Myke's Weblog

Made in China: A Parody

Uncle Sam points out the problems we have when we buy cheap products from China. "Buy, Buy American Pie" was written and performed by the Capitol Steps (www.CapSteps.com). This is a parody and involves exageration.

Missy's Mischief: Stuff Happens

I was in my office at 7:45am this morning when Missy, our Siamese/Himalayan cat, looked in the window. She seemed to want me to come downstairs and let her in. I went down to the deck and she came over to jump off the roof. Due to the weekly monsoon, everything was wet and slippery.

 

Missy was very concerned about jumping down onto the grill, the usual path, which has a plastic cover that was wet. She had some problems getting her footing on the gutter. When she jumped, the landed on the backside of the grill, slipped, and went over the edge of the deck, about a 15 foot drop.

 

She landed on her feet, but when we got her in, she was shaken and had a chunk of fur missing from her forehead. We are watching her closely.

 

Our cats keep life interesting. Subtract one from her nine lives.

 

Here's Missy before her fall:

Beautiful Image: Lion Love

Photographer unknown

via David Wilson

Boldness

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

Goethe

via Atanu Dey

71 Year Old Woodstock Grandfather Gets Call from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Here's another Truth is stranger than fiction event.

Link: Woodstock man wins $10,000 iTunes prize

Louie Sulcer won a $10,000 iTunes gift card for downloading Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way,” the 10 billionth song downloaded from iTunes. 

Apple started the two-week contest to celebrate the milestone.

Erika Neldner | Ledger-News Louie Sulcer, 71, of Woodstock, GA, enjoys listening to his blue iPod Nano. Now, he has to figure how he’s going to spend a $10,000 iTunes gift card he won in an Apple contest he knew nothing about.

Sulcer said he and his wife, Harriet, had just returned home from  babysitting their grandkids when they noticed several missed calls on the Caller ID from Apple, Inc. Sulcer thought the credit card he used to purchase the Johnny Cash song might have been expired. 

Delusions and Compulsions

The best you can hope for in this life is that your delusions are benign and your compulsions have utility.

Scott Adams (http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/crazy_or_disciplined/)

Frightening Image: Deadly Strike

From National Geographic's Best Photos of 2009

via John Harmon

Bloom Energy unveils fuel cell 'power plant in a box'

Is this a tipping point in the quest for energy independence? Can this technology drive the oil-rich OPEC elites back to third world living? Can a natural gas-based fuel cell reduce the need for emission-belching giant coal-burning electricity generation plants?

It's easy to have unrealistic hopes for a breakthrough that could help turn around the tough economic times we are experiencing. Critics provide numerous reasons to undermine all thoughts that "this time it's different." We might be disappointed, but the Bloom Energy devices create some momentum that is much needed.

I'm old enough to remember when PCs were viewed as expensive toys, back in 1980. Apple and Commodore had introduced computers for the home. The esteemed CEO of very successful Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen, said "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.” Then the IBM PC came out, targeted for business use, and consummated the microcomputer revolution that continues today with smart phones and the Internet. In the early '80s the U.S. was in a deep recession, and the workforce productivity and technological innovation that was stimulated by the IBM-PC standard helped end the recession.

I mention the impact of the PC  as a metaphor for the current energy situation. While the Bloom Energy device may not be the holy grail, it could be the first of a number of innovations that could break the hold of OPEC on industrial societies and trigger the demise of dirty energy like coal.

More Big Government: McCain Bill S.3002 To Limit Access to Vitamins and Nutritional Supplements

The bill that threatens our freedom to have continued access to supplements is bill S.3002, the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (DSSA). Senator John McCain is the primary sponsor. And it would give the FDA more powers to limit your access to nutritional supplements.

Here's some of what the McCain bill would do:

Require everyone associated with supplements to register with the FDA and provide validation for every ingredient they sell. This includes manufacturers, distributors, labelers, licensors, stores, and even people selling products through MLMs (multi-level marketing). Penalties for failing to keep these documents could put companies and stores out of business. Current regulations already require that supplement companies provide proof of ingredients and quality.

Walt Ratterman: A Hero Dies in Haiti – by John Mauldin

From John Mauldin at Thoughts from the Frontline

A few weeks ago I wrote about my friend Walt Ratterman, who was at the Hotel Montana in Haiti when the earthquake hit. Walt's wife Jeanne received an email only 10 minutes before the quake, which placed him in the courtyard, where he would have been OK. After the quake there was an eerie silence. We all assumed that Walt was helping those injured in the quake and that he and his friends would surface when they got a break. Those who knew Walt understand the passion he brought to many relief operations. Walt was known for sneaking into Myanmar in the bottom of a boat where, if discovered, he would have been summarily executed. Walt was the subject of the documentary Beyond the Call, which showed him braving Afghanistan a month after 9/11, Myanmar, and the most dangerous region of the Philippines.

Beautiful Image: View From Inside a Glacier

View From Within Photo by Gary Minish at http://1x.com/OEfullSize/20683-fullsize.jpg

Jimi Hendrix Videos

Third Stone from the Sun

Kevin Richardson: Master Animal Behaviouralist, Loved by Lions

Beautiful Image: Canyonlands Sunset

Photo by Sean Reidy at http://1x.com/photos/popular/week/30860/

Beautiful Image: Virginia Barn

Photo by Fred First

Link: Fragments From Floyd - Photos and Front Porch Musing from Floyd County Virginia

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Jazz-Rock Fusion

I saw this group in the early '70s at the Carolina Coliseum in Columbia, SC. They were NOT a rock & roll band.

Steve Jobs Should Shut Down Apple – Michael Dell's Recommendation

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes." On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Now...

Apple’s market cap — it is an astonishing $186.7 billion dollars — that’s bigger than:

Google $172B
Cisco $131.7B
HP $117.5B
Intel $110.4B
Verizon $85.7B
Amazon $51.7B
Research In Motion $34B
Dell $26.5B

Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/01/5-questions-about-the-apple-islate/

Imagination

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."

Albert Einstein

Bottlenose Dolphins Are Smart!

A pod of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Florida have developed a remarkable hunting strategy in order to catch fish. Strangely, only one female in the pod can create this ring.

From the first episode (Challenges of Life) of the new BBC series Life. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lbpcy

 

via John Harmon

Lessons from History

"If every Jewish and anti-nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."

Aaron Zelman, co-founder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Home-made High Efficiency Wood Stove

It's not pretty but it's efficient and effective. Dave may be the real Red Green!

via Chris Kliemt

Permaculture: A Guide to Sustainable Living

Holmgren's 12 design principles of permaculture

These restatements of the principles of permaculture appear in David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability:

Your Precious Metals Could Be Confiscated by the Government

This is very troubling to me. It makes me want to move out of Georgia.

From Mark Nestmann, who is an expert on wealth preservation and international tax planning solutions. He is the author of many books and reports dealing with these subjects.

Link: Keeping Precious Metals Offshore.

An increasing number of Americans are concerned enough about the threat of precious metals confiscation to want to store gold or silver overseas. But laws in effect in 21 states may stand in their way.

I learned about these laws last year when one of my subscribers in Arizona called.

He wanted to buy gold from a foreign dealer for storage offshore, but the dealer refused to sell to him. The reason: the Arizona Model Commodities Act. After some research, I learned that 21 states have enacted the MCA or some variation of it: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

Practical Solar Energy Advice for Homeowners

Gail the Actuary provides a forum for home owners with experience to offer advice to home owners who are considering solar energy additions.

The questions below were the focus for the responses.

Link: The Oil Drum

1. Is it best to work with someone who both sells and installs solar PV panels? Or is this something that people end up doing themselves, using a variety of vendors?

2. What brands/ types are best?

3. How much maintenance is required?

4. What experiences have people had who purchased solar PV, then moved to another home? Did the addition of solar PV help the resale value?

5. What have buyers experience with battery back-up been? Is a small amount worthwhile, even if a homeowner is on the grid?

6. Are there any particular issues with inverters that readers should be aware of?

7. If you have purchased solar PV, are you generally happy with it?

8. Where does one find good material to read regarding solar PV?

http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/6123

Doug Landis: Quadriplegic Artist