The-Asterisk

As many of you know, I am on Twitter a lot... maybe too much. I find that it gives those random thoughts that collect in that spontaneous corner of my brain a place to go so they don't pile up and cause some sort of "thought aneurysm". Well, a few things have come up lately that I cannot talk about in 140 characters or less, so in no particular order, here they are: Most consumer product designs are shit . I am reading and have almost completed the book Steve Jobs  by Walter Isaacson. In it one of Jobs' most common comments about products under development by Apple or by anyone else is "This product is shit!" The more I have listened to how Steve focused down on the most seemingly trivial details of his products (sometimes to the detriment of the final design), the more I am becoming aware of how horrible products are. Some are designed to sell but not designed to function. Others, I just don't think the creators care. We bought a Red Devil 'sti...

This morning I was ranting on Twitter and I tried to make my point through several consecutive tweets. 140 characters is not a lot of room to relay a big thought and one follower, @dogwalkblog took me to task on this point. He is a great blogger, but he has a history of media experience behind him. I have passion, this blog and 8000 tweets behind me, and I think I have become a better blogger for having gotten "out there" and expressed myself. So, with that said, I will make my point about how I disagree with the President in what is fair. President Obama opined in his State of the Union address earlier this week that he wants to make things fair so that all people have a fair shake at whatever it is they want a fair shake at. Jobs? Income? Health? Free throws? 4 minute mile? Marriage? I don't know... Let me start out by saying LIFE IS NOT FAIR and thank God for that fact. If it was fair, virtually no one would push to exceed and succeed, because there would be no...

Newt Gingrich won Saturday's South Carolina Republican Presidential primary with 40% of the vote. Mitt Romney came in a distant second with 28% of the vote. This was a big win and it underscores the roller coaster season that this primary has given us. Many of the pundits on the right are coming out against Newt. Conspicuously present in this attack is Ann Coulter and S.E. Cupp, but they are just the most verbal. Most in the punditocracy are decidedly anti-Newt. This puzzles me. Do they know something that I don't know, do they fear that Newt cannot win against Obama, or does he threaten their turf? I have liked Newt for a long time. I remember distinctly the night that the Republicans took over the House in 1994. The Rs had been out of power for so long, they had gotten comfortable living in the shack behind the big house. Newt riled them up, got a whole new crew elected and they stormed the mansion. This move affected politics in DC for the next 10-15 years. When I heard ...

Barnes and Noble has something that Amazon.com doesn't have... presence in most metro areas. If I ran B&N, I would look at allowing online purchasers to have an option of picking the book up at their local store, even if the person ordering it was standing in the store while he ordered it. I would offer a " Pick it up in 30 minutes " deal. You would have to wait the 30 minutes to pick it up so that if someone tried to game the system, it might be a little more inconvenient, but really, does it matter? If I have Amazon Prime, I can have the book in two days with free shipping or I can have it tomorrow for $3.99 shipping. When you factor in the deep Amazon discount on books, the $3.99 shipping charge is trivial. Sure, a B&N "picker-upper" would have to pay sales tax, but they do already (which may be why bn.com is much less successful than Amazon.com.) This distribution scheme could potentially decimate the shelf inventory at your local B&N, bu...

Back in October, Andrew Breitbart, the much-maligned purveyor of BigGovernment.com and several other 'Bigs" posted this tweet: I am one that likes to check out different styles of music so I followed his link. Here is what I found. Give it a spin. Who knows, you may like it. It snagged me with its catchy beat, peppy tune and those whiny vocals (yes, Andrew, it is emo .) After I watched the video, I clicked on several others that came up and decided that I would put Grouplove in the plus column, although I secretly wondered if they may have been involved in Occupy Wall Street (just kidding, guys.) So, tonight I was at a local concert. It was a festival-style show where there are multiple bands. I had purchased the ticket because I wanted to see @GavinRossdale and the newly re-formed Bush. There was a room called the Budweiser Lounge where a poster in the hallway indicated that at 8:15 the featured band would be Grouplove. Grouplove? Hmmmm. I remembered the name, ...

The latest news is that Germany is being told that it must act quickly to save Europe and to stave off the impending apocalypse. The plan now is for the European Central Bank (which is prohibited from purchasing sovereign debt of member nations) to loan money to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Then, in a money-laundering quid pro quo which would land any legitimate (or illegitimate) businessperson in prison, the IMF will, in turn, loan money to these nearly bankrupt states. But, here is the kicker... by doing this little transaction, the burden of risk shifts from the ECB and the EU nations, and falls upon the members of the IMF. The United States comprises almost 18% (if I read this chart properly) of the risk and the EU members are in total about the same. The money still needs to be 'printed' by the ECB and the Federal Reserve, but now we (US citizens) are now on the hook for a sizeable chunk of the debt that will NEVER be paid back. Why do I say NEVER pa...

I just read in the Wall Street Journal that MF Global , former Senator and Governor Jon S. Corzine's investment firm, took $1.2 Billion from customer's account, more than double that which was previous estimated. A couple of days ago I tweeted that the ex-Guv/ex-Sen must have forgotten that only government can play fast and loose with money (both theirs and other people's) in that manner without suffering the penalty of illegality. Now it appears that they have stolen (there is no other word for it) a HUGE sum of money. What will the penalty be? At what point does over a billion dollars become a big enough sum to warrant swift and harsh retribution by the authorities? At what point does the management of that company forfeit everything that they personally own in order to make investors whole? At what point do these people spend the rest of their lives in jail? A long, long time ago I sat on a jury which convicted a ghetto guy of grabbing 10 cartons of cigarettes ...

I am still stuck on this Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) phenomenom. I listened to a bit of Randi Rhodes on XM Radio today and Nicole Sandler was filling in for her. Nicole was talking to John Nichols of The Nation magazine about the growth of the Occupy Movement. It was quite funny listening to them talk about how the "Occupants" are willing to stay out there throughout the winter. These people are so righteous that they are willing to suffer to make their point. Awwww..... I thought about starting my own Occupy movement, but then I remembered that I have to work the rest of the year. Damn... So, they talked more and more about the income inequities and how the 1% have all of the money and the two of them actually said that the reason that the 99% are so bad off is because the 1% took all of the money. Seriously, they said that on the air. Rather than discuss macro-economics and how wealth is both created and destroyed by the whim of the market, I was curious if I could be ...

Asterisk note: Each blog posting I do, I swear that it will be short, then it ends up looking like a manifesto. So, here is another attempt at brevity (maybe that is why I tweet and blog... sort of the yin and yang of modern communications.) Much has been said of the American Dream lately, especially in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that are sweeping across the country and the world. Sweeping every place, except apparently, where these protestors are encamping. I spoke in an earlier posting about the American Dream and what it is. I then read a piece in the DogWalkBlog about the haves and the have nots. It has made me reconsider what qualifies as the American Dream. Using the same logic that I use to mock the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who deign to represent ALL of the black Americans, who am I to foist my idea of what The Dream looks like upon all Americans? Like the song Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, is The Dream still a house, a whit...

Recently in the US there has been quite a controversy over the issue of debit card transaction fees. These fees are the money that the "system" (Visa/MasterCard, banks, clearinghouses, etc.) charge to process a transaction at the point of sale. Previously, it involved a rather complex set of rules to apportion the amount that the system would charge to move money from the purchaser's bank account to the business' account. Take a look at this page which describes some of what is involved with a merchant account, then try to figure out what a transaction will cost you if Visa handles the transaction. On that Visa link, don't you just love the term 'reimbursement'? It sounds like you are getting something back, doesn't it? Actually it is the amount that Visa reimburses the card-holding financial institution for the transaction. Also, it looks like a complicated government tax form, doesn't it? So complicated that you can never actually figure ou...

Apologies to GigaOm for 'lifting' a bit of the title of this posting. I just read a piece by Habib Kairouz in the NewTeeVee section of GigaOm entitled " Buckle up: Tratitional TV is in for a heck of a ride " The gist of the article is that TV has for the most part avoided the disruptive effect of the internet on its business model in the manner that it has affected the print media world. (Please read the article for a much more in depth analysis.)  And thanks to @feliciaday for linking to the article. A few points came to mind for me while reading it. Here they are: From a social point of view, people will still need to watch their shows at the same time. Nothing is more bizarre than watching someone tweet about something on TV when they are time-shifting with a DVR. I like pausing shows while I step away for a few minutes or when commercials come on so that I can zip past five minutes of them. I also like to pause while I comment/rant about something so that ...

I recently read the book "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future," by Robert Bryce. In it he discusses how China has pretty much cornered the world market on the rare earth elements that provides the raw materials for essential components of Lithium Ion (L-ion) battery cells and extremely strong magnets used in electric motors and generators. China's approach is that these materials in the unfinished state are worth a lot less than they are as part of finished goods. Well, this makes sense. These goods are valuable as well as strategic.This is also why China is taking a proactive stance in Africa to endear themselves to various poor countries that also hold reserves of many of the materials that they need.  (China's human rights reputation, as well as their lack of any aversion to doing "what it takes" to do business with third world kleptocrats is the subject for another blog post.) So, yesterday in the Wal...

This is pure opinion on my part, but I believe that Obama is trekking happily on the political equivalent of the Bataan Death March because he has something to prove. You have seen people like the "crazy" preacher on the street corner in the tenderloin district, or others with a Quixotic air about themselves, who seem to revel in the fact that people don't like them and look down on them. It is almost a self-perceived badge of courage and honor. "If I piss off the right people, then I must be doing something meaningful" they seem to think as if that gets them a little bit closer to their promised land. I truly think that he is brushing up his Bona Fides, proving that he can put it out there saying "Damn, the torpedoes... Full speed ahead." But what is he aiming for? What is his goal? President of the World. That's right. Head of the UN. Bill Clinton wanted it, but never got it. If BHO got it, he would have bested a Clinton twice... Reme...

I was recently perusing the DailyKos and I came across this video. Take a look... It all sounds so convincing, doesn't it? Great artist, patriotic pictures, hard working Americans just trying to do what is right and, of course, evil businessmen trying to scarf up everything good about this country for themselves. What could be wrong with that story? I grew up in the 1960's. I can remember, through the lens of a naive kid, how things were. We were pretty happy in our lives and things were pretty simple.We seemed to have enough money, but we really didn't... or did we? My dad had a 'good' job at the railroad, but he worked his butt off. Outside. In the heat. In the rain. In the cold. Nasty work, but he had a job. We barely had enough money to make ends meet. I remember milk was 4 cents at school. If we took a nickle with us to buy a carton, we had to bring the penny back. Seriously. Did we know we were poor? Not really, and there were others a lot worse off tha...

Monday afternoon, my wife and I took our first ride on Norfolk's new light rail system, The Tide . I won't go into all of the details of the massive cost overruns and the fact that the train's maiden voyage was close to two years behind schedule. That is past. The Tide actually began official passenger service at 6AM on Friday August 19, 2011. Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) had originally announced that they would allow passengers to ride for free that weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Wisely, they extended the free trips through next weekend. Before I describe my experience, let me first preface my comments by letting you know that I am a huge  rail fan. I have always enjoyed riding the rails. My father was an Norfolk and Western RR (now Norfolk Southern) employee and each summer as a child, I would get an employee's pass, board the Pocahontas or the Powhatan Arrow and ride it to Narrows, VA where my grandmother would meet me for a week at her home in West Virginia. ...

As much as I want to not watch them, I still am drawn to the Sunday morning news talk shows. Today, as can be expected, the top subject is the debt ceiling deadline coming up in just 16 days. There is always a Democrat and a Republican on there, trying to "not negotiate the deal on TV." I am watching Rep. Chris Van Hollin (D-MD) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Fox News Sunday. Democrats almost always argue by pointing to the absurdity of the Republicans' stance. The Republicans almost always argue from a heartfelt, pragmatic point of view that the system is f'ing broke and needs to be fixed NOW. As I listen, I keep thinking that this argument is not congruent. We should remember that just because one can argue convincingly and well, that the argument is not necessarily sound. I must be a little slow, because, it really just came to me listening to Van Hollin justify raising taxes to match the "framework" (I love that term) of the Clinton years, when ev...

As most of you know, the United States federal government's Executive Branch (that is the President's part, for those of you who have recently graduated from public school) is in a fight with the Republicans in Congress to raise our debt limit ceiling. This is a statutory limit on the amount of money that the government is allowed to borrow ... the government equivalent of our credit card's credit limit. At this date (July 13, 2011) the Republicans are hanging tight in their negotiations to disallow an increase in the debt limit until the President and his allies in the Senate agree to cut spending by a significant amount. Also, as of this date, no one knows how it will end up. This debt ceiling increase requirement is not uncommon, but finally the Right has put their foot down to say "No more." The howlers on the Left claim that it is just posturing so that the "rich" don't have to pay any more in taxes. Funny, how the TEA party is populated by ...

After the horrific attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan (peace be upon that God-forsaken country) by Taliban 'insurgents', a Taliban spokesperson spokesman stated that this attack proves that the Allied forces have not been able to secure the country and have therefore failed. What it actually proves is that if you are willing and expecting to die to make your case or prove your cause, then nothing can be secure. Period. When people are willing to work months and years to insinuate themselves into a job, a community, an organization under a false pretense; when they are willing to endure the mental anguish of living a lie for a very long time; when the culmination of their life is to make a bold statement that actually is more like taking candy from a baby then it is a Rambo-like hero action, then YES, it proves their point. But that IS the point isn't it? When a warped, irrational group of people casts aside 10,000 years of civilized, societal...