For many years I have lived in the Los Angeles basin and I had to learn that the song with the line “it never rains in California” is not quite true. I have been drenched, in fact, rather solidly.

So done with that myth. But at least I don’t have to deal with snow and scraping windows and shoveling the driveway.

Let’s dispense with those myth as well.

First, there is no snow in (Southern) California…

Yes, that’s icicles in the foreground – nice, huh? But “no snow”-  that’s debunked.

Next one is scraping windows. I did when that above happened, but I have to admit that it was not really necessary, as there was no way to get out of that drive way even with a 4×4 and I had still enough food and water so there was no need to get out.

No scraping windows – kind-of debunked.

Then shoveling your drive way. See, there California is different. I did not shovel my drive way when I had to get out eventually – I called somebody to do that for me. That myth is not debunked but confirmed.

That snow, and here Southern California is different, did not stay very long. Initially it was just too deep to do anything useful with it, except maybe sit inside next to the roaring fireplace and enjoy the view. But when it got a bit more slippery and wet it became great to exercise the sledge and practice some death defying jumps…

At the last New Years party I overheard a conversation about Morgan Freeman and this independent movie he was involved in and that this movie was well worth seeing.

As I generally liked the characters Mr. Freeman played it was a given that I would have to watch this movie – I had made noted down the title on my smart phone – 10 Items or Less.

Today I finally managed to see it.

Turned out to be absolutely worth seeing, Not only does it tell a great story of a friendship between two very unlikely people, it also brings to the screen beautiful Paz Vega, whom I had just seen in the movie Spanglish.

As I got this great favor from the person whom I don’t remember any more I guess I have to pass that favor on to the world and recommend this movie to the world at large. This film is a few years old so you will not,  most likely, catch it at the movies, but watching it on DVD is actually better. The DVD includes a great documentary about the making of the movie – which took only and incredible short 15 days of shooting – which is an enjoyable experience in itself.

So, put it on your Netflix queue or look for it at Blockbuster. Here is a trailer to water your appetite…

Miles O’Brian reports on the likely cancellation of the constellation program after the Prez’s state of the union address.

Space buffs might be disappointed because now we will not go to Moon and Mars, but to put it into perspective let’s watch what Burt Rutan, the designer of Space Ship One, the first privately funded vehicle to reach space, had to say at his TED talk…

So, with this in mind, here is my comment I just had to leave at the above referenced article/vblog by Mr. O’Brian…

I have been lucky enough to witness the making of the first non-governmental astronaut. I reported about it a few years back in the post ‘From Mohave to Aldebaran‘. With this experience I can not say that I am too sad about the probable cancellation of the constellation program.

Yes, it was cool to get to the moon and have that ISS up there right now, but let’s be a bit more realistic when we look at things only a government can do – looking – looking – hmm, nothing really! The only thing governments really do is extract money from the population (by force, I may add) and give it to the real people who actually do the job. Not to forget to first skim off a bigger portion to feed a bunch of in efficient bureaucrats.

I wonder why, on the one hand, we make fun of all these bureaucrats, and then suddenly turn around and believe that they are the only ones who can handle things – like building roads and keeping order after Catrina.

The only thing worth considering is really how to get them out of our lives altogether, not allowing them to regulate things they have no knowledge and competence in. I am nearly sure that we would have colonies at least on the moon if the government would have stayed out of the space business. Yes, we might have had some more accidents because private enterprises tend to take more risks than governments (as they don’t have to be re-elected,) but isn’t that the price we pay for fast progress?

I have to admit that I had been deeply disappointed by this constellation program which was a step back from a real space ship, and a design that one day might reach Aldebaran. Back to a capsule that splashes into the ocean after we had the orbiter that could land on a runway? Give me a break!

I am actually sure that Bush, with his vision of going to the moon and beyond, was just trying to get into the league of real visionaries like Kennedy with this “Before this decade is up.”

I had heard of Lord Monckton only in passing and that Al Gore had chickened out of a debate with him the last minute, but after watching the following video, I have to say I want to know more about him.

Usually you consider a title of nobility with the ruling class, so I have to shed this preconception now and have to admit that you can find friends in the most unlikely places – and obviously enemies in places where you would not expect them, like in the people you vote in to represent you. Ok, ok, you got me there – I have given up the idea a long time ago that somebody who bums my vote does not do it for my benefit.

But now, without further ado, pure logic taking apart Greenpeace-faith…

So, where can I find out more about Lord Monckton?

A good place to start is his Wikipedia entry, and then – there is Google…

If you have anything to do with SEO, or web site optimization you must have head of Stompernet and Andy Jenkins (even though Andy is not with Stompernet any longer – really wonder what happened there.)

By the way, in my eyes stompernet was Andy Jenkins – I still read what Andy has to say, but more and more skip over the emails from stompernet. This is how it happened that I read Andy’s blog on the clarification of the new FTC rules. This blog was more or less a pointer to an interview of an FTC agent by Jim Edwards (an internet marketer.)

You might be aware of the fact that my political tendencies are towards the complete abolishion of the rule by the few (aka government.) This made listening to this interview very taxing for me, as the interviewer acted as if the interviewee was an equal or even higher-up to be bestow his wisdom upon us. For god’s sake, he was talking to a bureaucrat!

I did not think that a comment on Jim Edwards blog would have made any effect, so I did not comment there, but with Andy I had the idea a comment, I would post, would stay there, especially after the great broomstick metaphor in a comment by Dan Thies, another great man in the internet marketing arena.

In order to ensure the survival of this comment I also want to post it here. You might have to go to Andy’s blog and from there to Jim’s interview to get the whole story, but anyway, here is what I had to rant:

Oh man, this got my blood boiling! What’s really frustrating are these comments like “good info, thanks!” The only light in the tunnel was Dan Thies broomstick metaphor, which shows a bit what all ‘agencies’ are about – initiating violence.
Reasonable men, if they have a disagreement, sit together and work it out and come to a mutually acceptable agreement. Not agencies! They work like bullies: “We tell you how it is, and if you don’t do was we say – - – you know where the broomstick is, and how long it is!”
Still, we can learn from them: they came up with the idea that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. That is a good policy particularly if applied to them, because they are, in fact, the terrorists, a they initiate force. You don’t think what they do is initiating force? Think again: they issue a fine (or sue you, which is the same because the courts belong to them and are paid by them), and you don’t pay. Then you see that it IS force – just play it through in your mind.
The only reason I write this is to plant this little seed in your mind, that you all see that ‘agencies’ are agencies not for us but only for themselves, that they are not our friends that will protect consumers. That’s just double talk to hide the fact that they are taking more control by threat of stealing and imprisonment.
Yes, follow the rules (for now) but keep in mind, that the tyrants are not here to help you.
A slave master can only stay what he is as long as the slave behaves as a slave – stop being a  slave. Resist with every fiber, without the need to put yourself in danger, but resists, don’t see them as the benefactor.
And above all, see them as different from you. They are not one of us, where we all work together to make the world a better place. See that anybody who has the idea to know better than you, how to live your life, is to be met with at least suspicion.

What a difference the music makes!

It is a well known fact in the film industry that the right sound track for a movie can be essential for the success. Just look at the Star Wars Saga – the music, that today so many people know and connect with these movies, is just necessary for the movie, it would not be what it is without that sound track – even though we might not consciously notice it.

The music slides in under the radar, so to speak, and communicates emotions directly.

We all might have seen one, or a few, or many launches of real-world rockets, from the Saturns that brought some dudes to the moon to all the shuttle launches ferrying components into orbit to construct the International Space Station.

Now Mike Interbartolo has posted a video of the ascent of Shuttle Mission STS 129, compiled by the SE&I imagery team at Johnson Space Center from all of the ground, air, ET and SRB assets – and in good Hollywood tradition, has laid a dramatic sound track under the video footage.

That made me get real emotional!

I have this thing for space and reaching new frontiers, so SciFi was always the one genre that got me going. With this video it became real to me that we are actually doing it – right at this time!

If now we could only get the government out of this business to slow things down, then we would be really going. I am sure that without the bureaucrat’s involvement we would not have taken 40 years to get – perhaps – back to the moon, and then beyond. My son might actually realistically consider prospecting on the moon to make a fortune.

But without further ado, here is this great piece from NASA’s JSC…

http://www.vimeo.com/7852885

I received the following story through one of those typical email blasts – but this one did not say that I have to forward it if I don’t want to roast in hell. It is good enough to not need such encouragement. Without further ado…

George Phillips , an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?”

He said “No, but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.”

Then the police dispatcher said “All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available.”

George said, “Okay.”

He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them.” and he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”

George said, “And I thought you said there was nobody available!”

I only remember once waiting for the cops after the alarm went off accidentally and I did not know how to handle this (new alarm!) It look about four hours that a squad car showed up and I remember contemplating the possibility that I REALLY needed them. Now I know what to do – beside being prepared to handle things myself the way George made the cops believe he had.

Oh, yes, do you know that the police, sheriff and cohorts do not have a duty to protect and  help you?

Have you ever wondered where Google got its name from. There are some of these companies that have become household names and nobody really considers any more where their names come from – Amazon, Yahoo, et al.

But somebody must have sad down and really thought about it. It is rare that something is materializing out of thin air. Often we get an inspiration from something that passes by – even if only fleeting.

Google, after being known around the world and even becoming a verb now could not possibly admit that its name would not reflect deep thought (pun intended) and consideration, so the official version is that Google comes from the mathematical term “googol”, to equal 10¹⁰⁰, a number much larger than even the atoms in this universe.

But here I now have for you the  real source of the  name:

Today I re-read, for the xth time, Douglas Adam’s “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and there it was – plain and simple:

In the story of this (must read) book where the two programmers Lunkwill and Fook talk to the computer Deep Thought the first time after its completion to find out if it will indeed be able to compute an easy answer to all the questions about life, the universe and everything, and this computer classifies itself as only the second most powerful computer in the universe, the following dialog pursues:

“There must be a mistake,” he [Lunkwill] said, “are you not a greater computer than the Millard Gigantubrain at Maximegalon which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?”

“The Millard Gigantubrain?” Said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. “A mere abacus – mention it not.”

“And are you not,” said Fook leaning anxiously forward, ” a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh  Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabat Beta sand blizzard?”

“A five-week sand blizzard?” said Deep Thought laughingly. “You ask this of me who have contemplated the very vectors of the atoms in the Big Bang itself? Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff.”

There you have it – modest Google does not (yet) compare itself with Deep Thought.

A little side note that other well know subjects have been inspired by Douglas Adams. Many of you will know the TIFF file format used to store image data. This format is a tagged format and one of the initial tags that identifies the file as a TIFF file has a value of 42 and the official comment was that this value was chosen for the deep meaning of this particular value. The drafters did not quite come out with the full credits for this value which took seven and a half million years to compute, but made this tongue in cheek choice for all those geeks who know TIFF and Douglas Adams.

Synchronicities are always surprising and can, at times, be outright scary. Here is one that is somewhat in the middle.

Sometime last week I talked to somebody and the subject of Washington came up. The drives or walks along the impressive buildings oozing history, statesmanship and greatness of this nation. Did not really think much more about it and actually had the thought that I should take my son there and show him the sights that document how great this nation is.

This thought did not fit quite in with my latest subjects of study, my journey into the philosophy and realization of anarchy (*) but then again, I just had a chat with a friend who told me how she took her daughter to DC to show her the sights.

But the universe, or whoever that might have been, could not just let that sit there, no, it had to rub my nose into my glibness regarding this display of of state power, built in a way so that the people who actually build these temples for their masters, were even proud of their accomplishment.

So what did the universe (et al) do? – It threw this video into my general direction , so that I could not look past the facts any more…

Germania would have been bombastic, I’m sure, probably similar to how Washington, DC feels today to all the school children visiting the cradle of this greatest nation of the world, looking at the wonders and temples build to honor our politicians. I guess, as Hitler was not really a politician and lawyer, he was a lot more honest at what he was doing – Heil, Hitler! – for helping me to see a bit better what is going on and confirming the words of my two favorite anarchists (yes, I have two now!) – Larken Rose and Stefan Molyneux.

(*) anarchy: this word has two main meanings, one, that is often used in emotionally charged arguments, is a synonym for chaos and lawlessness, but the other one is the more objective definition of

1. a state of society without government or law
2. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

Today was an exciting day for me.

A few years back I realized that there was something missing on the world wide web, something essential – commenting without the consent of the site owner.

There are many web sites – including this one here – that allow comments on all articles. But these comments are definitely censored because the site owner can easily delete comments he does not like.  Good web sites will not misuse this power and allow opposition and controversy to stand, even though spammers and pure nuisances will be removed.

But imagine a site like that of the IRS. Could you imagine how the comment section of this site would look like if only spammers and flamers would be removed? Could the site speak of its ’service’ and still be credible if you could read thousands of comments describing incompetence, evil and injustice?

That is where I started to plan a system that would allow – through a toolbar widget or similar – to attach comments on any website. One of the basic features of this mechanism would have to be that it could not be centrally shut down, but instead would have to be a distributed system where a part that went down would be replaced immediately by a redundant site on the other side of the planet – a kind of SETI for accountability.

I talked to some potential partners, as this was too big a project for a single fighter, but have to admit that I failed to get it off the ground.

Today I read about Google SideWiki! Could this be what I had felt was missing, could this be the one feature that would keep people away the dark side of the force?

The fact that it is Google is definitely a disadvantage, as Google has been bullied into doing things that were against the mantra of ‘doing good.” Let’s just hope for the best.

Besides hoping for the best, there is a nice test in progress that investigates the freedom of speech and opinion of this new feature. Somebody posted a pretty nasty post right on the main page of the IRS’s site, wondering how long it will be there. Let’s all go there and observe.

The post is not a nasty post in itself, it is just something that I could imagine the site owner would not want to be on his site. It talks about so-called tax protesters and gives the web site of one of the more grounded protagonists. In all fairness this post also mentions a site run by – probably – tax attorneys chastising the whole bunch of cooks calling themselves the tax honesty movement. But then again, we are talking about lawyers here and then those that deal in taxes and probably love the system as it feeds them.

This post goes even further and introduces the philosophy site Free Domain Radio, that introduces the idea of a society based on voluntary interaction instead of a government run bureaucracy that is backed up by violence, claiming a monopoly in initiating violence.

I will certainly keep an eye on the IRS web site to see if this article disappears. If this post stays there that would be akin to the wikipedia entry for the IRS containing a section about the tax honesty movement, the thoughts that the tax law as written might not apply to most American and thoughts on how society could work perfectly well without an IRS and a central government.

keep looking »

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