Oscar Winners

I'm rather glad some new faces won the big Oscars last night - even if the 'new faces' are the ex-wife of the guy that directed the sinking ship I still want 3+ hours of my life back for watching, the first person to win a best Oscar and worst Razzie in the same weekend, and 'the Dude'.

Air Tran

I must admit, I was quite excited to hear the news that Huntsville's found a new "low-fare" carrier. Air Tran will serve Baltimore and Orlando from Huntsville starting this May. Let's just hope this has a ripple effect on fares from Huntsville, the most expensive city to fly out of in the country. Oh, and that we can keep them, which seems to be the part of this equation we can't quite figure out.


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von Braun

Photo: von Braun (center) explains the Saturn Launch System to President Kennedy (right) (nasa.gov)

As a resident of Huntsville, Alabama, I thought I'd share these interesting comments of former Huntsville resident (and German/American rocket scientist and pioneer) Wernher von Braun, who (along with his team) invented the Saturn V rocket that took man to the moon. During WWII his team designed rockets for a much different purpose, though, including the V2 that brought terror to London throughout the war.

Nearing the end of the war he knew Germany was to lose, and was faced with a decision of who to surrender his team and technology to -- the Americans advancing from the West, or the Soviets from the East. His comments about that decision in an interview:

"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through, and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured." (W. von Braun, Biography television series, 1961-64.)

Don't touch that!

Well, now I know why we buy too much. Apparently if you touch it, you have to buy it...

Worst. Invention. Ever.

Really, who comes up with this stuff? More importantly who approves this stuff???

Twitter-equipped bathroom scale tells the world how much you weigh

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Netbooks: or "How we can reinvent the PC to sell you another one"

Well, I fell for it. I bought a netbook earlier this year. Did I need it? Does anyone ever really need this product? The safe bet is on "no" for both questions.

But it's still pretty cool. I ended up buying the Acer Aspire One model, and I've been pretty impressed with it, and actually found myself using it more than any other computer at home. A couple things to get out of the way:
1. The keyboard takes some time to get used to. If you've got fat fingers like me, you won't like it as much as a full size keyboard. The Acer has an 89% keyboard.
2. The battery life -- not great. The Acer has a three cell battery that's good for about two hours, on a good day.
3. The brand. These are low cost machines, so don't make brand out to be a bigger item than it needs to be. Acer doesn't make these, they farm out to some company you've never heard of. I'm sure other manufacturers are similar.
4. Windows XP: just say no. I bought mine loaded with windows so I could easily load AutoCAD '09 and the ms office suite. Just say no. If you want a fully fledged laptop, buy it. Besides being slower, and having a shorter battery life, a lot of the Windows netbooks (including mine) have had issues with fan noise. There's a workaround, but just avoid the trouble to start with and get it with Linux.

On the plus side, the screen -- while small -- is very crisp and easy to read. The computer runs fairly quickly, despite only having 1 Gig of RAM. It has a built in webcam, which works well for Skype or Windows/MSN Messenger. Unlike some Dell laptops I've used, the Acer won't give you third degree burns from using it on your lap for a few minutes. It does what it's designed to do very well, and for a very reasonable price. Just don't plan on playing any of your latest game releases on it.

All in all, if you're looking for something cheap to surf the internet on, use skype, occasionally do some light word processing on, a netbook might be for you. Mine ran $239, and I've seen them for under $200 if you look a little harder. Tigerdirect seems to have them on sale regularly. I would recommend that if you're looking to buy one, you run by Best Buy or your local big box electronics place to actually look at and use a netbook before purchasing. They are most certainly smaller than a laptop, and if you're expecting a laptop with a 15.4" screen, you will be disappointed!

Norman Mattoon Thomas

Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.

The Socialist Party candidate for President of the US, Norman Thomas, said this in a 1944 speech:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

We're all humans, after all...

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers...

-Unknown

I read this today and thought...you know, that's true, I am an above average driver.

Oil Prices

So, I know you were wondering...

+++=?

...what happens when you throw Justin Timberlake, The Cookie Monster, and some death metal into a blender. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVLAZtAcUBk&feature=related