Wisconsin and drunk driving

I am embarrassed to be a resident of this state.

We’re just now passing a bill that makes your FIRST offense a crime? (and only if you have someone younger than 16 in the vehicle) And… after the FOURTH, that’s right 4 times, a felony.

Who is possibly thinking anything less than felony on the 2nd offense, and permanent loss of your driver’s license on the 3rd offense is acceptable?

How do our representatives get told to make these toothless laws? Oh, maybe because some of them have been arrested SEVEN times for DUI. And he thinks he deserves to keep his job…

The is NO EXCUSE for driving after drinking. If you need to drive, don’t drink before doing it. If you need to drink, then don’t drive afterward. It’s just that simple.

Hey Tiger Woods…

What would your father mother think?

LeBron James and the number 23

I appreciate why he’s trying to do this, but really as I read somewhere, why stop there? Too many numbers in the NBA have an iconic meaning.

In the end, if you think about it, isn’t it to his benefit, for two reasons, to change is number?

1. Anyone seeing him play now, will still see 23 and think MJ. You can put it on “respect” but either way, it’s still “remember me, not him”.

2. Jersey sales. Hello? Who isn’t going to buy a LeBron 6 if you’re a fan? Get your Cleveland 6, and soon enough, your “insert team with the most money” 6.

Google Wave as the new irc or Basecamp

I was thinking about this last night, and Basecamp is a nice tool where people can collaborate and upload attachments, discuss, and post. This is really what Google Wave does, so once it gets out there, and into “private” wave hosts, Basecamp may have less utility.

If you think about Wave as an irc replacement, you’ve already got the archiving capability built in. Now, you’d need to set it up a bit differently, but now there’s a record of the conversations, and ordering.

Now if only I could find the invites for other people in my account.

Cameras in Cockpits?

OK, is this idea just too obvious?

No, I don’t want a camera on me while I work, but then, my conversations aren’t already recorded, and I’m not in charge of a vehicle that contains hundreds of people.

Add another black box that records the video.

Attn: AT&T, Time Warner, TDS or anyone else

We spoke to TDS about the situation last year, and its director of legislative and public relations told us that TDS didn’t act earlier because it didn’t actually know that people really, really wanted fiber; once the referendum was a success, the company moved quickly to give people what it now knew they wanted.

I really, really, really, really want fiber to my home.

Really. Really want it.

Even better is the price, which starts at $49.95 a month for 50Mbps fiber service without the need to buy other services.

And yes, I would like 50Mbs for $50/month.

You now know I want it, so get moving.

Story from ArsTechnica

(In case you didn’t get it, YES I want it.)

Amazon knows my birthday. My parents apparently got it wrong.

Amazon knows what my birthday is. It’s not correct, but Amazon assures me that it is.

Hello again from Amazon.com.

First, I want to sincerely apologize again for the inconvenience you have experienced with your Prime membership.

As we discussed during our recent phone conversation, I checked with a specialist about the possibility of changing the birthday on you Prime membership.

I have confirmed that the birthday on the Prime management page is only needed when you invite someone to your Prime membership. It is not used for anything else. However, I unfortunately also found it is not possible to change this date at this time.

Again, I sincerely apologize for this situation.

Thank you for contacting us and we hope to see you again soon.

So, when I signed up, they didn’t ask for a birthday. They decided to add one and picked a birthday for me (which might be any random date) and YOU CAN’T CHANGE IT. Seriously Amazon, WTF?

The above response makes sense if I’m some completely tech clueless person, but I know this is all in a database somewhere. Go in. Edit the record. Save. It’s not that hard.

To tell me you contacted a “specialist” and they couldn’t do anything makes me laugh.

Do as we say, not as we do…

“American consumers have made it crystal clear that few things annoy them more than the billions of commercial telemarketing robocalls they receive every year,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a news release.

Calls from politicians … will be exempt from the new rule.

Thanks guys. The only annoying robocalls I get are from you telling me to vote for you. Good to know you kept that part of the annoyance legal.

Speed of light, dark matter and the Hubble Ultra Deep field

So I was watching the “The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D” video on youtube, and based on the commentary (around 2:20) some of the galaxies are moving away from us at faster than the speed of light. I’m not sure that was supposed to be possible, but let’s say it is.

Now, if the galaxy is moving away at the speed of light(c)+x, x being some tiny amount. If the galaxy emits a photon which travels at the speed of light in the opposite direction, it would still be traveling away from us at x. How are we able to detect something that is moving away from us?

So let’s pretend that we can’t detect something moving away from us at faster than the speed of light. Now, the universe is supposedly filled with dark matter, but it can’t be detected. What if all of these galaxies moving away at faster than the speed of light are the dark matter? They exist, we know they should exist, but we just can’t see them.

It seems to me, that there are a lot more galaxies out there than we could even see…

David Beckham vs Landon Donovan

So Landon makes some comments in a book without talking to David first. He admits bad form.

Here’s where it gets dumb.

“It’s unprofessional in my eyes. In every soccer player’s eyes throughout the world it would be unprofessional to speak out about a teammate especially in the press and not to your face,” Beckham said.

“But I’m going to turn it on a positive spin because that’s what this needs. But in 17 years, I have played with the biggest teams in the world and the biggest players and not once have I been criticized for my professionalism. It’s important to get this cleared up and I will be speaking to Landon either this evening or over the next couple of days.“

So… you talked to the press before talking to him? How does that make you any different… Wow.