Barak Obama Gestures Hillary In Debate

Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton participated in a CNN debate in Austin, Texas last week (2/21/08). For those of you who did not see the debate, I will give you a quick summary of a pivotal moment from it. Click on the image to make it larger so you can appreciate the details.

Hillary: Come on skinny. Let’s go, you and me right here, right now. I will kick your ass.

Obama: What?

Hillary: Come on! First, I’ll kick your ass. Then I’ll send Chelsea to kick Michelle’s ass and Bill to kick Oprah’s ass. What do you say?

Obama: You see Hillary, I’m holding up 3 fingers. You see them, don’t you? I want the American People to know that I’m the only Presidential candidate who can do this. This is the kind of change I plan to bring to Washington. Anyhow, pay attention to this part. If I fold down the first finger . . . and . . . follow that up by folding down the third finger, what that leaves you is one giant middle . . .

BEEEEEEEEEP! Your time is up Senator Obama.

Barak Obama’s Snot Draws Big Cheers And Brings Hope!

At a rally a couple of weeks ago, Obama was stricken with a cold. He stopped in the middle of his speech to blow his nose. The crowd cheered!

Yes, you read it right, and that’s not a typo. The crowd actually cheered.

Are you kidding me? Who the hell are these people? Don’t they have anything better to do than to celebrate discharge of snot? I don’t remember reading anything about snot in Obama’s book ‘Audacity of Hope’.

If the Obama campaign people were smart, they would surely recognize the unexpected and hidden opportunity in this phenomenon. It is clear that as far as some people are concerned, hope wreaks out of Obama’s body. Why not capitalize on that? I bet they can raise millions by auctioning off Obama’s personal items: arm pit hair, used toothbrushes, half-used bars of soap, dirty socks, old underwear, hair brushes, dirty bath water, etc.

Are you listening Obama campaign strategists? A golden opportunity awaits you.

Vista SP1 . . . No Dice, Phone Home

Where do you want to go today?

If you’re running Microsoft Vista (mistake #1) and are setup to receive Vista updates automatically (mistake #2), you may have found yourself among the many who unexpectedly received a special prize from Microsoft. The prize: constant reboot cycle of your over-priced, over-hyped and slow Vista OS. The Service Pack has been pulled until further notice.

The source of the problem was traced back to one file, code name KB937287, which appears to be a required component for downloading SP1. Realizing that code names, by definition, must be captivating and imaginative, Microsoft quickly set out to find the perfect top secret sounding name for this file. Names currently under consideration are:

“syscrash”, “easy break”, “softcode”, “socrap”, “fragile (Italian pronunciation)”, “chipped glass”, “no touch”, “crash-n-burn”, “time bomb”, “deep dive”, “fuzzy code”, “damaged goods”, “fix-n-patch”, “bubble gum”, “glue stick”, “suicide road”, “danger zone”, “anger face”, “the-long-goodbye”, “sucker punch”, “job terminator”, “kick-in-the-nuts”, “OS (short for Oh, Shit), “can’t touch this”, and “DOH”.

If you were lucky enough not to be stricken with this reboot cycle issue, you may have been the recipient of a second-level prize: “A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1“. Translation: SP1 may either block or reduce functionality of some of your third party applications from Trend Micro, Zonelabs, BitDefender, and Novell, etc.

So, where do I want to go today? I want to go back to XP.

If you’re completely frustrated with Vista by now, follow this very simple and useful guide. You will not be disappointed.

1. Boot your machine to command prompt
2. Type c: and return followed by del *.* /s /y and return
3. Sit back and enjoy the show. You are now liberated.
4. (optional step #1) Find your old Windows XP DVD and reinstall.
5. (optional step #2) Buy or download any flavor of Linux and install.

Viagra For Israeli Air Force Pilots? Now I Know Why It’s Called A Cockpit.

Viva Viagra.

Israeli Air Force is studying viability of dispensing Viagra to its pilots. The reason? . . . To improve pilots’ performance at high altitude.

What does the Israeli Air Force do on a daily basis? I’m well aware that Israel is surrounded by countries it deems as potential enemies: Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran. But how much of an air threat are these countries? Palestine, Sudan, and Iraq don’t even have remote controlled (RC) toy planes, let alone jet fighters with trained pilots (crop duster pilots don’t count). The best they can do is to hurl a cardboard airplane at Israel, which I’m sure will be shot down using the latest laser and greatest missile technologies.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia do have strong Air Forces, but neither is about to attack Israel – trust me. They will not jeopardize their relationship with and aid from the US. Iran also has an Air Force, but come on! Compared to Israel’s 1000-aircraft military force, Iran’s threat to Israel is comparable to showing up to a drag race on a tricycle.

The only decipherable use for Israel’s Air Force: preemptive strikes. As such, how much pumped-up do these fly boys need to be? All they have to do is sit in the cockpit for about 60-minutes, control the plane with a joystick, use a computerized GPS to find their target, push a button to drop a bomb or launch a missile, and fly back. Certainly they do have to land. But what part of this work requires Viagra? And what happens if they happen to get a stiffie in their jump suites at 40,000 feet?

OK, OK, I know the thrust of this decision is to prevent high altitude oxygen deprivation for the pilots. My response: use the damn oxygen mask! I’m not buying that argument either.

Compare all that with the life of Army soldiers. Those poor bastards walk 15 hours on foot while carrying 70-pound back packs and dodging bullets and rockets. They may not get showers for days, and their food and water are rationed. Occasionally, they must engage in one-on-one combat. I’d say give the Viagra to the Army soldiers; they need and deserve it more.

Lolita Bed For Six-Year-Old Girls? Brilliant Marketing. NOOOOOT!

Earlier this month, Woolworths succumbed to pressure by concerned parents and agreed to remove a line of furniture from its product line as well as its Website. The product, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard, was intended for girls aged around six. The name of this Midsleeper Combi (and in fact the reason behind the controversy) was – waaaaaaaaaaaaait for it . . . – “Lolita”! Absolutely Brilliant.

A Woolworths’ press officer was quoted saying: “This was one product sold online and in the Big Red Book and quite naturally the people who arranged it had no idea about that word. They’d never heard of the word and in fact, neither had I. I had to go on to Wikipedia to find out the meaning of the word.”

So, no one at Woolworths (including designers, product managers, builders, manufacturers, packagers, transporters, store managers, marketing personnel, webmasters) had the faintest clue about the popular cultural reference of “Lolita”. Huh!

The rest of us human beings who do not live in caves know that “Lolita” is a reference to a 1955 Vladimir Nabokov novel in which a middle-aged man becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. According to Wikipedia, “The name “Lolita” has entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious young girl.”

Interestingly, Woolworths sells both (the 1962 as well as the 1997) movie adaptations of the novel. You can even purchase them on-line. That includes you, Woolworths employees!

Some of the other notable (and dis-tasteful) test products under consideration by Woolworths’ brilliant marketing strategists are: Al-Queda Box Cutters (for unconventional cutting jobs), Apartheid Fitted Sheets (guaranteed to stay white for years), Butcher of Baghdad (the meat cleaver that could), Carbon Footprint (shoe insoles that are out of this world), Castro’s Castrator (snip off the tip of any cigar with ease), Chernobyl Flashlight (requires no batteries, ever), Climate Change (a line of space heaters), Global Warming (a new blanket guaranteed to keep you nice and toasty all over), Hijack Doll (teaches your kids to say Hi to anyone named Jack), Indonesian Tsunami (a King-size water bed imported from Asia), Kosovo’s Ethnic Cleanser (an imported cleaner that is brutal on dirt), Nuclear Blast (an unexpectedly refreshing smoothie), Oil Slick (a new hair gel), Suicide Pack (exploding candy fun in your mouth), Synchronized Subway Mobile Phones (ring several friends’ phones at once and with one call, perfect for long subway commutes), and Taliban Turban (for the sheik, Metrosexual Sikh).

Now, I’m the first to admit that Political Correctness often goes too far, and that we should all just chill out. Consider, for instance, candy bar names. To say that many of them bear sexually suggestive names is an understatement: Almond Joy, Big Cherry, Big Daddy, Big Mo’, Butterfingers, Good and Fruity, Milky Way, Mr. Goodbar, NutRageous, Oh Henry, Red Hots, Sugar Babies, Swedish Fish, Tart-n-Tiny, and Tear Jerkers. Should we protest? Of course not.

Still, I admit that I’m somewhat apprehensive about buying my daughter anything that has the stigma of “Lolita”.

Naked Sushi? Um, No Thanks, But Can I Have Fries With That?

Nyotaimori.

No, I don’t speak Japanese. But roughly translated, it means “adorned body of a woman”. I have also read a comment on a boingboing article that explains the translation as:
nyo (女) – woman
tai (体) – body
mori (盛り) – helping, plateful, serving, etc.

At first blush, it seems logical that for those of us who love sushi, combining the culinary experience of eating it with the risqué pleasure of some eye candy is a fabulous idea. Proponents of Nyotaimori tout the practice as artful food. Plenty of places offer it in Japan and especially in Tokyo. Here’s a Google Map of some Naked Sushi places in Tokyo in case you decide to stay an extra day after your business trip (wink, wink). I’ve already done the hard part for you; just click it.

Art or not, I think I’ll pass on this. But here are some more tidbits.

To find models for Naked Sushi, ads are placed in various media asking for attractive young folks who are willing to lie naked and still for several hours. The models are required to take a shower prior to the event, and are then soaked with cold water to reduce their skin temperature. Sushi is placed on bamboo leaves which are usually glued onto the body. You must use chop sticks to pick up food; hands and finger are not permitted. One disadvantage of this type of dining is that body temperature will inevitably increase the temperature of sushi as well.

As you might suspect, many – including in the US – have detested this practice as dehumanizing and demeaning. It is banned in China.

There seems to be very few places in the US offering this type of elitist soft-porn (err . . . I meant food). Most of them are located exactly where you’d think they would be in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, etc. But there are new places cropping up in the Midwest including Minneapolis.

If you decide to try it, you should be fully aware that the naked part of Naked Sushi could also include male models under all that raw fish. Keep in mind that nothing in the Sushi world resembles a hot dog or, worse, a sausage. So stay away from those. Also, do not let them talk you into super-sizing your meal. That’s generally a bad idea with a male model canvas. It’s a trick.

Flossing is optional and, no, you cannot have fries with that. Dessert will cost you extra – if you know what I mean.

Starbucks and ATT Sitting in a Tree, Internet Connection is Now (sort of) Free!

Starbucks announced it is ending its six year agreement with T-Mobile in favor of a new Wi-Fi offering from AT&T. Say good-bye to T-Mobile’s ridiculous $9.99 per day access fee. As if $6 for a cup filled with coffee, chocolate, milk and sugar was not enough, you had to cough up an Alexander Hamilton to check your email if you decided to chug your (fattening and caffeinated something or other) Venti at the store.

Ah, the good old days. You could always pick out the suckers who were paying for T-Mobile service. They had their Credit Cards on their keyboards while filling out a seemingly long registration webform. By the time they got to put away their Credit Cards, their cups were all empty.

The new deal with AT&T is not entirely free either. You get up to two hours of free connectivity per day with the purchase of a Starbucks card. Anything beyond 2 hours and you’ll have to shell out $3.99 for another 2 hours or $19.99 for a month. AT&T DSL subscribers get this service for free.

These seem to be good times for AT&T. It is B.F.F. with Apple. Its network of hotspots already include McDonalds, Barnes & Noble stores, and many hotels and airports. And now they will add about 7,000 Starbucks locations in the US. Canada, it appears, is not part of this deal. I guess I can see the logic. The value of Canadian dollar is rising, so screw ‘em; them Canadians can afford to pay for T-Mobile service!

Don’t despair if you happen to be one of those losers who paid for a service plan with T-Mobile (most likely because you thought Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot and that purchasing services from T-Mobile somehow made you eligible for prizes, the top prize being a date with her . . . idiots!). Though somehow, you’re loser thinking paid off. Here’s the kicker. There is apparently an agreement between T-Mobile and AT&T that allows you to connect to AT&T network for free.

Paying for Internet access at a coffee shop is for suckers. Go to any Caribou Coffee location or Panera Restaurant and get FREE Internet access for – oh, gee, don’t tell me, let me think, let me think . . . – ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Vista is 1 Year Old . . . Blow the Candle, Eat the Cake, And Get Out

Are you ready to downgrade . . . um, I meant upgrade?

We all know (and have heard) Vista seems to be a big flop. Lots of articles by many capable industry experts have expressed the many reasons. I have a much simpler and less-technical approach.

For the general public, three areas mark the main thrust and justification for upgrading to Vista: security, productivity, and graphics.

Security - Think back 5 – 7 years. Remember how the world came to a grinding halt every few month by a new virus or worm affecting Windows machines? Remember how much we hated Windows and deplored Microsoft? Well, Microsoft decided to act. XP has been spectacularly stable and secure. As a result, we have replaced our painful and hateful memories of Windows security issues with encyclopedic recollection of best performers on ‘Dancing with the Stars‘ and worst performers on ‘American Idol‘. And the new Vista-only features such as Bitlocker aren’t sufficient incentives for many individuals or businesses to upgrade.

Productivity - Yes, there are loads and loads of great features in Vista to improve your daily experience: more powerful searching, personalized view of files, tagging files, improved Start menu, live icons, file synchronization, and much more. But all the fancy and so-called productivity features in the world are completely worthless if your most basic, day-to-day needs are not met. Try deleting a file in your profile that you created in Vista. Why does it ask you for the admin password? Does it not know it’s your file? And why is it that you cannot find a global setting, within 30 seconds, that removes this requirement? Further, the new features either don’t work intuitively or are easily breakable. The new Windows search feature, intended to compete with Google’s search, can’t find files that you are able to spot with your own eyes. Productivity features and efficiency requirements always revert back to the most basic operational needs. Fancy toys are merely a bonus.

Graphics - There’s very little debate over the aesthetically pleasing 3D graphics in Vista. Windows Aero has propelled Windows out of its old, archaic-looking interface. But the consensus seems to be that without a very powerful machine and graphics card, this fancy new feature chews up your hard drive and reduces performance. In comparison, Linux Ubuntu Beryl is much nicer and more advanced than Aeros.

Vista’s other problems:

Release Schedule – This product was delayed many times, and some of the features Microsoft had promised did not make it in its first release. In general, the act of delivering a product (any product) late and with fewer features than promised stamps a lasting impression in customers’ minds.

Editions & more editions – Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic, Business, Enterprise. Seriously?! Why? You must be a rocket scientist to understand what feature-sets belong to which edition. At first blush, it seems as though Microsoft is doing its customers a favor by offering lower-cost options for Windows. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Microsoft’s concept is otherwise. Offering multiple flavors is their way of extracting more money from people who cannot select the right edition for themselves, and are dazzled by names such as premium and ultimate. It’s the same concept as super-sizing. Who wants to have a smaller burger, fries, and drink? Who want a smaller house or car than their neighbor? As Americans, we are conditioned to go with the biggest and best – whether we need it (or can afford it) or not.

Drivers support – The awesome thing about Windows XP is its vast support for peripherals. Vista doesn’t have the broad legacy support. The legacy drivers that do exist for Vista seem to either not work well or break with SP1. Read this excellent article in Computer World by Eric Lai. It says it all.

In the end, most of us want to be on Windows. Over the past few years, XP has spoiled us. It just works! Sure, you must do the occasional reboot and, of course, it gets junked-up with programs and slows down over time. But XP has been a stable platform with pretty good security and great drivers support. 99.9% of the time, you can plug something in your machine and XP will recognize it.

Compare that with Linux and Mac. Most people lack required expertise and extra time to run Linux. We want to buy a printer or a camera, hook it up to our PC and just have it work. We don’t want to have to tweak anything. And as for Mac, Apple doesn’t have a driver nightmare because it supports only a limited array of peripherals. We Americans despise the idea of being limited. We want it all. But we don’t want to shell out too much money.

I’ll wait for Windows 7 (yes, there is such a thing, and it’s supposedly the successor of Windows Vista) unless I’m forced to upgrade before its release. Who knows, I may be able to afford a Mac by then.

Rush Limbaugh and the Case of His Uninformed Views on Solar Energy

One day last week at 3:00 am, my 9 month old decided that sleep was not in the cards. Nothing I tried worked. Determined not to be bothered by it, I let her play in her room while I surfed on my laptop. Somehow I ended up on Rush Limbaugh’s website, and started looking around. I had high expectations. I may not agree with much of his views, but I do respect him for having captured the imagination and attention of millions of listeners. I was looking for substance, things to learn, and ideas I had not yet considered.

It didn’t take me long to be disappointed. It only took me 5 minutes to discover inaccurate information. Here’s an example. It appears that a caller had an interesting conversation with Rush about solar power/energy. Apparently Rush does not believe that solar panels on a house are efficient enough to supply an average home’s electricity during the day. Further, he is unable to imagine how excess electricity produced by panels can be sold back to the grid.

Read the following excerpt (from his own website), and here’s a link to the transcript where you can also listen to the audio version. I will highlight some of the inaccuracies after the excerpt.

CALLER: . . . . but allow homeowners to install the solar panels that — you know, that they’re creating their own electricity, when you’re not using your electricity, you know, that electricity is all sold back to the electric companies. Okay?

RUSH: What do you do when it’s cloudy?

CALLER: Well, then –

RUSH: They don’t work when it’s cloudy, and they don’t work very well when it’s sunny. They’re not very efficient. It’s a myth these solar panels. It’s a great idea in the future, we’re not there yet. . . .

CALLER: See, I’ve heard other people who say that they can actually go outside and see their electric meter running backwards, which means they are –

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t possibly — you cannot — please, Paula. You don’t believe those stories?

CALLER: Well, now that you’ve told me it’s not true, I’m going to believe you over them.

RUSH: That doesn’t happen. There is no way that any device that you put on your house is going to roll back the amount of electricity you’ve used. It might slow the meter down if there’s any truth to this to where it moved very slowly forward or didn’t move at all, but I don’t think those meters are allowed to go backwards.

Unfortunately for the caller and all of his listeners that day, Rush is completely wrong. Solar panels DO work in cloudy conditions (certainly with much lower output production), just as your solar-powered calculator (with its low-grade and inefficient solar cells) works on cloudy and rainy days.

Furthermore, it is in fact possible for the meter to run backwards. Net metering, created specifically for the purpose of selling electricity back to the power grid, makes this possible. According to the US Department of Energy, it is offered in over 35 states. Interestingly, conservapedia brings back no hits on ‘net meetering’ search. Draw you own conclusions. I won’t argue that solar panels are not expensive, but I strongly object to dissemination of inaccurate information by a prominent conservative personality.

Mr. Limbaugh, you are in front of the golden microphone. People listen to you, depend on you for information, and look to you for direction. If you are uninformed about a particular topic or are unsure about factuality of a specific statement, admit that much and refrain from speaking authoritatively on the matter. That is what one would expect from a sound-minded, dependable, and well-informed leader.

Are you such a person Mr. Limbaugh? Prove it.

New TSA Blog . . . blah, blah, yawn, gag . . . Give Me a Break!

How many Transportation Safety Officers does it take to screw in a light bulb? . . . Well, let’s see. One to get the light bulb through security (but she must first stop to take her shoes off, discard her sealed and unopened bottled water only to purchase a sealed and unopened water bottle inside the concourse for $3, toss out her 4 oz toothpaste container because it’s larger than the permitted 3 oz even though it is more than half empty, then she has to put her shoes back on without the luxury of any chairs or benches) . . . What was the question again?

TSA has a brand new blog: “Evolution of Security”. Don’t waste your time! It’s a fairly uninteresting site that lacks the smallest bit of creativity, and is devoid of any valuable or useful information on TSA’s regulations or logic. It is undoubtedly run by government employees who don’t know a things about blogging.

The first page attempts to address two commonly asked questions by the flying public with the aid of streaming media. Great! Now we’re cooking with gas, except that the videos are very tiny in size and, you’ll love this one, they are in .wmv format (seriously? this is 2008 not 1998) which is viewable only by Windows Media Player. Forget Mac users, who needs ‘em. Haven’t TSA bloggers heard of the new inventive technology called YouTube?

As you navigate the blog, you’re quickly struck by obvious lack of content. There are crude attempts at clarifying policies and answering frequently asked questions, but they amount to nothing more than a waste of electronic media and of readers’ time. 99% of content on the blog is comprised of public comments in the form of rants and gripes. In return, there is insignificant and inadequate attempt in addressing concerns and questions that are raised in these comments.

Since I know my gripes will fall onto deaf ears on TSA’s blog, I thought I’d present some of them on my own blog. Of course, there’s nothing here that has not already been expressed by the frustrated public on TSA’s blog.

Why can I not get my own unopened and commercially sealed bottled water through security? How’s that a security threat? Has every single bottle of water (or pop can) that is delivered to the concourse been checked? Have all the packagers, loaders, warehouse workers, drivers, handlers and cashiers been through a background check? How’s the $3 bottled water in the concourse any safer than mine? And if my outside bottled water is unsafe, why put a collection bin, in plain sight and accessible to everyone, at the security check point? Isn’t that in itself a security risk?

What’s the deal with the 3-1-1 rule? What makes only 3 oz of liquids safe? How does limiting each individual to a 1 quart-size bag (and only 1 bag per person) truly limit total volume of liquids brought on board? Terrorists are adaptive individuals. If one of them is unable to carry sufficient quantities of explosive liquids, then 2 or 3 of them on the same flight certainly can bring enough.

The idea of limiting liquids is to prevent “binary liquid explosive” making. A little research on the Internet reveals the likelihood of success is very low. Binary liquids for production of explosives are highly unstable, and require laboratory-like environment to mix.

An uninformative and poor-quality video on TSA’s blog explains that the 3-1-1 rule is for security reasons, but offers no further information. Why can’t the TSA educate the public by producing a video that demonstrates successful binary liquid explosive production – in the lavatory of a plane? The video needs not reveal the ingredients, and does not have to be detailed. The demonstration is unlikely to inspire new attackers, and would not aid already-determined attackers (just as widely available bomb-making information on the Internet is doubtful to inspire anyone who’s not already determined to make bombs).

Further, why can’t 3 oz of liquid be placed in larger containers? The conventional wisdom that larger containers provide for easier mixing of binary liquids is laughable. A would-be attacker can purchase a bottled water inside the concourse and later use it to mix liquids. Why permit lighters? God know no one can tamper with those!

And then there is the shoe thing. These pictures are from TSA’s blog demonstrating a confiscated pair of shoes that were altered to become an Improvised Explosive Device. Let’s think about this for a moment. The reason you must send your shoes through X-Ray is that these rigged devices are not detectable by metal detectors. Notice how flat and small the entire assembly has to be for a good fit inside the shoe. There’s nothing to stop a would-be attacker from carrying this assembly inside his groin. It would not be noticeable. Also, wouldn’t be great if TSA could release statistics on how many shoe bombs have been discovered to date? This could result in a more educated and better cooperating public.

Why ban sharp objects but allow 4 inch scissors and knitting needles? Yes, 9/11 hijackers employed sharp objects. But why is there a double standard between permitting sharp objects on a plane versus carrying concealed weapons by citizens in public (which the administration is in favor of)? The claim goes something like this: If everyone was able to carry a firearm, then murderers would think twice before spraying the public with bullets and, even if they did it anyway, the public could defend itself against such attacks, thereby reducing potential casualties. If that is a valid argument, then surely a cabin full of passengers with sharp objects should be a safer place in case of a hijacking.

Security and safety is all about cost-benefit analysis and controlling risk. 100% security is not achievable, but that should not lead us to unreasonable risk assessment. Israel – a country that knows a thing or two about terrorism – does not subscribe to many of TSA’s regulations. Their approach is to combine deeper over-all intelligence with highly trained, educated and perceptive security personnel to combat potential attacks.

A more targeted and intelligently-oriented security is the only logical and safe way. Checking everyone and everything is ineffective and reactionary – it costs too much, causes needless inconvenience, and will inevitably fail.