FUD

I guess these guys forgot to check their company name for cross cultural issues to make sure the name of their food company didn't have unintended meanings.......

The A-Team

Went to see The A-Team on opening day. This movie turned out to be a helluva lot better than anyone had any right to expect it to be. And I'm not say they're weren't more than a few physics-defying, plot muddying, credulity straining moments. But the characters likable if shallow, the plot has definite bad guys you can relax and enjoy hating. There is traitorous bad guys. And great action scenes from front to back include a future classic scene involving flying a tank

If you are looking for nothing more than a fun summer action flick, this is exactly the movie for you and it won't disappoint and I felt like it was worth every penny of the ticket price.

Did You Buy Carbon Offsets for that Prius?

The good folks at Wired.com have an article "Don't Buy That New Prius! Test-Drive a Used Car Instead" that discusses how to evaluate the eco-friendlieness of cars. And surprise! That Prius people are so sanctimonious about turns out to be not as green as many cars out there.

I'd heard on The Dave Ramsey show that new cars are not necessarily a good deal from an economics point of view based on gas mileage, cost of gas, and the premium people pay for hybrids. But this is the first time I'd seen comparisons done strictly on energy consumed in manufacturing and operating the car.

According to the Wired article:

" Making a Prius consumes 113 million BTUs, according to sustainability engineer Pablo Päster. A single gallon of gas contains about 113,000 Btus, so Toyota's green wonder guzzles the equivalent of 1,000 gallons before it clocks its first mile. A used car, on the other hand, starts with a significant advantage: The first owner has already paid off its carbon debt. Buy a decade-old Toyota Tercel, which gets a respectable 35 mpg, and the Prius will have to drive 100,000 miles to catch up."

I can't help but note the apples-to-oranges comparison they are making.  On the Prius side, they include both the energy in manufacturing and the energy consumerd. On the Tercel side, they say that the original owner has already paid for the energy so they claim that you don't have to include it on the Tercel side of the sreadsheet, when you are buying the car used.. So it's not quite a fair comparison.

But if you buy a used Tercel, you are eliminating the need to manufacture a new car. And from this point of view, the calculations are entirely correct. By far the greenest approach to cars is to reuse an existing car. In other words, the greenest way to get a set of wheels is to buy a used car to prevent the manufacturing of a new one. I can't wait for eco-friendly signs to start popping up at used car lots all over the country.

Your mileage may vary of course. But I find it difficult to argue with the basic logic.  The good folks at The Dumb Agent blog have created a spreadsheet you can use to do your own comparisons.



photo credit File:Toyota Prius III 20090710 front.JPG

Robin Hood

*** Very Minor Spoliers Ahead  ***

Today I wet to see the latest incarnation of Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.

I went into the movie with exceedingly low expectations because the trailer put me off. The trailer I saw on TV, at least the one I think I remember seeing, had some cheesy rock music playing for the sound track. That's always a red flag for me. If it's a movie set in the medieval times but it's playing rock music for the sound track, it's probably a crappy movie aimed a junior high kids.

Well, either the music score was not done when they needed to ship the trailer or I'm having a false recovered memory. At my age, either explanation is equally likely.

In any case, I'm happy to say that Robin Hood thoroughly surprised me as being a pretty darn good summer action movie. And while they played fast and loose with the broad outlines of history, the day-to-day detail felt very gritty and very dirty and very true. And no, not a single guitar riff in the whole show.

Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Marion was probably the highlight in the acting department. As a woman in 1199AD, her life was perilous and at the mercy of other men from start to finish. Love never was an option. And her day to day life, despite having "a thimblefull of royal blood" was terribly hard.  I particularly liked one scnee where she and Russel Crowe perform a slow folk dance that's full of emotional sparks between her and Robin Longstride. (Russell Crowe).

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that the movie is actually an origination tale about how Robin Hood became who he is and how his motley crew became loyal to him and his quest. And I really liked how they changed the plot (at the expense of huge historical accuracy perhaps) of the traditional Robin Hood tale so that Robin Hood is outlawed because he was fighting political injustice and was part of the broader fight for a "charter of rights" that included things like not being incarcerated without cause etc etc. So it wasn't just a "steal from the rich, give to the poor vibe," which always puts me off. It was more about justice and the rights of man, which I can get behind.

The action sequences were excellent. There's a siege of a castle early in the film which was amazingly detailed and gave you a terrific sense of just how gruesome battle in the 12th century could be.

So yeah, good, fun summer action movie. Definitely worth the price.

GoDaddy, We Hates It

So I have been noodling over domain names for Calvin's Next Big Project. I'd settled on the Really Really Cool Perfect Name for it. So I wanted to check availability of the corresponding domain name. For new domains these days, I always register with Google Apps Standard Edition.  I do this primarily because it's the easiest way to get GMail set up for your new domain. Plus, I like their wiki-like web site service Google Sites. And also, it's free except for the $10 domain name registration. Once you're registered, their DNS provider, enom, is pretty good about giving you the ability to direct subdomains to other services if you want to host sites elsewhere.

So I'd come up with three domain name variations for the Really Really Cool Perfect Name project
short: rrcpn.com
medium: rrcPerfectName.com
long: reallyreallycoolperfectname.com

So on April 16th, I go to Google Apps and attempt to register these names. Turns out that the short version was already taken. I went over to it and sure enough there was an organization that happened to have the same 5 initials. as the short name I wanted. Disappointing, but fair.

So I checked the medium name for availability. Yay! It was free!. Now at this point I made a big mistake. I didn't go ahead an complete the registration. I can't remember why. Anyway, tonight I get around to going back to google apps to sadly discover that the medium sized domain name is now taken!! A quick trip to whois.net revealed that GoDaddy.com registed my medim name on the exact same day that I first checked it.

The insult is made all the worse by the fact that I am a godaddy.com customer. I host my cspowers.com and mp3.taprootradio.com domains there. I pay them good money in exchange for the privilege of letting them steal my domain name!  I thought maybe if I went through godaddy to try to register the domain I could get it. No such luck. The told me the domain is taken. BUT for the low price of $69 per year I can pay them to go try to get the name for me. Now the $69 is just for the service of hiring them to represent me in negotiations with the domain owner, who in this case is (ta dah) Go Daddy! I still have to pay the owner the value of the domain name. They assure me that they will do a market assessment of the value of the domain name and I will not have to pay one more cent than what the domain name is worth.

The Hate. It Burns Us.

Rest assured I will be moving off GoDaddy as soon as I can. This turns out to be really difficult because I've got bunches and bunches of podcast files hosted at GoDaddy which are critical parts of the taprootradio.com domain. But oh yes, I will be investing effort into getting the hell off GoDaddy.

So tonight I successfully registered the long version of the name plus I registered the ".net" version of the medium name.

Not sure which one I am going to use. (And I'd appreciate feedback on this point) Should I use RRCPerfectName.net or ReallyReallyCoolPerfectName.com Or does it not matter and am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

In any case, for the love of god, don't make the same mistake I made. If you find a desired domain name is available, register it immediately!

I Didn't Know He Was A Vulcan

IMG_0080
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Pat and I ate at the Havana Cuban Restaurant in Asheville the other night, Terrific food by the way. But the tables were adorned with old beer ads from days gone by. This one amused my. Rip Van Winkle beer. If you look at the large version of the picture, you can see the slogan at the bottom, which is "live long and prosper." Had no idea he was a vulcan.......

Street Sign Contradictions

IMG_0073
Originally uploaded by cspowers

How many street sign contradictions can you find in this picture?

Fractal Begonia

IMG_2670
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Yesterday Pat and I spent a god part of the day hiking around the North Carolina Arboretum, on the edge of the Pisgah forest. Of all the pictures I took that day, this Begonia leaf is my favorite, kinda looks like a fratal to me.

White Wisteria

IMG_2639
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Pat and I spent the day at the Biltmore house in Asheville. You couldn't have asked for a nicer day to tour the gardens. This is my favorite picture of the day, a white wisteria. I didn't even know there was such a thing.

Many more pictures from the day on my flickr page here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cspowers/sets/72157623960110920/

test post - please ignore

Testing ping.fm/superfeeder to get The Calvin Feed posted to Facebook Notes App. I kinda feel like that plumber in the movie Brazil...

I'm posting this at 7:52pm on wednesday 4/21. We'll see if/how long it takes to show up on facebook.

Toad at Occoneechee Mountain

Frog at Occoneechee Mountain
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Pat and I went hiking at Occoneechee Mountain a couple of weekends ago and we saw this frog  toad hopping through the woods enjoying a hike just like we were.
Update: I incorrectly called it a frog when it's really a toad

Elmer's Diner

Elmer's Diner
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Been in New York on business the past couple of days. But actually, due to the Black Magic employed by my company's travel reservation system, I've been staying in nearby Danbury, CT.

As I was driving around, I noticed that every other block had some sort of Mom and Pop Diner. It seemed to be A Thing up here, so I figured I'd partake. I chose this one strictly on it's name. Well, the bright lights had something to do with it.

Great place as far as Diners go. The omelet I ordered was standard issue, as were the hash browns. Definitely nothing to write home about, but it was pretty good, fast, cheap. Exactly what you'd expect from a diner.

I'd also expected it to be run by brassy waitresses with big hair calling everybody "hon." Instead, the place seemed to be run by an army of highly efficient hispanics that looked like they were all related. Welcome to These Modern Times.

OK so maybe I was a little bit let down by Elmer's failure to live up to my steroetyped expectations. But I'll tell you whut, it was a great place to get a late night dinner. I highly recommend it.

Bluebonnets!

My Dad shared these pictures of bluebonnets that he took on a recent trip to visit my sister in Texas. I liked them so much I thought I'd share.

Test post via email to Flickr

Test post via email to Flickr
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Test

Sixty Pounds Lighter

A while back, oh I dunno *mumble* months ago. I pulled all the books of the bookshelves in my home office and my bedroom and piled them on the bed. I went through them all, sorting them and culling out books to get rid of.

It was kinda interesting to see what the top level categories are. In January when Pat and I went to DC, we saw an exhibit at the Library of Congress that recreated Thomas Jefferson's library. It was fascinating to see how he organized his book into different sections, like philosophy, law, natural sceince, etc etc.

My sorting system was much less sophisticated and included these top level categories: Science Fiction. Other Fiction, Non-Fiction/Current Events, Self-Help, Business, Radio/Podcasting, Computer Science & Technology. Some categories were reshelved in the home office. But all the fiction books, which will live in the bedroom to be available for bedtime reading, have been sitting on the floor in plastic tubs. Beside them, was a huge tube of "Get Rid Of" books.

They been sitting there day after day, slowly accumulating gravitas as they weighed on my mind. Today I finally go the gumption to reshelve the fiction books. But more importantly, I schlepped the 60+ pounds of books over to the Chapel Hill library and left them on the loading dock. They let people donate books there and they are sold in their annual book sale to raise money to support the library. So I know that they are going for a good cause.

As I walked away from the loading dock, it felt good. I felt like my life had gotten sixty pounds lighter. Too bad we can't pull up to the E.R. and drop off body fat for people who want to buy it!