Rob's Rants

Mega Election Mashup

2008-09-07T07:47:00.002-04:00

My recent fascination has been the concept of prediction markets, the trading of shares based on the likelihood of an events outcome. Admittedly there is a fine line between "investing" and "wagering" ... some have said playing the stock market is a form of legalized gambling ... but to borrow a quote from the fictional character Gorden Gecko: "Greed is, for lack of a better word, good"

People will say anything in a survey, but when it comes to parting with ones hard earned cash they might be a little more cautious.

Intrade is a prediction market where shares of predictions can be bought and sold. I have been watching them for a while but my curiosity peaked recently when shares of Sarah Palin began to trade furiously at least 12 hours before any media broke the story of her selection as Mr. McCain's running mate.

Using data from Intrade for the individual state elections I have developed this mashup of what the current electoral vote tally looks like. Based on this data ... it's going to be a nail biter with about 3 states deciding the race.

So what more could a father ask for ???

2008-08-08T13:04:00.005-04:00

Just got back from our holiday at Ocean Grove, NJ where we stayed at Pete and Diane's hotel The Ocean Vista.

For those that may not know .. Ocean Grove is one of New Jersey's best kept secrets: a quaint, quiet Victorian village on the Jersey Shore .... devoid of all the shenanigans one might associate with a beach town in New Jersey. It's a dry town ... no bars ... no "night life" .. unless you count the two ice cream parlors. (nothing against shenanigans ... I'm just grown up now )

The kids had a great time surfing with their boogie boards. Nick and Sam even had a try at skim boarding. Mom and Dad sat under the umbrella enjoying the rest and the view.

Lisa had arranged to meet her childhood friend Annette who lives in South Jersey for dinner one evening. We met at a local Pizza Restaurant Annette recommended. It was time for Lisa and Annette to catch up ... probably not the most entertaining time for the kids. About halfway through dinner the owner (also Annette's boyfriend) handed this folded note to Lisa.

I wish I knew what I did right .....

Totally Wicked!

2008-07-22T06:02:00.003-04:00

Yesterday the kids came back from Wal-Mart with their Hannah Montana 3-D glasses ... I couldn't care less about the "best of both worlds" ... but the glasses ... Thank You Miley!! The University of Phoenix has posted a collection of ANAGLYPHS on the Mars Phoenix Lander Web Site. It's like your computer monitor just became a window on the Lander.

So run to Wal-Mart and tell them your kids sent you .....

A beautiful day ....

2008-07-19T12:03:00.002-04:00

Nick and I got up early and took the canoe to Merrill Creek Reservoir. We have been wanting to go out all season but finally found some time today. I wanted to get out before it got too hot (I hate the heat) so I made sure we were on the water by 8:30. It was a little windy when we started so it was tough to steer ..... once we got half way across the winds subsided and it was smooth paddling. We got to see what I think was a few eagles .... and even what I think was a crane ... long neck and really long beak. All totaled we paddled about 2.75 miles. Here is the picture of our path.

THE LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH’S PRESIDENCY

2008-07-18T22:15:00.002-04:00

The Country He Inherited vs. The Country He Leaves Behind

It's hard to argue against the facts ..... but I'm sure someone will ....

Another visit ....

2008-07-18T16:59:00.002-04:00

Us "city folk" are starting to get used to this ... but I would like to know why it had to crush the garbage can ???

A bleak outlook ....

2008-07-11T07:39:00.002-04:00

I saw this article and it basically sums up how I feel about the state of our country right now:
Five Signs the United States Is Withering Away

In Summary:
1- Too many internal divisions: the whole "red vs. blue" thing or "have vs. the have not" thing.

2- A decadent culture: and I'm not talking about morals ... we are in the midst of an artistic decline as evidenced by the number of sequals and remakes coming out of Hollywood. Does anyone have an original idea anymore??

3- Too much military, not enough social welfare: when you conquer other nations you can't build roads or schools in your own. We should rename the Dept. of Defense to the Dept. of Offense.

4- Citizens do not trust their government: we have all but given up on the idea of privacy ... the government just sanctioned illegal wiretapping and gave those who assist in the effort immunity from prosecution ... what's next??

5- No science and engineering leadership: everybody wants to be an MBA .... everybody wants to be Donald Trump .... nobody goes to school dreaming that they'll build the next rocket to Mars ... it's just not cool. Our biggest domestic product will soon be "managers" .... the brains will be elsewhere .... the manufacturing will be elsewhere. In 50 years we'll be a nation of Managers and clerks at Wal-mart.

I soooo want to be wrong about this ......

Mystery Trip '08

2008-07-07T20:37:00.002-04:00

We just got back from Mystery Trip '08! For those that don't know every year we take the kids on a mystery trip .... we wake them up in the morning ... yell mystery trip and shuffle them off to the car. The rest of the car ride is spent trying to figure out where we're going. It sure beats "99 bottles of beer on the wall."

This years destination was Niagara Falls, Canada. Samantha guessed it somewhere near Buffalo.

We stayed at the Sheraton Fallsview, on the 14th floor over looking the Horseshoe falls. One of the highlights of the trip was walking off the elevator to a floor to ceiling window and the kids first view of the falls!

After the 6 hour car ride we spent most of the rest of the day just strolling in Niagara Park taking in the view.

Other activities included a day at Marineland where Sam and Nick got to pet and feed a Beluga Whale, dinner at the revolving dining room in Skylon Tower, a Journey Behind the Falls, a voyage on the Maid of the Mist and finally a trip to what we called "Tacky Town" the Clifton Hills tourist area of Niagara Falls.

Here is some video from Niagara Park .... more photos coming soon!

Ripping DVDs to Video IPODs

2008-07-02T09:15:00.002-04:00

It took me a little while to figure out so I thought I would share it with the world: HOWTO: rip a dvd to your ipod using ffmpeg.

Farewell Tim Russert

2008-06-14T20:05:00.001-04:00

Once again we have been reminded how tenuous our stay is in this world as we are all saddened by the news of the passing of Tim Russert. I admired Mr. Russert for his no nonsense approach to his job. In this era of hype news media he was a trusted voice and extremely influential in American politics. I feel he was the "Walter Cronkite" of our times. He was one of the good ones in a field when there are so few. Thank You Mr. Russert and farewell.

NBC's Tim Russert dies of heart attack at 58 (msnbc.com)

Linux Podcast roundup

2008-06-12T05:33:00.001-04:00

A good source for Linux podcasts by "jza" of Open Office fame .....

Moms on a Mission ....

2008-05-28T05:46:00.006-04:00

This year Lisa will participate in "Relay For Life", the American Cancer Society's annual event to help make cancer a disease of the past. Every day, the American Cancer Society works to prevent cancer and save lives by supporting research, affecting public policies and educating people about early detection and prevention.

This is a personal issue for Lisa and I. We've lost family members to cancer ... we all seem to know someone who has had one form of cancer. More than 1.3 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the United States this year. Those are staggering statistics, but there is hope. Many advances have been made over the years, but it is still not enough. We must do better. With your help it will be possible.

Please consider making a donation to her team, "Moms On A Mission." at the American Cancer Society website.

Any donation you can make will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Congratulation Mars Phoenix Lander!!

2008-05-25T22:04:00.003-04:00

The Mars Phoenix lander made a textbook tuchdown at 68 degrees north latitude in the Mars Arctic Region. The project is a joint venture between NASA and the University of Arizona.

Tom Hanks endorses Barak Obama

2008-05-04T06:54:00.002-04:00

Not that I care all that much who endorses a candidate ... I prefer to make up my own mind based on the facts ... I just like Mr. Hanks attitude in this clip.
Beware: Celebrity Endorsement

Latest Release of Ubuntu ...

2008-05-03T07:50:00.002-04:00

Loaded the latest rev (8.04 LTS) of Ubuntu on my P-O-S laptop. I don't know why everyone raves about Ubuntu, I still need to tinker with it just like any other distro I've used. No worse than any other ... but no better.

First I had to deal with only 640x480 resolution and a screwed up color map. Fortunately I keep a working xorg.conf on my usb key, once that was replaced I was back to 1024x768 15 bits. ( yes I said 15 bits don't ask it just works)

Then I needed to hack out the network connection ... again not a surprise since my wlan card is a bit of an oddball. While I didn't need to compile the kernel modules like I usually do it still didn't work correctly. The module loads, get set with the KEY and SSID ... but it doesn't work .. seems as if it's deaf. To get it to work I need to unload the module reinsert and configure the card by hand. I'm probably going to turn off network manager in favor of a simple shell script.

Proper disposal of a hard drive ....

2008-05-02T16:33:00.002-04:00

My township was having it semi-annual hazardous waste disposal day ... and I wanted to use the opportunity to do some cleaning in the basement. As you can imagine I tend to accumulate loads of electronic junk. Well, before any hard disk goes to the dump it needs to be wiped clean, personally I prefer shred with the default 25 passes. But what about those hard drives that don't work any more? There is likely still data on them even though you're disk controller can't access it ... someone else could. What to do?? Well I came up with the solution demonstrated in this video.

Happy Mission Accomplished day!

2008-05-01T05:45:00.002-04:00

Today is the 5 year anniversary of President Bush proudly proclaiming an end to major combat operations in Iraq while standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with a banner in the background stating: Mission Accomplished.

Really now??? If "Mission Accomplished" were a child it would be going into kindergarten in the fall.

According to icasualties.org 139 troops perished before the mission was accomplished, since then and additional 3,923 troops have made the ultimate sacrifice. So 96% of all American Service deaths in Iraq occurred after we were done??? Then what the heck were they doing there?? It's obviously not a safe place to be!!

God, I pray this is over soon.

Antenna Expert L. B. Cebik, W4RNL (SK)

2008-04-30T07:00:00.002-04:00

L. B. Cebik, W4RNL, ARRL Technical Adviser and antenna authority, passed away last week. He was 68.

I never knew L.B. personally, nor did I ever have the opportunity to correspond with him directly, but I "knew" him much the same way Internet Geeks "knew" Jon Postel. L.B. authored countless articles on antenna engineering and construction and was a recognized expert in the field, if not THE expert.

I've always had a fascination of sorts with antennas, and it seems every Google search I did on a particular topic always seemed to lead back to W4RNL. He was a participant on the rec.radio.amateur.antenna newsgroup as well as maintaining the site www.cebik.com.

antennaX, an online magazine dedicated to amateur radio antennas, has agreed to maintain W4RNL's site going forward however they now require registration because of the overwhelming load from people in a panic trying to "mirror" the site in fear it would disappear.

As Mac N8TT on rec.radio.amateur.antenna said it: "We are diminished."

'73 OM de ka2pbt

Old School ....

2008-04-20T06:20:00.002-04:00

I just thought this was funny .... how many of you remember taking notes in lecture halls .... some may have used tape recorders .. I never did .. transcribing notes later seemed like double work. I wonder though .. in this day and age ... I can't imagine the roar of 100+ taping keyboards.

Fresh and Clean .....

2008-04-12T17:53:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't noticed .... or just happen to be viewing this in your RSS reader ... I'm trying out a new look for the blog .... The original template was provided by blogger.com to which I hacked over the years .... adding here ... deleting there .... I finally picked up a book about CSS at the library and had it next to me while I rewrote the entire template and style sheet from scratch. I was going for a more clean look ... I'm also showing comments on the main page now. Let me know what you think!!

Patents gone wild!!!

2008-04-11T07:15:00.004-04:00

Some time ago ... 1997-98 to be exact .... AsiaSat-3 failed to attain geosynchronous orbit due to a failure of one of it's booster motors. The satellite was declared a TOTAL LOSS by the insurance company. Boeing took over the satellite and using the satellites housekeeping thrusters used a lunar flyby to get the satellite into an a proper geosynchronous orbit.

Well, SES Americom had a similar failure and wanted to try the same trick ... however ... it appears Boeing PATENTED THE PROCESS of using a lunar flyby to correct a satellites orbit.

Now it looks as though AMC-14 will become another piece of space junk .... or more than likely once the insurance claim is paid Boeing will call the insurance company and play "Let's Make a Deal!"

Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled

2008-04-11T05:29:00.003-04:00

Excellent resource for fact and fiction about biodiesel ... and to a lesser extent ethanol.

Not in my backyard .....

2008-04-10T21:04:00.003-04:00

Another one of those banging my head on the desk moments .... the township committee of Blairstown, NJ in Warren County is considering an ordinance that would require all solar panels to placed in back yards and be partially hidden.

WTF???? They're worried about lowering property values?? Like that's going to make a difference when the value of their houses drop because no one will be able to afford the energy costs to light, heat and cool them.

While we should be encouraging early adopters of alternative energy sources ... these boneheads are throwing up roadblocks.

Comcast HSI out most of Saturday (4/5/08)

2008-04-06T05:45:00.004-04:00

A Vice President at work once told me: "When we make mistakes, they end up in the newspaper."

Apparently Comcast knows all about that.

Woke Saturday morning to find the "tubes were clogged" .... strange thing Google and YAHOO still worked .... nothing mush else did. It wasn't a DNS problem, best I could tell DNS was resolving correctly. Routing looked a bit weird .... I don't have enough info to even speculate what happened ... but it just smells of maintenance that went bad ... It would make sense .. early Saturday and Sunday morning would be the perfect times for maintenance windows.

What more in the name of Love??

2008-04-04T12:12:00.002-04:00

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?

--U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee 40 Years ago today.