Just Signed Up For Google Wave

You might have heard about it already, or you might not, but this week Google introduced what it sees as the future of collaborative online communication, Google Wave. Tired of dealing with e-mail separate from IM and chat, or sharing multiple versions of documents via e-mail, or using obnoxious third parties and sending links to shared photos, or updating your blog...then Facebook...then Twitter...then Myspace...then...? Google Wave seeks to combine it all into one single interface so that all of these disparate clients and protocols are collapsed into one, making a more enjoyable experience for users and a simpler environment for developers (which will only FURTHER enhance features for users, as they build more into it). As it is pitched, it could essentially be the central social and communication app for the entire Internet, combining e-mail, chat, social networks, blogs, doc/picture/file sharing, collaboration...whatever. Even better, Google (in their typical fashion) are building it not as a proprietary Google-only scenario, but are looking to extend the protocol standards it's based on, release APIs for developers, and possibly even open-source the entire thing! So Google will start it, but any person or company will be able to build there own clients and applications into it to make it even better and foster conmpetition. AND...it's due out in beta within a mere few months' time! Sound interesting to you? Go check it out.

Julianna at Four Months

I can't believe that it's already been four months since she was born. In some ways it has gone quickly...in other ways it has dragged by slowly. She has already changed so much...cooing, kicking, smiling, laughing. In the meantime, I'm just trying to enjoy the ride.

Happy 4-Month Birthday, Jules.

Read My Lips?

I have already excoriated the President once this week, but he deserves another kick in the butt for this one:

Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look

For once, I completely agree with something that the Obama administration is trying to do. I have been a kill-the-progressive-income-tax believer since the mid 90s; as I started doing real work and paying real taxes, it quickly became apparent how ridiculous and needlessly complicated the system was. So I would love to see something like this, because it really WOULD be fair for everyone. I prefer a flat income tax to a sales tax, because a flat income tax has fewer penalties for those who are devout and dedicated to putting money into savings (as Martha Stewart says, "a good thing"), but I'll take a sales tax over the current nonsense. This assumes, of course, that we completely dump the income tax for this national sales tax.

But that's not why Obama deserves another trip to the woodshed.

Remember how he had promised SO MANY TIMES not to raise taxes on lower- and middle-class families? Guess what this does?? Also notice how there's no explicit mention of reducing or removing income taxes, which prior proponents of the "Fair Tax" had proposed. This would essentially be a supplemental tax that would raise consumer prices across the board, for everyone. Even if you remove the income tax for the bottom 90% of families, as the article proposes, the folks at the bottom are still paying more than they did before! Even though the current system stinks, in it a family of 4 earning $35,000 a year (so pretty much lower-class) pays almost no tax on every paycheck with the right deductions on their W-4. What they do pay, they get back at the end of the year. With a national sales tax, they pay any time they buy something, just like everyone else, making it more fair and equal in the traditional senses of those words (not the newfangled liberal senses). How is that not raising their taxes?? For those people to get any of that back, they would have to keep all their receipts and somehow be able to submit them for some sort of income-based refund process through their income tax stuff, making the entire process more difficult and more painful for them. How is that helpful?

Well done, Mr. Obama...way to keep your word.

The Problem With Green "Solutions"

(NOTE: I had a VERY long post planned and pretty much completed. I spent a few days on it, actually. But most people would have skipped it, and I realized I could say what I wanted to say in much less space. I also struggled with the title, for a number of reasons. Below is my final post.

This link (courtesy of Heidi) to a recent story from Fox News, about a grad student at Yale who built a "green" house, made me think yet again about the issues that Mankind will continue to face as it tries to find "green solutions to our problems". Let's look at a couple of these "problems": "Sprawl", air quality, water quality and conservation, energy use and dependency, production and use of fossil fuels, or old-growth forest protection. They're all related.

And here's what environmentalists do: they just keep asking you to give things up. They come up with solutions people don't want to willingly pay for, because their "solutions" are actually less efficient, less directly beneficial, less aesthetically pleasing, and/or less personally gratifying to human beings. Consider they kind of tripe they're pushing on us all:

Smaller, boxier, less attractive, less functional cars
Electric cars
Immediate death to any power source that isn't solar or wind
New Urbanism
Water conservation vs. building new dams and reservoirs
Recycling

Look up all of those and compare them to what we currently buy. While there are folks who favor those solutions for their own reasons, look at polls about what people want. Look at the market. Look at recent history, as well: DDT, Freon, unleaded gas, unleaded gas with ethanol, unleaded gas with LOTS of ethanol, low-flow toilets and fixtures, eco-friendly cleaning products, organic farming and food products...nearly every "solution" actually requires a big step backward in many areas only for the sake of some ethereal, abstract concept like "stopping global warming" or "protecting Mother Earth". The pattern you will see emerging with green solutions and products goes like this:

1. Great in theory, terrible in practice.
2. They cost consumers more money.
3. They aren't as appealing to consumers.
4. They are less effective or efficient than the solutions and products they are replacing.
5. They often have unintended consequences that are equally "dirty".

So you and I pay more for something we like less, that doesn't work as well, and that costs us more. Is it any wonder that the Greenies have to make us do this stuff by the law, and that most Greenies are socialists and communists? Green solutions and products could NEVER compete directly with regular, less eco-friendly products. That means these solutions and products must invalidate the free market and freedom of choice...you have less choice, less freedom to buy what you want. Basically, the only thing green solutions are good at is making mankind give up its freedom to thrive and progress. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are exceedingly rare and much lower-profile.

Note that I am not saying that we're stupid to be mindful of the environment, or work to find solutions and make products that provide as little negative impact as possible. (We are capable as a species of doing that, if we put our minds to it.) I just want to know why all of the solutions they keep coming up with suck so bad, when compared to what we have. Mankind needs incentives, and eco-friendliness in and of itself doesn't provide enough incentive to keep moving backward. Why don't we all just go on socialist-environmentalist welfare, with no product choice and no free will? Is that the future you want, that you want for your kids?

To tie this back to that original story from the link in the first paragraph, notice that the eco-friendly grad student had to use land "donated" to her, build with materials "donated" to her, and she even has to borrow someone else's bathroom. These solutions cannot stand on their own unless someone else sacrifices, unless someone else pays the price. Let's find REAL solutions to these problems, not pie-in-the-sky nutball pseudo-science nonsense.

I Promised Myself I Wouldn't Do This

I really didn't want to post about politics on the blog any more. I've been trying hard to ignore it all and just accept that America is pretty much dead, and that there is nothing more I can do to help it. However, I just saw something just now that made me REALLY angry. I've been angry before, and I've known for a while that our country is in trouble with very little hope for positive, constructive change. I've also known that Obama is an amoral, opportunistic jerkwad who will throw anyone under the bus as it suits political expediency. But in an interview today, Obama had the following exchange with C-SPAN's Steve Scully (via Drudge Report):

"SCULLY: When you see GM though as “Government Motors,” you're reaction?

OBAMA: Well, you know – look, we are trying to help an auto industry that is going through a combination of bad decision making over many years and an unprecedented crisis or at least a crisis we haven't seen since the 1930's. And you know the economy is going to bounce back and we want to get out of the business of helping auto companies as quickly as we can. I have got more enough to do without that. In the same way that I want to get out of the business of helping banks, but we have to make some strategic decisions about strategic industries..."

"Bad decision making over many years"? What? WHAT??? YOU'RE BLAMING THE AUTO MAKERS FOR THE SITUATION THEY'RE IN NOW?? The US Government has done nothing but handicap the American automakers for the past 50 years, by forcing them to continuously fund guaranteed jobs, outrageous benefits, and neverending retirement for hundreds of thousands of union workers who did nothing more than turn the same four bolts for 30 years of their lives. And when union workers felt like they weren't getting enough, they just made some government arbitrator give it to them. The government handicapped them further by forcing them to turn out millions of cars that Americans didn't (and don't) want to buy. The government is about to do this even more, as already indicated just a few days ago by Mr. Obama's announcements regarding even-higher fuel efficiency standards. These facts are not in dispute. They have done nothing but try to follow free-market rules and make cars that their customers want to buy. Yet the government has done nothing but meddle in the business affairs of the American automakers, and now "America's chickens are coming home to roost" as Mr. Obama's good friend Reverend Wright likes to say. Yet somehow, Mr. Obama has the unmitigated gall to claim that IT'S THE AUTOMAKERS WHO ARE AT FAULT???

You all know I don't typically cuss in my posts, at least not harshly. So please forgive me for how I am about to say what I am about to say...there's just no other way to put it.

Mr. Obama, you are officially full of shit.

A Loaded Question

Heidi and I just finished watching Pale Rider on AMC, and now we're watching Joe Kidd. All of this is part of today's "Westhave done something ern Heroes" marathon on AMC. But now the AMC folks have come up with this question:

Who is better, John Wayne or Clint Eastwood?

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?? There is no one on this planet capable of sufficiently answering that question. In fact, that question should never have been asked. This isn't Coke-vs-Pepsi or Windows-vs-Mac...this is more like asking, who is better, God or Jesus?

Another Great Geek Video

Fresh off the previous post, Heidi sends along this contribution:



OUTSTANDING!

You Can Teach A New Player Old Games

For those of you who appreciate the classics of video games...

So I was reading a comment thread while searching for some info on the infamous Blackhawks Foghorn (which I've discussed before), and I came across this:



The kids who made that listed this on their Youtube profile page:



The guy who made that video also made these:







I hope you enjoyed those as much as I did.

My Tips for eBay

Because of all the vehicles I have (and have had), and because of the amount of work they have needed, I have bought more than a few things on eBay. I've talked a little about eBay before (mostly about some of the goofy things that sellers do). But this post is different...I'm going to talk about the success I've had. I've only been burned one time on many transactions on eBay and that is primarily because I broke one of my own rules. Lots of people believe eBay isn't safe and that you'll find nothing but scam artists there. In fact, 99% of eBay transactions are completely legitimate and go off without a hitch. EBay would not still exist today if it were nothing but a haven for crooks. This doesn't mean you can just take it easy; it does mean that if you're smart and careful, you can get what you want on eBay for a good price, win nearly every time, and most importantly, not get screwed on the deal. I've bought TWO cars on eBay. I've bought a laptop computer. I've bought Christmas gifts and musical instruments, and I regularly buy auto parts there. So I've purchased some big-ticket items, and I have done so with no trouble.

Here are a few of my personal rules, which I provide to you as recommendations (though if you already buy on eBay and have a good strategy, more power to you). Also note that these rules are for buying...I don't do much selling on eBay so I haven't really been able to find a decent strategy for that yet (aside from what I've already seen sellers do).

1. NEVER even think about bidding on an item unless you have the money to pay immediately if you win. I know this sounds logical, but apparently many people think eBay is some sort of play area...they just bid, pretending they're going to buy, and then back out at the end. Or, they have second thoughts after bidding because they get all excited, and they end up in trouble. You are REALLY bidding on REAL items on eBay. Personally, I find it dishonest to jerk someone around that way, and I would be very frustrated if I were trying to sell something and someone bid and told me they were going to pay, but didn't. Bidding means you're going to buy if you win, so don't mess around. It makes you look like a dork if you bid then ditch it (unless you have some really good reason, like the item was not what it was supposed to be or you found out something that the seller didn't disclose that alters the value of the item, in which case you can go through eBay to cancel your bid). You can dream just by looking, but don't bid unless you're done with dreaming and are ready to MOVE. Have the money in hand or in the bank, and go for it.

2. When you find something you like, do your due diligence on the seller. Check their feedback. See how recently they've had negative feedback (if any). See how much of their feedback is from selling versus how much is from buying. Look at the items that they've sold recently. Look at how recent their last bits of positive feedback were. Most sellers are obviously OK, and there usually isn't a problem. On eBay, feedback (and thus reputation) is everything. If you're REALLY paranoid, use Google to check on the seller's username. (Any good security guy will tell you that people are pretty predictable; they tend to use the same usernames/screen-names over and over. This means if they use it on eBay, they've probably used it somewhere else and you can find it.) The one time I got burned, I bought from someone who had positive feedback, but not very much, and almost none as a seller. It came back to bite me. So make sure you like how the seller looks before you bid.

3. Next, do your due diligence on the item itself, especially if it's big-ticket item like a car or a computer. Usually, the more expensive an item is, the more understanding the seller will be. Experienced sellers will do just about any reasonable thing you ask. It is in their interest to answer your questions, just as it is in your interest to ask them. If you're buying a car, ask for as many photos as you can get: body, underside, engine, interior, VIN plates, anything. The car is not usually close by, where you can go look and test drive, so ask for whatever you want to see. Run a VIN check (or two). Ask to see the title and any other paperwork, by fax or high-res close-up photo (to make sure it's legitimate and matches the VIN you run). This holds true for anything you buy, and especially any big-ticket items. A good seller will be helpful and understanding. (This process can also tie into your due diligence on the seller, as mentioned in Item 2 above. If they're not reasonably helpful and understanding, they're probably hiding something...in which case it's time to move on.) If they ever hesitate to provide something you ask, or don't answer a question, don't do the deal. The item you are looking at is likely not one-of-a-kind, so you can probably find another one from a seller who is more willing to help you. If it IS one-of-a-kind, do you really want to slack on due diligence and possibly get ripped off?

Also, ignore the seller's obvious marketing. Most items are not "extremely rare" or "one of a kind" or "difficult to find". Make sure you know the market for the item you're looking for. When I buy car parts, I know what parts will fit my vehicle, what I've found based on how much I've looked, so I know if something is hard-to-find or not. It's like this with everything, be it golf clubs or old record albums or collector shot glasses or original Star Wars collectibles.

4. Make sure you know what your ceiling is. Before you bid, you need to decide how much you really want to pay for the item you want, and you must resolve not to pay one penny more, period. During your due diligence on the item, you need to make sure you understand the general market price range for whatever you are buying. With cars, it's easy...just go to the online NADA guides or the Kelley Blue Book website and look it up. Tie that into the VIN check and the pictures, so you have a rough idea of what price you should be paying, and shoot for getting in under that. If it's electronics or golf clubs or whatever, look at what other stores have it for. Just because you're buying on eBay doesn't always mean it's an instant bargain. If the auction price goes above what you can get the same item for from somewhere else (either online or brick-and-mortar), go buy it there. The point being, don't get so caught up in buying the thing, or in winning the auction, that you spend more than you should. Some folks get addicted to buying on eBay and end up overspending and getting into financial trouble. Showing a little discipline in this critical phase is a good way to avoid that miserable fate.

5. So...you've found the item you want, you've done your due diligence on the seller and on the item itself, you've got your money, you know your ceiling, and you're ready to bid. DON'T BID RIGHT AWAY. This is VERY important. EBay auctions are not human-mediated the way a traditional one is, so the bid amount is not the key factor in winning. An auctioneer will simply wait until he has the highest bid (because that's his job, maximizing the seller's profit), then close the auction when no one else wants to bid more. Some eBay users are what I call "nibblers"...they just bid whatever they want whenever they feel like it. They treat the auction as though it were a traditional, human-mediated auction. They usually don't win and they do nothing more than drive the price up. (Sometimes I wonder if some bidders use a separate name to bid on their own items this way...just to push the bids up more to their liking.) If you want to WIN the item, just put it in your watchlist and wait. Auctions are usually 5 to 10 days long, so there's plenty of time...don't get impatient. While you watch, either the price will stay low (within your budget) and you have a great chance of getting a good bargain; or the price will be driven up out of your budget, in which case you can move along anyway without a backward glance. As a buyer, it is pointless to add to that frenzy.

Since eBay auctions are timed only, getting the best bid in at the end is the key. This means that your best chance of winning is by "sniping." Make sure you're fully signed in and everything is ready to go. Wait until the very end of the auction, until there's about 30-60 seconds left. Enter your bid for the MAXIMUM amount you are willing to pay for the item, and submit it. When you do this, again, one of two things will happen: you will win because no one else will get a sufficient counterbid submitted in time, or you will not submit a bid high enough to overcome someone else's maximum bid (regardless of when it is entered, even simultaneously to yours). This might seem odd, but another quirk of eBay is that just because you enter a higher maximum bid doesn't mean that you will actually pay that amount for the item. Let's say you're bidding on a beautiful milkglass vase and you snipe in your max bid of $75.00 using the above method, and your bid is the highest. Let's further say the highest max bid from the second-place user was $50.00. You will end up paying $51.00, not $75.00, because eBay will select a sufficient amount for you to win because you were willing to bid higher. However, it does not penalize you because it also knows you're seeking to pay only enough to win the auction. In this way, it compensates for its lack of a human auctioneer, who also understands that just because a buyer might be willing to pay more doesn't mean he actually wants to pay more. So if you snipe in your max bid of $75 for the item, you will only lose if it is you don't put in the highest maximum bid, in which case you would've lost regardless of what you did.

6. Keep up with the auction. Sometimes this means you need to think about when the auction ends before you decide to bid. If you're going to use the sniping method, you don't want to bid in an auction that ends at 2:37am your time, or that ends while you are at work or during an appointment, when you can't use the method properly. Make sure you keep that in mind. Sniping is a little more time-critical method to use, but it does work. You just have to be really committed to buying what you're bidding on.

7. Use Paypal and only Paypal to pay for your item. All serious eBay users use Paypal, and especially serious sellers. Paypal is great because it allows you to pay immediately, so the seller is happy (and gives you positive feedback). Also, if there is some sort of problem with the item, or if you never get the item, you have recourse through Paypal to get your money back if the seller gives you a hard time about it. So you get a lot more protection this way than you would if you just sent some money. The one time I got burned, I didn't use Paypal.

8. Once you've gotten the item, make sure you give (and receive) feedback. Everyone needs positive feedback to survive on eBay (especially you, since some sellers won't accept your bid for certain items if your feedback is too low). Don't quibble about feedback; if you get the item in a reasonable amount of time, and if the item is as described, you've gotten the best you could expect. Some buyers get mad if the item isn't clean and pristine when they get it, for example. As long as you get it and it isn't damaged, it's needless to cause trouble for the seller and for yourself.

9. Finally, be prepared to lose every once in a while. I've used these methods to near-perfection, but I did lose a couple of auctions. One auction for an item I really wanted to win was because I didn't check in at the end of the auction; I didn't pay attention and realize that the auction ended while I was going to be unavailable to bid. The other time, I didn't put in a maximum bid that was high enough to win. If you lose, no big deal; there's probably another one of what you're looking for out there, or there soon will be.

So there you have it, my own personal rules for eBay strategy. You're free to agree or disagree, but whatever you do, find what works for you, and go win! (You might be amazed at what you'll find that you would be interested in.) Thanks for reading along.

Baby Geeks

Courtesy of the nice folks over at Geeks Are Sexy comes this wonderful post full of young fun and miniature-geeks-in-training. You all know I have a couple of very young ones myself, so I really enjoyed this. I hope you do as well.

A Baseball Oddity

Longtime readers know that I love baseball. I mean, I LOVE baseball. Sure, I love sports in general and I love football and golf and hockey and lacrosse and auto racing and other sports. But baseball is special to me because it was the only sport I played that I was ever any good at. I was too small for football, too short for basketball, I grew up with golf but didn't play because...well, I'm still not quite sure why, I didn't like soccer much, wrestling couldn't keep my interest, and we didn't have hockey or other more exotic sports around where I grew up.

So anyway, as I said, I love baseball. In all my years of playing and umpiring, I've seen some very interesting things. Every once in a while, though, something else comes along to REALLY amaze you. Baseball is one of those "nothing new under the sun" areas; other people have done this before in baseball history. It is very rare, though, as you might imagine, which makes it even cooler. And it looks like this kid does it pretty well. So I wish him the best...anyway you can get there, man. If I could do something to play in the Big Show, you bet your a** I would.

I Can't Believe This

This is a bizarre story, but the punchline is incredible.

Midwest City woman dies after swerving to avoid fridge

If a fatality weren't involved, this would likely be a funny story. A fridge on the highway? But there are some very troubling things that emerge from this story to me. First, how on earth does this happen at all??? Did someone drive down the road with a refrigerator and not tie it down properly?? Then, did that same someone have the fridge fall off of their truck and not realize that it fell off? Were they drunk??? Can you imagine them getting to their destination and saying, "Hey Bubba, where's the fridge?" "Oh, sh**!" Or worse, they knew it had fallen off, and were so afraid they'd get in trouble that they did nothing about it. They probably didn't even call the Highway Patrol to get the thing off the road.

Worst of all, in the year 2009, do we still have people that don't wear seat belts? Any time a vehicle swerves and rolls it is dangerous, but I would bet that if they had all been wearing their seat belts, they would all be alive. A Chevy Tracker isn't a super-heavy-duty vehicle but roll-cage requirements have been strong enough on US vehicles for the past twenty years that you are A LOT safer inside of it than not in a rollover crash. I don't think I've ridden or driven in a vehicle without wearing my seat belt since I was about 8 years old, and I find it amazing that anyone still insists, "seat belts kill more people than they save" or are careless enough with their own lives that they just don't bother.

There are Star Wars fans...

And then there are STAR WARS FANS!!!

Check this guy out...or rather, check out his car. The ultimate combination of geek and auto mechanic. The Force is strong with this one...

(Hat tip to Chong for sending this over to me.)

Happy Birthday, Katie!!

My oldest daughter, Katie, turns 14 today. It's been a long road, and we're not to the end of it yet. I'm really proud of her and I really miss her, so this is just a loud shout-out to her. I love you, Katie.

When Gen Xers Have Children

You know how parents are with kids...and we are getting to the point where our generation is in that role now at an increasing pace and most importantly, with increasing opportunities for this sort of thing. So let's take a quick look at the equation (and please show your work for your solution):

Generation X + kids + standard elementary school talent show = ...



UPDATE: I nearly forgot to provide the hat tip to Heidi for sending this along to me...I would never have seen it, if not for her.

I Love Games

No, not the stupid, needless psychological games that people play...I mean real games. Card games, board games, old games, new games. I love going to the casino and playing at the tables, because I just enjoy playing cards (though winning money is fun, too). I could play games nearly all the time. I love logic games and puzzles. I love backgammon and cribbage, chess and go, poker and solitaire, golf and football and baseball, word games, thinking games, strategy games. I love to play them on the computer or in the "analog" world.

I think that mostly I enjoy games that make you think, that keep your mind working. I've often heard that the best way to prevent mental deterioration as you get older is to keep the mind working as much as possible. Games do that for me. I like playing with the kids and I like playing with Heidi or with friends or whoever. I just like to play. The only problem is that I can't always find people to play with me, and I can't always find ways (or time) to play alone on the computer.

Do you like games, too?