Archive for the 'Changing scene' category

License Plate Billboards

Jun 25 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Dumb Americans, Goverment policy, unbelievable

California Democratic Sen. Curren Price is sponsoring  BILL NUMBER: SB 1453 to bring Digital Billboard License Plates to California.

So what is a Digital Billboard License Plates? It turns the license plate on YOUR car in to a State of California controlled rolling billboard. So the State of California can sell ad space on Your car. When your car stops, for a predetermined time, the license numbers go away and a digital billboard comes alive. The ads will start to be displayed, until your car starts to move again.

The idea behind the plate wasn’t to make the vehicle into a rolling billboard. Rather, the plate was devised to allow the driver to customize their own license plate to support organizations, sports teams, and colleges. Says M. Conrad Jorda, CEO of Smart Plate.

I can not believe the arrogance of the state legislators that put this Bill together. A Bill that would would become LAW and force you to display the ads the state sells. They need to remember who pays for the car. The state’s reasoning behind this it to develop alternative revenue streams. If the state does this  it it will be  infringing on your rights and privacy. Again, State law makers IT IS NOT YOUR CAR!

I can think of all kinds of problems with this. For starters I’m sure there will be all kinds of ads running on the back of YOUR car. Say your a person that does not believe in a product or topic, or has religious beliefs against a product or topic. Will you be forced to let that ad run on the license plate mounted to your car.

Plus the digital license billboard requires electricity to run, where is the electricity coming form? Thats right your cars electrical system. So let’s say the digital license plate malfunctions and stays on all night running down your battery. You do not find out until you try a drive to work in the morning. No battery and you can not start you car. Now you can not get to work. Who’s at fault?

Or the plate malfunction in traffic and the Digital Billboard is flashing ads while you are driving. It distracts a driver and that rear ends you. Who is responsible, the state? It was the California State run digital billboard that caused the distraction that caused the accident?

It’s not all big brother, the digital license plate could also be used to alert drivers of an Amber Alerts or other emergency messages. But it will mostly be unwanted junk.

I hope and pray that the State of California does not do this! It is MY car not the State of California’s rolling billboard.

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Airlines charge passengers by their weight

Apr 30 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America

weighing_inIt seams like every week the airlines a adding new fees on top of the normal ticket price.  At first they were small charges, like charging to buy a ticket, or change a ticket. Then they started charging for heavy baggage. Now the trend is to charge for checked baggage. There is talk in the industry that the airlines might start charging for Carry-on bags.

But what I think is coming is a day where the airlines start charge for passengers tickets by weight. After all a big heavy person takes up more room in the airplanes cabin. Airline fuel consumption is determined by weight. The heaver a plane is the more fuel it will burn. Air freight prices are determined by size and weight of the package. The larger a package is the more it cost to ship it by air. Same goes for weight, the packages can be small, but if it is heavy it cost more to ship.

So do not be supprised that  some day, in the future, you are asked to stand on a scale at the airline ticket counter so the ticket agent can determin the cost of your ticket.

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Steve Jobs out of Touch

Feb 24 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Geek stuff

steve-jobsThe iPad look and sounds cool, but who will buy it. When I talk to friend and co-works I always a are you going to buy and iPad? I asked the same question a few years back about the iphone and always got a resounding yea you bet, as soon as it comes out. No matter how long the lines are or how much it cost.

Well the response, i’am get now, when I ask the question about the iPad is “No I’am not going to buy the iPad for myself”. Then they continue “I will definitely buy it for my parents!”

Parents! Why are you going to buy it for you parents? “Because, it is easy to use and does not have a mouse.”

I though Apple product were always for the generation x and y’ers not the old baby boomer’s of the 50′s.  You know the cool products that the young persone has to have. The fancy packaging, the modern stores, stuff that a baby boomer would never identity with.

So what happened? Is Jobs designing products for a different generation?  Is this a planed marketing change? Or did Apple just miss-read the masses? Or is Steve just getting old like the rest of us Baby Boomer’s?

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Movie Trailers Show it all

Jan 21 2010 Published by under Changing scene, Dumb Americans, Hollywood trash

Trailers
Why does Hollywood take all the best parts of a movies and crams them all into a 60 second promo movie trailer. Every studio does it. They entice you with all these really great high energy action scenes, or funny gags. Then when you go to see the movie there is not any new material. It’s all the stuff you saw in the movie trailer.

Or the trailer makes you think it is going to be a funny movie and in reality, the movie is a drama or a real downer or a dark story. Nothing like getting ripped off, it is like a bait and switch, except you have paid for your ticket and waisted an hour and a half watching something that was not what you though it was. Oh sure you could go to the manager and demand your money back, but you went out for a good time, not to spike your blood pressure.

For me, I will not watch a movie trailer of an upcoming movie, that I really want to see. I will listen to all the buzz, or read about it, but I will not watch any movie trailer or news spot on the upcoming feature. So when I finally get to see the movie it is all new and unexpected.

I do the same for TV shows, I never watch the coming attraction of the next episode. So Hollywood take a note, save the good stuff for the paying customers when they get to the movie, don’t put it all in the Trailer.

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Jazz Guitarrist Tim bowman

Dec 10 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene

Tim_BowmanWho is Tim Bowman you ask? If you like smooth jazz or easy listing music, read on as we fill in the gaps.  If you like the hard rock or heavy metal stuff this post is not for you.

Sweet Sundays, on his new album, is a great track to relax and sip something cold by the pool.  Tim Bowman is not one of your main stream recording artist. He can be found on SirusXM Watercolors channel or SmoothJazz.com. Or on the old fasion FM radio you might find him on The Wave KTWV-FM.

It has been  a while since we have seen any new material from Tim but this 2009 CD was worth the wait. It was four years ago that he released is CD titled “This is what i hear’” and fours year before that i 2000 he released Smile. But this new CD will give me many hours of relaxed time around the pool.

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Google Chrome OS

Nov 19 2009 Published by under Changing scene, Future things, Geek stuff, Google

appmenu

In a nutshell the Google Chrome browser is the Google Chrome OS. It is aimed toward a netbook. There will be no disk drive only a RAM or solid state memory. Googles plan is to have the OS ready for Christmas next year.

So the good news is Google OS will load in 7 sec. The bad news all your data will be in the cloud. But is that  good or bad news. If your data is out in the cloud you can access a document from your notebook or your home machine or your office machine. So that is good, right.

Google Chrome OS  introduces a secure platform that stores your user settings in the cloud. If you loose your netbook , just get a new one and log-in to the cloud and you setting will all be there with your files.

Google_Chrome_OS

Everything you do in Chrome OS will be in the browser. So all your applications will be web based. Google claims that this is to make computers more accessibly,  less costly to install and maintain.

The example Google gave was you can buy several netbooks for $300 each. Load Google’s Chrome OS and get an adorable house wide solution. And since Google’s Chrome OS  is auto undated you do not have software updates to buy and install on all your home PC. For me that would have saved the purchase of the new windows 7  Family Pack and several hours of installation time and i still have bugs to solve to get everything working.

Looks like something I will be install at home as most of the laptops we use, around the house, are for web browsing and e-mail. So a new netbook with Google’s Chrome OS will be a lot cheaper.

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Organize yourself with Twitter

Nov 03 2009 Published by under Blogroll, Changing scene, Geek stuff, unbelievable

lists-birdEver had a problem sorting through you Twiter time lines. Will in the past you had to use a third party applacation to help sort out Tweets by topic. Now Twitter will do it foe yuou.

Recently Twiter luanched a new feature called “Lists” . With the list feature you can organize yout timelines into separate lists by topic. Have as many topics as you like. You can even share you list by marking them as “public” or you can keep your lists all to yourself by marking them “private”.

It is a simple feature but it sure makes using Twitter a lot easier to use.

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Upgrade Sony Tivo to Tivo HD

Oct 27 2009 Published by under Changing scene

sony_tivoThe upgrade from the 2000 vintage Sony Tivo to the Tivo HD was like getting exposed to Tivo all over again. Back in 2000 I did not get or understand  the Tivo revolution. Why would anyone spend $500 just to recoded a TV show. After all I have my trusty VCR.  You do remember what a VCR is right?  Will someone gave us a Sony Tivo for helping then set up a medical office. That Sony Tivo change the way I watched television for ever.  Now I was watching what I wanted when I wanted.  Plus if the phone rang I could pause live TV. All these were first at the time, back in 2000.

Well I have been very slow to upgrade to  a newer Tivo. After all mine dose the job. It has the Tivo lifetime service.  I have converted the phone only Sony Tivo to a ethernet connect unit with a giant hard drive.  The Old Sony Tivo will store almost 200 hours of television. What else did I want.

let me tell you what I wanted…I wanted, to be able to recorder in HD, I wanted to be able to recored two shows at a time, I wanted Netflix streaming, I wanted YouTube, I wanted Yahoo weather, I wanted Pictures and video from my PC and Mac and the list goes on and on….tivo-hd_11-300x224[1]

So I finally found a Tivo HD unit, with lifetime service, for under $500 and I jumped. And now I have all kinds of options all with a touch of a button from the Tivo remote.  Like I said back in 2000 Tivo changes the way you watch television and now Tivo changes the way I use my television.

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Better TV with Widgets?

Oct 08 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America

tv_widgets[1]

To solve the question, that was asked earlier this year “Who Decides What IPTV You Watch?” the industry has responded with the TV Widget. TV widgets allow you, the consumer, to break free from the iron fist of TV manufactures deciding what internet content you watch on your TV.

Several TV manufactures including LG, Samsung, Sony and soon to be Visio have introduced flat panel televisions that have Yahoo Widgets. Yahoo Widgets is a set of software that connects your TV to the internet and presents information kind of like an iPhone. The information comes from the internet but the user experience is not the normal personal computer browser model.

Visio has taken the Yahoo Widgets one step further. Not to be tied to Yahoo and Yahoos release schedule, Visio developed their own widget platform for Visio televisions. Visio developed there own platform using Adobe Flash. So it will be a very open platform. It will also support Yahoo’s Widgets, so you get the best of both worlds.

Visio is planning on releasing a SDK or software developer’s kit, so any one can develop a Widget for the Visio television. You could even develop a custom home automation interface or a interactive Game, the sky it the limit.

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Birthday Number Two

Sep 20 2009 Published by under Changing scene, Dumb Americans

It is are second BIRTHDAY today. secondbirthday-240x300[1]We have been posting, about all kinds of topics, for two years. There have been a lot of posts on alternative energy, and electric cars. I was very surprised to finding the large number of manufactures that are working on ALL electric automobiles.

What does the next year hold in store for us, know one knows. Will there be more post on electric cars, or will our interest stray off into other areas?

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