David Unleashed

I caught the headline of the newspaper yesterday that the average life expectancy is now 78 years old in America. This is not good. We should be shortening the average life expectancy if we want to reduce our carbon footprint. What a conundrum. Legislation please. We must stop this whole living too long thing. Hey Al, pass the smokes.

Here are your new environmentalists.

Overweight people. See, I do care about the environment.
Smokers.
Alcoholics.
Gangs; think drive by shootings.
Anyone who puts their life in jeopardy.

Join our green movement today!  It is easier that jogging everyday.  Or join your local chapter, fatbastards.com

Read more about this plight.

When I read that Australia had made it illegal to use the incandescent light bulb I knew it was a matter of time before it was adopted here in the United States.  Then at the beginning of the year I noted that Ireland had implemented the same law.  It was inevitable then that it was destined to become a law here. Well, that day has arrived.  In a move reminiscent of Mussolini’s fascist state, Congress has made your light bulbs illegal.  That’s right, you need to burn out all of your incandescent bulbs by 2014.

I am reminded how my town of Ferndale passed a ban on big-box stores a week after Bellingham passed their ban.  Worse, Ferndale did it without much, if any, input from residents.  They just rubber stamped the action taken by Bellingham, WA.  Well, this post is not about Bellingham.

I have nothing against saving the environment or using compact florescent bulbs (I have a house full of them).   I do resent congress mandating what type of bulbs I can use in my home ostensibly to save electricity, especially when they are funding research into alternative fuels that produce electricity so that we can consume more–to fuel our electric or hybrid cars.  Is anybody thinking about this stuff?

In the midst of the non-sense, here is one Congressman that has a sense of humor about the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/v/e-LOtKIIKcg

It is late and I have been driving my gas powered car for about 11 hours (12.5mpg highway).  Going to bed now.

Poem was nagging me tonight about my inactivity on my blog of late. Well there are good reasons for this. First, I have a life. Secondly, I am in the process of moving from my home for the last 7 years (Ferndale, WA — I love this place) to Sprigville, UT where I will babysit my newest endeavor, Tangible Express. So, there you have it.

I have actually composed several blog posts in my head and will get them to blog format when I arrive in Utah. Here’s a short list of what you can look for in the coming days/weeks.

1. The power of brute force marketing. Why is Quiznos still in business when they have the serve the worst crap in their category?
2. Chrysler 300 Hemi meets MacBook. The story about how I ran over my Mac Pro — TWICE. I am typing the entry on that very MacBook Pro. Thanks Brenthaven…
3. Hooked on iTunes Store
4. Ride your MP3

If you need to reach me, call Poem or Sue at PRWeb and they will give you my digits. Or email me. If you don’t know my email address I probably don’t want to hear from you anyway…

Web 2.0 Implossion on the Horizon?

The social media space better wake up and learn to play nice with business to risk implosion. I really think the whole space is in jeopardy. What we really need is new fresh thought leadership in this space.
Anyone? I am currently funding a number of ventures in the space and provided the initial leadership for the social media press release. I relay this so that you know that I have a vested interest in the ongoing health of the social media space. It was in a conversation today with one group that I had invested in that I started to go off on Digg. I know it is an old story but I need to register my frustration nonetheless.

What story am I referring to here? Remember in December when Lee Odden’s Top Rank Blog was banned from Digg? This is the one that has got me most chapped of late. Lee Odden is anything but a spammer. His blog provides valuable commentary and coverage on the SEO, SEM, SMO and PR space. He at no time encourages the use of spam to get business done online.

Here’s the thing; I like his blog but I can no longer Digg it. Why, because someone had him banned from Digg. I even went so far as to try to use a redirector service such as tinyurl.com or 301url.com to digg one of recent stories. Judging from the 70+ comments to Lee’s blog post it is apparent that I am not the only one frustrated with Digg’s stupidity.

Can you imagine if we were as arbitrary as Digg in our daily lives? Essentially they shut down Lee’s blog for future diggs because they (Digg) has a few rogue users. Imagine for a minute a world controlled by digg logic. Instead of looking for a Wal-Mart shoplifter and prosecuting the shoplifter we would have to shut down the Wal-Mart. Does that make sense to anyone? Or do I not understand because I am not a self-righteous socialist?

As one commenter pointed out, this is not a very 2.0 way of dealing with spam. BTW, who decides what is spam? That may be a discussion for another day….

So by now you should know that I love my Mac.  That said, every now and again I find myself forced to make that odd PC purchase.  I just purchased a Vaio; incidentally I think that Sony makes the best PC laptop–if you ever find yourself needing a PC-based system.  I needed to purchase this PC for my pilot because the update software for my airplane navigation equipment needs a PC to run its updater program.

Anyway, the laptop came with Vista pre-installed so there you go.  I have now purchased my first and probably last Vista system.  (I read yesterday that XP is still outselling Vista.  I understand why this might be true after spending a day with Vista.)

The interface is awful.  I don’t know how else to say it.  It is as if they subjected their focus groups to a bunch of crap and instructed them to pick the less crappy interface.  Perhaps if Microsoft would have put as much work into the code of Vista as they did to redesigning their interface they would have a decent OS.  I did open up the new version of Office and must say that their new ribbon system is pretty cool looking although I question the wisdom in making such dramatic changes to an interface that people had become very familiar with.  I am still waiting for Apple to come out with a decent Office type suite, by the way.

My point is this.  The other interface “worked”.  I knew where everything was.  Now I have to learn a new OS.  Nothing is where you would intuitively think to look.  The Programs? Huh?

Bottom line; the release of Vista could have been the best thing to happen to OSX since the MacBook Pro.