It is are second BIRTHDAY today. ![secondbirthday-240x300[1]](http://www.thoughtscubed.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/secondbirthday-240x3001.jpg "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?
Are only certain Networks channels displayed on your television set because the television manufacture has done a deal with that network?No, you get all the network channels that are broadcasted in your area.
So then why are Television manufactures making deals with internet video streaming sites and only displaying the ones they get paid too? It would be like Mitsubishi making a deal with NBC and CBS only. And since they do not have a deal with ABC you cannot receive ABC on the Mitsubishi Television. We would all thing that was nuts.
Will that is exactly what is taking place in today’s market. Television manufactures are only allowing streaming services that they cut deals with. No deal, no access through the television.
If the smarts are in a TV to receive, for example, Netflix, then the TV is smart enough to receive others. True the software for streaming is not standardized today BUT it should be. Manufactures should not be controlling what Internet Streaming sites work or do not work on a given television.
Friday, June 26th, is the date of the 9th Annual Drive Your Corvette To Work Day, sponsored by Mid America Motorworks.
In honor of Drive Your Corvette To Work Day, enthusiasts across the United States make America’s Sports Car their commuter car for the day.
Every year, the Friday closest to June 30, Corvette’s official birthday, is chosen to observe Drive Your Corvette To Work Day.
Under the umbrella of saving the consumer money, insurance companies are offering a new kind of auto insurance. Kind of a pay for what you use model. You pay for how, how much, when and where you drive. Drive in a high risk part of town in the wee hours of the morning you pay more. If you accelerate quickly and slam on your breaks a lot, you pay more. Drive more then the average person or if you exceed the upper speed limit of 65 MPH and you pay more.
How is it monitored? You plug a small computer, smaller then size of a bar of soap, in to your cars diagnostics port. The computer monitors how you drive. Current monitoring does not include a GPS to monitor where you drive. But is the GPS function that far off. Imagine your insurance company knowing where you are all the time. They would know if you just left a sports bar. So does your insurance rate for the trip home cost you more because you could have been drinking and the insurance company has more risk, even if you did not drink.
The implications are not that far off. Most companies, with fleet vehicles, already moniter their driver is real time. They know exactly where there vehicles are. The monitoring system will notify the manager when a driver exceeds the top speed limit. The system will also alert the manager when a car or truck leaves the GPF fence area.
So how far will insurance companies take technology to save us money? And how much of our privacy are we willing to give up to save money? Or are we just dumb Americans and follow the trend?
I guess the California State Legislature is out of touch with the real world! In their infinite wisdom our California state law makers are going to kick us when we are down. We get the double squeeze by getting taxed more when wages are being cut, the value of our house is falling, like a rock, and our investments are disappearing,as the stock market keeps falling. The California State Legislators are sticking their hands in our pocket and taking more of our money. Caligornia did nothing to help Obamas stimulus package.
Seems strange, that whenever the state government needs more money they just figure out another way to tax Joe citizen more. Oh sure they cut some programs, but most of the time the cuts are just reduction to their increased spending.
On the other hand when Joe citizen needs to make a budget adjustment, where do we get more money. We have no one to add or increase a tax too. No we end up cutting. Real cutting like doing without stuff. That is the only way, the majority of us, can make ends meet. Some of us, Joe citizen, can increase our income or work more hours, but not many of us. So we all do with less.
The State government is encouraging us to spend less by raising the California stats sales tax. So if we buy less the economy suffers, by less goods being sold. That’s great for jobs. If the state lowered state sales tax, people would have more money to buy stuff. If they bought more we get more state sales taxes revenue and more jobs. More jobs produce more tax revenue.
Same problem with higher personal property on car taxes. When Detroit is having a very difficult time selling new cars lets discourage people by doubling the personal property tax on cars. That just makes us all ready to run out and pay MORE sales tax and personal property tax on autos. Great plan to stimulate car sales. A better plan would be to get Joe average guy an incentive to purchase a new car, maybe a tax credit or something.
So who are the dumb Americans? Joe citizen who keep paying more in taxes? Or the State Legislature who think there is not limit to taxing Joe citizen? Californa passed a reverse stimulus package. Obamas stimulus package may have a lot of pork in it but it did not tax us like Califorrnia did.
Question from J Q Public:
Why the DTV delay?
Answer from Washington:
You are not ready!
First I would think that the Obama administration would have more important things to deal with, like the failing United States economy!
But instead they are pushing a bill through the House and Congress to delay the Digital Television transition. The Digital Transitions has been going on for eight years. So is four months going to make any difference?
Ok so the 1.3 billion dollars ran out, that means 32.5 million converter boxes were bought. According to ConsumersAffairs.com 58% of the households have cable, 29% have satellite. If there about 100 million households in the United States that means the majority of us are ready for the conversion to digital television or do not need it. Remember anyone using cable, satellite or IPTV will not be effected by the digital transition.
So there are two million plus waiting for a converter box coupion. Let them buy a converter box and get a tax credit. There is no delay and no excuses.
The delay, if approved, will cost the broadcasters millions of dollars in cost over the additional four months. This increase in cost is because they will need to run both the analog and digital transmitters for an additional 4 months. Most broadcasters have hundreds of station across the country. So this adds up fast.
In my opinion we should not add to the confusion over the digital transition. Instead after eight years of having feet in both the digital and analog world, just do the cut over on February 17 , 2009 as planed. Washington should get on the task at handle the US economy. Washington does not need to be worried about or TV.
On the Vudu website is this quote:
“Unlike other services that rely on large server farms to deliver content, as more VUDU Boxes are installed, the network will become even more efficient and require less of each box.”
So what does the mean? It means your Vudu set top box serves up content and uses your internet connection to deliver the content. Did you get that! That means you are providing the electricity, the hard drive space, and the network bandwidth so other Vudu owners can watch content.
Wow… did you know you were providing a service to other Vudu owners when you bought your Vudu set top box? This is call a peer-to-peer network. Other software out there, call BitTorrent, is used by hobbyist to share and download very large files. Peer-to-peer networking is also known as a bandwidth hogs. I would not want several Vudu users on the same provider in my network neighborhood.
Other services like Hulu, Sling and Netflix, use large distributed server farms to send out content. They pay for the hosting services to house the server farms not you. They pay for the badwidth to connect there server to the internet, not you.
So the Vudu service sound great upfront but is the price, Vudu using your resources, too high? Or will the dumb American consumer just march forward and not care?
I think “Wrap Rage” started with the dam cellophane wrapped CD jewel case from 1982. I could never get the plastic zip strip to work. They would always break off before they did anything. Leaving you frustrated as you tried desperately to get the cellophane plastic wrap off the jewel case and your new CD out.
Today we have even more “Wrap Rage”. Have you ever tried to get a product out of a clamshell plastic package, or a Childs toy that has been wire tied into a box with 10 or 20 metal wire ties?
The manufactures clams the packaging it for our benefit. The wire ties secure the product in the package but still allow you, the consumer, to see, touch and try the product all without removing the product from the package or box. This kind of packaging is also be used to promote the “try me” feature. This feature is where you can try part of the toy or product while it remains in the package.
The plastic clamshell packaging ensures that all the pieces remain in the package, and cannot be touch but are clearly visible. The clamshell packaging also protects the product form being tampered with. But what protects my finger from being cut on the sharp stiff plastic as I remove the product from the packaging?
There are even several special tools to help you with you WRAP RAGE. Here is another wrap rage tool for freeing your purchase form it’s plastic safe. And yet another one, but this one is a single task wrap rage tool. There is a tool for everything. You just need to know where to get it. Sasme thing if there is a problem, ingenuity comes to the rescue and the capitalist entrepreneur will get the product to market.
Some of this is kind of understandable when products are put on display at a retail store. But if you are buying the product through an online source, mail order or catalog do you need all this fancy packaging. Why not just a simple box, plastic bag or pouch. Plus simpler and less packaging is environment responsible. One company who is leading the charge in this area is Amazon.com. so relief is on the way.
In the Los Angeles area you need to get up early to go anywhere on the freeways. But in December when it is cold and still dark, at 5AM, hundreds of guys got up to see the Double D’s in December beauty pageant. For the last two December KROQ radio early morning KEVIN & BEAN SHOW host a pageant outside the Slidebar in Fullerton. This show airs from 5AM to 9AM for the morning commute.
So there is a mass sea of guys all drinking and watching nine girls prance around, on the outdoor stage, in their short skirts and bikinis (lots of goose bumps here). In the competition were Cassandra( 25) from Chino Hills, Roxanne(24) from Huntington Beach, Stacy(24) also from Huntington Beach( 23) from Costa Mesa , Janelle(22) of La Verne, Danielle,(21) from Covina, Camry(22) of Norco, Nicolette(23) of Covina, and Crystal(23) from Anaheim.
Cassandra was voted the winner. There were no judges and the voting was done on-line over the internet. Now this is an early morning radio show, that is position for the morning commute time slot.
So how does the voting work. You’re in your car! For one you cannot see the girls, as this is a radio program. So how do you know who to vote for? And two if you are voting on you handheld mobile device you’re breaking California law, as it is now against the law, in California, to use your mobile phone while driving.
Alright, your right, the whole pageant was webcasted live on the KROQ website. So if you had web access you could see the ladies. But that means…. you were late for work or…. Your messing around on the internet at work.
When you die without a “will” the State move in and takes over. The result is an estate auction. The auctioneer takes everything you owned and sells it off to the highest bidder. That a sad thought, that one’s live time is dissolved through and impersonal sale of all your personal belongings. And if you own personal property that is auction off also. At this particular estate sale two autos were sold to the highest bidder.
After the estate sale is done the state then puts your house on the auction block. So what took a life time to accumulate and pay for is gone in days.
So how do you prevent this? Get a will and leave your property to someone, even a charity or church, somebody. Please do not be a dumb american and leave it to the State to decide.