wow, it's been a few days...

but, i'm here... so deal with it!

news of me at the end, after the links...

martin luther king jr.'s birthday

that's right, america's most prominent civil rights leader's birthday was today, celebrated because of his tragic assassination. i just got done trimming the mlk jr. tree and we lit off some bottle rockets while singing 'we shall overcome'...

really though, the man made huge strides in the rights of 'african american' equality, and in terms racial barriers, he brought down a great many walls.

some suggest that his death came far too soon, though i often wonder if his death came at the right time to make him into a martyr...

someone suggested that his (and malcom x's) deaths actually split a lot of people and may have contributed some to the current state of affairs, the negative stigmas, and various 'crime rate statistics' etc... all because of the heavy fragmentation of the various civil right factions. i think that it's plausible, but it's all speculation.

i do wonder if, and how much better this country might be had he not died.

would his philosophy of civil disobedience have taken precedence over the 'black power' concept?

who knows, but it's definitely worth thinking about. there will never be colorblindness, as if often suggested. among the people of various colors and ethnic backgrounds that i know, our race is always there. the point is that we just live. together.

martin luther king, jr. rest in peace sir.


the house votes to increase minimum wage.

now, i live in a state which has already increased minimum wage, however, slightly. i believe minnesota is at $6.15/hr for large businesses. however, the democrats pushed through a bill to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr.

it will come in stages. there are no offsets yet for small business to help cushion this increase in operating costs.

now, i'm somewhat torn over this. there are actually so few people in the country that make minimum wage. as a matter of fact, i know that most local fast-food restaurants actually pay more than the proposed increased wage already as a starting wage.

do people at the bottom of the scale deserve to make more? well, a better question is: is a blanket minimum wage right for everyone in every situation? in my opinion, the answer is no.

let me explain.

the people that make minimum wage typically fall into one of only a few categories. high school students. the uneducated. the 'immigrant'. and the 'unmotivated'.

of course, i say typically for a reason. i understand that there are exceptions. but... we're talking about a class of people, which make up a VERY small population of the country. in most markets, the pay is higher than federal minimum wage because of competition, in others, it's at base line because the economy is poor. this is economics.

i don't think that the government should be rewarding those for doing the base minimum to make money. at the same time, i remember working day labor between jobs because it was all i could get at the time and needed some income to get by. even then, however, where i live, i was usually paid well above $7/hr, it was just really shitty work.

i know there are those struggling, and we need to do something to help stabilize and bridge the massive gaps that exist. we need to help people get equal footing. (da komrade!), but i don't know if just increasing pay across the board is the right thing.

also, a diagram was drawn on one of the sites i frequent (possibly fark.com but i'm not positive), and it laid out something where he lived where he could see this becoming an issue. it was the idea of a grocery store. imagine 3 employees of one store. you have a bag boy, who makes $5.50/hr to bag groceries and do general sweeping. you have a cashier that makes $6.50/hr to ring customers and handle money. you have a lead cashier, with seniority / authority, more training and authority who makes $7.50/hr. now, with this, the bag boy, and the cashier are on the same level without changing their roles in the business, while the lead cashier, still do more critical work to the operation is making merely 25 cents more than her subordinates. it doesn't make a lot of sense.

is this a huge deal across the country? no, of course not. but it's something to think about.

a bump was needed, seeing as how the cost of living has dramatically increased over the last decade of republican rule, but minimum wage hasn't budged a cent. i guess i'm just not sure if this much of a bump makes sense.

i'm eager to see the economic impact this will have as businesses likely raise prices to 'cover' the cost of doing business. the cost of living will increase more, and those that have just gotten the bump in pay will find themselves in the same boat they've been in, and the rest of us will be sinking ever more slightly with them...

perhaps. perhaps not...


those piratebay.org guys never stop.... do they?!?!?

thepiratebay.org (wiki... not aforementioned url), operators of the worlds largest public bittorrent tracker, purportedly the 362nd most frequently visited site on the interwebs... and anti-copyright group extraordinaire. recently, they made a bid for political powers in sweden in the light of increasing copyright laws that had, up to now, been in their favor. they failed, but not as miserably as you might expect, the pirate party actually garnered a near percentage of voters... pretty astounding if you think about it.

now, however, they are in the market to buy themselves a country. more aptly, they are looking to aquire sealand. sealand is merely a tower sunk into some sand off the coast of england. it has a very interesting history, but the bottom line is that it is, more or less, and independent principality with it's own currency and government... (and soccer team, slot car racing team... and more!! read the wiki link above...). anyway, it has come to pass that the 'micronation' of sealand is up for grabs. while you can't technically 'buy' it, you can pay them a lot of money to transfer custodianship.

the piratebay wants in on that. or at least some small island where they can claim their independence.

they are accepting donations (from the people who are stealing every form of media you can think of through their services...) so that they can 'purchase' said island. in return, they are offering citizenship to all those that fork out some change for the cause.

it's interesting to read their forums, where everyone seems to have opinions about what they should do with said country, whether they should even buy a country, or whether pr0n will rain king.

god, what will those silly swedes think up next?!


the google effect

so, slashdot linked this post on javalobby.org...

i don't care who they are, the post was interesting. it's not the first time i've read something like it...

apparently, they had some 50,000 spam posts just after christmas. before they had a chance to remove it, google indexed their site, and apparently somewhere in those spam posts, google decided they didn't like javalobby.org.

now they don't exist.

nearly.

basically, they've been removed from google's index. which means they have lost some 70-80% of their traffic. this is devastating. it means that you lose 70-80% of your ad - revenue, or it means that you lose 70-80% of your potential customers. or, if nothing else, it means you lose an ass load of potential readership...

now, i'm all about having an automated system in place to make sure the 'net is reputable, but this seems a little overzealous.

and i can't begin to imagine how many sites are legitimately indexed by google that are merely scams and such that they don't know about...

i'm just curious... for a search engine with the clout of google, does this seem right? shouldn't they be smart enough to recognize that this is a problem...

maybe i'm off base.

(hehe... the google effect... i like inside jokes...)


a technology i've been keeping an eye on...
and interesting business tactics...

SED, an interesting new display technology type. surface-conduction electron-emitter display is very neat...

from the wiki:

"The surface conduction electron emitter apparatus consists of a thin slit across which electrons tunnel when excited by moderate voltages (tens of volts). When the electrons cross electric poles across the thin slit, some are scattered at the receiving pole and are accelerated toward the display surface by a large voltage gradient (tens of kV) between the display panel and the surface conduction electron emitter apparatus. Canon Inc. working with Toshiba uses inkjet printing technology to spray phosphors onto the glass. The technology has been in development since 1987."

this article tells the story. nano-propriety, the company that licensed the technology to canon), who went into partnership with toshiba, is now suing canon, stating that toshiba wasn't part of the deal. canon bought out toshiba's stake and became majority share holders...

it seems like promises for the technology have been delayed over and over again, most recently they stated that we would see it late in 2007, but now, i'm thinking that, without toshiba to mass-produce them, it might get pushed back even farther, or never come to fruition at all.


sony to include portable media on bluray?

it is with eyebrows raised and thoughts running through my head that read this article at kokatu.com. apparently, sony is considering the idea of including portable media on their bluray discs, so that you can take your movies with you on a laptop or ipod, or perhaps, their psp.

this seems very much un-sony like.

but, it's an idea that i can get behind. the idea is that you buy their high definition bluray disc, and on that disc you will also receive the content in a format that can be viewed on another media player of sorts.

so very curious the behavior of sony is sometimes.


i know will interest many of you...

someone on one of the forums i frequent asked, "now we know. now, what are we going to do about it?"

i'm not really sure... but damn. something must be done... perhaps.


hmm... sharp's got one too...

i previously mentioned westinghouse had developed a display they called 'quad-hd'.

i would like to show you something else from engadget.com.

sharp's 4k x 2k . another 8.3mp digital display. hmm.

i'm telling you... these will not 'remain' commercial...


wow... how many jobs might this take?

apparently the trend of this post is technology based on 'inkjet'. first, i present the SED, which is based on spraying phosphors on the screen... now we're talking about a new robot, that sprays houses.

yep. it sprays houses.

read the article here. it removes the need for those pesky people in the house building equation...

damn.

and still no fucking hovercars! whiskey tango foxtrot abounds.


ONE

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes it's the saddest experience you'll ever know
'Cause, one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, when you're lost at two

It's just no good anymore
Since you went away
Now I spend my time
Makin' rhymes of yesterday



damn. i don't really want to talk about me right now. i'm brooding. i heard words that i already knew were true, yet hearing them spoken, out loud... it somehow makes the whole experience that much worse. fuck.