I was listening to talk-radio the other day, and to be honest, I listen to several talk-radio programmes every Monday and Friday on my drive to/from Nashville. We all know that radio is where the right-wing nut jobs hang out, c’mon y’all, let’s admit it. I think as soon as you can accept that radio DJs have only 2 real objectives, the better off you are.

1) Entertainment. Pure, and simple. Yes, Rush Limbaugh is upset. He is, in fact, yelling. And, yes, he is always up in arms about something. If you don’t agree, chances are you’ll listen and laugh (or get mad at him). If you do happen to agree (after or before the yelling), chances are you’ll listen and just get madder with him. Damn that liberal gay jew run media.

2) Commercials. I believe Sean Hannity put this one best, when he was talking about something or other, repeating something about 9/11 changing how he walks his dog, and then he told me about 1-800-USA-DOOR — which provides quality overhead and garage doors, built in America. He says that they do “extensive criminal background checks, and drug-screening of all their service technicians,” so it’s safe! No, wait, I believe it was Neal Boortz (Atlanta, GA syndicated) who was talking about vinyl siding, or was it gutter cleaning or fucking-old-people-insurance, and you know, he did mention clearly that the terrorists were going to come into your home and bomb your duplex and rape your dog and steal your wife and drink the milk straight from the jug without using a glass if you didn’t get real scared and buy American Products. I think that was the gist of it.

I’m so over talk-radio. How about, pTunes on my Treo600, streaming one of those ShoutCast Radio stations? Now if only I could find a good one.

The Cato Institute daily has an article by Jonathan Clarke (also ran on Sep 22 in the LA Times) entitled An Ominous U.S. Model that spells out some scary truths.

He asserts two scary scenarios.

Even more scary is that is approach tends to place more power in the hands of the “central executive” (George W).

In my opinion, if any country decides to wage a war on terrorism–the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons–they may consider attacking the largest terrorist “group” in history: us.

holy moly. seebq’s shoutcast streaming audio server went live.

no robots allowed

let me just fire that baby up on my treo.
(more…)

Thank you, Jay Allen. Job well done. I just installed mt-blacklist and in my own geeky, sys-admin, power-trip-high kind of way, have given the old F U to the spammers.

I’m telling you, man, there’s nothing better than clicking on that little PayPal link donation button and actually paying for something worthwhile. Holy crap.

This is how things should be. All comments are appreciated (hah!)

OK, so it’s time for some pajama journalism. Slashdot’s 15 questions from the Libertarian Party’s US Presidential nominee, Michael Badnarik is quite refreshing. Check it out: Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik Answers

“Omaha: Rare. Well Done.” reads the sign on the entrance banner from the airport. Omaha is actually, pretty cool. There’s some wierd stuff out here, for instance, across the street from my hotel is ConAgra (fortune x00 mega-company), just across from a large “lake” is a fountain that shoots water 100s of feet in the air, constantly chaning color–the perfect backdrop to a huge multi-story Harrah’s casino, and quite a few failed loft-style developments. Just down the street is Mutual of Omaha, another fortune x00 mega-company, and an extremely cool downtown “old-market” area that despite all the failed developments is doing quite well (from the looks of it). Definitely rare. Sure, well done too.

I’m here for a 3-day training course on my company’s product at Nebraska Methodist Health Services. I was here just a month ago to teach the same course at Mutual of Omaha, I just learned both companies use the same mainframe systems, so naturally our company is loving the shared business.

I enjoy teaching, especially when the students are anxious to learn - I enjoy the challenge of coming to an entirely new place, finding new ways to explain concepts, and well - ok let’s be honest, I liked it at first because it was challenging, heck, I was thrown in there after just learning the ropes, but that’s why I liked it. Now, it’s getting to be routine. I do enjoy it when my students are anxious to learn, and not just thrown in to some course to satisfy their company’s traning quota. I also like the power and respect of being that consultant who’s backed by a lotta bucks (I was going to be honest, remember). I guess I’m still frazzled (read: bitter) from the never-ending gov’t contract project that keeps going and going - thanks tax-payers, I’m now a Marriott Platinum, and racking up tons of worthless SkyMiles!

How did I get so jaded? And bored….

From Reason Magazine’s Daily Brickbat by Charles Oliver:

Thanks for the link Omar.

Here is proof that AOL users are…

bush lovers?

oh my.

From Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology by Henry William Chesbrough:

I think many people wonder how there are so many successful, open-source projects - I mean, honestly, <sarcasm> without tons of corporate funding, patent-laws, trade-marks, industry secrets, and structured R&D, how does anything worthwhile, that’s “open-source” get built? </sarcasm> Perhaps it is for those exact lack of conditions that truly open innovation occurs.

I’m of the mindset that value is derived from a little bit more complicated formula than “how much?” In an increasingly service-oriented economy, it makes sense that one would pay for services, for time, for opportunity, but not for access to information, not for pre-packaged, marked-up goods, not licenses, not perpetuation of protectionist laws.

On a separate note, how does an increasingly intangible, service-oriented market affect something like the Fair Tax?

Countdown to completion of the TDOC project - 2 weeks! Tonight was wierd - all of a sudden the key players in such a large (read: expensive) project all showed up for a sort-of “thank you dinner” (and lo and behold the subcontractor’s president picked up the tab)! It takes money to make money, but does it take that kind of money?

Jodi is excited about our new puppy, Jameson, she should be coming home with us soon. We were planning on going on vacation this weekend, down to Florida, but alas, a few things came up. We may still go on mini-vacation, kind of like when Bob in “What About Bob?” went on his “vacation from my problems!” I like the idea of this–rent a few movies, cook dinner, stay at home, but I, unfortunately, have problems staying away from work/computer/internet. I will most likely end up hacking on my mythtv box, doing web work, and getting into trouble, instead of vacationing. Ahh, but wouldn’t that be nice?

Funny how when you are always out of town, it’s just so nice to be back “in town,” doesn’t matter what you do….

Omaha, NE next week - a 3 day course! Piece of cake!