When people make popular websites talking about how tough he is, he sues them. Not a snappy as some of the 400 or so that are on the website, but I have to say there is massive irony here. What did they expect? It’s Chuck Norris!

I’ve always wanted to learn to use a milling machine but getting your hands on one is a bit of challenge. You pretty much have to go to Community College if you’re an adult and want to learn. Even then, you only make what they say you can and might offer some off-class time for your own limited projects. Tech Shop now gives everyone access to all the cool tools you see on Discovery and you can make your own crap!

This is a boon to the American inventor where even if you have a great idea, the biggest hurdle is making a prototype. I suspect a lot of people will be seeking out cheap / easy CAD / CAM tools…

The Austin one is opening soon… w00t. GK did a great cover on this.

I’ve never been a fan of strikes. Long ago we dealt with the issues of industrial age company towns and abusive corporate evil, right? I guess not. I wanted to disagree with the writers in Hollywood but I don’t. I think their beef is 100% legit. They SHOULD get paid when their work is shown ANYWHERE.

A great short on YouTube pretty much sums it up.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/PzRHlpEmr0w" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

It’s all about getting paid.

Now, studio people, just pay up and let me get my Jon Stewart back. Oh, and Lost too.

I’ve liven in a few communities with and without homeowners associations. I think people don’t take the “severity” of their prospective HOA into account when buying a home and they should. If you’re a whiny old person who likes to call the police if you hear the neighbors talking outside at 10:01PM, then you might like where I used to live in Shady Hollow. If you left your trash can out more than a few hours after the pickup, a woman in a minivan will be patrolling the neighborhood, taking photos of “offenders” which then get sent to you. It happened to me a few times. I used language that made them stop. It was not nice language.

I’ve also lived in places where you can do just about anything and no one can say a word unless it’s a federal crime. That has downsides too. A neighbor across the street never mowed her lawn and piled up logs, bikes, bricks and other detritus in her yard. It was terrible to look at. Some neighbors got together and waited for her to go out of town and completely leveled her yard so it looked somewhat presentable. She got home and completely lost her mind in the street, sheriking at the top of her lungh acusing the neighborhood of being against her. The cops came. It was a scene.

So, there is a balance if you want one. You have to figure out where you want to live based on what the HOA will restrict and if that meets your needs. If you want to live like a slob and never mow, then live where that’s normal. Or, Arizona where there is no grass.

This guy, well, I assume the cops nor the HOA must care much because although I live in a pretty permissive ‘hood, this would NOT fly. Yes, I’d love to own one buy I’d truly feel bad for the neighbors if I fired this thing up at dinner time. I mean, it’s not a fly-in community…

But, it does look like he’s moving on to another (probably louder) project.

I like the note in there saying that you should be well familiar with turbine engines. I’m pretty handy but… Turbines? That’s a little over my head.

I recently complained about social networking overload as I now have profiles on
Friendster – I have not used it in 2 years but it’s still there
MySpace – Which I think is pretty pointless unless you’re 14
Facebook – Gets better but still lacks in many ways
LinkedIn – Good for knowing who you’re connected to for business purposes (Very Useful)
Plaxo – This seems to be a very cool new site that ties in different ways of knowing people (business or personal) and streams feeds from all the lamprey-like social apps that dangle out there in the Internet-o-sphere.

But now there’s Spock and i don’t think i get it yet. It seems to dredge the Internet for data, puts “tags” on your profile and what’s even weirder, I had a profile there but didn’t even join. Once I did, I couldn’t tell who was in my network, who I invited, who accepted, it’s very loose and unclear. And I think that’s their point for now, to draw people in.

I think it’s creepy. That’s my initial impression. I received 3 invites in the last few days so the Spock biomass cloud is moving across my glob of first and second degree connections.

It asks all sorts of personal questions and I can’t control a lot of what is in there about me. I might change my mind later but for now, I’m weirded out and may just stick to Facebook & Plaxo for now.

All these social network sites are trying to cobble together some sort of “web” (how weird is it to use that word when describing the web…) where they gobble up your metadata from other sites making me even more dispersed on the web.

I have an idea for a new web service, it’s “clean-slate”. you enter all the sites where you may or may not have been, enter passwords for them (or set it to retrieve it for you). Then, here’s the good part, it nukes all of your on-line presences at once. Everything from that old blogger account where you lambasted a colleague to the Flikr account with the pictures of Amsterdam you should have never posted. A powerful worm that scrapes your name from every search engine in one perfect stroke.

Then, when the dust settles, you can load your contact database up into MySpace-Book-Axo-Spock and start the cycle all over again. But with better headshots this time.

I never watched Speed Racer as a kid. I don’t think it made much sense to me since I think I expected more of a real race and less… weird stuff…

But, a lot of people like it so, as Hollywood does, they make a movie out of it. But… Instead of making it “normal”, it’s pretty baked. In fact, it’s completely baked and I might even watch it in spite of the terribly weird trailer. You have to watch it, it’s, um, odd.

Just so there are no misconceptions here, Uggs are, without any question, bad. They have zero redeeming value whatsoever. If there were an argument that in colder climes they are great (See: Colorado) I counter with Sorel, which is what you see people in cold-weather cities actually wear.

When I lived in Santa Fe I bought a pair of Sorels. I wore them every winter, every day, in snow, slush and even around the house since they were comfortable. They’re lined with a pressed felt-like substance that never got stinky, in fact it never even had a smell at all even after about 18 seasons. Yes, I had them for 18 years (The Caribou model) and I only got rid of them because I neglected to take care of some of the leather on the uppers and they finally cracked a bit. Not beyond repair but it made sense to put them to pasture.

Back to Uggs, they are not hardy. Not at all, in fact they just love to pick up filth with their inconceivably untreated suede body and permanent liner. They’re not waterproof, thir soles are soft and wear right down. It’s just a bad design from all angles but the visual is the pinnacle of why these boots are horrid. They have the ability to make anyone looks downright silly. In particular, cute girls in skirts where you just have to cock your head and ask “what’s that all about”. This guy seems to hate Uggs as much as I do.

So, I get that years of 5″ heels have women looking for more comfortable alternatives but this is like quitting your Wall Street job for a change of pace and becoming a Park Ranger in Utah. No need to go that far to the extreme my friend. I personally think Uggs are the brainchild of a secret consortium of athlete’s foot powder & ointment manufacturers to drum up a bunch of new foot-rot business.

So, I do have to come clean here, I do own shoes with the Ugg brand on themm BUT they are house shoes which are traditionally lined and these Uggs look exactly like the bog-standard house shoe but are made from sheep (or whatever poor creature was sacrificed for their products) so while I find the boots abhorrent, their house shoes are cool.

No, that doesn’t make me a hypocrite. Example: I don’t like or own Fords BUT I’d drive a Ford GT (not the Mustang, the supercar). While a company might mostly make crap, sometimes they have a gem here and there (Ford’s SVT Focus is actually a very decent track car).

If you know someone with Uggs, be gentle but firm. Offer up some nice alternatives. A blue tarp and duct-tape would be an improvement.

Keep calm and carry on.

I think I’ve beat this drum more than a few times but someone else articulated it quite well. The fact is, we have too many things that do their own thing and thats not good.

The wish list?
(From Gizmodo – Jason Chen)
• HD DVR Functinality. For example, a TiVo or a Windows Media Center box’s video recording capabilities.
• DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray playback. All in one.
• Gaming. Throw an Xbox 360/PS3/Wii in there and we’ve got ourselves a date. Oh, and we’ll want PC gaming as well.
• Slingbox-style broadcasting. Have this box stream to every device you own, be it PSP, iPhone, Windows Mobile or a laptop.
• On Demand. Make it friendly with your cable provider’s content.
• Format Agnostic. Want Apple’s movies? Done. Want Amazon’s movies? Done. Want Netflix’s movies? Done. Make it play back content from every digital online store.
• Friendly interface. Everyone loves the TiVo interface, but let’s take that an expand it to encompass every sort of media you could want to play back on this miracle box.
• Plug and Play with other devices. Got a Zune that you want to play back music from? Just dock it into the box. Got a camera you shot an hour of footage with and want to watch? Plug it in.

–

I dont have a lot to add to that other than the ability to stream between rooms with similar devices or even better, a single aggregation box that acts as a home head-end for media and smaller “client” boxes (could be built into the tv too…) that can push that to a monitor.

I can dream too, right?

A few years back something happened with Cadillac. I guess they finally looked at those reports on who their customers were and realized that their average consumer was older than the average bucket-kicking age. They needed to turn it around ant appeal to an audience ab out 3 or 4 decades younger without blowing off pappy.

The CTS always looked cool and when they came out with the CTS-V AND actually used it in real racing series, I was impressed. Not only did they keep their base audience, people my age didn’t see them anymore as staging coaches for impending hearse rides.

The New 09 CTS-V looks to be a nice ride and with some 500+ HP, it’s quite a little hammer. I don’t fit in them due to my height and this bizarre American fascination with standard sunroofs and high seats. So, unless they could take a special order for a manual seat and no sunroof (HAHAHAHA ROFL, like they actually do that anymore…), I’ll not be panting too much over it.

So, I’ll keep my panting for the Pontiac GXP-R which in the Grand-Am series was spanking the Porsche 997 from Sebring to Road Atlanta. So I’ll give it the respect it deserves.

Wow, cars from GM I like, that’s usually a very short list.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/EB4F7Q0vwAE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Drag racing is a simple formula. Reaction time, power, traction in one (hopefully) direction. I’ve done it, I liked it but it’s not compelling enough to build a dedicated car. I like curves, sue me.

Then you take Top Gear, arguably the best car show EVER, and they decide to drag a car, it’s, well, special. How special? Veyron vs. RAF Eurofighter Jet. The results are surprising and Top Gear always delivers the goods with stunning cinematography. I don’t know who does their cinematography but they’re worthy of any Hollywood epic movie. It’s just a pleasure to watch.

I watched a documentary once where they talked about how much cheaper it is for manufacturers to use blisterpacking over other types of packaging. While I understand that, the lack of a secret key to get into them (like a perforation or zip-wire) is just dumb. I am sure (without any actual data) that Dec 25 is the #1 day of the year for hand lacerations due in total to cheap and infuriating blister packs.

I have a good selection of tools so I don’t have much of a problem, the tin-snips laugh at blisterpacks but are a little unweildy and smell of motor oil. Still, between those and my sheet metal shears, I’m good.

For the rest of the world, a simple can opener might just be the trick.

It’s as simple as that. I can’t believe that it took so long for this to come out as a good tool.

I thought this was pure BS when I saw a Japanese version that was a bit hard to follow. That’s counterintuitive considering this is supposed to be simple and fast.

Fold A Shirt In 2 Seconds – video powered by Metacafe

But… It does work, and it’s kind of cool too.

I’m a huge car nerd. Not a nerd for huge cars, you know, I like cars a lot and could (and would) bore you to tears with the minutia of car details. To be clear, I like particular cars and particular kinds of cars and to go into detail would be boring (see above) but suffice it to say, I like interesting performance cars.

“Ah” you say, I like sports cars. Well, yes and no. What I consider a sports car has more to do with actual performance than pure horsepower, torque, 0-60 times or lateral Gs. I’m about aesthetic and dynamics. Two cars that you might not think go together are the Miata and the Elise. Both cars with a decent set of tires will tear up a track* (road course, not those silly ovals) better than your off-the-shelf fakers like the Mustang GT. Sure, it sounds like a fast car, and at a red light it will make smoke and noise, but it’s not a sports car. In fact, it’s name gives you a hint about what it’s actually about, it’s a GT (Grand Tourer) but without any of the Grand or Touring part. A real GT would be an Audi S5, Mercedes CLK63 and possibly an M6. And yes I do like those although the M6 has lost the plot between the silly BMW design language and it’s massive weight.

When it comes down to what I think a real sports car is, I’ll always point to the 911 with some love for the M3, Ferrari F430 as well as the VW R32 which is fast as stink. So, yes, I’m a bit all over the place and I could go on and on.

But, since this is a passion of mine, I’ll go into the weeds even more. When it comes to owning a sports car you can fall into a number of areas. Most people just buy the car for status or that they actually know a little about the car but that’s it. They just drive it around. Groceries and all* (I lug groceries in my car…). Then there are the enthusiasts who will modify the car a bit and get a little sideways on the weekends. Moving into more serious territory you get people who actually race their cars and attend track days and DE events. These people know off hand their tire pressures (for each tire) as well as treadwear ratings, spring rates, sway bar thickness and surely, wheel horsepower since they just dyno’d the car.

That’s me and I got there like most people do, a little at a time. You do get to a point where your daily driver starts to complain a bit and you feel bad beating up on it over a good season of autocrosses, DEs and track days. You also have to drive this car to work so your eyes wander a bit “I should have a car just for this stuff”. See, you can’t call it a race car because then you have to be that guy (or girl) who wants their own race car which could come off as silly. But it’s not.

The rub is, you tend to want a race car that is of the marque you like so in my case, a Porsche 911 race car, and yes, I feel silly saying to people that I want to keep my car in good nick so I’m getting another one to play with. But it’s true. I do need another one. And a trailer to carry it. And a truck to pull it. Oh lord, this is starting to sound expensive. Oh, wait, it is.

Still, I can dream, and plan, and dream some more. But I will, in the not too too too distant future have a 911 race car. That doesn’t stop me from shopping. The problem is, I love all race cars* (road race cars, not that silly NASCAR stuff) so I get all misty when i see one on sale. But every once in a while someone has one for sale that when you see it, it’s lust. A scary, maniacal, tortured lust that is the most depraved of coveting. Today I felt that.

This particular 963 is a Carrera 4, built in Weissach as an RS. Porsche does not use the RS name lightly. If it’s an RS, it’s a proper track car and this is a special, rare, proper race car in stunning condition and pretty much ready to drop off trackside. I think it needs a set of R-compounds…

Some people dream of Lamborghini Gallardos, Bentleys, even Ferraris. I dream of 15 year old 911s with stripped interiors. The funny thing is, I couldn’t leave this in the garage and only take it out for track time. I’d throw some street tires on it and take it grocery shopping.

The buzz is office 2.0 which I take as “all that stuff you used to do is old 1.0 stuff”. All these new on-line applications we’re used to having on out desktop are now broken down into basic components, by different developers in different UIs. I get that someone looked at Word 2007 and said “Wow, that’s a bit complex, we can do something a little more slick”. And people around the world saw these monolithic office suites and thought they’d take a stab at a better solution that’s also web-based. And, for the most part they have proven that little shops CAN take the old stodgy apps and make them more useful. But there is a bit of an issue with personal bandwidth when it comes to how many apps can you manage on-line (more in a sec).

I might argue that this new trend is actually Office 6.0. My logic is time line and technology based:

1.0 Paper ledgers, binders, books, notes
2.0 Filing systems and typewriters
3.0 TTY terminals and word processing machines
4.0 Personal computers with floppy disks, basic spreadsheets & databases
5.0 Modern PCs with office suites, email and file sharing
6.0 Virtualized office applications.

But “Office 6.0″ is just not sexy, it sounds more like a simple version number and that’s not exciting for people. The fact is, the technology IS exciting. The problem is, we’re completely swamped in on-line accounts for blogs, feeds, ebay, google, banks, credit cards, airline miles, social networking and their little apps and the list goes on. So people are going to be hesitant to take on yet another username and password for yet another website that has a percentage of their intellectual property sitting on it. Again, we’re becoming more dispersed in an effort to be more productive and I think that while it’s all very cool and innovative, it’s counterintuitive.

wondering how I’m going to get the tree out of the attic without ending up in an ambulance.

I’m not one for trendy tees but… This is outstanding. Yeah, it’s Peter Griffin from Family Guy.