In the case of web development as with many things, some people who use web sites, think they know how easy/hard it is to build them. (Hint: they don’t)

Check out this person who needs to hire a programmer yet they already ‘know’ how ‘hard’ the task is and how long it will take.  link.

Guantanamo, the U.S. military detention camp, has been loudly criticized for ‘water-boarding’ (simulated drowning) of 3 terrorists.  No doubt this technique is psychnologically terrible, but whether any permanent damage is inflicted is unclear.  Top level U.S. military personnel themselves are subjected to water-boarding so they’re aware of what they might be subjected to by enemies, so if one believes water-boarding is torture, then the U.S. tortures its own military.  A soldier told me of a fast 25 mile walk he had to endure with 50lbs of gear on, and his bleeding feet.  Is that torture?  Heck, I’ve been in business meetings I’d describe as torture.  Sorry, must not make light of this!

But somehow lost in the argument is what other countries do.  60 Minutes did a piece on an Iranian student’s story.  He had been part of a student protest in Iran and was eventually arrested and then held and tortured for years before being released.

I think everyone should see this. It’s just 12 minutes.

Get involved!

Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).

I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ‘09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?

Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.

So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?

Their budget “highlights” document is 113 pages. Yikes.

It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?

This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm

On their strategic plan page it says:

By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.

EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????

So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.

What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?

So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ‘07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.

Your tax dollars at work folks.

U.S. gas prices have doubled and more in the past couple of years.  It must be hurting millions of people directly (getting to and from work or school for example), and hurting many businesses too, which must deliver things and have things delivered to them and so they must raise prices on everything in turn to make up for it.  It seems the U.S. government has totally distorted how it reports inflation because gasoline and food prices alone are skyrocketing.  Maybe the drop in house prices is counteracting that some!

The politicians are arguing over causes and remedies, but while they do NOTHING, quietly, millions of people are driving a little less, maybe trading in the old clunker or big SUV for something much more efficient, sales of hybrids have skyrocketed, and the American people are being very sensible about all this.

We’ve all heard it’s ‘greedy oil companies’ that are the cause but that really isn’t the case – they process crude oil and refine it, etc., and pass along the costs they must pay.  Now global demand for oil and gasoline has been climbing and is projected to climb a great deal more as prosperity increases in China and India in particular, as they hold almost half the world’s population!  U.S. gasoline consumption has not increased significantly in decades.  Increasing overall demand puts upward pressure on prices if supply is not increased.

With producers (particularly OPEC) choosing not to dramatically increase supply, and with constant worries of wars in risky parts of the world, those who actually BUY crude oil and related products in huge quantities for their customers (refiners, power companies, plastics companies, airlines, etc.) have been bidding up the price of future oil purchases, trying to lock in prices, but there’s also some hyping as well, all causing crude oil prices to jump in the last year in particular (to now over $130 a barrel).

But there’s another, bigger, underlying reason oil and gasoline prices are climbing fast: environmentalists.  For decades they have rabidly pushed an agenda to stop any and all efficient energy production, claiming initially it might poison us all or pollute everything, but now, in a much bigger campaign, they have convinced millions that energy production, particularly oil and gasoline will actually destroy the whole planet.  Al Gore declared the oil product powered automobile to be the greatest threat to the planet.

Al Gore is clueless.  Perhaps because the most ‘dire’ climate models predict the planet only warming by about 1 degree Celsius this century, the ’cause’ was renamed ‘climate change’ from ‘global warming’.  Well newsflash: the climate has ALWAYS and will ALWAYS be changing.  Ice ages and HOT spells predate human existence.  There’s many underlying causes, including varying solar activity which even Al Gore has no control over.

So the U.S. has banned itself from developing known vast oil reserves in the so-called ‘continental shelf’ and many other areas.  This ‘policy’ is finally coming back to bite the U.S.  I have no problem with developing ‘alternative fuels’ but to not seek additional oil sources in one’s back yard, and instead rely on oil from tyrants and Kings in unstable regions is madness.

With still no coherent and viable energy plan, the U.S. economy is being seriously hampered by increasing oil prices.  There is no end in sight.

So recently I bought a Microsoft wireless mouse 5000 mouse from Newegg. BIG mistake. First off, it’s junk – very cheap and light. I should have known because in fairness, it is cheap, as in inexpensive. Second, I have big hands and found the positioning of the forward/back buttons on the side way too far back so I had to make a very awkward move to get to them. Finally the middle scroll wheel ‘click’ was way too hard to engage and definitely gave me hand ‘ache’ after hours of use.

So I’ve been on the prowl for a new mouse. I’ve been eyeing the Logitech MX Revolution mouse for a while, which they claim is the “world’s most advanced mouse.” Lofty stuff, so I broke down and got one. Figured I could return it if I really don’t like it. Well so far I’m AMAZED.

First thing that’s different is the shape. Instead of a regular ‘big egg’ shape, this one has a concave area for the thumb which is VERY comfortable.

I like a mouse that requires VERY LITTLE EFFORT to click, scroll, move, etc. This mouse is very light in use, although not light in overall weight so as to feel like a piece of junk. It’s very nicely made as are all Logitech products I’ve found.

It not only has the usual left/right buttons, scroll wheel, and side forward/back buttons, it also has a programmable button behind the scroll wheel (which they default to a configurable ’search’ function, and they also have another ‘thumb wheel control’ on the side that can be used for a variety of things, but by default it’s used to flip through the running programs, and is GREAT. The thumb wheel is not a continuously turning wheel but it can be rolled forward or backward to an extent, a bit like a one direction joystick. I set it to do forward/backward scroll and oh man, it’s great! But wait, there’s more…

The regular scroll wheel on top was a bit baffling initially, as it has the usual ‘detents’ or click-click-click positions as it rolls, but I could also press it down and it would engage into a ‘free spinning’ mode which is GREAT for fast scrolling through big documents – you can get it spinning like a top and just keep your finger off it and the doc keeps scrolling until the wheel stops. BUT, one I got the bundled software installed, I learned that the mouse can ITSELF engage whether the wheel is free spinning or ‘click-click-click’ (click to click is what they call it) and you can program how it engages or whether it’s always in one more or the other! Since I like a light touch I’ve told it to be in spin mode all the time but you can tell it to be in click-click mode up to a certain speed and then switch over to free-spinning – it’s amazing.

Even better, with the software, all functions of everything are programmable for EACH application you use if you wish. So you might have certain functions for gaming, and certain for web surfing, etc.

A couple of things I don’t care for:
1) it uses one of those tiny transmitter USB sticks and in my case that means it’s a long way from where the mouse is. It seemed to work plugged into the back of my PC under the desk in the corner, but I’d had problems with the crap Microsoft mouse interfering maybe with my Logitech keyboard I think so anyway, I have the mouse stick plugged into a USB extension cable to get it close to the mouse.
2) It has built in Lithium Ion rechargeable batteries and has a little cradle for recharging. Apparently a charge lasts a good long time (a few weeks? I don’t know yet) but my last Logitech mouse begun to only last a couple of days so we’ll see, while cordless mice I’ve had with AA alkalines seem to last MONTHS and MONTHS without changing.

So far I think I’m going to really enjoy this! Will report back if that impression changes.

More info here: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mi…s/130&cl=us,en

Canon’s ‘digital rebel’ line is about to evolve once more with the new Canon XSi (or 450D as it is known in some parts of the world).

Just as the XTi leapfrogged in some ways the semi-pro 20D/30D with automatic sensor cleaning and more megapixels, the XSi brings features from the 40D plus some more into a smaller, more affordable package.

Canon’s optional bundled standard “kit” lens has also improved recently from the pretty weak EF-S 18-55 to the new EF-S 18-55 IS (the ‘IS’ means it is ‘image stabilized’ so you don’t have the be quite so steady in holding the camera).

One feature new to Canon’s DSLR’s is Auto Optimization. It adjusts exposure/brightness/contrast curves automatically to make for more ‘appealing’ looking images right out of the camera. Images from digital SLRs often look ‘flat’ or ‘dark’. Basic controls have existed to adjust contrast or saturation of all images but they’re too simple. Auto optimization appears to do a MUCH better job and will be a big win for those (like me!) who don’t like to spend HOURS editing images on the computer!

I have a 40D, which is a GREAT camera, but I’m wondering if I might prefer the XSi, perhaps with its optional grip to make it feel a bit more substantial. One thing holding me off though is that the 40D is a MUCH faster camera for burst shooting, doing 6.5 frames per second vs., I believe, 3. I don’t need this every day but for shooting horses jumping over fences, faster is better!

The 40D also has a glass pentaprism vs. the cheaper pentamirror in the XSi so the 40D should have a brighter viewfinder although I’ve not compared them yet.

The XSi is 12.2 megapixels (vs. 10.1 for the 40D) which will impress the easily impressed, but this is likely to be at the expense of a bit more noise in images at higher ISO settings.

Anyway, hat tip to Canon for delivering another EXCELLENT camera!

Came across a very interesting product recently called Starlite 7 from Starlite Lighting Systems. It consists of UV resistant translucent colored plastic pieces that fit into the aluminum pool enclosure beams and an optional fiber optic cable lighting system that provides lighting behind!

Looks great and comes in a bunch of different colors. Pretty neat!

• The digital picture
• wlcastleman.com
• Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

One last piece of advice, if you’re going to get a nice digital SLR like the 40D or better, don’t put a cheap lens on it. Without a good eye the brain of the camera can hardly see a good picture!