W. Andrew Loe III

Lou Dobbs has a very interesting theory concerning the upcoming presidential election. The complete article also includes a quick plug for his new book, but if you can get over that, it turns out to be quite thought provoking.

Full Story via CNN.

But I played.

Ron Paul 2008

So I’m on the hunt for my first job. Its supposed to be fun, its supposed to be exciting – it sucks. I have no idea what I want to do! I can eliminate tons of things – I don’t want to peel shrimp, I don’t want to tune pianos, I don’t want to be shot at – but eliminating all these things just seems to open new options in different directions. Wasn’t I supposed to get all of this out of the way in college? To “discover” myself? I feel more lost then I was when I started the whole process. To make matters more frustrating, I still have a part of me that wants to move back to a big white mountain, but I feel somewhat obligated to follow the social norms: birth, school, job, death… taxes? There is so much I want to do, I just don’t know where I’m supposed to start. Maybe I should just team up with the guys that make Dr. Pepper… I could drink this stuff all day.

“You can’t legislate morality.” —Mike Gravel

A republican who actually wants to make the government smaller and promotes a foreign policy of non-intervention? Very interesting…

I stubmbled an interesting rant by Matt Mullenweg showing how poorly Sun and HP when it comes to catering towards small, and upcoming businesses. Joyent had issues as well. Why do these huge corporations find it so difficult to take people’s money? These guys are not alone. How many times have you stood in line to pay someone? Doesn’t that seem strange? Why do some businesses operate like this, yet I can’t even step foot on a car dealer’s lot without being bombarded by salesmen? Businesses, especially big ones, are dumb. They spend millions and millions on consumer research and completely fail to solve simple problems. Consumers are also dumb. We don’t demand change, we just deal with what we’re handed.

If I were going to open a grocery store tomorrow, I wouldn’t want my customers to have to stand in line, because I don’t want to stand in line. Technologies exist to solve these simple problems, and there is no reason we they shouldn’t be put in along with traditional solutions. What about RFID to solve my grocery store problem, and put a sensor at the edge of the cart. Each item gets tagged as I put it in the cart, then when I drive up to the check-out counter it should just present my with my bill and I can walk out of the store? They’re cheap, they’re already used all over the place. The grocery store is probably one of the most complex examples.

More fun: take your typically clothing store. They have to take everything out and put it on shelves (takes employees to do this), and continue to fold things as customers mess them up. In addition, this requires a large amount of “nice” storefront. What if, they had one of each item out, and you merely just took a card that represented the item if you wanted to purchase it? Now when you go to check-out, a pre-folded package of the is there for you.

Granted, these are only brief ideas. I think businesses should innovate more, these technologies exist and they already use them behind-the-scenes!

I’m tired of standing in line.

The whole Sony debacle has been well documented over the last few days. What bugs me more is how Microsoft is dealing with the threat. Instead of attacking the root of the problem, they have stated in a blog post that they will be removing the rootkit with their AntiSpyware Tool. Why is this an issue? Microsoft’s approach is wrong. Their entire approach to security is, and this issue does nothing but affirm that. It shouldn’t be possible to install the Sony rootkit. Yes it is possible to install rootkits through buffer overflows and other shady methods, but these are MUCH more difficult install; consequently, they are much less frequent. The Sony rootkit is passively installed by the user when they run the CD, why isn’t the user notified of this, not even asked for their password in order to modify system files? This problem would never happen on OS X because it would ask the user for their password – something that shouldn’t happen when playing a standard audio CD. This minor difference in approaching security is a big part of why OS X has fewer security issues. Windows might be more securely coded than OS X (fewer buffer overflows etc.) but it invites exploits. I wish the trust everyone architecture could change overnight, it would solve most of the issues we face with the internet.

Oh yeah, buzzwords. I wanted to give my two cents on the “new web.”

I like.

Seriously, there are all these amazing new frameworks coming out, all with great user-bases and support. The only language I’m really waiting on is PHP. I could roll my own, but then I wouldn’t get the help of having a whole community behind my project. When Ruby on Rails gets a cool new feature, I get it too. When I write one (one day), everyone will get to benefit. Open source is pretty slick. Besides RoR, there are plenty of frameworks, all of which I’ve checked out, but I think I’m going to stick with RoR, I especially like its integration with the Prototype javascript library.

Ruby:
Rails

Python:
TurboGears
django

PHP:
CakePHP
Mojavi
WACT

Almost all of these frameworks are Model View Controller, which seems to be the preferred pattern for web applications. No need to re-invent the wheel, go with the proven method. Please comment if you know of any other frameworks, I’m always on the look out for good stuff.

Find-A-Human – IVR Phone System Shortcuts. A sweet database of the numbers and combinations to get to talk to a real person instead of an automated computer.