Ricardo Montalban, TV's Mr. Roarke, Trek's Khan, Dead at 88 - E! Online

Ricardo Montalban, TV's Mr. Roarke, Trek's Khan, Dead at 88 - E! Online: "Ricardo Montalban, who presided over TV's original Fantasy Island as the all-knowing, white-suited Mr. Roarke, revealed an impressive chest while provoking Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and seduced potential car buyers with 'Corinthean leather,' died today. He was 88."

It was sad to hear that he did today. We remembered him by watching our favorite role of his, Khan in Star Trek II.

The chest, the hair, the one glove, the obsession of beating Kirk made him a fun villain. As Khan he had an elegant stye though the obsession made him relatively easy to defeat, he was very impressive.

He left quite a legacy.

Retromodo: Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All

Retromodo: Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All

Save a life with your iPhone or iPod touch - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Save a life with your iPhone or iPod touch - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): "If you came upon someone who was injured or had suffered a medical emergency, would you know how to react? In the midst of a crisis situation, even citizens who have been trained in first aid sometimes forget what they need to do to help save a life."

Get this and hurry the offer ends this Sunday Oct 26

Hamburger is cuisine again.

In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic - NYTimes.com: "“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Helene Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”"

It looks like Alton Brown got his wish. Hamburger is cuisine again. It is being debated and discussed again... in France of all places.

It is fascinating to see what they think is essential and what isn't, where they are experimenting and what people say when they go too far.

What is great is that they aren't going nuts with the potion sizes, not like the HoJos in Hong Kong we stopped at with the 5 pound King Size burger, and the 2 pound King Size hot dog.

It is funny that they think the sesame seed bun is essential. They obviously have never encountered a patty melt, which is a whole different take on the same basic concept. For something more edgy, they can try the pulled pork and sliced brisket sandwiches and let's not forget the tamales and runzas.

It seems to me like these chefs have forgotten their roots; all food was once humble food at some point, but with some TLC and some creativity it becomes something much, much more. They need a Mickey Goldmill for their Rocky.

Alton, or staff, if you're reading this, here is an idea you can freely use. Take a couple of these chefs on a Feasting on Asphalt style tour of burger joints, greasy spoons and BBQ pits. Then sit around in afterwards and discuss and debate what they've learned and where they might go with it. Maybe even end up in Kitchen Stadium for the Mother of All Burger Battles.

Lost and found Find your user guide, user guide, instruction manual or owner manual instantly !

Find your user guide, user guide, instruction manual or owner manual instantly !: "So much time wasted looking all over the place for the instruction manual to tune the tv-set, find the printer cartridge replacement how-to, the meaning of the blinking led on the dashboard. How many user manuals available only on cd-rom, on the internet ?"

Sometimes finding manuals online can be a real pain. This is really help.
via LifeHacker

Daring Fireball: Spaces in 10.5.3

Daring Fireball: Spaces in 10.5.3: "If you turn this new checkbox off, however, activating an app, even one that has no windows in the current space, will not jump you to another space. Once you’re in a space, you stay there until you explicitly switch spaces, not just switch apps. This makes all the difference in the world for the way I, and others, want to use Spaces."

I have found an interesting behavior with Spaces. If you highlight some text or a URl and try dragging it to the desktop if you go all the way to the edge of the window it will slide to the next space and after a pause the next after that, in most directions.

I am not sure if I like this or even if this is a bug or a feature.

Drop 'middle-class' academic subjects, says schools adviser, and teach them PERSONAL SKILLS instead | Mail Online

Drop 'middle-class' academic subjects, says schools adviser, and teach them PERSONAL SKILLS instead | Mail Online: "Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are 'middle-class' creations, a Government adviser will claim today.

Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.

Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy- saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes."

This is the kind of thing that makes blood shoot out of my eyes. Not only does he say out loud that his goal is to make "his" students poor, ignorant and dependent on others, he says it like it's a good thing.

via Kim

Op-Ed Contributor - Put a Little Science in Your Life - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Put a Little Science in Your Life - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "Like a music curriculum that requires its students to practice scales while rarely if ever inspiring them by playing the great masterpieces, this way of teaching science squanders the chance to make students sit up in their chairs and say, “Wow, that’s science?”"

That is what it comes down to. It takes a public school to drill and kill. I had a great high school physics teacher and we would actually build things like aluminum foil boats and balsa wood bridges to make up the drudgery of learning all the equations and constants and such like.

I need to remember this.

Phoenix Landing site with parachute and heatshield

NASA -
Phoenix Landing Site, Labeled: "This enhanced-color image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows the Phoenix landing area viewed from orbit."

We have so much tech floating on and around Mars we are beginning to be able to do some amazing things.

Memorial Day

The Other Side of Kim du Toit: "From him, I developed the saying, “The mark of a decent man is not how much he thinks about himself, but how much time he spends thinking about others.”"

The Phoenix has landed

Bloomberg.com:
News: "``Landing is easy; doing it softly is the hard part,'' said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University and co-investigator on the NASA project."

It is really good to see some Mars success again.

Another loss to the SciFi world

Myth Adventures Home: "On May 22, 2008, Bob passed away quietly in his home in
New Orleans, LA. He had been in good spirits and working
on several new projects, and was set to be the Guest of Honor
at a major science fiction convention that very weekend.
He is survived by his mother, his sister, his daughter and his
son, and his cat, Princess, not to mention countless friends and fans and numerous legendary fictional characters.

He will be greatly missed."

I really liked the Myth-series, it offered a note of hilarity during some very rough times. Sadly most of them are in storage somewhere but it is time to hit the bookstore for a tribute.

Seth's Blog: Who answers the phone?

Seth's Blog: Who answers the phone?: "Shouldn't you be rewarding call center operators by how long they keep people on the phone, not how many calls they can handle a minute? Shouldn't there be an easy, fast and happy way for an operator to instantly upgrade a call to management (not a supervisor, I hate supervisors) who can actually learn something from the caller, not just make them go away?"

It's just managing what you measure. If you measure the wrong thing then you're screwed.

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics: "It wasn’t hard to find the high-octane action of the FIRST Competition at the Jacob Javits Center this past weekend. All you had to do was follow the thunderous cheers erupting from several hundred amped-up high-school students. Inside the exhibit hall, face-painted teenagers waving foam fingers and team flags were packed hip-to-hip on two sets of bleachers as referees circled center court."

They never had anything like this when I was a kid. Heck, the computers we had were Apple ][e. I wonder if they'll get a letterman jacket? Do they even have those anymore?

The Eighth Birthday

Today is the eighth anniversary of the birth of our first daughter. This would have been a special year for her. She would have been ready to be baptized, and I would have done that ordinance and she would be able to receive the Holy Ghost. She would also move into senior primary.

In a rather interesting bit of timing I have a jury summons. I had gotten one just after I was cleared to walk again after the accident that killed her. For some reason the lawyers didn't think I would be objective in a drug related case.
I have forgiven the drunk driver that killed my daughter and the light and live that filled me redefined my life. That said I would not be and could not be an impartial juror for a drug related offense. Loving the sinner is wonderful, but the sin is still a sin and is wrong.

We live our lives and continue and we are in a position to help people who average people are not able to help, so it continues.

On the Future of Publishing

If you are a not so old geezer like me you might remember the PhotoMat a little store out in the parking lot of most supermarkets where you could drop off you roll of film and get them back in 1 day. Now most supermarkets have an automatic developing machine in the store where you can get your photos back in an hour and right next to it is usually a computer for printing out your digital photos in seconds.

Supermarkets usually also have an aisle devoted to books and magazines. Usually limited to the bestsellers and lots of romance fiction. But now with the Espresso Book Machine you would be able to get any book you wanted printed while you shop.
Borders is already in trouble and Amazon is starting up its own print-on-demand (POD) service.

Now it is a race to see if this gets popular enough to compete with purely digital formats. The film companies came out with the APS format film at the same time as digital cameras and now film has moved to a niche status, even Polariod, the original instant gratification camera, has stopped making film and film cameras.

With the Kindle and iPhone it will be interesting to see how the market segments books. The fiercest battle will be for paperback fiction and may never get resolved some people will want a physical book others will be happy with ebooks. Coffee table books will remain real but textbooks and reference works will go electronic.

Cookbooks can be another battle ground, ecookbooks can have different font sizes s you can read it from further away, but there is something special about browsing a cookbook and stumbling on a new recipe. The internet is great for finding something if you already know what you want but not so good when you are not so sure.

Louise's Secret to Success | Dr. Joe Vitale at Zero

Louise's Secret to Success | Dr. Joe Vitale at Zero: "Louise is one of those angelic souls who believed in me before I believed in myself."

Everyone deserves someone like Louise.

Seth's Blog: Getting vs. Taking

Seth's Blog: Getting vs. Taking: "They wait for the teacher (hopefully a great one) to give them something of value.

Many employees do the same thing at work. They wait for a boss (hopefully a great one) to give them responsibility or authority or experiences that add up to a career."

Are you waiting for something to happen?

I've been doing that too much. I need to make something-anything- happen.

Today has been a high energy day. I hope it lasts.

The business of parenting (kottke.org)

The business of parenting (kottke.org): "It's difficult not to feel incredibly manipulated by the Wall of Death. You know deep down that it's ridiculous; your parents didn't have any of this crap and you turned out fine. But then the what-ifs start gnawing away at your still-shaky confidence as a new parent. Our encounter with the Wall paralyzed us, and with the exception of those plastic wall outlet plugs, we've punted on baby proofing for now. We're letting Ollie show us where all the problem areas are before committing to any white plastic solutions."

You know they never tell you to baby proof the undersides of the vent covers that are in the floor. That was the only thing ur daughter actually hurt herself on in our home. She was getting the hang of walking and found her way behind the sofa to one of the floor vents, she pulled it up and stepped on it, cutting her big toe. It ended up requiring stitches.

For the most part she is a good kid that doesn't get into things too much. Though we are careful to keep the chemicals up and out of the way. Simple toys are best. Right now she is into dolls but we did also play with LEGO, okay it was the princess set but that works too.

Simple puzzles are fun too, though it is really hard to find some in the 50-75 piece range.

Managing the Wrong Numbers

Lawmakers Look To Set Cap On Solar Panel Fees - Denver News Story - KMGH Denver: "'Solar is a borderline efficient technology. Adding unreasonable costs stretches out the payback period beyond what makes economic sense,' he said."

The first question that pops out of people's mouths when you start talking about solar power is "What's the payback period?" It is like the homeschooling questions, "What about their socialization?" They are nonsense questions, they have nothing to do with the matter at hand. You would never ask that question about a new refrigerator or SUV, now, would you?

The funniest things I ever see after a blizzard around here are all the 4x4s cruisin' around in the snow, because they finally have a chance to justify the reason they bought the thing in the first place. "But we can use it to drive in the snow." The best one was the one guy who got his truck out of the driveway and ended up blocking the road for an hour because he couldn't get any farther. He eventually drove it right back into the garage and shut the door behind him.

A solar electric system costs about as much as a new SUV (~$32,000) but with rebates and credits it can be brought down to about $12,000 a new small car. Not an unreasonable amount for some budgets.

The real question isn't how big a system you should get. At the least it should cover the basics like frig, freezer, furnace, sump pump, some lights and a laptop computer.

The real question is how to setup a good loan system to make it easier to pay for. You still seem to have to go and get a regular bank loan rather then something simple like an auto loan. I am not a finance guy so I have no ideas what all the rules and laws are around this but it would seem to me to make more sense creating an auto loan type system to make it easier for people to buy.

The hardest part about getting a solar power system isn't the parts and construction but getting the money. Solve that problem and more people will go for it.