Category: Life

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Business Life

You want it? You got it.

SFGate: “They see the megafarms squeezing out the little guy on economies of scale, industrializing the crop the way big business has done to food and creating monocultures in a pot industry that now grows hundreds of varieties.”

The Marijuana debate in California rages on. The folks that want to legalize it are now up in arms because the big guys are going to jump in and crush them. Hey, welcome to American Capitalism. If you got busy building a business instead of smoking your product you’d have been ready for such an eventuality.

As you can tell, I’m a bit opinionated about the use of pot, but to each his own. I still say we should do one of two things, but of course it’s not as easy as this.

  1. Regulate it at the Federal level and dispense it via pharmacies.
  2. Legalize it and allow it to be sold through Government approved, and regulated, facilities.

If it’s to be treated as a medicine we have a dispensing mechanism that works, use it. If it’s to be completely legalized and treated like alcohol, we should monitor it, like we do alcohol, and tax it.

I’m not an expert on the matter, take what you want away from this. It’s my opinion of the situation, but don’t cry when your “dreams come true” and you realize it’s not what you expected.

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Life

Cavs Owner on “The King”

Cleveland Cavaliers: “This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.”

Wow, that pretty much sums it up. The man could’ve just said “Hey, I’m going to Miami”, and I would have had zero to say about it. I’m sure a lot of folks feel that way.

There were a few choice paragraphs from the article, but this one is pure gold.

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”

I hope Cleveland is able to pull that off. Go collect some talent and get to work.

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Life

Julius Robert Johnson

I lost a very dear family member last week. Julius Robert Johnson; J.R. or Jay, as everybody knew him, was my Grandfather. He was the patriarch of our family, the man everbody in the family looked up to, the foundation. I’d been struggling with a way to describe Grandpa, when I read my brothers weblog on Friday.

Grandpa Jay
Grandpa Jay
My brother described Grandpa as “A tough man, but not hard.” That is the perfect description of our Grandpa. When you’d visit him he’d greet you with a loving smile and a warm greeting, often “Well, lookie here!” It was sincere, and full of warmth and love. Grandpa was a man’s man, but was extremely affectionate, and put God and family above all else. He walked the walk.

As a young man Grandpa worked the railroads, was a cowboy; yes, the kind that actually roped cattle, as a part of The Greatest Generation he answered the call to action in World War II where he was a gunner on a Navy ship and a Seabee in the South Pacific. After the war he eventually found his way to Lindsay, California where he met Grandma and eventually married.

There was no doubt Grandpa loved to work. He loved turning wrenches and spent the better part of his life repairing Caterpillar equipment in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Mike Rowe couldn’t keep up with my Grandpa. Grandma claimed that “J.R. bleeds Cat yellow” and “J.R. will drop dead some day behind a Caterpillar with a smile on his face.” Grandma wasn’t too far off the mark, you see, Grandpa continued turning wrenches until about eight weeks ago, when he was diagnosed with cancer. Did that slow him down? No, it didn’t. He was certain he’d go back to work as soon as his chemo and radiation treatments concluded. That day never came. Grandpa passed away June 29, 2010. He was three days shy of his 83rd birthday, he will be greatly missed.

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Life

Room Service in New York

Dave Winer: “At first I felt guilty for using room service at all. In the various places I’ve lived delivery of something as mundane as food is not only rare, it’s unheard-of. In NY, you can place a $10 food order, and it will be at your door in 1/2 hour. To me, half-native and half-transplant, that’s pretty amazing. No, it’s very amazing.”

Yes, that’s cool.

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Life

Happy 4th!

Today we celebrate the birth of our great nation. There were a lot of events leading up to declaring independence. If you’re interested, a great place to start is the Siege at Boston. It was the beginning of the Revolutionary War that would run from late 1775 to 1783. The Constitution, the document that defines our nation, would be adopted in 1788.

I’d also recommend 1776 by David McCullough.

Signing the Declaration
Signing the Declaration
Categories
Life

Free WiFi for everyone!

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Life

I ❤ Carvel Ice Cream

Paul Kafasis: “The matter came to a head June 16th, when Dina Lohan attempted to use the card while picking up an ice cream cake. Upon being asked for ID, and having the card confiscated, the elder Ms. Lohan called the police. There’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.”

I feel sorry for the Lohan’s, I really do. They believe they are special and deserve special treatment. Unfortunately they’re about as screwed up one family can get. I love Dina Lohan’s comment after the “Special free ice cream for life for a select few” card was revoked.

“It just shows how we [Lohans] get treated so much worse than regular people.”

Regular people? Paul’s footnote is priceless.

Some people.

Categories
fun Life

Holy Cow Man, it’s July?

That’s right, it’s time to dig out the stars and stripes, as we celebrate the birth of The United States of America.

Uncle Sam Core.

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Life

Wireless cameras? DUH!

Dave Winer: “Imagine how a camera with the Twitter or Facebook logo would work. You wouldn’t even need to configure it beyond telling it your Facebook username and password. If Canon isn’t working on this now they’ll be out of the low-end camera business in less than five years. That’s how quickly the Apple/Google juggernaut is moving.”

It would make complete sense for camera manufacturers to embed wireless into their cameras, especially at the low end. Dave’s hit the nail on the head. If they’re not doing this now, they’re not very smart. I’d imagine it would be quite easy to get a wireless chipset with an entire IP stack that can do everything Dave mentions above for fractions of a penny, they don’t need some fancy schmancy OS, just the basics on the camera. The configuration can be done on the client, or better yet, on the web.

For me the question is, who will be first?

I know I’d written about this at one point or another, I just can’t find it. Must have been in a tweet.

Categories
Life

What about the future?

Scientific American: “What’s the best way to address a politically charged topic such as the future of energy? Remove the politics. “We’re going to skip over the politics,” Robert P. Laughlin, who won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, told a rapt audience of young scientists and others at the 60th annual Nobel Laureate Lectures at Lindau. “I’m not interested in now but in the time of your children’s children’s children, six generations into the future and 200 years from now,” when all carbon burning has stopped because it’s been banned or none is left, he said. “Thinking about a problem this way is so simple. Instead of arguing about what to do now, I want to talk about what will happen when there’s no coal.””

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know someone is going to say “But that’s what we have.” “There’s plenty to go ’round.” Blah, blah, blah. Ok, you’re right. We have plenty of fossil fuels, now. It will run out, and if you don’t understand that you’re not facing reality. Sure, we may all be dead when it happens, but it will happen.

Is it just me or is it selfish to not think about the future? I think it’s very selfish. It feels like I’m in the minority.