Airplanes in the sea?

This just caught my eye at the BBC website:

"The life span of most commercial aeroplanes is said to be around 30 years; and so, just as there was a 1970s explosion in aircraft production, now there's a big jump in the number of planes beyond use.

What's to be done with them? Aircraft contain toxic materials, so dumping them at a far-off airfield or throwing them in the sea is clearly unacceptable. But that's just what has been happening, according to Bill Glover, Boeing's director of environmental performance for commercial aeroplanes."

Pretty sickening, eh? Out of sight, out of mind. Send it to the ocean, send it underground, or send it into space. As long as its out of our hair at this very moment. And we wonder why our planet is having so many environmental health troubles...

I imagine that the only reason that we don't hear more about trash being shot into space is because of the few visionaries out there who know that space is our only remaining way out, once we have consumed the Earth to the point of non-livability. Either that, or the cost to shoot trash into space isn't cheap enough yet.

Fortunately, the same article goes on to say that they (the airplane maufacturers) are learning new ways to recycle carbon fibre, which is definitely a good thing, since that is what most newer airplanes are made out of (as oppposed to the obviously recyclable metals of the past).

Realistically, it is sickening but we're all guilty of trashing this earth in some way or another. Even if you're not helping to dump toxic nuclear waste into the ground in New Mexico, you're helping to fill nasty landfills with tons of non-biodegradables every day. We're all guilty, and it is depressing.

So why did I mention it? I don't know.

I'm listening to the Cure right now, so maybe I was just subconsciously yearning for some sort of depressing subject matter to discuss...

Get paid to blog?!?

Check it out!

PayPerPost

I recently joined a service called PayPerPost that will actually pay you for namedropping in your blog. I haven't submitted this blog yet, as it doesn't meet the minimum requirements yet, but I'll probably be adding it eventually.

The service works pretty easily. You sign up, and add your blogs for approval. Once your blogs meet the minimum requirements (90 days and 20 posts) and are approved, you simply peruse a list of opportunities to make extra cash. You sign up for an opportunity, post the info in your blog (along with a blank image tracking code), PayPerPost reviews your post, and you earn money.

Some opportunities are pretty involved, and require you to post extensive verbage, links and even images. Others are pretty basic. Some even let you say negative things about the sponsoring advertiser.

I haven't yet been paid anything, but it looks promising. I had my first post approved the other day, so I should see my first check in about 30 days. I'll let you know how it goes...

Webrings?

The other day I decided to check out the original Webring.org site as a means of possible promotion for a few new web sites I had put together. Webrings have been around since the near-early days of the net. Strangely enough, the webring functions at Webring.org don't seem to have changed much...

The site is buggy as hell, an eyesore to look at, and their code doesn't validate. Webring navbars show up on your page before your site has even been approved (free promotion for the webring owner, I suppose), and every so often the Webring.org page itself would load itself into my website, Google adsense ads included. On top of that, even if your site has "passed" their initial testing, it will randomly fail at a later time, causing you to be "locked out" from joining any new webrings, or creating any of them. What's worse is that one part of their site will say that you have a failing site, but your list of sites will all indicate that they have passed. What a joke.

Here's the icing on the cake - Webring.org has just announced that they plan on changing the site to a paid site next year. If you don't subscribe to one of their "membership" tiers by then, you only get your site into 5 webrings for free. Now, I see no problem trying to implement a paid membership function for a webring site, but at least fix the inherent problems first. For a site that has been around forever, the non-validating code is a no-brainer to fix. The rest of the problems are sporadic, but I would think that a bit of examination might help to reveal their source.

As for the design of their site, a simple template would work well, but at least make it easy to navigate. Right now, you can't figure out one page from another, and it's a chore to navigate to the page you want to get to.

I'm going to have to check out some other webring sites. There has to be a better option than webring.org, even if it was the oldest and original webring site on the net.

Check up on your babysitter with myspace

My wife came up with a great idea the other day - why not check on potential babysitters via their profile on myspace? Find out what they are *really* like before you entrust your children's lives in their (capable?) hands.

After all, myspace profiles often provide all kinds of details, like whether they drink, smoke, do drugs, etc. You can see what type of movies and music they enjoy, what their friends are like, etc. Plus, blogs are like journals, i.e. windows to the soul. It's pretty easy to see if they are responsible individuals by what they post...

Even more fun, find out if they said anything about the last babysitting job you gave them! What a great idea! It beats having to set up hidden cameras like they show you on TV.

What's the deal with Generics?

As someone living on a strict budget, I regularly pick up "generic" store brand foods, rather than their name brand influences. These days, generics have come a long way and usually taste just as good. However, I gotta ask - what is with the artwork and layout on the generic product packages?

In the old days, I remember seeing black and white labels for generic products, which no doubt saved expenses compared to full color printing. But these days, the generics are all full color printed and they even have logos, pseudo-brandnames and design templates. Problem is - they can't seem to get them right. Something is always off.

I can understand that generic product manufacturers do not have the advertising and graphics budget of a name brand giant like Kellog's, but at the same time, I have seen better layouts from second year design students (who would probably relish an intern job making generic product labels - hint, hint).

Normally, I am not that concerned about the layout and design of food products. After all, we are buying them to eat them. However, it becomes a problem when my children don't want to eat it because the food pictured on the label looks like a 1950's microwave dinner reject. It's easy to assume that our kids are only whining because their favorite full length animated feature character doesn't grace the box, but before you scoff at them for being taken in by media pressures, take a look at that food on the label - would you eat it?

The names of generic foods are also unappetizing or just downright strange - take a quick look at the Seussian "corn whizzers" and "honey buzzers" and their shelf associates on the cereal aisle to see what I mean. Again, I know that money shouldn't have to be spent on these types of details for generics (which is supposedly why they can pass the savings on to us), but my kids could come up with better names for these products. And if a manufacturer is going to create a brand identity for their generic product line and pay for full color printing, why not make it look decent?

Maybe it is some conspiracy with the name brands that generic foods can't quite taste or look as good as their rivals...Maybe the big brand manufacturers secretly own the generic stuff now, and they intentionally make them look bad so that the brand name product is more appealing. Or maybe I'm just being silly...

Long story short, I'm sure I will still be filling my cart every week with generic foods, thanks to their lower price. But that can of generic beefaroni may sit on my shelf longer than I had planned, because it turns my stomache to look at the photo every time I open the pantry...

Maybe I could market this as the "Generic Diet" - a diet where the food looks bad so you eat less.

Car dealerships AKA crooks?

So, what is the deal with car dealerships?

Is it not enough that they charge outrageous prices for labor?
Do they also have to mark up parts at a 500% profit?

For example, I recently took my vehicle in for the infamous "check engine" light. First, they socked me with a $50 fee to "scan the code" and tell me what the problem was. Now I see why people buy their own codereaders (even if they do cost $200+). After all, if you use it 3 or 4 times, it's paid for. Then, they proceeded in adding another $437 for a $90 part (readily available from auto parts stores), and wanted another $200 to install the part.

So what's the answer, you may ask?
FIX IT YOURSELF!

That's what I have decided. Only problem is...many of the newer cars these days are being made so that you cannot fix them yourself. Hell, I've even seen cars with such complex and inaccessible engine compartments that you can't even change your own sparkplugs. If I wanted an engine that was hard to access, I would have picked up an old Delorean!

Old American cars are the only way to go. You can figure out how the engine works, how to take it apart, and finding silly things like the air cleaner don't require excessive thought. Plus, the old adage of "beat it 'til it fits" still holds some water since you're working with more metal and less plastic crapola.

I guess I gotta get an older car again. I miss my early 70's orange beast, anyways...

Don't Become a Drug Dealer

I recently saw this posted on a highway billboard near my home, and found it somewhat amusing.

I can understand the classic "say no to drugs" or "keep kids off drugs" ads, but this is getting ridiculous. After all, if someone is so entwined in the narcotics underworld that they are considering a career as a "dealer", are public service billboards really going to sway them in one direction or another?

Of course, you need to consider the source...we're talking about an area that also has billboards with large painted devil's eyes accompanying the words "abstinence is the only way".

I think we need to work on our marketing techniques here, people.

Cool Ebay tool

Here's a new tool that just went live on the web...

It's called SpellingSearch.com and it automatically finds misspelled auctions listed at Ebay, based on your entered keywords.

The web address is http://www.spellingsearch.com

Auction items that are misspelled usually don't come up in Ebay searches, so they usually get no bids or very few bids. This site finds them for you, and helps you to save money on what you're looking for.

I've also heard of people making lots of money using this technique and then reselling the same items spelled correctly at their normal market price.

Worth checking out...

Steve Irwin killed by stingray

After risking life and limb for years, the Crocodile Hunter finally came a bit too close to one of his animal subjects. According to the report, he was swimming off of the coast of Australia, filming a documentary, when a stingray stuck its barbed tail into his heart.

I can't say that I am suprised that he was killed by one of the animals that he was filming. He tended to get a little too close in my opinion, and it seemed like he regularly "intimidated" them so that his viewers could see their natural defense behavior. Over the last few years, I was wondering when his seeming carelessness would catch up with him. It's like the Siegfried and Roy story all over again.

What's really strange is that they say that stingrays rarely ever attack people, and when they do its because they feel threatened. In fact, they said that the last time that somebody died from a stingray attack in Australia was in 1945. I wonder what Mr. Irwin did to provoke the attack - maybe the video will be released someday and we can all learn one last valuable lesson from him - what NOT to do when swimming with stingrays.

I'll admit that even though I thought he acted like an overdramatic goofball most of the time, I enjoyed some of his shows.

This one is for the dogs

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Check out the latest in "news" right here:
"Claudia Schiffer's Dogs Draw Complaints"


Can you believe that this tripe is considered news? The article goes on to say that Claudia's dogs, which are "believed" to be an Irish wolfhound and a German shepherd, are terrorizing other neighbors who pass by her California mansion while walking their own dogs.

Police are "planning" on having a discussion with Mrs. Schiffer to discuss. Oh, please, AP - let us know how this goes! I would hate to see the U.S. threat level go up again due to the potential terrors of these hollywood hounds.

Seriously, I am in the wrong business. If this is news, I can think of all kinds of things to write! For example, my next-door neighbor keeps using his leafblower to blow his leaves into my yard (causing some distress to me) - doesn't that also qualify as news? Listen up, AP! This is "breaking" news.

Thanks to Lycos News for posting this on the net. I didn't realize that AP was running "National Enquirer" styled stories these days...

Carlsbad Caverns

I recently read an article about Carlsbad, New Mexico confirming what I had already seen first hand during my time in Southern Colorado. The government is moving thousands of tons of radioactive waste down to New Mexico to be buried in the earth near Carlsbad. It was a regular occasion for me to see trucks carrying huge metal containers marked with radioactive stickers heading South on I-25 towards New Mexico. In fact, I would see them almost daily, sometimes several times day.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when there are so many containers of nuclear waste that they become a permanent fixture to the drive between Denver and Carlsbad. And as of several months ago, they were still going. I may just have to come up with a postcard or something to try to sell to the Southern Colorado tourism boards. I can picture it now...

"Visit Sunny Southern Colorado! Get your picture taken next to one of these trucks carrying oversized kegs of beer, straight from the Rocky Flats 'brewery'. Ignore the radioactive sticker - didn't you know that they have to split the atom to make beer? If you thought regular beer made you feel funny, wait 'til you see what this stuff does!"

Even sadder is the idea that we're just burying this stuff in the ground. New Mexico already has plenty of environmental problems, so I guess the government figured, "hey, what's another hundred thousand tons of nucelar waste?" (It may be more, but I doubt it's less...I'm just pulling that figure out of a hat). My wife and I almost moved to New Mexico at one point, but changed our mind after seeing some activist posters at the local University depicting birth defects from contaminated local water supplies.

According to a recent article at Wired.com, the government is currently in the process of developing a cautionary signage system to warn future generations not to tamper with the large buckets of goo buried under Carlsbad. Their concern is that some race of people (aliens?) at some point in the distant future will discover our hidden treasure of glowing waste and, unable to discern our primitive language, not know enough to stay away from it.

They liken it to the pyramids of egypt, in that the Egyptians did whatever they could to include notices of warning to would-be trespassers, but the western world ignored these and ransaacked them anyways. Would future generations be so insensitive and treasure-obsessed? If history is any indicator, then yes.

I find it so ironic that our government has the nerve to tell other countries that they cannot pursue a nuclear program, when ours has been (is?) so productive. My guess is that we are running out of space under the ground in Carlsbad, and that when we decide to take over these other countries in the not-too-distant future, we won't have any room left to store their nuclear waste. So, we better put a stop to it before it becomes a problem.

One thing's for sure, I wouldn't set foot in Carlsbad Caverns any time in the next several hundred years...you know how government work can be, and with the thousands of barrels of this stuff that they're sealing up and shipping to New Mexico, they're bound to have a few leakers here and there.

Google to index 200 years worth of news

I just saw this headline, and it sounds promising. Google is gathering 200 years of world news and indexing it. This should be a GREAT resource for anyone into history, genealogy, or for anyone with a general interest in the past.

Picture this...you want to buy someone a gift but can't think of a thing that they would like. Why not hop onto Google, look up their birth day and year, and put togther some sort of silly nostalgia piece with all of the headlines from the day that they were born?

Even better, type it up in the GIMP or some other app that handles text with grace like Quark Xpress, make up a fake newpaper layout, include a headline about the birthday person being born (aside from all of the other not-as-important events), and print it out on newsprint. Then frame it and wrap it, and you now have a personalized gift for the ungiftable person in your life.

How cool is that?

Only time will tell if the new Google news archive service will be this useful. I did see something about them listing "paid" news reprint services along with the free ones. If that's all it is going to be (mostly paid archives), there are already a bunch of other sites out there doing the same thing and I won't be very impressed.

Of course, nobody else will do it in the scale that Google will...at the least, we'll have one central place to go for old news (aside from my Blog - ha!).

Bring out the Gimp

For anyone with an interest in digital imaging, and a lack of interest in paying $600+ for Adobe Photoshop, I highly recommend that you check out Gimp. It is free and has nearly all of the capabilites that Photoshop has.

I actually earned a degree in digital imaging, and managed to get a great "student rate" on Photoshop back around 1995. However, I was unable to keep up with the cost of updates and ended up using a really old version for a very long time. After I transitioned to Windows XP a while back, I noticed that my old version of Photoshop was no longer stable, and so I began looking for an alternative. A friend turned me on to Gimp and I haven't looked back since. (Turnd me on to the Gimp - that sounds bad, doesn't it? Ha ha ha.)

The overal layout of Gimp is very similar to Photoshop, except that I haven't quite adjusted to the multiple windows that you need to keep track of for each dialogue that is open (layers, etc). I was frustrated with it at first, as there were certain functions and shortcuts that I had grown accustomed to in Photoshop that I had to relearn in Gimp. But such is life - change is good. Get on with it.

Gimp has some really cool features like transparent PNG creation, and even animated GIF. The filters and built-in scripts are powerful, although a few can be buggy. The program takes while to start up on my machine thanks to the 2000+ fonts I have loaded. Other than that, it runs very fast and is very stable. Again, watch out for plugins, though, as some tend to be buggy and can crash. Make sure you save before you go to apply an effect or run a script.

This program is awesome and the price can't be beat. Add to that a cool looking mascot and a reference to Pulp Fiction and we've got a keeper. Adobe, eat your heart out.

Age of Non-Authority : A Political Rant

When future U.S. citizens look back at the early 21st century, what will they think of?

Ridiculous gas prices? Wars in the Middle East? Y2k? Double-yuh? I see it more as an age of non-authority. Now when I say "non-authority", I am not hinting at anarchy in any way. Rather, I am referring to a time when those who were once considered authoritative in their field are no longer viewed as such. When no one has authority, everyone has it, which means that everyone is a subject matter expert on everything, and you are expected to just accept that fact and never challenge it. Because if you challenge their authority, they will challenge your authority to challenge it. You can't question why your government does the things that they do - you can only read about it forty years later in-between blacked out lines of public release embarrassment.

For example...
The effects of climate change have been well documented by renowned scientists the world over. Yet, opposing factions (like our current government configuration) manage to find (invent?) contradicting evidence and convince those with "blind faith" in their political party that the changes we are experiencing are just part of the normal climactic evolutionary process. There is no hole in the ozone...and as adaptive human beings we will slowly (but surely) grow accustomed to 120 degree summers. The US refuses to work with the rest of the world on any kind of global earth resource management, because we put our economy (or those who run it) first. If there is no problem with climate change, why can't we get on board to prevent it from becoming a problem in the future?

For a supposed "Christian" based society, we sure make money a priority.

On another front...
Investigators who discover evidence linking our own goverment to terrorist groups are also discredited. Rebuttals issued by the government state that they did not train Osama and his men. We, instead, trained other middle eastern militant groups who will likely come back several years later and join the ranks of anti-US radicals (further empowered by the specialized military training that we funded). Nice.

Instead of gazing at the smoke and mirrors being configured by the excuse makers, and accepting their words that we only train "good" foreign militant groups, not the "bad" ones, we should instead be asking them why the hell we are funding support for any of these groups in the first place. After all, those who are on our "allied" list today, grow to hate us tomorrow. The answer that we are supposed to believe is that we are helping to spread democracy and that we are helping to ensure the future of all of these poor people in other countries who don't live like we do (most of whom hate us and feel that our way of living is a sin). Sure - that's a great cause. Sign me up. Look what it's done for the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran so far!

Meanwhile, we allow our own poor to rot in substandard living conditions, allow our elderly to be reamed over the cost of medical insurance and prescription drugs, and we laugh at the social security system that everyone is funding with a big chunk of their weekly paychecks, but nobody will benefit from. We allow crippling taxes on goods and income that our forefathers would have started a revolution to evade (and they did), and we base our entire national identity on the amount of money we spend on crappy products assembled by slave markets in other countries.

I'm sorry to rant about this, and I'm sure that the last thing you need to hear is more anti-government sentiment.Come to think of it, I better be careful. The attack of 9/11 basically reinstated "red scare" and I'm treading on thin ice for not agreeing with everything that our government has done (that we know about).

We just need new government. We need somebody that didn't grow up with a silver spoon in their ass and a nuke button in their playpen. Unfortunately, the filthy rich and "connected" are the only types of people who can afford to campaign these days. We need somebody with a realistic no-BS healthy-at-home policy, who is willing to re-establish the voice (and authoritative vote) of the working middle class on issues beyond just the 4-year monkey race.

The Republican leaders won't give it to us. The sponsoring corporate puppetmasters would never allow it. The Democratic leaders are all talk, with little foothold in reality, it seems. Spirited individuals with occasional good ideas and an affinity for neither party are unlikely to succeed at any time in the future, thanks to the token third party running mate that Nader has become in the however-many-decades that he's been running for president now.

I wish I knew the answer, but as I eluded to in my first post - burying my head in the sand seems like as good an answer as any other. Sure, it's giving them what they want - less impedance, less rocking of the boat...

There's a reason why people aren't voting.

I may get some responses about this from all of you die hard "blind faith" Bush supporters. Before you respond and send me some note challenging my view, please evaluate your own "faith" in our government and their supposed "Christian" ways. Would Christ have supported the war on Iraq? I don't care for Bush, but then again, I don't care for anyone who wants to be involved in the current corruption bank disguised as a working government.

I am not a Democrat or a Republican. When it comes to the political process, I am nothing - an uninformed (by my government) but entertained (by its pretend news media) non-viable spectator. Just because you vote, do you really think that you are part of it anymore?

Big corporations run this country (by way of the government) and everyone knows that corporations only see people as numbers, so why should treatment by their government facade be any different? I used to think that lobbyists were the fundamental key to our problems. Then I realized that they are just another cog in the wheel, easily replaced by another faster set of gears when it would be profitable. The day that they disallow corporate sponsorship of political campaigns is the day that corporate America finds a cheaper way to control the country.

The ultimate anonymous browser!?!

Have you heard of this one yet?

Browzar is a new browser tool that claims total protection of privacy...what a claim. I'm sure there are hackers out there just drooling at the chance to make them eat those words. None-the-less, what this new browser tool says it will do is allow users to surf the web without storing any of the web addresses that they visit or terms that they might enter into search fields while browsing. Sounds like a great idea. Only problem - it isn't a full-fledged browser on its own. It runs almost like a "skin" for Internet Explorer.

Yes, Internet Explorer, the browser that came with your PC, and will likely stay on your PC forever. You have no choice but to keep this albatross installed, and web designers can enjoy the element of surprise as it screws up every layout that they try to design for CSS compatible browsers like Firefox.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I do NOT like Microsoft's Internet EXPLODER. Thanks to the popups, hijackings and unlimited security holes, I quit using Exploder a few years ago. Unfortunately, because I design for the web and there are still so many users out there surfing with Exploder, I can't help but keep it on the PC to "test" my perfectly designed layouts and "hack" them so that they display correctly in Exploder.

I have since turned many of my family and friends to Mozilla's Firefox browser. It offers web surfers much more protection, simply due the fact that many of the vulnerable exploits that plague Exploder so much aren't part of the Firefox package. It also blocks popups, viruses, and spyware and has a number of very useful third party extensions (plugins).

There is one extension in particular that I use often - it is called "Nuke Anything". This extension allows you to right click on almost any object on a page and remove it temporarily. VERY useful for pages with annoying advertisements, or when you want to print out something (like a map from mapquest) without wasting your ink on flashy advertisments. Only thing I can't get it to work on is Flash...maybe an update will add that function, as well.

Anyways, back to Browzar. It's free. Sounds like a great idea, and at a filesize of only 264k, it sounds like a nice add-on for Internet Exploder. Keep in mind, though, that you'll still have to stay on top of Microsoft's security updates, since Exploder will still be running in the background. Now I'm just wondering if its going to mess with my CSS in any way (in addition to the funk that Exploder already displays).

My advice - get Mozilla Firefox instead and clear your private data often (Ctrl+Shft+Del). While you are at it, check out Mozilla's email program called Thunderbird, too.