Paul's Blog

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Paul's Blog

We can/should learn from the EU!

I've just returned home from travelling across EU. The EU bullet trains are far superior to anything we have in the US. In fact, all public transportation that I experienced in EU was far superior to ours. We need to fix this! In the US we see few really small and economical cars. Yes we have the Mini and the Smart car. They are everywhere in the EU. You even see very small models from Mercedes and Ford that are not available in the US due to crash safety requirements. We can buy any Motorcycle we want, but we cannot get any small car that we want? What is wrong with this picture?

Amatuer Radio is alive and well.

Having attended Dayton, Pacificon and Visalia this year, I'm glad to say that there is still significant interest in ham radio. I just saw Martti Laine's presentation on "Radio Arcala" Hat's off to Martti and his group for trying to get our youth interested in Ham Radio.

TV Bounty Hunters:

TV Bounty Hunters like Duane “Dog” Chapman and Leonard Padilla are entertaining, however they are not the heroes’ that they would like us to believe. Bounty Hunters go after criminals that have otherwise been released from custody on bail or bond. Bounty Hunters are hired by the Bail Bondsman to bring their client back in as they have missed a court date or otherwise become a risk. Bounty Hunters are not part of law enforcement. They are merely retrievers that bring the bail client back to minimize the risk to the Bondsman.

The Bounty Hunter or “Bail Enforcement Agent” field is one of the least regulated fields in the US. Bounty Hunters act with relative freedom to go after their clients and bring them in under the terms of the bail agreement.

I find these TV Bounty Hunters to be entertaining, but they are not among my heroes because they are part of the process that puts criminals out on the street when they should be in jail.

The Olympics:

My hat is off to the Chinese for their masterful hosting of the Summer Olympics. The venues appeared to be well staffed and top notch. I'm relieved that there was no terrorism during these Olympics.

I wish that NBC's coverage of the Olympics had been more balanced. They focused way too much on Track & Field, Swimming and Diving. I wanted to see the White Water Kayaking but didn't get to see it.....

Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike:

Once again, the amateur community stepped in during a natural disaster and proved that the amateur radio community is dedicating to helping others. My hat is off to all of the volunteers that stepped up!

Bail Outs:
I hope the US Government wises up and does not give the big 3 automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler) the big bailouts they are seeking. The leaders of these companies have had their head in the sand for too long, making products that much of the public does not want. Long ago they should have looked at their Japanese competitors such as Toyota and Honda and emulated what they were doing: Building good, affordable and reliable cars that are well received in the market place. Just say no to these bail outs.

Free Stuff:

One of the more enjoyable aspects of Ham Radio is the goodwill shared among radio operators world wide. Many of those radio "ops" are software developers. They often develop very nice applications and give them away. One of those products is Ham Radio Delux. What an amazing application. It's amazing that the developers of this application put all of their hard work into coding this product and then give it away.

Rant:
I work in the IT industry. Its been a good ride. A lot of us make good money making Microsoft products work like they are supposed to. We deal a lot with human nature. IT people see the worst in technology and user behavior at times. My latest gripe involves all of this "virtualization" hype. This is the latest buzz in the IT industry. Folks at VMWare are getting rich selling products that make a good single server act like ten lousy servers. Imagine spending money to do that!

Newspapers: They say that all newspapers are going broke! Good, I hate them. I get my news free off of the web. CNN, SFgate.com. I hate to see trees getting cut down to make news paper pulp, and landfills filling up with used newspapers. Good riddance!

The latest hype:
This "green" movement is both good and bad. It's good that people are thinking abou the environment again, but some marketing types are just calling stuff "green" so that they can move products. There is so much hype and garbage right now in this whole "green" movement.

I laugh when I read/hear about "green" datacenters. There is no such thing as a green datacenter. There are datacenters that are better, more efficient, but none that I would call "green". Google thinks that if you throw a few solar panels on the roof that you've got a green datacenter.