The Iron Yuppie

JPL.NASA.GOV: News Releases

Even further details on how the Earthquake affected the rotation of the Earth. No, it still does not matter to you (READ: Reporters, stop saying it)! My favorite quote:

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said.

Expedia.com Special Promotion

Though I received this mail, I think I pretty clearly do not fall in their target market in that a) I do not like cruises b) I do not value spending time with people who's only claim to fame is they were on a reality tv show for a short period of time.

Don't let me stop you though!

Wired 13.01: The BitTorrent Effect

Saw this really nice summary on BitTorrent. If you have not heard of it, it will be (is?) the new person-to-person transfer of music, applications and just about anything else that can be stored on a hard drive. Because there is no central authority, and no way to really track down all the people who are sharing, the RIAA/MPAA are freaking out. Time to get a new business model guys...

Defamer: Monday Morning Box Office: Universal Owns Your Wallet

Man, if you're not reading Defamer, you're not enjoying the web. Obviously, I'm the only one who did not like Meet the Fockers cause it's making more money than you can shake a tired tired stick at. At least the Aviator is doing pretty well... I liked it quite a bit.

Donald Luskin on Social Security Reform & Crisis on NRO Financial

For the opposing view on whether or not there is a social security crisis, Donald Luskin weighs in the NRO. One can choose to agree or disagree about a variety of points in the article... I would only like to take issue with one point directly:

Funny how such equanimity and patience seem to elude them when the subject is global warming.<o:p></o:p>

Actually, I feel that global warming is a crisis compared to social security since the case since there are news stories every day tying real occurrences to the effects of global warming. On the other hand, there have been virtually no examples of granny not getting her check on time or the government holding up a cardboard sign at my freeway exit. I'd say the affect on daily life defines the difference in their relevance and level of crisis.

D

Andrew Sullivan's Round Up of Pre-war predictions shortly after the Liberation via Eschaton

Heh, there's not enough of this going on. Read the attached for a list of quotes where Andrew Sullivan predicts history will find reporters who say that getting into Baghdad and/or keeping it will be extremely difficult are, in fact, morons. Suffice it to say, I think history probably does not agree with Andrew Sullivan. Sometimes I'd like to open up a blog that did nothing but take old articles involving predictions and compare them to ACTUAL events.

Particularly funny is this one:

Conventional Wisdom Watch, by Newsweek. A down-arrow for Dick Cheney: "Tells 'Meet the Press' just before war, 'We will be greeted as liberators.' An arrogant blunder for the ages." Nope, Newsweek. Yours was the "arrogant blunder for the ages." And on April 7!

Even IF Mr. Sullivan felt like this was the case, isn't using the status of Baghdad two days after liberation a bit premature to use as his measure for counter evidence?

I fear what people are going to be looking back at on my blog. Actually, I doubt you even have to go back that far. Just reference things I posted earlier in the day for a litany of contradictions.

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DirecTV's HD future is MPEG-4

Man, it's about time. I believe current DirecTV is MPEG-1, which is just painful. Everytime I watch DirecTV (which I love) and something dark or foggy comes on, it looks like someone threw grey paint all over the screen. This, plus MediaCenter supporting HD and DirecTV, would be the absolute best.

D

Street Style - DrJays.com

Man, you have to click through this. It's people commenting on each other's clothing. But the comments are priceless. Example:

Stayin "DUG" Everyday!

"looking like a blue superman" -- Baby-Boy
"I'M NOT FEELIN THE PICNIC TABLE LOOK" -- street sexy

and so on... GOLD!

D

JustOneMinute: Krugman - Save Social Security Last

Man, take five minutes away from the blogsphere and miss a virtual riot. Riot of the day being whether or not social security needs saving (the above article links to at least half a dozen which comment Half of the people are saying no, half say yes, half comment negatively on those who say no, half comment negatively on those who say yes, leaving half to comment on how rancorous the entire set of people have become (this would be me).

My take? People love to argue and demonize the other side and that's basically what's happening here. As far as social security is concerned, there are a lot of people who simply cannot save enough to last them through retirement, and they need help. It's not a crisis; it's not even concerning. Privatize/do not privatize, I am not sure it will ever reach a crisis point. The distance of this thing reaching something maybe bad happening is 13 years away at the soonest, and, likely, no closer than 40 years. Between now and then there are about 65 million different things that can happen to the economy between now and then and all of them would likely change the potential outcome substantially. I do not think that means we should do nothing, but it is just not a crisis. I would like it if people started doing some basic math though...

TimeTrax turns iPod into a satellite radio time shifter - Engadget - www.engadget.com

MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Timeshifting radio. Anyone want to tell me why I can watch "The Bachelorette 6000" or "Painful Pseudo-ethnic Sitcom" at 3 in the morning thanks to my Ultimate TV, but try and listen to Morning Edition or Howard stern at 10:01 AM in my car and I'm SOL? Man I would have thought radio would have dominated this change in media delivery long before television got around to it, but yet again I'm wrong. I wonder what the battery drain on your car would be to have a running hard drive and radio at all times? There's probably also a reception issue (not that easy to pickup radio on P3 underground). Nonetheless....

D