Interesting Tidbits – Page 5

Open Letter to Los Angeles

Hi L.A., How are you?

This is a little awkward. See, the thing is that I do like you. I don’t mind your sprawl. I love your museums. How many cities have their very own tar pit? You have a cute little Chinatown.

The thing is, I don’t think you are safe anymore. The problem isn’t you. It’s that police force of yours. I think he’s bad for you and I wish you could dump him for somebody better.

It isn’t just the thing with Chris Dorner — even though it’s obvious that LAPD never intended to bring him in alive for a trial. I mean really, they shot up two different pickup trucks, not one of which met the description of Dorner’s truck, and not one of whose occupants was even the same race as Dorner.

Unfortunately, this is just part of a trend for LAPD. I know there’s more to the story, but shooting somebody in the back as they run away from you isn’t exactly the textbook definition of “self defense.” And do you know what happens if you search Youtube for “LAPD Shoots”? Over 300 videos at the moment: shooting carjackers, shooting murder suspects, shooting those pickup trucks, shooting a deaf mute man, shooting a young Muslim man 90 times. Sure, there are films of the shooting range, and about cops being shot, commentary about people being shot, and of course some multiple-camera-angles-of-same-incident. An alarming number of these clips are recent.

I am starting to think that the real gun control needs to involve taking guns away from your officers.

Sorry Los Angeles. I’ll keep in touch, I promise. But don’t expect my tourist dollars any time soon.

In Closing: break the silence; broadband; nosy neighbors confuse maple syrup rig for meth lab; apparently, some cops think a car sticker is “probable cause”; not just at airports; glad Joe Biden cleared that up!; mainstream nutrition; Dave Johnson uses this thing called logic; have no fear, your homeowner’s policy covers meteor crashes; on Elizabeth Warren; please notice the very careful wording about 2/3 down; on consumer education; I guess she’s hoping no future employers Google her; and pot.

A Really Bad Week for Music

In the last week, we have lost a bunch of fine musicians.

First, Dave Brubeck.

Then, Jenni Rivera — with whom I was not familiar prior to her unfortunate death.

Yesterday, Russian born Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.

And today, Ravi Shankar. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell him these things happen in threes.

In Closing: turns out the Feds did good on this investment; the return of on the job training (waaah, it costs more than miraculously finding people who already have the skills!); the right to work for less; record period of no freezing in Vegas couldn’t possibly be because of global warming!; reinventing the wheel; even Wal-Mart is feeling it; if you can, give a hand to JP; and congrats to Ornery Bastard.

Cat Ass Trophy

Or, Caturday, Film Festival Edition

Ok, I like cats well enough. I even have a cat. Sure, I occasionally look at pictures of cats online, with or without witty catpions (intentional misspelling). I’ve been sucked in by video of Maru the Box Cat at least once. I have posted about Stationmaster Tama and library cats. IBKC and Cute Overload are linked in the sidebar. But you know, I think this cat thing has officially gone off the rails.

Thursday night in Minneapolis, ten thousand people turned out for a festival of short films starring cats:

The crowd — easily double what organizers expected — packed the lawn outside the museum, spilling onto the sidewalks across the street. There were local cat lovers and out-of-state fans of Fluffy; many wore kitty-theme T-shirts or simply ears and whiskers. Some took real cats on leashes. A few dogs came, for irony.

They all settled in for a screening of cats behaving badly, or cutely, or mysteriously, sometimes all at once. That much of the audience had already seen the clips on YouTube did not seem to diminish the enthusiasm. Quite the contrary.

Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat allegedly wanted to be paid to attend. Inasmuch as Nyan Cat is animated, I’d like to know how that would even work. I won’t link to those furry freeloaders now just on principal.

Did they actually use film, or did they just cue up 60 tabs in YouTube?

In Closing: more stuff to do in Vegas; we don’t need no steenking warrant; just say no to huge birthday bashes for little kids; “The recovery continues to be skewed toward low-wage jobs, reinforcing the rise in inequality and America’s deficit of good jobs”; of course job growth is variable by region (which is why we need streamlined short sales now) Double Dose of Ezra; is that where I’ve heard it before?; Etch-a-sketch; mathematically impossible; yes the Republicans have a place for single women, I guess; low carb diets do work; the study never said skinny monkeys, just underfed monkeys; and great timing.

And it Happened in Texas

Sorry, I’m not going to add my somewhat useless two cents worth to the discussion of the Supreme Court and the Affordable Care Act. You can get that from almost every other blog on the interwebs today. I still hope we end up with an option beyond being forced to pay the highly profitable insurance companies that arguably created the problem in the first place.

A couple weeks ago in the In Closing bits, I said that “the case that will show ‘stand your ground’ laws have gone overboard involves a grade school teacher who was killed because the stereo was a little loud.”

It turns out that in a rare victory for common sense, I was right.

A unanimous jury was smart enough to say “Hey wait a minute, you were so scared that you went and confronted an elementary school teacher with a freaking gun because his stereo was a little loud?? Didn’t think to call the cops on a noise complaint?”

He probably thought he was being clever recording the incident on video. Maybe he shouldn’t have “bragged about his guns and told [a neighbor] a person could avoid prosecution in a shooting by telling authorities you were in fear of your life and were standing your ground and defending yourself.”

What a shame that somebody had to die for logic to prevail. It’s one thing to shoot at someone who is trying to kill you. It’s another thing to make up a threat to justify murder.

Comrade E.B. Misfit has a knack for putting thinks briefly: “Stand Your Ground” Does Not Mean “Go Looking for Trouble”.

In Closing: funny how libertarian utopias are only grand in the absence of disaster; and Americans would rather have Obama than Romney in charge should there be an alien invasion. Nice to see we have our priorities straight.

Organizational Tools

Today’s Life Well Lived question is this:

What are your favorite resources (Products, Apps, Books, Websites, etc.) to help you get organized?

Join the discussion here, and don’t forget to enter the current sweepstakes!

I’m simple when it comes to resources to get organized. I’ve tried lots of things over the years. I’ve got at least two unused reminder and to-do list apps on my phone. Outlook remains unlaunched. I’ve tried iCal, Google Calendar, all the org tools bundled into any of the half dozen email apps I’ve tried to use over the years. When it comes right down to it, my favorite resources are simple ones that were available 30 years ago.

Folders: Accounts payable goes into a folder. Paid bills, receipts, and other important stuff goes into a folder marked with the month and year. I put tax related stuff into a folder so I can find it in February when I sit down to do taxes. I use bright yellow pocket folders for my clients so they can keep track of all the documents I give them (not only is it an eye catching color, it’s easy to remember the folder is from me because my car is also bright yellow). I keep my presentations in binders.

Calendar: Back when I had a traditional job, I used to write notes for myself on the big desk calendar on the appropriate date: birthday reminders, reports due, notices need to go out, court dates, staff vacations, paydays, etc.. Now I use a weekly view pocket calendar to write down appointments, vacations, school holidays, and the like. I keep track of the correct page with a simple paper clip. Some of my colleagues have the big 8 x 11 calendar books or Day-Timers. I keep it simple.

Sticky Notes: Oh what on earth did I ever do before sticky notes?? I’d like to kiss the guy at 3M that came up with these things. I can use them as bookmarks that never fall out. I can stick an important message to somebody’s desk (or computer screen if I’m in a bad mood). I can point out where to sign an important document. I can write down phone numbers or addresses and stick them where I will next need them. I can remind myself of a goal or a deviation from schedule, or whatever. I can write down the 3-6 Most Important Tasks I have to do that day — and stick it directly to the correct page in my date book! Or my desk. Or my phone…. You get the picture.

So yes. I use tools to stay organized. Really low-tech tools. Even the sticky note thing I could do with a simple pad of paper, but the sticky part is really handy. No apps to buy, no websites that may or may not be sharing information, no batteries required.

In Closing: censorship; we noticed; and VAGINA.

The iPhone

So here’s my iPhone. It’s ok. It’s way too easy to take a screenshot, unless of course you want to take one.

As you can see, just by looking at the main screen, I can tell what time it is, how much signal I’ve got, battery life, unread emails, even how many items are on my grocery list. If I had missed calls, voicemails, or text messages, they would show up here as well.

Here’s my frustration: It’s always 73 and sunny according to my phone.

Don’t get me wrong, it sounds trivial, and I know this is sort of a tough computer science kind of problem to solve. How often should this update? Should it pull data when I un-sleep it, or should data be pushed to it? Should it use use my GPS features to find and use my current location, or should it use my default location?

Well, I thought it was a hard problem. Until I noticed my partner’s Android phone showed him exactly what the temperature and forecast were every time he unlocked it.

Maybe a new phone in my future. Maybe.

In Closing: hoodie magic; muscle confusion; Depak Desai takes the 5th; Strong government; and the importance of commas.

Griswold v. Connecticut

June 7, 1965 was the day that the Supreme Court decided that women had the right to contraception. More precisely, the Supremes ruled that ordinary Americans have a right to privacy, and little is more private than what a married couple do in the privacy of their home. It was later rulings that extended the right of contraception outside marriage.

That was over 40 years ago. Women of my generation have never known a time when you couldn’t get the means to control your whether or not you could get pregnant. We’ve lived all our lives knowing that reliable birth control was a prescription away. Things weren’t so rosy for the generation immediately ahead of us.

Yet despite the fact that birth control is almost universally used by women, despite the fact that it’s good for our health to control the size of our families, and despite the fact that it is good for the economy that we can choose not to get pregnant, this fundamental right is under fire. There are people who want to make sure we can’t get it, people who want to make sure we can’t afford it, and people who want to make sure that we can lose our jobs for getting it. How exactly does that last bit figure into the right to privacy?

None of this is about how wonderful babies are. None of this is actually “pro-life,” because if they thought about it for 5 whole seconds the so-called pro-life movement would realize that contraceptives prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancy. The desire to limit access to something almost all women use is one thing and one thing only: anti-woman.

In Closing: short stories; age gap; Carol Burnett does her best James T. Kirk; couldn’t have to do with dumping underwater houses; and oh hell no you’re not charging me extra for the privilege of sitting with my family.

Happy Towel Day

Yes, it’s Towel Day once again. Don’t forget your towel. And most importantly DON’T PANIC.

In Closing: R-Money proposes using my tax dollars to ~~send rich kids to private school~~ help poor and middle class families still not afford private schools; would it have been so hard for some adult, any adult to say “We treat others with respect around here?? (I don’t even know what to say); 550 cats and no husband; there’s an app for that; oops; Detroit; achievements include 8 life sentences; mass hysteria; and Today I Learned there is a patron saint of the Internet.

A cool, cozy Nest

I planned on writing a review of this nifty little device Real Soon Now, so let me take advantage of the fact that Engadget gave it a nod. It’s been talked about on NPR, twice. Even C|Net loves it. Popular Mechanics isn’t sure. Our household was an early adopter of the Nest Learning Thermostat. In fact as I think about it, we may well have had one of the first batch to ship back in December. By way of disclosure, my partner personally knows some of the people that worked on it. No, that didn’t get us a discount. And while we’re on the topic, I’m not getting a dime for this review; it’s just my honest opinion.

I’ve had programmable thermostats in the past. Most of them are hard to program, requiring lots of button mashing with the manual in one hand. The last ones we had would sometimes inexplicably reset themselves to the factory settings. Manufacturer knows best!

Unboxing a Nest is a very Apple experience. The packaging is lovely, designed to unveil your brand new $250 thermostat in the prettiest way possible. It has been called “the iPod of Thermostats.” Alright, but that’s not the nifty part.

First and foremost, it learns from the way you live your life. It will figure out that you like it a little warmer on cold winter afternoons, or that you like it cooler at night — and adjust the temperature automatically. It will in a matter of weeks figure out whether you are out all day or whether you leave around noon. You can of course correct it if it’s wrong.

Second, it has built in energy saving features that will reduce your energy bills. Not only will it adjust itself to you, if you pay attention it will help you save even more. According to their latest press release, an average family can save $1000 a year. That’s 4 times what the device itself costs.

Very few people are mentioning that multiple Nests can communicate with one another. This is a huge plus for any household with multiple HVAC units! They will work together to keep the whole house one temperature. This is why I think the Nest is a must for any larger home.

More people have pointed out that your Nest will actually connect to WiFi. What does that mean to you? It means you can control your thermostat from anyplace that you have an internet connection, including your smart phone! Want to turn on the AC or the heat when you leave the office for the day? No problem. Sitting at the airport and wonder if you remembered to turn off the air conditioner? Just log in and do it remotely. This makes it a must-have item for anybody who travels often or anybody with a vacation home.

Finally, it’s simple to use. The controls are intuitive. The menus use plain English. I have no problem saying it’s a great product and a huge step forward in programmable thermostats.

This item is cross-posted at my other site.

In Closing: recessions will do that; judge recognizes “fair use” when he sees it; and value added services.

A Few Words about “Nice, Safe Neighborhoods”

It isn’t very often that I have something to say worth posting to both my personal and professional websites. This is one of those posts.

I am often asked by my relocating clients about “nice, safe neighborhoods.” This is honestly a trick question that I can’t really answer. I can point you to Metro‘s or Trulia‘s Crime Map, I can tell you what I like about various areas, I can tell you about historical resale trends. What I can’t and won’t do is say “Oh yes, that’s a great neighborhood and you shouldn’t have any problems there.” Not going to happen.

I can’t even say that gated communities are “safe.” A lot of people think it’s a “security gate,” but it’s only an “access gate” and it will only keep out people who want to be kept out. And what if the guy who wants to hurt you already belongs within the gates?

If you ask 10 random Las Vegans about desirable neighborhoods, at least 8 will mention Summerlin. Granted, one or two might use it in a sentence like “Well, a lot of people like Summerlin, but….” Of course “but” can lead many directions: but it’s kind of expensive, but the HOAs can be so picky, but it’s so far away from the Strip. I do think, however, that more than one of our imagined random people could be persuaded to say the area is “safe.”

Sadly, bad things happen in “nice, safe neighborhoods” too. Yesterday, a 19 year old was shot and killed in a Summerlin backyard. It’s a little unclear yet whether he was really trying to break in or was just cutting through the yard, or even whether he tried to get away after the first shot was fired.

Nobody really wants to live in a bad neighborhood. However, living in a “good” neighborhood is no magic spell preventing crime or tragedy.

In Closing: Mr. Rogers; Larry Niven on the Universe; KABOOM!; you knew the media did this, right?; interesting; this messed up traffic; predatory; only works because we’re afraid to say no; insane; internet is 4.7% of our economy; consensus.