tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6590135659565855662024-09-14T18:41:04.705-07:00Rise up informed. Tomorrow needs you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-55198517693615849392011-08-13T13:38:00.000-07:002011-08-13T13:38:22.972-07:00

(Yes, I am back.  I tired of not writing my thoughts and not having anyone read them.) For those who don't know me, I actually have a vested interest in the patent system.  I almost became a patent examiner at one point, I was going to be a patent lawyer earlier in life, and currently I am very active in pursuing patents for me original ideas.  If you follow patents you will know

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-85590210844436892952010-06-06T15:18:00.000-07:002010-06-06T15:18:59.493-07:00

It isn't often that I don't finish a book for years, well I just finished one last night that took that long.  This book was "Mel Gibson's Passion and Philosphy."  It took me a long time to get through it which is indicative of my review of the book.  Unfortunately I have read a lot of the 'pop culture and philosphy' series of books and after a while it is just the same thing over

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-91826692249398804032010-06-04T20:11:00.000-07:002010-06-04T20:11:05.315-07:00

So for some reason this segment of the Daily show has been in my head recently.  So I am posting it.  :-) The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c South Park Death Threats www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-3900215918035384422010-06-02T20:31:00.000-07:002010-06-02T20:31:33.869-07:00

Thought I would highlight a couple of videos I watched tonight because they were interesting.  So here we go: 1) Question: Do you think reason.com could defend government intervention in the fishing industry and spin it towards a free market solution? It was interesting to here this argument which I had never really heard made.  I think there is a moral hazard in the other way

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-71907046992770745332010-05-31T11:30:00.000-07:002010-05-31T11:30:00.953-07:00

I found this article on Newsweek.  It has some interesting thoughts.  Basically the idea is the the heart of the republican party is moving ideologically.  This distinction is seen in the southern republican ideology moving into a western republican ideology.  I will say I completely disagree that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are western republicans.  They belong to the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-20200698967820055572010-05-31T10:00:00.000-07:002010-05-31T10:00:02.138-07:00

I usually don't talk much about investing in a particular way.  However I am posting about a blog posting which I found interesting.  For refernce I haven't verified the analysis.  It seems like there is more than meets the eye from the chart but the chart is pretty compelling if it is even partially true. I have been investing a lot of dividend paying stocks recently. 

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-19228775801197972552010-05-30T23:00:00.000-07:002010-05-30T23:00:06.198-07:00

As most reader know I am not friend of the mortgage interest deduction in America.  If changes the costs of housing and skews them against apartments.  It also causes people to unreasonably assume you will get a huge deduction for the interest and get themselves into trouble.  Well I was glad to come across a posting discussing the mortgage deduction.  This was set off by an

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-53496773071801672792010-05-30T16:00:00.000-07:002010-05-30T16:00:00.893-07:00

There was an interesting article on NPR (yes I sometimes read that too) about mobility in India.  What was interesting to me is that this article says the best way for a person to move up, especially someone who isn't in primary education, is to move from poor to a manufacturing job.  The point of the article is that there is no manufacturing jobs in India. So this made me think of two

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-88234356320440542162010-05-30T11:50:00.000-07:002010-05-30T11:50:00.501-07:00

So this is awesome, Planet Money has bought a piece of an MBS for $1000 (originally it sold for $75000) and they are tracking the progress of the MBS.  This is so neat.  For $1000 they have quite a story for their blog.  The tracking widget is here. Man I wish I had thought of it, it would have been a great hook for a blog and since I am not great at picking stocks I may have made

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-76898842833546857932010-05-30T09:20:00.000-07:002010-05-30T09:20:07.197-07:00

Thought this may be interesting to those who read my blog.  It is a listing of maps that changed the world from the head of maps collections at the British Library.  Note that Google maps is on there.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-37388421599760726432010-05-25T20:22:00.000-07:002010-05-25T20:22:33.428-07:00

So Sunday I was waiting for the Lost finale I decided I was going to watch a bunch of TED videos.  ( You may remember TED from a previous post.)  Well I thought I would review a couple of them for you so you can watch them is you want. Mosquito zap.  This was recently discussed in the IEEE Spectrum.  Basically this guy works at a place which just thinks of cool stuff and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-88752661515258844212010-05-23T13:00:00.000-07:002010-05-23T13:00:39.689-07:00

So tonight is the end of Lost.  I am actually pretty jazzed.  For one there is about 10 hours of stuff to watch tonight.  For two this means the season is over.  I watch way too much TV in general.  I recently had a conversation with another friend about how life changes when you get a real (non-graduate studentish) job.  When you get home from working (usually more

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-45659442553845977242010-05-22T21:49:00.000-07:002010-05-22T21:49:34.382-07:00

Recently Rand Paul won the primary in Kentucky.  (I am sure most of you know this by now.)  I don't actually know a lot about him so I am not going to support him or defend his person.  However I would like to discuss an article I read on the huffington post.  (I am sure everyone knows how much I hate the blogs and articles written specifically for the huffington post. 

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-38629733088941004542010-05-22T16:24:00.000-07:002010-05-22T16:24:49.524-07:00

So have a new favorite way to waste time: Lumosity. The website claims to help your mind by helping you exercise your mind.  While I doubt this claim it is a fun way to waste a while online.  If nothing else it is a good way to quantify your abilities.  I doubt there is a high real world correlation though.  I am also a little surprised to see the website wants like $6 a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-51569084298983001682010-05-20T22:46:00.000-07:002010-05-20T22:46:41.491-07:00

I have been traveling and sick recently (those are unrelated I am pretty sure).  I have to say 4 hours on a plane is getting pretty painful.  I did find someone to talk to on the way back.  He was studying C++ on the plane and I asked him why he was learning that (C++ is way more painful than Java for object oriented programming and C is way better for learning the internals of a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-83099320876514026212010-05-12T07:37:00.000-07:002010-05-12T07:37:03.755-07:00

(It is upsetting to me that the adjective liberal has been hijacked in this day and age.) With this post I am kicking off (what I hope will be slightly less than) a weekly post series on (Classical) Liberalism in the modern world.  My goal with this series is to look at all of the issues facing us in this current world, no matter how small, and analyze the correct and current responses in

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-63960199216675232622010-05-11T22:07:00.000-07:002010-05-11T22:07:00.203-07:00

So, I have been reading John Adams by David McCullough.  I came across an interesting quote which I thought was really interesting.  I don't remember the original reference but the quote is: "In all things consider the end."Think of this for a minute.  In all things consider how it will end.  In the context of government this seems to have an obvious application, however,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-59119431062523461742010-05-09T18:15:00.000-07:002010-05-09T18:15:22.101-07:00

So today I woke up and I was like, 'I am going for a bike ride.'  I planned out a path that would take me about 23 miles and would end up at a bus stop where I could get a ride back home.  Let me tell you I was flying, it was a great ride.  I was at about mile 12 when my back tire blew out.  Not only that but I didn't have a spare.  So I had to walk the remaining 11 miles

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-47071140445926198182010-05-08T21:00:00.000-07:002010-05-08T21:00:04.772-07:00

So I have a funny story about this one, I was surfing reason.com about a week ago and the banner was for this Frontline documentary on for profit colleges.  Well the ad right under it was an ad for University of Phoenix online.  Strangely ironic, that I was also reading an article about education policy.  Perhaps the programmers should make the website not place ads for both sides

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-60222922917551757952010-05-08T14:00:00.000-07:002010-05-08T16:38:07.060-07:00

I recently discussed the frontline video about vaccines.  If you didn't have a chance to watch it (it is an hour long) the reason has produced a video which essentially the same content but in 6 minutes.  I feel the content of the video is much better representative of a logical and rational response to the issues (as compared with frontline which I basically just complained about the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-49836249334265506732010-05-08T10:44:00.000-07:002010-05-08T10:44:53.040-07:00

So today I went downtown again to get past.  Today went a lot better than my difficulties with the Teamsters union last week.  On this week's food list is: Whole Wheat Herb Pasta with Lentils, Spinach, and Leeks. Whole Wheat Garlic PAsta with a Broccoli Rabe Sauce. I am looking forward to this week.  I put the bread I bought into the fridge so it won't go bad as fast.  The one

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-42651425754466864632010-05-05T20:32:00.000-07:002010-05-05T20:32:33.073-07:00

So today I open my mailbox and I got a letter (a general letter not a personal one) explaining the actions of my representative to the state legislature.  Now in general I hold high contempt for them.  The state is largely staffed by democrats and I do not agree with a lot of their policies and fiscal decisions.  Well this representative is high on the ways and means committee and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-44094836296865036502010-05-04T23:55:00.000-07:002010-05-04T23:55:00.248-07:00

I found a very interesting article with a list of 90 democratic seats in trouble come the election in November.  I am always a sucker for articles like this because it is so hard to find any kind of national article on all of the seats in 'trouble'.  Unfortunately this is only about democrat seats in trouble at least the author took the time to say a couple of things why they thought

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-9685060931934567772010-05-04T20:42:00.000-07:002010-05-04T20:42:57.377-07:00

So today's post is a review of a set of videos on Uncommon Knowledge.  As I have said before this is a video series produced by the Hoover Institute for The National Review.  There is a decidedly conservative (or Republican in a political sense) slant to the guests and questions.  The video series today is about the book "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It," by Mark

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-659013565956585566.post-18460887652498379262010-05-03T20:10:00.000-07:002010-05-03T20:10:06.694-07:00

Yes you read that correctly, I had to bike in hail on t he way home.  Not only that but it was pelting rain and I don't have fenders so all of the water hits me in the face.  It was nutz.  I do not suggest riding in the hail though.  It was very unexpected.  Additionally it is thundering out there.  I haven't seen that very often. Anyway I wanted to add a couple of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0