Stop blaming Washington and blame ourselves

You sometimes hear something on the radio that just clicks with you. NPR had that this morning with a segment on which countries are doing well right now and which are doing poorly. I don't agree with all its findings but a clear factor indicator is the US dollar to Canadian dollar. Its pretty much 1=1 right now. There are lots of variables involved and such macro economic indicators put the Canadian dollar so high are complex. Also during a recession you expect the more fiscally conservative to do better. What's interesting is that fiscally conservative countries that are doing so well are socialist. America is capitalist country and at that its doing very well, most corporations have record profit and those that are rich are doing better than they ever have. So if you are a Republican stop complaining about the economy it working for you low taxes, cheaper and abundant labor. If you feel that the recession has hurt you and your voting republican you have to ask yourself why. I'm not saying vote Democrat or for the tea party. But just understand that if you stop thinking and just use rhetoric provided by Political commercials and talk show hosts on both sides of the argument then when we voted the current politicians into office don't expect them to hold any loyalty to you but to those talking heads and their interests. If we stop asking the tough questions and outsourced our think to somebody else don't be surprised when the politicians stop respecting the general public. Don't blame the politicians blame ourselves for not bothering to vote in primaries and understand the issues. Don't expect Washington to respect you if your world focuses on Sports or Hollywood or Talk Radio and the only contact you send to your congressman is a canned email forwarded from a action group based on a 30 second ad. Read/Listen to real news sources guys. If Rush or Fox News tells you how bad the New York Times, Washington Post, the Standard or Economist is he's doing so don't learn the truth and will continue to vote for interests who make them rich.

Celebrity vs Geek

Dennis Ritchie just died. If your not a geek you might not know who that is but he probably more important than Steve Jobs as far as the smart phone you are running or the web page your are viewing. He was not cool, he was not a Billionaire but he was amazing. Its kind of sad that he made just the bottom of the web page of the New York Times while Steve Job dominated it for a week. He invented much of what we use today. Back in the 70's with big iron costing millions of dollars he invented a small flexible operating system called Unix and a programming an equally flexible. That technology is parent or grandparent of IOS, Linux, CPM (which was copied to become Windows). MacOSX. Thanks Mr. Ritchie you were amazing.

Netflix and the stock market

Netflix and the stock market. The CEO of Netflix R. Hastings has been given a panning by investors in the last couple of months. OK they've made some bad decisions and lost a few customers but $304 -> $103 that ridiculous. Clearly $304 was stupid but I imagine when their numbers are finally posted we are not going to a total wipe out I think they will probably still be making money. There only real competition is Hulu and that much more of a disaster given that the only true people who will buy them is blockbuster which is a rebranded Dish Network. If you look at the viewership numbers on Network Television its a disaster HBOGo only real viewership numbers is on few set top boxes. Give it a year or two and Amazon, Blockbuster and Google have spent their war chests on content, HBO, Showtime, Epix and Starz have to start factoring increased streaming costs on their contract renewals. A scared network/film/cable television realizing their viewership is still plummeting then Netflix money will star to look good and Netflix stock price will rebound. It's more a question on what is a stock price and its amazing how fear works.

"Berkeley Blue"

Steve Job was amazing, he annoyed me quite often but I like his iPhone and use one everyday. I often wished I had purchased an Apple II rather than a TRS-80 back in 1979 but in Europe an Apple II was over $1,500 dollars out of the reach of a sixteen year old.

With all that Steve has done it been interesting that we have not mentioned how he got his start.

Even as a teenager he saw a need of how to make cheap phone calls and created a product to meet that need. The blue box. He went from Dorm room to Dorm room selling his device.

Even today we are still trying to find ways to make free phone calls. Aka the OBI110 and Google Voice. I set this combo up at home and it works. He saw a need 40 years ago as "Berkeley Blue" that we are still looking for today. I see a lot of the real Steve Job in that sixteen year old kid rather than the polished image of today. RIP "Berkeley Blue".