Rick's MCE: My dad sent me a link to a video the other day on a media center edition of his fav OS. The video was smug, biased, and really made me want it. But, there were so many features that I would probably never use that it makes little sense, or does it? Tonight we took our first steps towards building our own media center, sort of.

The first step was to get the cables to hook my laptop into the TV. No problem, I had them in the office. Then I decided that we needed a test video. I knew that I could play a DVD, but I really wanted to see what a movie of lesser quality would look like. So I shot over to my favorite torrent site and decided to grab a TV show that we could all watch. Done. We were set.

I hooked everything up, clicked a few buttons on the ol' laptop and started eating popcorn. Wow! The quality was incredible. The only hiccup was the sound, which we could certainly remedy with another cable, but we did fine with what we have.

Now, here is my suggestion. Let's say that you are a major production studio (movie, TV, whatever). Why not put your shows up with the embedded commercials that you show on broadcast? Isn't the purpose of putting those things up to make some money from the advertisers? It is. Sure, the creators of the show want to share their art, but the rest of the folks are there for the money. So let's put this thing together in such a way so that Arbitron and Nelson can track Internet viewers as well as those through broadcast and cable/satellite. Fact is they don't know if I am watching it that way or any other way. But, if they have the shows available for download, with the commercials, then everyone can track how many episodes are downloaded. I am not sure what the hang up is on this, just do it!

Growing up on the Web: The web is really an amazing thing. I have raised 4 kids so far who have never known life without the web. I got it when it was first available in our area 11-12 years ago and still have that same e-mail address. So cool! As I have watched it develop I am constantly amazed at what people are doing with it. It is used for 95% of our communication (just a little with cellular, even less with postal). A ton of our entertainment is derived from the web. Recently my kids put up their first YouTube video, it was so exciting. The next morning they all got up to see that 10 people had seen it (as I write it is 50). They have had a comment and a couple of links to some folks at MySpace. So now they are hard at work on their next mini film.

I just uploaded my latest photograph, and thought about how cool that is. I shoot a picture, hook up my camera to my computer and a few minutes later it is there for the world to see. I did a picture a week or two back that my wife made me take down, but my dad saw it (and loved it). Then I got behind and put up a couple of days back to back, but in the 5-10 minutes it took me to put together the second picture someone had already seen the first and commented on how much they liked it. That was so amazing! A couple of weeks ago I was bloggin while driving home (kids, don't try that at home!) and when I got home Mary greeted me with "Nice post!" Wow, I published the blog when I was exciting the Interstate, twelve minutes later I was walking through the door.

There was a discussion a couple of days ago on where internet video is going to go. I think that places like YouTube are going to be the new TV for the next generation. User Generated Content will be it. There are so little start up costs, and the imaginations of some people are going to really be where we are watching. The comment on the podcast was that some people are already doing a better job at attracting viewers than the major networks are.

So kids, develop great stuff. It is going to be a great ride!

Cincinnati Homeschool Convention: I am attending the Cincinnati Homeschool Convention. This is a different experience for me. First, there are not that many guys here. Well, some guys, but in the workshop I just left there were 100 woman, 5 guys. And these women are unique. About a third looked pregnant, a lot had a baby (all in those slings that they use in third world cultures, or in San Francisco. If the kid cries, she just lifts her shift and starts feeding right there in the class. That's something I don't see every day!

More later, enough of the live blog for now.

Foundations of Freedom: I live in a country that was founded on a set of principles. A Constitution was adopted, and an additional set of rights, know as the Bill of Rights (or Amendments to the Constitution) was adopted by our Congress. For over 200 years these rights have stood in court as the pillars of our society. One of the best movie lines is Michael Douglas Jr in American President where he is defending the right of his political opponent. He makes the point that even if we passionately disagree, we all have the rights to express our views.

Well, that is unless you are espousing a view that is politically incorrect. I am astonished at how often those rights are trampled. I was moaning to my father that two US Senators (one Republican, one Democrat) wrote to a business telling them that they had to renounce their views on a particular subject. That seemed odd to me. Regardless of the subject (and it was obviously one in which they were personally passionate), who gives them the right to tell a company what views they may or may not have? They are a business and they should certainly have the freedom to have a view for or against something.

Today I read about a girl in the Chicago area who wanted to wear a shirt expressing a view that some might call spiritual, some might call moral, others see as political. You see for one day all of the schools in the area (I assume in the US) celebrate something called "The Day of Silence" to memorialize those poor individuals who have had to suffer for so long in silence with their homosexuality (or as my son is want to say "gayism"). The whole day is dedicated to the homosexual lifestyle. She wants to wear a shirt the following day (allowing them to have their day of celebration) that says "Be Happy, Be Straight". Nope, that is offensive to the homosexual population of the school and the school district has said that she can't wear the shirt. Now, she finds the whole celebration of a day focusing on being gay offensive, but she isn't allowed to say anything because gays are victimized and repressed. Seems to me that the ACLU needs to get involved and help this girl who's rights are being trampled. Sure, like that's going to happen.

But, this is in the same area where they weren't allowed to have a statue of Christ in a manager during a CHRISTmas celebration. How screwed up can we be?

More cool vaporare: I have been intrigued by so much of the hype that the Internet allows. Some guy with some skills in Studio Max 3d designs something in his den and puts a whole website dedicated to this great project that everyone is talking about. A couple of those have been the FreedomShip and The Atlantis Project. Both of these projects started by stating that they were really going to happen, then they just kind of disappeared. Atlantis now says that it was a concept only and that it died off because of lack of interest. FreedomShip still pretends that it is real, although their web site hasn't been updated (including the "news" section) in over two years. Two more exciting projects that just disappeared.

Lately there has been similar buzz in alternative fuel or hybrid electric vehicles. You can't shake a distributor cap around without seeing of some new concept that is "really going to happen". Even GM has created its own buzz with the announcement of the Chevy Volt, which may or may not see production in the next three years. I would trade my Mercedes in a heart beat for one of these, but I am just sitting here waiting to see if it makes production.

The latest to cause me to look hard was posted today on Gizmodo, the XR-3 Hybrid. This cool car (three wheeler) is supposed to get 225 MPG!!! They are posting lots of Studio Max 3d looking models, but no photographs of any actual vehicles. The article at Gizmodo claims that the car is going to become available in two months (read June 1, 2007). If they are just two months away, how come there are no pictures? Venture Vehicles, to their credit, at least has some actual photgraphs of their current working models (which are ugly in comparison). But, they have the tech down and they will be producing vehicles that "Fly the Road" getting 100MPG.

In other great EV news, Toyota says that the 2008 Prius will use the 3rd generation hybrid system and will be using lithium ion batteries. They claim that they will cut the cost of the system in half. Shoot, if they are going to produce a car that has a lithium battery I will be happy at paying the same price. Shoot, I came really close to buying a Prius last week, glad I am going to wait now.

Adobe Lightroom: I got Adobe Lightroom finally installed last night. Yuck. I am not sure what the rave has been about this. I suppose that I need to go look at the Adobe site and see what I am supposed to do with this. You can adjust exposure and tonality, but there really aren't a lot of the filters that I like. They have a robust front end to change meta, but I usually don't mess with the meta. Maybe I should.

An Open Letter to Congressman Ron Lewis:

Dear Congressman Lewis:

As I am sure you are aware, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA, under their division of Sound Exchange) recently drastically increased their rates to providers of Internet Streaming Radio. These exorbitant rates will certainly shut down nearly all providers of Internet Streaming Radio. It has been estimated that if a channel were to play two commercials between every song that they could not yield a revenue stream to stay in business. This is nothing more than another attempt by the RIAA to stifle growth in the new media market.

While I respect any business' ability to make rate changes, this calculated move will completely destroy a new growth industry. What greater example is there of a monopoly than the RIAA which can set the prices for all music played on the Internet and traditional radio?

Please support measures to restrict the RIAA and their designs to remove Internet Streaming Radio. It is just as easy for listeners to select a foreign station for their listening pleasure, and soon that is what everyone will do, because they can. And just as the unions have largely destroyed the US auto industry, the RIAA will destroy the American music industry.

I love the Internet: I started reading the news this morning on CNN. A story about a 15 year old girl and her live in boyfriend who kill the girls mother because they don't like her. Hello? She's 15 and has a live in boyfriend. My first thought was that the boy needs to be arrested for statuary rape (I know, its statutory, but I am thinking that if you are stupid enough to live with a 15 year old girl you have to be stoned, thus statuary rape). Anyway, the article bothered me so I clicked off and the travel section had a nice article about Easter Island, you know, the place with all the big stone carvings (truly statuary). I realized that I didn't know much about the place so I went over to Wikipedia and did some reading. I discovered that it was a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Well, I didn't know what UNSESCO was and I didn't know what a World Heritage Site was. So a few more clicks I was educated on both. It turns out that there 20 in the United States, of which I have seen 7 in person, 2 more from the air (and that really doesn't count). I now know what I am going to do when I retire! [For the record I have been to Great Smokey Mountains, Mammoth Cave (live here), Olympic National Park, Redwood National Park, Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park (only a brief drive through visit when I was 18), and The French Quarter in New Orleans.

One of my favorite Canadian places was called Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. The place is famous because the Blackfoot people would set up these lines of people and scare the crap out of the buffalo and they would be forced off a cliff and die. At the base of the cliff they would set up a camp to process the buffalo. Well one brave warrior decided he wanted to witness this but not from the top where everyone else was, but from the bottom of the cliff, he wanted to watch them fall from the sky. So (true story), they are pulling a few of these buffalo apart at the bottom of the cliff to process them and they find the warrior underneath, they had fallen on him and killed him. It appears that he died instantly because his head was "smashed-in". So that is why they call it Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. Its not named after the smashed in heads of buffalo, but the moron who stood at the bottom of the cliff with his mouth gapping open as a 2000 pound buffalo came falling out of the sky. This may explain why the Blackfoot people almost became extinct.

Smells: My daughter is making me a BLT. There is nothing like the smell of bacon cooking. Wow. I am so glad that I don't have one of those faiths that prohibit certain foods like bacon.

Interesting Twist: The Boston Globe is reporting that a woman is suing Planned Parenthood because they botched her abortion. How? They didn't do it and she had a baby. Oh the joy that this baby must be feeling, knowing that her mom tried to have her killed and is now suing so that she can have the money to raise her. Wouldn't you just love a mom like that? According to Massachusetts' law a doctor can indeed be sued for malpractice by a parent if they were negligent and the child requires extraordinary expenses due to that neglect. Now, the question will likely be if this is extraordinary or not. Apparently the child has no health problems, only the potential psychological disorders of knowing that her mom tried to have her killed. I wonder if she stipulated that in the suit. Doubt it.

My Deepest Secret, and an Apology to Chip Fry:I have struggled to share something that happened to me as a child, and whether or not to share this. I know that some people benefit from this kind of catharsis while for others it only serves to exasperate the problem, causing them to live a life as a victim. For some situations there are whole web sites devoted to helping people with these various problems, but that is not my case, I am unique. I haven’t shared this with anyone, not even my wife of 22 years. Until now.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old I was playing in the front yard with a neighbor boy, Chip Fry. Chip liked to show me how much smarter he was than me, I think that he was something like 6 months older than me. At one point Chip told me that he knew who Santa Claus was. I knew who he was as well, he was… Santa Claus. What is there to know? But Chip acted as though he knew something else, so I indulged him. “”Okay, who?” The answer shocked me. “Your dad!” I reacted as anyone might with such news, I punched him in the face. He cried and ran home. Later that night my folks got a call from the Fry’s and my dad told Mr. Fry that he would talk with me (I was listening). Dad explained that he was indeed Santa and that I shouldn’t tell my little sister because she was too young to understand, a secret that I have kept until this very day.

This has been a terrible secret for me to keep. Year after year I watch the TV shows and movies about Santa and I know who they are about. I laugh at all of the images of Santa and would love to ask him how he pulled all of that off. But I haven’t. I didn’t want to spoil anything for my dad, I have never asked about the details of this second life. I know that for my dad it will have something to do with computers, but for now it is his life and my secret.

An Inconvenient Truth: I was listening to the news (via a podcast) tonight and I heard a piece of news that certainly won't make the frontpage. The first was regarding Al Gore's well publicized energy gluttony. The leader of the global warming crowd flies around on his private jet telling us how we need to cut back on our energy consumption, but consider this:

"Over the past two years, the gas and electric bills for his 20-room mansion and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

Nashville Gas Company billed the family during the same period an average of $536 a month for the main house and $544 for the pool house in 2006, and $640 for the main house and $525 for the pool house in 2005. That averages out to be $29,268 in gas and electric bills for the Gores in 2006, $31,512 in 2005." (Baxter Bulletin)

He doesn't use solar or wind power, he doesn't drive a hybrid or electric vehicle. In fact, I can't see one thing in his life that is an example of anything but excess. Seems kind of hypocritical from the guy who gave us the Internet.

But what about the evil oil barron George W. Bush? Can't you just see him burning off one of his oil wells in the backyard of his mansion? Well, he doesn't have a mansion.

According to a story in the April 29, 2001, Chicago Tribune, "Bush loves ecology — at home," the president's house is a model of ecological purity.

"The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude," wrote freelance reporter Rob Sullivan. "Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this 'eco-friendly' dwelling use about 25 percent of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

"A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem."

So when they line up and rail against the president for his evil ecological policies in favor of the liberal left, lets take a look at what their lives are like. Bush isn't screaming from every platform that will pay him to tell us how bad things are, he is just quietly living an example that we should all live.