Ethics and the Economic Stimulus Package?

A question to provoke conversation among the philosophical types out there-- are there ethical considerations to what a person does with the so-called "Economic Stimulus Package?"

Consider: if your parents give you $600 as a gift, unconditionally, whatever you chose to do with it is your own business. Spend it, save it, lose it in a poker game, whatever. However, if your parents give you $600 and tell you it's specifically intended for something (new suit for that job interview, repair your broke down car, etc.), by accepting that money you have some ethical considerations to keep in mind when spending that money.

(Yes, I know-- there are some people who would take the second $600 and blow it on an HDTV, but the consequences of that action catch up with them in that no one ever gives them a helping hand again. Game theory is a bitch sometimes, isn't it?)

So, if our government decides to give the majority of its population an "Economic Stimulus Package"-- with the goal being that everyone go out and spend it, to generate some economic momentum and theoretically jump start the economy, is it unethical to put it in savings instead of spending it?

Addendum to "Web Site Changes"

I forgot to mention it in my previous entry, but even though this site no longer validates properly, it is still possible to follow the entries here on your cell phone and/or mobile device. Look on the side menu bar, and you should see a section labeled "Website Feeds/Services." There's a link there which basically pipes this site's RSS feed through Google Reader in such a way that it produces friendly output for cell phones.

Processes & Paranoia

I'm looking around in msconfig because I'm trying to cut down on the number of background processes that are chewing up my computer's RAM and slowing it down-- and I find an active entry with no name or command showing for it. When I try to turn it off, my laptop tells me I need to have administrator access to do so.

Did I happen to mention that I have administrator access on my machine?

There's an old saying-- just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean nobody's out to get you.

Website changes

Oh, forgot to mention-- I made some changes to the website.

Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious!

Yes, I know-- switched templates, color schemes, added new features, and then got sidetracked before I had time to sit down and write all about it.

This site no longer validates with the W3C validator tool.

No, it doesn't.

So what's up with that?

Basically, I could use a classic, simple template where I had complete control over all the HTML that appeared on the page-- but never use any fancy bells/whistles, or I could stop being such a hard-nose about my blog adhering to valid HTML and integrate features that might actually make adding interesting content and drawing traffic easier.

So you sold out . . . ?

Yeah, pretty much. :) But you've got to admit, adding the Twitter feed and Google Reader feeds to the page was pretty slick.

Maybe, but it's so . . . green.

What's wrong with green? I like green. It's my favorite color. Well, next to black, but black isn't really a color, is it? It's actually the absence of all color and/or light. So, technically speaking, green's my favorite color. As a matter of fact, a black suit with a green tie-- now there's an idea for a fashion statement.

Um, yeah-- it says, "Hi, I'm an Irish Ninja wannabe."

Don't be a hater. The template (Son of Moto, if I'm not mistaken) I'm using was actually designed by Zeldman (yes, that Zeldman), so even if my code won't currently pass validation, I'm still showing my solidarity by choosing the author of my template. If I find ways to tweak code and options so that they generate valid HTML, I will certainly do so-- just like I did for Google Analytics.

Okay, so it's got Google Reader and Twitter. What else did you do?

The name of the web site has changed from "An Error Occurred . . ." to simply "Jonah Chanticleer." The focus of the web site has changed since I first chose that site name back in 2003, and it didn't feel right to stick with it anymore-- sort of like false advertising, I guess. Don't worry-- only the name has changed; the site address and RSS feed locations and all that are staying the same, so no one has to change any settings.

I also added an archive widget on the right hand side of the page, so people can look back at past entries by month and year. I'm toying with the idea of adding additional widgets that integrate with photos and/or video clips-- but that's pending getting some special content on sites such as Picasa or YouTube.

Like what?

If I told you, it'd ruin the surprise.

Google Maps and Gasoline

Can Google Maps help you conserve gasoline?

Let's say you are planning to drive on an extended trip-- perhaps from Washington, DC to Montreal, Canada, for example. You might go to Google Maps to get your travel directions.
In addition to the various roads and turns to make, Google Maps provides you with the approximate distance (610 miles) and estimated duration (10 hours) of the trip.

Although Google doesn't show you multiple routes to your destination, per se-- you can "grab" the path and adjust it to avoid certain roads. If you kept an eye on the time (first and foremost) and the distance (secondary, I should think), that'd give you enough raw data to determine which route should use less gas.

If someone wanted to get really sharp about it, they'd create some Google Maps mashup with one of those Gas Buddy type web sites-- and then integrate the method above so as to take you through destinations with the cheapest gasoline prices.

And, if I thought of it-- odds are someone else thought of it before I did. Someone smarter and with bigger web programming chops. This might already exist out there somewhere-- it's just a matter of finding it.

An OS Transplant For My eee PC?

I'm still pretty happy with the eee PC, but there are some limitations-- with only 4 GB of permanent storage space, it doesn't take much in terms of software updates or installing additional packages, to burn through the remaining empty space pretty quickly. My recent reading research also indicated that some tweaks ASUS made to the Xandros distribution would prevent it from using more than 1 GM of RAM. Granted, I've never thought about boosting the RAM higher, but it would be nice to have that option as a possibility if the need should arise. Then there are all the warnings about not being able to use generic Debian packages with the ASUS eee PC, due to customizations of the linux distro it uses.

With all these quirks, I think it's time to consider installing something else besides Xandros.

It's got to be small, use the 2.6 kernel-- what else, I wonder?

Happy Birthday, Father

You would be 75 years old today, if you were still with us. We miss you.

The Seven Word Meme?

Ever since author Michael Pollan summarized his philosophy on food in a tidy, seven word statement, I've noticed other people trying to do the same with their field of expertise. Financial advice, sports analysis, relationship wisdom-- it's become annoying and creates pressure because there's this false belief that if something can't be encapsulated in micro-prose, it's somehow less valid.

So now, not only do I need to be a subject matter expert, but I also need to be able to write a haiku?! Are you shitting me? Seriously?!

Sometimes you need more than seven words. Ever tried summing up bomb disposal techniques in 7 words? "Cut the red wire. No, wait--! Blue!"

The end results are not pretty. Just ask George Carlin.

There's No "I" In Team, but there is a "me" in Time

I don't understand it. Every time I sit down to write something in my blog, someone feels the need to interrupt me with a long, drawn out conversation. It happened again tonight-- and it's pissed me off so much that I can't even begin to write the entry I was originally intending to write. If you're going to interrupt me when I'm trying to get stuff done, you should at least make damn sure what you've got to say isn't ignorant and offensive.

Maybe I should just get a large, ugly hat and embroider "I'm writing; PISS OFF!" on it?

No wonder t-shirts with rude slogans on them are making such a dramatic come back.

Analyze Automate This

I leave my laptop at work overnight one night every week, so it can make up backup copies of my work websites as well as my entire hard drive on an external drive. I guess I'd be stretching it a little bit if I claimed it was truly automation, but this practice has saved my proverbial bacon more than once. It's nice-- all I have to do is remember to leave the laptop on and connected to the external hard drive, and Windows Scheduled Tasks and NT Backup software takes care of the rest.

I'd like to find some way to apply more of that dynamic to other parts of my life. I'm not sure exactly how or what, mind you, but for instance:

if my iBook fired up at 6:00 AM every morning, launched iTunes and grabbed the latest podcast episodes and transferred them to my iPod. Of course, I can't even get iTunes to automatically load podcasts when I manually connect my iPod, so I'd need to troubleshoot that mess before I have any hope of automating the whole process.

House MD Rocks!

Last night, I saw a fantastic episode of House MD. How good was it? Best of this season, hands down. I can't say any more, or else I'm going to want to get into the details and will wind up spoiling it for others-- and that would be terrible. Go watch it, seriously.

Thank you, Clay Eichelberger

It's hard for me to watch a Dr. Who episode with the Master in it, and not think about the fellow who got me hooked on the programme in the first place.

Thank you, Clay. I know, long overdue-- but what's two decades to a couple of Time Lord wannabes? ;)

Google Bookmarks. Hell, yeah. :)

Bookmarks (or do you prefer Favorites?) suck.

I'm surfing the web and find an interesting website. I bookmark it so I can find it again in the future, whenever I want. Sounds simple enough, right?

Except we both know it doesn't quite work that way. Bookmarks have certain limitations.

FIRST LIMITATION: They are kept locally on the computer.

You create a bookmark on your home computer-- but you cannot access that bookmark from your work computer, or vice versa. If something ever happens to that computer, odds are that all the bookmarks you ever created on it are gone forever.

SECOND LIMITATION: Organizing bookmarks is a pain.

We all have too many bookmarks, so we use some sort of folder/category system to keep track of them. The only problem is that one bookmark can't appear in multiple folders at the same time. So, if I find a web site that talks about a combination toilet/fish tank, I can put it in either the "Strange Aquariums" folder or "Bathroom Fixtures" folder-- but not both.

Google Bookmarks let you keep track of interesting web pages-- but stores them on server space associated with your Google account, rather than on the local machine. You can also provide tags for each bookmark, such as: toilet, fish, aquarium, novelty item, bathroom, etc. This means you can organize bookmarks so that they appear in two or more categories at the same time.

Firefox's Javascript Engine-- throwing an exception

It's been a frustrating 24 hours.

I've got a series of web pages (for work, otherwise I'd show them here) that use Javascript to do the "Dynamic HTML/tabbed interface" thing. Trust me, given my lack of expertise in Javascript, I'd much have preferred to use a server technology, like ColdFusion, to do the job-- but that option wasn't available to me.

TO RECAP:

Basically, there's a series of div tags with content in them. You click on one of the tabs, and the Javascript changes the display property for all the divs on the fly. It's actually a pretty slick effect. Too bad it only works on Internet Explorer at the moment.

In Firefox, which about 20% of our visitors use, the code that analyzes all the <a> tags to see whether they are links or have anchors seems to trigger an exception in the Javascript engine. Basically, it moves through all the <a> tags and asks, "Do you have an anchor?" If it has an anchor, no problem-- it reports back as a positive, and the code moves on to the next <a> tag. If, however, the next tag doesn't have an anchor, it appears that the Firefox Javascript engine pretty much tanks.

This really isn't how I wanted to spend my weekend, you know?

YouTube is to Violence as Chicken is to Egg

Some people would have us believe it's all YouTube's fault.

After all, the kids who assaulted that poor girl in Florida were spurred on by the desire to video tape the beat down, post it on YouTube and become infamous and/or popular. If only YouTube would, they argue, exercise better screening and censorship this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

To which I reply: are you freakin' NUTS?!

Think about this for a moment, please: you have a population segment willing to commit felony assault against others AND THEY ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO MAKE VIDEO EVIDENCE OF THEIR CRIMES and then put copies of that evidence ON A PUBLIC FORUM where people like police and prosecutors can see it. The only way this gets any better is if they drive themselves to the police station to save our law enforcement servants some gas money.

People like those teens in Florida are willing to commit violence because they learned at an early age that violence is acceptable. We can sit here all day and debate in circled about "Who is responsible?"-- the parents, YouTube, the kids themselves, etc. and get nowhere. But I think everyone knows and must agree that violence like this predates video Internet services like YouTube. Remember the wilding in Central Park? Before YouTube. Remember Kitty Genovese? BYT.

I just hope that violent creeps like that continue to post videos of their misdeeds on YouTube, so that police can get them off the streets and put them where they belong-- like the Jerry Spri-- I mean, jail. ;)

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit

The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit: "It's a people's revolution, of sorts, with workers increasingly pressing their employers to let them use Macs in the office."

There's a fascinating article over at Business Week Magazine about how Apple computers are finding their way into the corporate sector. It's funny, because the organization I currently work for has a real "hate on" for Apple computers-- mostly due to the efforts of a tiny, but highly vocal, minority in the IT department. It's going to be interesting to see whether this shift in the corporate realm has any impact upon the "No Macs welcome here" policy that my organization currently espouses.

It could be worse-- they could force me to use Vista. ;)

The unsolicited opinion

I'm sitting in my favorite coffee shop, when one of the baristas asks me:

"Jonah, are you into technology?"

The temptation to be a smart ass is overwhelming. Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods? Technology has been a major factor in my identity since-- well, as long as I can remember. If it weren't for technology, I literally can't begin to guess what my life would be like or where I'd be without it. "Yes," I reply, "it's kinda my job."

Turns out, she's looking to buy a new computer for college, and wants to get my opinion on it. As I'm talking with her, I'm finding out she's actually further ahead in the game than most of the college freshman I've spoken with-- she's actually taken the time to find out that the school itself is offering computers pre-configured for their network systems. She has said to me on more than one occasion that she isn't computer savvy, and her school offers both Mac and PC-- and since Leopard comes with BootCamp now, it's actually possible to run both OS X and Windows on the same laptop-- I suggest that she consider getting a Mac.

At which point, another customer who wasn't even part of the conversation initially, immediately begins to contradict me. "You shouldn't buy a Mac, 99% of the college students use Dells, they are only good for multimedia, etc." It's the typical knee jerk reaction of the Windows zealot-- he doesn't even know this young lady, her proficiency level, what she's going to be doing with it.

Now, personally, I don't give a rip whether this barista becomes a Windows person or a Mac person. I'm not keeping score, and I don't get any money or benefit out of it regardless of what she chooses. I could engage this fellow in a debate on the comparable merits of the operating system (Leopard OS X versus Windows Vista), but opt for the common sense approach instead:

"Why don't you go out to the store-- not to buy anything at this point-- but just to test drive them and compare?"

It turns out that she already had, and really liked the MacBook Air. She was just trying to confirm her impressions with an external authority. (Don't worry-- I explained that the MacBook Air definitely had a serious cool factor, but that the best value for the buck for your average college student was the regular MacBook.)

It just amazes me how people can get so locked in to one particular operating system. It just seems so odd to me. I use Windows at work, OS X on my personal computer, and Linux on a third/new personal computer for my travelling notebook. It's tempting to say they all have their strengths and idiosyncrasies, and that somehow this can be translated into an objective truth that System A is "better" than System B. It's ridiculous, of course-- you might as well say "Everyone should buy and wear Fruit of the Loom underwear, because it is the best underwear for everyone-- regardless of your size or any other preferences."

Snoop Dogg - great rapper, not-so-much action film star

I hope that Snoop Dogg never decides to jump from the whole rap game into the "action-buddy film" genre. I just don't see any way that could go well.

Take, for example, the inevitable "I've just discovered an explosive device that is a mere seconds away from detonation and need to warn everyone before it goes off" scene:

SNOOP:

(bends over to retrieve dropped SIDEKICK PHONE; eyes widen as he sees THE BOMB)

What the fi-zzle? Yo, MC-Fizzle, I tizzle I found a bomb-izille, for shizzle!


WILLIS:

What?

SNOOP:

I sizzle I fizzle a bomb-izille, you wizzle?


WILLIS:

I can't understand a freakin' word you just said!


(EARTH SHATTERING KABOOM as THE BOMB detonates, killing everyone-- roll the credits)

I do think, however, he'd make for a hysterical villain in the Austin Powers films, Fo' shizzle.

Biore nose strips

I finally got around to trying out those Biore nose strips-- you know, the strips that help clean clogged pores in the skin on and around your nose? For years, I've been very skeptical about them, but having tried one now, I can tell you they actually do work. Just be careful and make sure you follow ALL of the direction exactly, or something bad could happen.

Why I hate people . . .

It's Friday. For most people, this means the end of the work week, relaxing and unwinding. Unfortunately, I get to work late tonight AND possibly this weekend-- thanks to an "unplanned" network outage and poor planning/organization on the part of certain people. This sets the stage for my mood tonight.

By the time I'm done working on the piece that was required tonight, it's 8 PM and I'm starving. I head for my favorite local Greek restaurant to get an omelet. On my way in, this young guy in a button down shirt and tie approaches me-- he seems familiar. Maybe a former student? He asks me if I'd be interested in hearing the words of a living prophet-- which really throws me for a loop, to be honest.

See, I believe in a Creator, but I've got serious issues with organized religion (aka churches). Some of the most bigoted, hypocritical people I have ever seen have been in the heart/throng of a church congregation.

On top of all that, I'm pretty sure there's a scripture in the Bible that pretty much says God wasn't sending any more prophets after Jesus, and to beware of people who claim they are prophets afterwards-- since they are bound to be false ones. So now my radar alarm is really going off.

Of course, I don't say any of this to the young fellow, I just tell him that I'm really not interested in hearing what he has to say. I keep moving towards the door to the restaurant.

A smart person would have let it drop, right? Not this kid, though. "Who do you know that would be interested in hearing the words of a living prophet?"

Pushy little prick, aren't we? At this point, I don't even try to be polite and just turn my back on the guy.

I just want to get dinner, and not have someone try to proselytize me. Go figure, if a guy sits out in front of a coffee shop and plays his guitar, doesn't even speak to anyone, people will complain/threaten/call the cops/whatever it takes to drive him away-- but a religious nut can verbally harass and pester me as I walk into a restaurant, and he's protected by the Constitution.

But wait, there's more!

After dinner, I decide to head up to my local coffee shop. I just want to say hello to some friends, listen to some music, and drink some caffeine and unwind from all the work-related nonsense of the day. At the counter, while I'm ordering my drink, some guy bumps into me and doesn't say excuse me or in any way acknowledge that he's just bumped into me. Okay, shit happens-- move on. Except about a minute later, when I move down to the end of the counter to pick up my drink, the same dude deliberately goes out of his way to walk down and bump into me again.

This time, I can smell the alcohol pouring off him, and I realize he's just another drunk, angry young minority, looking to pick a fight to "get even with whitey." He figures if he keeps standing too close and bumping into me, that I'll eventually say something and he can justify starting a fight. I ignore him, and after a while, he's not sure what to do and retreats to the men's bathroom in confusion.

Maybe I should tell the Christian nut to "save" the angry, drunk minority? ;)

By the end of the evening, police are called to respond to complaints about the drunk moron. Imagine that, you go out in public, intoxicated out of your mind, and make crude, suggestive remarks to women, deliberately bump into them, try to start fights with people-- and then when the cops show up to deliver the consequences, you act like it's all a discriminatory plot against you.