Author Archives: JustinLL

San Francisco Federal Reserve Building

I should have taken a picture while I was inside the building, but I didn’t.  Not sure why.  I took a load of other silly pictures while I was in SF yesterday and today.  But what I want is to know how any average citizen can get into the building if he isn’t supposed to be?  (I should have asked while I was there.)  They have a neat education center, called the Fed Center, where they have on display all the money that has ever been printed by the United States.  (Not each and ever dollar, but one of each style.)  Interesting to see how it’s changed over the years and also to read why it may have changed.  Like the Hawaii dollar during WWII — it would be easier to identify and remove from circulation in case Hawaii was invaded by Japan .

Anyhow, the point being that I’m not sure how it’s made available to the public.  (the education center.)  Security was tighter than trying to smuggle water onto an intercontinental flight.  Wait.  What?  Well you see what I mean.  I even had to ask someone to let me out of the building.  You can’t just walk in and out off the street, you need to have a badge of some sort.

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Video Call Via Mobile Phone, It’s Coming

It was right around the end of October in 2008 when I started telling anyone who would listen that we were roughly a year away from having enough mobile bandwidth and hardware to sustain mobile-to-mobile video calls.  (Actually being able to see the person you’re talking to while you’re walking through town on opposite ends of the US.)  Now rumors are traveling the Internet that Apple could possibly be the first to offer such a thing.  who knows what the other big players have in the works.  It definitely creates a new demand for a full screen mobile phone, like the iPhone or Storm.

It’s not anything I could see myself using, at least not initially, but I definitely want to see this feature/service go mainstream.  Too cool for school, that’s what I say.

Video Call Via Mobile Phone, It's Coming

It was right around the end of October in 2008 when I started telling anyone who would listen that we were roughly a year away from having enough mobile bandwidth and hardware to sustain mobile-to-mobile video calls.  (Actually being able to see the person you’re talking to while you’re walking through town on opposite ends of the US.)  Now rumors are traveling the Internet that Apple could possibly be the first to offer such a thing.  who knows what the other big players have in the works.  It definitely creates a new demand for a full screen mobile phone, like the iPhone or Storm.

It’s not anything I could see myself using, at least not initially, but I definitely want to see this feature/service go mainstream.  Too cool for school, that’s what I say.

Super Bowl XLIII – Steelers vs. Cardinals

Truly, I’m a San Diego Chargers fan, so the game doesn’t carry a lot of weight for me, but it is the Super Bowl and supposedly there will be many funny and entertaining commercials between the dark spaces.  I’m inclined to cheer for the Steelers since they represent the AFC.  So let it be known and here we go: I want the Steelers to win.  Big Ben shall keep his calm and methodically smash those tiny birds.

It’s a great day for a new championship.  Have a blast and party safely.  I’ll see ya tomorrow.  As the NFL would say, "Belive in now."

SiriusXM Making Changes, Good Or Bad

SiriusXM It took me a second to adjust to the new station lineup when the two companies merged and started consolidating their content, but I eventually came around and accepted its newness even if I wasn’t all that interested in what was new and what was lost.  They’ve even recently returned the BackSpin station (Sirius channel 39), which they had removed for about a month.  These changes are ultimately good moves for the satellite radio giant drowning in debt.

Merging was step one, consolidating content was step two, but now that we’re at step 3 I’m even less excited and find myself wondering if I’ll continue my subscriptions when they expire.  Step 3 is pricing overhaul.  Translation:  my cost to enjoy is going up.  Not a fan.

The two big cost changes: 1) eliminating free internet service.  It will now be an additional $2.99 to.  2) Second, third, and fourth radios will be offered at $8.99 rather than the current $6.99.  Now I’m not sure it’s worth it to keep two radios.  But, we’ll see when it comes time to renew, which SiriusXM is urging subscribers to do before March 11th when the changes kick in.  (If you extend subscriptions now, you can also extend the current benefits for the life of the extension.)

I couldn’t say for sure whether or not these moves will have any positive impact to the company’s stock which is ridiculously low these days in the ten cent range, but it surely can’t hurt the cash flows, which have been in the red for years.  Hence the massive amounts of debt, a billion of which is coming due this year.  I sure hope they are able to refinance the debt, but if they can’t, who knows what will happen.  Why should I pay more for a service that may not be around this time next year.  (A bit dramatic, but you get the idea.)

All is well and good I suppose in a world where we pay for things we want but don’t really need. In the meantime, I’m going to keep enjoying my last.fm stations.  Hopefully last.fm will soon be accessible from my car stereo unit.

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RIAA Won't Leave Slashdot

I first started following Slashdot back in 1997, right around the time pop music was popping up on file servers across the US in college dorm rooms for thousands of audiophiles to download illegally.  Sure.  And ever since then the RIAA has appeared in many a topic and been the subject of many debates over on Slashdot for any and every step they’ve taken to combat/thwart such activities online.  Even in 2009, the RIAA continues to crawl the web looking for folks to fight, and they continue to show up in Slashdot conversations, which would almost be fine, except nothing has changed.  When it comes to talking about the RIAA, we’ve been having the same conversations for twelve years.  Why?

Of course we have to talk about it on Slashdot because the RIAA continues to make decisions that a lot of folks want to complain about, at least those of us who know the actions are taking place.  Which many of us probably wouldn’t know if we weren’t reading Slashdot, and I can guess with certainty that it’s why I stopped reading daily for a couple years.  (It’s in my feed reader now.)

I’m not really interested in collecting music because I can’t be bothered to make time for it, and I have SiriusXM subscriptions.  I have plenty of legal music.  (I did buy two CDs last year, which I wrote about here .)

How can we get the RIAA to spend its time plotting to help consumers rather than hunting them?  I don’t have the answer, but I sure wish someone would figure it out so we can stop having to hear all the negative chatter on Slashdot.  It’s only a matter of time, right?  I don’t know about you, but I can’t take it anymore, and I’m disappointed that the music industry hasn’t found a whole bunch of ways to keep making money in the digital world.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep skipping those articles.

RIAA Won’t Leave Slashdot

I first started following Slashdot back in 1997, right around the time pop music was popping up on file servers across the US in college dorm rooms for thousands of audiophiles to download illegally.  Sure.  And ever since then the RIAA has appeared in many a topic and been the subject of many debates over on Slashdot for any and every step they’ve taken to combat/thwart such activities online.  Even in 2009, the RIAA continues to crawl the web looking for folks to fight, and they continue to show up in Slashdot conversations, which would almost be fine, except nothing has changed.  When it comes to talking about the RIAA, we’ve been having the same conversations for twelve years.  Why?

Of course we have to talk about it on Slashdot because the RIAA continues to make decisions that a lot of folks want to complain about, at least those of us who know the actions are taking place.  Which many of us probably wouldn’t know if we weren’t reading Slashdot, and I can guess with certainty that it’s why I stopped reading daily for a couple years.  (It’s in my feed reader now.)

I’m not really interested in collecting music because I can’t be bothered to make time for it, and I have SiriusXM subscriptions.  I have plenty of legal music.  (I did buy two CDs last year, which I wrote about here .)

How can we get the RIAA to spend its time plotting to help consumers rather than hunting them?  I don’t have the answer, but I sure wish someone would figure it out so we can stop having to hear all the negative chatter on Slashdot.  It’s only a matter of time, right?  I don’t know about you, but I can’t take it anymore, and I’m disappointed that the music industry hasn’t found a whole bunch of ways to keep making money in the digital world.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep skipping those articles.

A retraction from a previous misleading article.

buzzardzbar:

Lindsay Lohan has broken up with her girlfriend DJ Samantha something! No more jokes about her being a drugged out skank. Oh wait. She’s now a bi-sexual skanky crack whore. Hallelujah! The Republic is saved.

I don’t know if this stuff is true or not, but it’s nice to see that Ms. Lohan is still maknig her name around the way.  Let us all have a chuckle and get to moving along.  very well.

Too Many Left Turns?

The outer two toes on my left foot have started a bit of aching, and I wasn’t sure what was causing, but today I noticed I make quite a few more left turns in the office than I do right turns, which is odd, because you would think it would be the same number reversed on the walk back.  I guess I don’t walk the same path there and back, wherever that is in the office.  In any case, my two toes are sore and it’s uncomfortable.  So I tried making only right turns, which, aside from being even more ridiculous, causes me to dizzy quite quickly.  Not conducive to thinking or writing, which are the two things I’m supposed to be doing today.

The Joy Of Entering Middle Life

I can’t really say what joyousness is to be expected about living in the realm of middle-lifehood.  I’m new to it.  I can say that other people seem always to be complaining about it, which I think is odd.  I’ve been telling people how excited I am to finally be old, because I am excited.  Now I can say and do things that I couldn’t do as my younger self, like tell folks I can’t be out late because I’m old and tired, drive slowly in the fast lane, or get up way too early on a Wednesday to do the grocery shopping.  (Let’s be honest, I’ve been doing most of these things for a while now, so not much will change.)

But even more exciting than any of that nonsense is the dating pool joke from Randall Munroe over at xkcd.  I get a kick out of every time I see it, so I’m sharing it here today with you.  It’s like a re-gift, except it wasn’t given directly to me, but, still, I choose to share it with you.

The downside to joking back with people calling me old is that when I tell them I’m excited about it, they get on about how I’m not really _that_ old.  It’s like they want to screw around either which way, but won’t just let me enjoy myself.  Sure, I’m not old, I am old, I’m whatever anyone needs me to be when it comes to defining age and body aches.  I’m up for the whole game.

So if this truly is the middle, then let me take a second and say thanks to all the folks that I’ve had the opportunity to meet, greet, and befriend during the first half of my existence.  I’ll be honest again and say it’s been a handful of head-smashingly strange times, but a perfect hoot.

Cheers!

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