Thinking about a new HDTV? Wait a month!

With a slowing economy and Sony's competitive attempts to be number one again in the TV market, it looks like HDTV prices are going to drop significantly beginning in May.

To give you an idea of how much you might save, for instance, Sony's cutting $400 off its 46-inch KDL-46S4100, to $1599, and $500 off its newest 1080p 40-incher, to $1199. So we're looking at discounts in the 20-25 percent range, which is none too shabby, and definitely worth holding off for a couple weeks on your Best Buy TV hunting expedition.

Link: Gizmodo

The Ultimate Act of Sportsmanship

ESPN has a story about softball players helping each other in the midst of a college playoff game that's worth a read. Sara Tucholsky tore her ACL on her way to first base after hitting a home run. Had any member of her team helped her around the rest of the bases, it would have been deemed an out and substituting a pinch runner would have forfeited the homerun for a single. However, one of her competitors, Mallory Holtman, knew that it wouldn't be an out if she were to help Tucholsky. So at the cost of three runs, she and another teammate helped Tucholsky around the bases.

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.

Link: ESPN

What are the candidates thinking? You decide!

Says-it.com is similar to the 'Make your own headline' site, but it has many many more options. My favorites are the political captions. Pick your politician, setting and enter your own phrase. The site will generate a photo for you. If you really like it, you can even order a button from them.

Besides politicians, they also have a dozen other image generators including church signs, mix tapes, concert tickets and on and on.

Link: Says-It.com

Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

We must stop this from happening. I'll start a petition immediately.

Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Link: The Onion News Network

Dell's Earth Day contribution

On Earth Day, Dell unveiled a prototype for a desktop computer they expect to release later this year. The computer's case is made of bamboo, is ~80% smaller than their standard desktop computers and uses 70% less power.

I think we'll be seeing more and more of these smaller computers in the next year. Laptop computers have been optimized to use less power to sustain battery life and manufacturers are starting to re-use laptop parts for desktop computers. Their processing speed hasn't caught up to what can be found in a desktop computer, but for most people that's not important.

Link: Earth2Tech

Jon Stewart, Supporting the Troops

This from the Washington Post:

Tuesday's USO-Metro awards dinner was about as old-school patriotic as it gets: Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund singing the National Anthem, tenor Daniel Rodriguez performing "God Bless America," 34 Medal of Honor recipients in the audience, and a giant American flag hanging in Pentagon City's Ritz-Carlton ballroom.

And at the center of it all: Jon Stewart.

The Bush-bashing "Daily Show" host, equal-opportunity satirist, sultan of snark? That Jon Stewart?

Turns out the comedian has been quietly visiting soldiers at Walter Reed and Bethesda hospitals, trips he began in 2004 to better understand the Iraq war. "I felt that I was living in a world of theory," he told the audience, "but I hadn't touched the reality and the humanity of it." The first patient he met was "funnier than I was" -- and Stewart's been a regular ever since.

"I certainly get a lot more out of it than they do," a subdued Stewart said after dinner. His visits with the troops hasn't softened his position on what he calls a "dopey" war: "If anything, it's made me angrier. . . . You can be for the war, against the war, but you can't be uninformed about it. To see the human cost is part of the equation."

Stewart was presented the group's Merit Award by Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tuesday's trip also included a stop at Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The one thing he hasn't done? Go on a USO trip to Iraq. "I would go there but I'm chicken [poop]," he said.

Link: The Washington Post

Pennsylvania: Be warry of early returns

... or what (not) to watch for in the primary results.

Contrary to most states in the US, Pennsylvania usually gets results from the larger metropolitan areas followed by more rural results later in the evening. This means it's quite possible we'll see Obama doing well early on due to Philly results, then Clinton will slowly pull away as the night goes on. This isn't a prediction, just something to keep in mind as results begin to come in.

Additionally, exit polling should not be considered an indication of the outcome. It should be reviewed after the fact to understand who voted for who, but is not likely to tell you who will be victorious or what the results will be.

Lastly, here are some polling images from FiveThirtyEight.com showing the breakdown of support by congressional districts from the latest polls available:




How Obama does in the southeastern part of the state will determine how he does overall. If his campaign has driven enough new voters to swing greater than 60% wins here he'll have a very good night (Note: I'm not saying he'll win, but I don't think he needs to 'win' to have a good night. ;)

Links:
Politico
FiveThirtyEight

Debate or Debacle

"The first hour of last night’s debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse…which is my job! Stop doing my job! That’s what I’m here for! I’m the silly man!"

-Jon Stewart

ABC News is being lampooned by/in the press for its most recent presidential debate. The Daily Show has the best summary of the idiocy of the questions and their ordering.

In another segment, Jon Stewart lampoons a question from a 'viewer' named Nash McCabe who asked Senator Obama why he didn't wear an American flag on his lapel. Curious as to why ABC played a video of someone else asking this question instead of asking it themselves, a reader/contributor of TalkingPointsMemo investigated McCabe and where she'd been seen previously. Turns out, she was interviewed by the New York Times earlier this month and was quite vocal in her dislike of Obama.

There's nothing inherently unethical about using someone known over a stranger you've tracked down on your own, but allowing someone with such a clear disposition against a candidate seems... unbiased. Especially when the question they ask is not so much a question as much as a slightly-veiled-insult doubting a candidate's love of their country.

In a McClatchy Newspaper interview, McCabe acknowledges her bias and attributes it to the fact that Senator Obama turned his back on the U.S. flag before the pledge of allegiance was finished. She and her husband have had a tough lot in life from the sounds of it. They're strugling to earn a living and are fighting difficult health issues but the most important issue for this woman is why Senator Obama isn't wearing a flag pin? She strikes me as exactly the kind of person Obama was referring to when he mentioned 'bitter' voters. Whether it was insulting or not is up to each voter to decide, but I can't help think he's right when I hear from people like her. People who should be the loudest critics pushing for change at the highest levels of our government. These are the people who should be looking for fresh ideas on the economy, education, financial oversight.... but after years of both parties doing nothing for voters like herself, she's given up on these issues and is instead focusing on symbols of American patriotism.

Links:
Mother Jones Journalists send open letter to ABC News

The Daily Show

New York Times

McClatchy

March fundraising numbers

March fundraising numbers are out. Obama had another great month. Clinton not so much. From First Read:

*** The woman in red? The official March fundraising numbers are out. They are basically meaningless numbers -- since much of the money has already been spent -- but going into April, Obama had more than $40 million in cash to spend in the primary, after raising approx. $41 million. As for Clinton, her March fundraising report has just gone online, but we don't yet know the primary/general split of the $20 million she raised or the primary/general split of the $31 million in cash on hand. Yet at least $22 million of that $31 million is designated for the general, leaving Clinton less than $10 million to spend at the end of March. By the way, when you factor in Clinton's $10 million+ debt, she was technically operating in the red at the end of March.

Link: First Read

President Bill Clinton supported Obama's hopeful message... in 2004

Back in 2004 when former President Bill Clinton was speaking at the democratic convention, he said:

“Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate's trying to scare you and the other one's trying to get you to think; if one candidate's appealing to your fears and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That's the best.”

Applying that 'law' to the current election cycle, which candidate is the more hopeful?

Democratic primary the solution to ailing US economy?

To anyone who says the continuation of the democratic primary process is killing the Democratic party, I say WRONG! This is all a part of a brilliant democratic strategy to reinvigorate the US economy. We can't wait for President Bush's stimulus checks to arrive, so instead the Clinton and Obama campaigns are taking donations from Americans who can afford them and redistributing them to states that need the money the most.

In a recent example of this we need look no further than Pennsylvania where the two campaigns have distributed more than $16 million dollars* to stimulate regional television stations and newspapers.

A few more years of this and our country's economy will be humming along!

Source: First Read

Obama to appear on today's Daily Show

Tonight, on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Obama will be appearing on The Daily Show.

This is his second appearance, here's a segment from his first:

Update, here are the clips from his visit on April 21st:

Link: The Daily Show

A letter to Optimus Prime from his Geico auto insurance

Dear Mr. Prime,

We have received your accident-claim reports for the month of June—they total 27. I regret to inform you that GEICO will not be able to reimburse you for any of those repairs. I feel that I have sent the same letter to you once a month for the last six months, and I am now sending it again.

The letter continues and is quite clever.

Link: McSweeneys.net

Wal-Mart rents out buildings to self - skips out on taxes

Wal-Mart owes back taxes, state says

Paying rent to itself cuts millions off retailer's tax bill

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has avoided millions of dollars in state taxes by paying rent on 87 Wisconsin properties in a way that the state Department of Revenue calls an "abuse and distortion of income."

As a result, state tax auditors say, Wal-Mart owes more than $17.7 million in back corporate income taxes, interest and penalties for 1998, 1999 and 2000. More could be due for later years.

Revenue Department lawyer Mark Zimmer argues that the world's largest retailer is not paying its fair share of taxes that support public schools, local police and fire departments and the highways it uses to transport what it sells in Wisconsin.

As a result, Wal-Mart shifts the burden of paying for those services "to individuals and small businesses who are unable to set up such elaborate mechanisms," Zimmer told the Tax Appeals Commission, which is considering the matter.

This company continues to amaze me and not in a good way. Besides avoiding state taxes there's their recent decision to sue brain damaged Deborah Shank

Link: Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

I'm making headlines and now you can too!

Create your own headlines! In fact, you can create your own newspaper!

The Newspaper Clipping Generator lets you create a newspaper, a headline and an article and uses them to make an image of a newspaper like the one above. Neat huh?

Link: Fodey - Newspaper Clipping Generator

The Best Financial Advice You'll Never Get

Just before Google's 2004 IPO, the company's management became concerned that they were about to make several thousand young employees overnight millionaires. 'Wealth management' firms were already circling their headquarters trying to connect with the employees in advance of the IPO.

Fearing the employees' lack of financial savvy would allow them to easily fall victim to manipulation by hungry brokers, one of the vice presidents began internal financial seminars. This article from San Francisco Magazine describes what the Google employees learned and why you aren't likely to hear the advice from your financial adviser.

One by one, some of the most revered names in investment theory were brought in to school a class of brilliant engineers, programmers, and cybergeeks on the fine art of personal investing, something few of them had thought much about. First to arrive was Stanford University’s William (Bill) Sharpe, 1990 Nobel Laureate economist and professor emeritus of finance at the Graduate School of Business. Sharpe drew a large and enthusiastic audience, which he could have wowed with a PowerPoint presentation on his “gradient method for asset allocation optimization” or his “returns-based style analysis for evaluating the performance of investment funds.” But he spared the young geniuses all that complexity and offered a simple formula instead. “Don’t try to beat the market,” he said. Put your savings into some indexed mutual funds, which will make you just as much money (if not more) at much less cost by following the market’s natural ebb and flow, and get on with building Google.

Link: San Francisco Magazine

An Inconvenient Truth 2... Sorta

Al Gore recently gave a presentation at TED that was a shorter, updated version of the slide show from his 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth. The description from the site:

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

It's only about 30 minutes long and definitely worth watching.

Link: Al Gore @ TED

Get Paid to Recycle Electronics!

Costco and the US Postal Service have both recently launched programs to encourage consumer recycling of electronics. The US Postal Service is offering mailers in 1,500 post offices across the country and they will ship and recycle your electronics for free.

Costco is taking the process a step further and in addition to offering free shipping, they are offering credit for the value of whatever you recycle. They have an online calculator on their website that will evaluate how much you can expect to get for your goods.

If you're in Seattle, King County has another option for you. The Take it Back Network is a partnership between various local businesses that have agreed to accept electronics for recycling at various locations in the area. The catch? You have to pay them to accept items you want recycled.

Links:
USPS
Costco
King County - Take it Back Network

The Secrets to Stain Removal

Ever wonder how to get coffee stains out of a carpet? What about grease, blood, shoe polish, tar or egg yolks? The School of Fibre Science & Technology has a few cleaning tips plus instructions on what cleansers are most effective against each.

Link: The School of Fibre Science & Technology

Confessions Of A Debt Settlement Company Worker

A former employee of a debt consolidation firm has written a scathing review of how the company works. Her main point, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Granted, in this case a certain amount of skepticism is warranted given the anonymous source.

Our sales team and client liaisons ensure clients that if they withhold payments from their creditors, our representatives will effectively negotiate with the creditor, and all will be well. Yet, it states in the contract that our company does not interfere with the creditor/client relationship, and does not instruct clients to cease payment to the creditor.

Many clients had their wages garnished, had liens put on their property and their credit ruined because of not making payments to their creditors. The company was covered by our air-tight contract. If anyone client threatened to see a lawyer my boss would throw the signed contract in their face, and dare them to seek legal council. Usually when a client had finished paying our fees they couldn't afford a lawyer anyways.

Link: Consumerist

Recommended Reading: 4/8/08

Obama's Lama Problem

Michael Bérubé

Here, by contrast, are the firewall voters; these are the people the campaign is talking to and depending on. People who might be convinced that Barack Arrogant Obama wasn’t really a real law professor like he says he was. People who can be convinced that Obama thugs are trying to prevent them from voting and participating in our great American democracy. People who think Hussein Obama X is Muslim and that Jeremiah Wright will burn this mother to the ground. And, not least, people who fear that Obama will turn them into a llama.

Link: TalkingPointsMemo

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Obama Didn't Want My Money

I just had the strangest experience. A presidential candidate gave me back my donation, told me he would not accept it because of what I do for a living, and it left me more committeed to the candidate and conviced that he is the person that must be the next president.

Link: DailyKos

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Poll shows Obama gaining in Pa. race

...the Quinnipiac University poll shows Hillary Rodham Clinton still out front among Democratic voters there. Fifty percent of those surveyed favored Clinton, while 44 percent said they were backing Obama.

Clinton's margin in the survey has been shrinking over the past few weeks. In mid-March she had a lead of 12 percentage points. Last week, that had dropped to nine, and now it's six.

Hmmm. 12, 9, 6.... following this logic where does that leave Pennsylvania two weeks from now on 4/22?

Link: MSNBC

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Obama Moves to 9-point Lead Over Clinton

Obama's current 52% support level matches his highest of the year, although his margin over Clinton was slightly larger, at 52% to 42%, in March 27-29 polling. So far this year Obama has been unable to sustain a significant lead over Clinton for more than a few days.

Link: Gallup

Will hosting the Olympics force change in China?

Over the weekend, my friend David and I were talking about the Olympics and the decision to hold them in China. I had suggested I was happy that they were going to be held there because this seemed to be putting an enormous amount of attention and pressure on the Chinese government. I said I felt I'd seen a regular stream of articles in the news about protests and that this is putting some pressure on China and also keeping the issue of their human rights record in the public eye.

David disagreed with me, both about the likelihood of change being brought about but also in the amount of coverage that he felt he'd seen. So when I saw this article about the Olympic torch in France and the security required to keep it lit, I wanted to share it.

UPDATE:
More public protests... this time in San Francisco on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq

Some excerpts from yesterday's LA Times piece on sexual assaults of female members of the U.S. military by OTHER MEMBERS OF THE U.S. MILITARY.

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004.

According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military.

What exactly does it say of the safety of women in our military that they have to be more worried about their fellow soldiers raping them than they do of enemy fire?

Link: Los Angeles Times

Comcast sacrificing quality for quantity

In order to compete with DirecTV's forthcoming high definition channel lineup, Comcast is adding more and more HD channels of their own. However, they only have two ways of adding more channels to their system. Remove existing channels or reduce the quality of others. Since every channel is someone's favorite, Comcast has started reducing the quality of their HD channels to make room for more. So while your 720p picture may still have 720 lines of progressively scanned picture, the mpeg2 compression is now sacrificing between 5-36% of the picture quality.

A video junkie at AVSForum.com captured the same HD TV shows from Comcast's broadcasts and from Verizon's FIOS TV service and compared their resulting file sizes and screenshots. The results show that various channels on Comcast are being compressed, in some cases dramatically, in order to reduce their size. This reduction is what allows Comcast to add more channels to their existing network infrastructure. Not everyone may notice the diminished quality in picture, but judging from the screenshots on the AVS site, I bet I will.

Obama - How to become a president

Senator Obama was asked by a two-year-old how to become president. Here's his response:

"Here's what you gotta do:"

1. "You have to work really hard in school and get really good grades."
2. [To the boy] "Who is this, your grandma? You have to do everything that grandma tells you to do."
3. "When you get out of school, then you gotta go to college."
4. "After you go to college, you have to hopefully find a job that's helping other people, so that people appreciate that you're helping them, and they'll say that Michael will make a good president some day."

"If you do all those things, then you just might be a president some day,"

Link: FirstRead - MSNBC