 22' and we spent most of the day casually discussing each piece of the boat as we sailed. The day was mostly docking and doing "drills" around buoys. On Sunday our instructor suggested we might be ready for the exam. I jumped at the chance to get it done. We all passed the test and I only missed 2 questions of more than 100. Once we were finished, around 10:30, we jumped back in the boat for another full day of sailing!

John McCain gets creamed on the Daily Show

Priceless. http://www.box.net/shared/tnvehmo7tq



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Caught in a lie again

Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman

"The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a fellow soldier killed Tillman."

"Pfc. Jessica Lynch told the House panel that the military lied about her capture.

Lynch testified that after her vehicle was attacked in Iraq in March 2003, she suffered a mangled spinal column, broken arm, crushed foot, shattered femur and even a sexual assault.

But it only added insult to injury, literally, when she returned to her parents' home in West Virginia, which "was under siege by media all repeating the story of the little girl 'Rambo' from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting,"

When you could snap

A few posts ago I wrote about some of my thoughts on helping society on a global level. However, I was vague in my proposed action. Well, there is a project to create a $100 laptop computer for children in developing countries. The project is called OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). I am a deep believer in this project because of the opportunities it could present to people less fortunate than I.

Sadly, I read an article today attacking this project today on the basis of it's socialist undertones and misguided direction. What you should know about this project is that it is an "open source" project. This means the project is "open" to anyone to contribute to the "source" of the project. The OLPC project is also based on software of that same nature; open source. Essentially, these are projects guided by the common voice of anyone who possesses the drive to be involved.

With that being said, the following is in response to Alex S1ngleton's Leave computers to the market economy.

Let's examine what Alex says VERY carefully for a few moments.

"[OLPC is] doomed to disappoint because it envisages Negroponte's laptop design as the single, monopoly type of computer for two billion children across the developing world."

So you don't think a start is better than nothing?

"Although Apple apparently offered its Mac OS X software to the scheme for free, the offer was rejected because they were determined only to open source software."

Where does this come from? OK. Then later as a retort you say... "Mac OS X ...uses open source software under the bonnet (Darwin) so I don't see the point"

Yeah, neither do I, but we'll keep going.

"People have tried doing these sort of special educational user interfaces in rich countries and they've flopped."

Well, let's give these children Windows Vista and see how they fare with that special interface. I'm sure the learning curve is much flatter.

"The one-size-fits-all approach is flawed because Western academics can't know the specific needs of two billion users."

Let's rewrite this one..."The one-size-fits-all approach is flawed because Western academics (computer users and developers) can't know the specific needs of two billion (novice computer) users." No, it CAN'T possibly make sense that way either.

"A child musician might want a computer that can run Sibelius"

You're right, let's scratch this whole idea we'll give 10% of the kids good computers and the other 90% better farm implements. Does that help your "cause?"

"the incentives to be reliable are going to be a lot weaker with this laptop project.'

Yeah, because no one will want to buy from anyone else if they aren't reliable. Everyone will just give up on the whole idea.... There's no use. Let's quit now...

"Moreover, the laptop proposal is simply a very wasteful use of money when there are more important priorities."

Did you have any thoughts of your own on this point, or did you just want to quote the "Indian Ministry of Education?" Well you know what? Their quote is right, some of these schools don't even have blackboards and chalk. There is no point in buying books because the laptops can be the books, can be the blackboard, can be the chalk, can be the homework, can be the media player, can be the...

Unlimited possibilities! That's why. Isn't that what technology opened up for you, for us? Or was it only that your technology was derived from a free market economy and you then paid the price they asked for it?

You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading distorted double talk that could take this opportunity away from "two billion children across the developing world."

Greedy, Racist, Radio Station KCAA will continue to air Don Imus radio show

"Fred Lundgren, chairman of KCAA 1050 AM, said the station would start Monday with the show that got Imus cashiered...he said the motive for broadcasting the Imus reruns is in part financial." Ok so, Imus himself has apologized, but this arrogant racist wants to RE-AIR that very show. If you want to send him an email to show your "support" - info@kcaaradio.com



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...and other reasons my leaders suck.

Today I read that the army was formally extending tours in Iraq and Afghanistan from 12 months to 15 months. I mean it wasn't enough to enact a stop loss order three years ago to prevented soldiers whose tours were over from leaving. Now we need to extend the normal tours for everyone? Geeez. I can't figure out why the US military would need to enact a mandatory extension. I mean, aren't there enough troops? Oh, really?

So when is enough, enough? We are in the middle of a war that has been raging for more than four years and has no end in sight. The total cost has spiraled out of control, the percentage of people who disagree with the current administration is more than 60 and has been for months. The recruitment standards have been lowered. Numbers of soldiers afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome are increasing. Military divorce rates are on the rise...and I still don't feel any safer.

What else needs to happen here for this to end? Is there no accountability? Are we just marking time till the 2008 election? Today I'm ashamed to say I live in a country that has not yet revolted against this atrocity.

Oh Snap, I got Joost

That's right boys and girls, I got my Joost beta testing invitation today. I'm not going to be able to post much about it till tomorrow though.

Joost is "a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping."

P.S. This is being brought to you by the guys who developed Kazaa and Skype. They have already changed the game TWICE, so watch out!

Circles

Lately I've been thinking about what I'd like to do in this world or how I could change it. I've also become really disenfranchised by the neo-cynicism of my past. To be honest, as an American, I think Americans are lazy and spoiled. Why should I care about bettering their lives. They've helped themselves... Hell, we'll be speaking Spanish by the time republic-cons have another chance to run this show. If someone wants to start another war, I'll just move, seriously. I'm tempted to anyway once I tidy a few things up. I keep thinking of the ways that technology could help desperate people around the world. One quality we've seen of technology is that each new perspective of it brings new ways to use it. Could you even imagine the power Wikipedia could bring to a remote village?

When presenting this idea to people some have reacted before they conceptualized and said things like "So...they're still stuck in a village."

For the present this may be true. However, future generations have equal academic footing with their global peers...And, these villagers will now have access to the most up-to-date information on farming, irrigation, architecture, medicine and history.

If man can't succeed with that, he doesn't deserve to.