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Thanks to John Furrier I got a chance to see this fantastic video again.

Enjoy!

Quote of the Day:
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
–Mark Twain

I was going through some old paper and found this photo copy that I have been dragging around with me forever simply because every time I read it, it inspires me to try to be a better person. And so I think that I should do something with it. I finally decided to just type it in here, and hopefully somebody else can find it inspiring. Here we go:

Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness makes you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have got

Anyway

I hope you find it useful.

Quote of the Day:
To cease smoking is the easiest thing. I ought to know. I’ve done it a thousand times.
–Mark Twain

Ever since I moved to the US 2 years ago I have asked myself why there are so many gasoline powered cars, vans and trucks, and why almost nobody runs diesel cars. There are a few of the big pick-up trucks, and occasionally some VW Jetta, but otherwise it’s all gasoline. And I know that diesel has higher energy content, and that modern technology has made diesel engines just as good to drive as gasoline. On top op that the emissions are of a less nasty kind.

Then a while ago I spotted this company called Lovecraft Bio-Fuels in Wired Magazine, and they showed that you could easily convert a diesel engine to run on normal vegetable oil. Talk about renewable energy source, especially in a country where deep frying is popular. You can use the oil more than once. And to be honest, I’m considering switching to a diesel and convert it next time I change cars.

Then two days ago I was reading Fast Company, and I came across an article about Johnathan Goodwin, a self taught car mechanic wizard. This is how the article opens up:

“Check it out. It’s actually a jet engine,” says Johnathan Goodwin, with a low whistle. “This thing is gonna be even cooler than I thought.” We’re hunched on the floor of Goodwin’s gleaming workshop in Wichita, Kansas, surrounded by the shards of a wooden packing crate. Inside the wreckage sits his latest toy–a 1985-issue turbine engine originally designed for the military. It can spin at a blistering 60,000 rpm and burn almost any fuel. And Goodwin has some startling plans for this esoteric piece of hardware: He’s going to use it to create the most fuel-efficient Hummer in history.

What this guy has done is outright amazing. He is experimenting with putting GM semi-truck engines in GM cars and are getting 2 to 4 times the miles per gallon rating of the standard off the factory line cars. And that is even before starting to play with hybrid technology. What excites and outrages me at the same time is that Goodwin has managed to create all this using mostly off the shelf equipment, most of the time from the same car manufacturers who say that we cannot create anything but gasoline cars until a few years from now, and whose first step towards alternative fuel is an ethanol-gasoline mix. Not exactly the most forward thinking solution.

Another telling quote from the article is when Goodwin had a by chance demonstration to some GM engineers.

One engineer turned and said, “GM said this wouldn’t work.”

“Well,” Goodwin replied, “here it is.”

And that captures a lot of his gusto. I hope I will be able to join Neil Young in driving a nice 100+ mpg car in the not too distant future. Read the article and join me in wishing for a more fuel efficient, and greener, future.

Quote of the Day:
You are not what you own.
–Fugazi, American rock band

Yesterday I was driving from Seattle to Gig Harbor. When I got to Tacoma the traffic was murder and police everywhere redirecting people away from SR-16, the freeway I intended on taking for the last few miles. I was swearing under my breath wondering what numbskull could have created such havoc to Saturday traffic.

It turned out to be the Tacoma Foundry that had literarily exploded, with flames rising hundreds of feet into the air and more propane gas ready to blow at any second. All we saw was a limited amount of smoke. And police cars with lights flashing.Scary when you find it out afterwards.

Here is where the foundry is, so you can see why they would like to shut SR-16 off.

I am having a pet peeve when it comes to automated phone services that don’t take their users into consideration. Today I experienced it once again. This time it was Comcast, but this is not something that only they do. A lot of companies do this. And it’s all bout the human interface design.

What happened when I called today (my connections just dropped) was that after I called the Comcast customer service number, 1-866-COMCAST, I was asked to enter my ten digit phone number, followed by a "1" for English. Once that had happened I was told that my call was being routed to the correct call center (or something along those lines). I then was asked to enter a "1" for English and then to enter my ten digit phone number. So after having entered the phone number twice, I still had to give them my name and address when I got through.

Now, my gripe is that if they use the first number only to get it to the right region, then they should either ask me to enter my area code and then just transfer me, alternatively get my area code from the incoming caller ID and ask me if that is the area I want to use. Alternatively, they should send my ten digit phone number and language preference as part of the transfer request, so that the receiving PBX knows who I am and can handle the call appropriately.

This posting is just a long rant, so there.

The other day I was watching TV when the programming was interrupted because a bridge had collapsed in Minneapolis, MN. The pictures were strong and the reports from the scene were surreal. How could something like this happen?

Anyway, this is not what this post is about. What it is about is that four hours later this story was still labeled as “breaking news” on CNN, FAUX Noise and MSNBC. That really gets to me, especially since they were still rehashing the same film clips, interviews and facts. Nothing new had been added in the last few hours. To me that is still important and urgent news, but not breaking news.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel with the victims in the disaster, and all people affected in one way or another, I really do. And I think that we uregently need to get to the bottom of how this could happen in the first place. I don’t want any bridges collapsing unexpectedly, not anywhere.

But I think that the TV stations should have a 10-15 minute limit on the “breaking news” label. And I think they could continue their normal programming and then have short interruptions with regular intervals with a brief summary and any updates. After all, just because one disaster happens doesn’t mean that other things in the world stop happening. And just regurgitating the same story over and over again makes me at least go away. It also makes you numb to the disaster much quicker.

My $.02