My first Enterprise

After modeling the Romulan Warbird from TOS I want an Enterprise to go with it. Made some headway on the deck so construction is underway….

Link to the Warbird pic here…
Warbrid Picture

There is an icon in the center, above and below the picture, click that for the full size picture.

Born In The USA

Soon it will be the 4th of July, America’s Independence Day. You can expect to hear Born In The USA played that entire week. Who doesn’t know this song by the ‘Boss’, Bruce Springsteen? I remember when it came out, people singing it with vigor, waving the American flag high and proud. But, did you know that it was intended to be a indictment of the USA and it’s people on the treatment of Vietnam veterans? It is widely regarded as the most misinterpreted song ever written. 

How could this have happened? How did millions of Americans listen to this song, listen to the lyrics and come away with such a different feeling than the writer intended? Instead of being disappointed and angry with their country, Americans embraced this song, it made them proud to be Americans.

I believe the answer takes us back to the core of what it means to be an American. Forget about what you see on TV, what you hear in the media. Go back to when you were growing up. What did America mean to you? You might not have thought about it in those terms, but think back. Who did you root for, the underdog or the team that you knew was going to win? (Why do so many people hate the NY Yankees?) Who intrigued you more, the self made millionaires or the aristocrats? When you told someone what you wanted to be when you grew up, what did they say? “Hey, if you work hard, you can be whatever you want to be” was the standard answer. In much of the world, that isn’t the answer you would get, or if someone did say it, the examples around you would tell you it just wasn’t likely to happen. America is different. You are surrounded by people who worked hard and made something of themselves from nothing. Many of them will tell you stories about how they hit bottom, lived out of their cars, and came back to be a success. It can be done and we admire those who make it happen. Little pity is given to someone who falls and stays down, instead, we get behind those that fall and get back up. We help them, we celebrate their achievements, they become our role models. It’s what we do, it’s what we are.

 When Americans heard this song… “Born down in a dead man’s town, the first kick I took was when I hit the ground” … we heard an underdog. We heard someone to get behind, someone to root for. Where the song lyrics end… “Nowhere to run, aint got nowhere to go” … Springsteen’s vision ended, but not ours. In Springsteen’s interpretation we are left with a sad soul that has no chance in a country that didn’t care. What most Americans heard was a man trying to get back up, to fight to make something of himself in a country where that is not only possible, but likely. He’ll struggle, he won’t get many hand outs, but he’ll get what he needs if he has a mind to. We’re behind him, we want him to make it and we’re proud to live in a place where he’ll be able to do it.

Bruce, I am proud to be Born In The USA. Happy Birthday America!

I think I want one…..

Bev and I stopped in at the Apple store Saturday to see the iPad. I’ve haven’t wanted one up to this point since I have a net book I can carry around. (I originally bought it for work to replace my paper pad at meetings, but my job changed since then.) Then I played with the iPad and have to say it’s pretty cool. The people who say it’s just a big ipod touch are right, but that’s not a bad thing. The touch is very cool, but the small screen and keyboard have always limited it’s use as a computer / information device. In that role it’s more of a stop gap ‘twitter’ device as is the iphone.

The iPad is different than the touch or iphone It’s not so big that the touch interface becomes a problem, try waving your hands to move things on your 24 inch monitor, in fact the extra size seems perfect for the ‘touchy movey slidey’ way to do things. It’s fast as well, truly blows the touch and iphone away in this regard. The screen will keep up with your typing, at least mine. The screen based keyboard is responsive, maybe not for a book but certainly fine for an extended email. Another big difference though is the speed of displaying internet information. It’s as fast as your computer, the limiting factor is your internet connection.

So who will want one? It’s not a laptop replacement for someone who wants to work with it. Big spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, video editing etc, don’t even stop to look, you’re losing valuable time. The iPad is the ultimate casual computing device. Check your email, read the news, watch a video, check. (I could add listen to music, but this isn’t an iPad strength. The ipod is better suited because of it’s size) That’s the obvious stuff, the difference to the laptop you might already have is that it’s made to carry around the house with you. No waiting for it boot up from sleep mode. It’s open, instant on and ready to go. Check the TV listing, read a book, check your calendar, pull up a recipe, remember a birthday and then play bejeweled for a little while. My mother recently passed away, but this is the device I would set her up with.

I threw the recipe thing in there for everyone that remembers that selling point for computers. For 40 years salesmen have gone on about how you can put you recipes in the computer and access them later. Yes you can, but no one does because you quickly realize that the computer isn’t in the kitchen. It isn’t in the exercise room to use track your progress. It isn’t in the garage to read the assembly instructions. It isn’t on the deck to read the paper. It isn’t at the store with your grocery list. It isn’t in the car with your things to do list. It isn’t in the waiting room to pass the time with. The iPad is and that’s why you’ll want one too.

Constitutional Failure

Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a strict constitutionalist. The men who drafted it were clear in both language and intent. Language like ‘shall not be infringed’ and ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ isn’t ambiguous to me, as it seems to be to so many others. However, it was written by men. Men aren’t perfect, so there were bound to be mistakes. or areas where the language wasn’t clear enough. The amendment process is there to correct any mistakes, the Supreme Court is there to clear up any clarity issues. 

Tiger Woods

As the count is now up to 10, does anyone believe he’s sorry? You can be sorry after one affair and wish it never happened, but this guy isn’t sorry. Only that it went public. Only that his life got complicated. This is one of those cases where the pre-nup should be thrown out of court for infidelity. She should get 50% + child support clean and simple. He’s a scum bag and should be treated as such.

That being said, can we get CNN to move on to something else? There’s this little health care thing and an energy policy this dope of a president is getting us in to that we need to pay attention to!

RAID’s work!

A few days ago my mouth went dry, panic began to well up inside of me. I store all my graphic assets on a network drive so I can access them from multiple computers. It’s been great for the last couple of years. I got the 1 TB unit on sale at Best Buy for $230 and set it up as a RAID 1, which mirrors your data on two internal drives.

Sunday it took FOREVER to access a file. I ran the disk manager and the DRIVE A FAILED message chilled my soul. Every model I’ve ever made was on that drive. Every render I’ve done. Assets and tutorials I paid more money than my wife knows about, all on that drive.  With not much confidence I told the unit to copy everything to my system hard drive. In theory, everything was on drive b, just not efficiently, the auto backup is the whole point of a RAID 1 setup.

IT WORKED!!!!! It took 24 hours, but it’s all safely on another drive, two other drives actually, and a replacement raid drive is on it’s way. Ahhhhhhh……

Paradigm Shift

While we have seen evidence in the past of the schism between the right and the left, it has never become as clear and defined as it has during the debate on Obamacare and nationalized health care in general. It often strikes me as amazing how people can look at the same question in the same setting and come up with such different answers. Clearly there is a difference in the base definitions that the two sides are using and how they see the world. I was listening to a radio program the other day that helped me understand it. It was a right wing radio host interviewing a left wing book author and the host asked if he supported Obamacare. Predictably the answer was yes, but it was the reason why that was interesting. The author said he believed that it was part of doing what the US Constitution prescribed, to provide for the common welfare. The radio host corrected him and quoted the correct language, that the government is to PROMOTE the common welfare, but it had no effect on the author. That an author, someone who makes their living with words, would completely disregard the differences between “provide” and “promote” is perhaps a ponter as to why people who read the constitution see issues differently than those who interpret the constitution, such as the book author in this interview. (Link to the US Constitution is in the upper right corner if you would like to see it.)

The definitions…
Promote: contribute to the progress or growth of
Provide: give something useful or necessary to

Synonyms for these words……
Promote:Advance, Boost, Further, Encourage
Provide: Supply, Render, Furnish

If, and this is another question, the American people decide that it is in the general welfare for everyone to have health insurance, the governments role is not to provide it, but rather to encourage it and help it become available. Nothing in the constitution says anything about taxing everyone to provide heath insurance to those that don’t have it.

There are examples of the government looking out for the general welfare in a positive way. The interstate highway system in an excellent example of the government promoting the general welfare. This system opened up opportunities across the country, single handedly creating new industries and jobs. (Not without a cost however. It also brought about the demise of the local economy since it was now just as fast and even cheaper to buy from across the country) In the early history of the United States this clause in the constitution was used to promote the growth of the country and providing it’s citizens with opportunities through actions such as the Lousiana Purchase and other land annexations that eventually redefined the United States’ borders.

On the other side we have examples of the government providing for the common welfare and they are all disasters. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Public Housing, the list of failures is as long as the list of attempts. I would prefer that the federal government start to act on the issues that the constitution requires, securing the borders from terrorists and illegal entry, defense and insuring our freedoms are protected and apply to every citizen. Leave the rest to us, the States and the People.

Chappaquiddick would have destroyed a better man…

Healthcare Solution?

Okay….
 
The good news;
Obama is about to give up the public option for health care. (Opting instead for a non-profit health organization. Isn’t that called Blue Cross / Blue Shield?)
 
The bad news;
With no public option, the only way to cover the millions of people dying in the streets every day is to buy them a private health insurance policy.
 
Not news;
The price has always been the same either way, just less government involvement this way.

Prediction;
1. The geniuses in Washington will mail everyone without healthcare a voucher to purchase a policy. 50% of those people won’t buy the insurance, opting instead to just go to the emergency room. (Kind of like they currently do.) 25% of the remaining people will find a way to sell them on ebay to illegal aliens.
2. Healthcare costs will continue to go up, the real reasons will continue to be ignored. This is what needs to get fixed to lower health care costs:
        A. People will opt for any test, no matter how expensive or how many times it’s ordered. (Would you do that if you paid for each out of your pocket?)
        B. People will take any prescription the doctor says might have an effect.
        C. Doctors will order a test 10 times if that’s what it takes to avoid a mal-practice lawsuit.
        D. People will opt for any treatment to prolong their lives, and those treatments are more numerous, available and expensive every year.
 
What do you think?

Another walk down a dangerous road…

Here is another stunning policy reversal by Obama. After the Bush administration was ripped relentlessly about allowing the NSA to to engage in domestic warrantless wiretapping, here is the Obama administration allowing the same thing. See the story below from the Washington Post / Fox News. The emphasis on the last line is mine.

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The Obama administration is set to revive a Bush-era program to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, FOX News has confirmed.

The program will review only data going to or from government systems, Department of Homeland Security officials told the Washington Post, which first reported the story.

According to the newspaper, the program has sparked controversy within the Department of Homeland Security because of uncertainty over whether private data can shielded from unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether the agency’s involvement in warrantless wiretapping under the Bush administration would draw criticism.

“We absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the substantial ones, that NSA has,” the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, told reporters in a discussion of cybersecurity efforts. “But…they will be guided, led, and in a sense directed by the people we have at the Department of Homeland Security.”

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Since Homeland Security oversaw the activity under the Bush administration, we’re supposed to think it’s okay now because it’s Obama’s people instead of Bush’s people? Sorry, spying on citizens without a warrant was not okay under Bush and it’s not okay for Obama either.