The Holiday Quickies

December 27, 2004 at 1:51 pm · Filed under On the Radar

With the bulk of Holiday work behind us I think we can all sigh with relief. This year we had to play more of a poor mans Xmas. With all the money we have going to emergency funds or capital contributions there is really not much more to go around so we gave what we could and some heartfelt creative gifts that went over well. My Nephew who is 1.10 year old going on 5 recieved a landslide of packages. As we were watching with at first enthusiasm, we began to feel overwhelmed, as did he. I think a child needs only a few choice entertaining and educational toys that have an arc to allow others to contribute to a goal or series. Anything else is just too much. Their memories aren’t that developed for so much, and with the growing attention span too many I feel leads to uncommitted distractions. Anyhow, he’ll have fun, and his mom is planning on cycling a bulk of toys to storage and cycling them in/out for him as it merits.

Big question, what’d we get? We were lavished fairly well even being that everyone else said it’d be a skimpy year too. I recieved a Breadmachine from Robin’s folks, a weather monitoring station from my dad, an MP3 player from mom, a Bodum Santos from Jeff, a slew of DVD’s and CD’s of things I was looking to pick up, a few gift certificates and other things that are just falling through my swiss cheese of a head. I’ll try and get around to some reviews on these items since they are all quality products.

Thursday Robin & I are going to head to Myrtle Beach. Robin’s wants to see her Sister and some visiting family that is in the area. We will celebrate the new year down there and be heading back the next day.

I feel like I have a slew of things that need working on and really need to plot them out of my head. I really wish Wifi was on the highway, I could get a lot more milage out of myself if I could do more work while on the road. Of late I’ve really been armoring the new server. It’s been designed quite well IMO with a very generalized config to allow for flexibility of virtual domains and the local network that Jeff and I are assembling. I got Jeff a WRT54G for Xmas and installed Sveasoft Linksys firmware replacement. It has allowed us to bridge our routers and tripple the output of the units.

I am still working on a site revision. It eats away at me because I want to display all the information I can with the right flows. However I have not recommitted myself to it because of the amount of work it involves. Now that I cannot just have CSS work flawless across all browsers (PITA PITA) I need to simplify my idea and bring about just the essence of what I was trying for. Have patience, you, me, yea.. The story of life.

I’m alive and well, hope those of you who track me are as too,

-a

Comments

A Look at the EFF’s Year

December 22, 2004 at 7:22 am · Filed under On the Radar

This year why don’t you give to an organization thats soul job in life is the defense of your digital civil liberties. The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A look at their accomplishments this year:

• We helped eVisa.com win its fight against the Visa credit card dynasty over fair use of the word “visa” in domain names.
• We (with your support) helped derail the government’s CAPPS II passenger-profiling system (although we need your help to continue to fight its evil reincarnation, Secure Flight).
• We won the Grokster case in the 9th Circuit. The Supreme Court has decided to hear this case in March 2005.
• We helped individuals assert their due process rights in cases brought against them by the recording industry.
• We put forth our voluntary collective licensing proposal, explaining how artists could get paid without suing music lovers.
• We won the case that got Diebold punished for misusing copyright law.
• We won the Bunner case, which held that republishing information about reverse engineering was not prohibited by trade secret law.
• We started a patent busting campaign and identified the ten most egregious patent threats to technology and freedom.
• We were a leader in the fight for a verifiable paper trail on electronic voting machines.
• We expanded our international work, participating in the Digital Video Broadcasting group and in WIPO.
• We defended Jibjab’s fair use of “This Land Is Your Land” in its presidential parody “This Land” and in the process learned that the Woody Guthrie song had fallen into the public domain.
• We defended technologists using smart card readers from an overzealous DirecTV.
• We (with your support) helped make sure terrible legislation like the PIRATE Act and the Induce Act did not pass.
• We drafted a mock legal complaint to show how the Induce Act would kill off technologies like the iPod.
• We successfully challenged the Child Online Protection Act at the Supreme Court.
• We wrote and circulated a paper on best practices for Online Service Providers.
• We fought the expansion of the DMCA, writing amicus briefs supporting Skylink’s right to make interoperable garage door openers and Static Control’s right to make aftermarket printer cartridges. (We helped win both cases.)
• We represented (and continue to represent) Indymedia in an effort to uncover why their servers were seized and to assert their First Amendment rights.
• We formed an Advisory Board of some of the smartest people working on these issues.

Ask yourself what you are doing to ensure that your rights are kept yours.

-a

Comments

Appraisal Today

December 20, 2004 at 3:03 pm · Filed under On the Radar

When I purchased my side of the duplex I did it with style. I got in with nothing down. I took no points, tossed it in a 3 year to ARM for 30 at 6.8%. I figured I’d refi it when the time was right for a better package. I’m a year out from when I go adjustable and I decided to go ahead and give Wachovia another account. Right now I’m already redoing my equity line to open up into a better area than I previously had (need a little more capital to add to the Caffe’). The bank, to say the least, is happy with my consumption of services. Working with our local branch man Anthony Bare he hooked me up with Scott Burns in Wachovia’s Mortgage department. It looks like they are going to lock me into a 5.25% for 15yrs for only an additional 150$ a month. Sounds pretty good to me. Robin and I check out amazing enough on our credit scores. I think that our sound ability to finance has really hit a home run here.

Anyhow, on to the topic which was the appraisal. We slaved most of the weekend on a real ditch effort for cleaning and purging. We easily threw out 75% of our clothing and old-junk. It is amazing how easy it is to keep things rather than give them up. We held no quarter for those items which were iffy. Either you have purpose or you don’t. You are showing aging, or you are not. Everything in respectable condition is in my truck ready for Goodwill. Anything that has gone past their needs hit the trashcan. This has caused a serious weight to be lifted off of us. The home actually feels lighter now. I can see carpet in so many places that before held a forlorn box or piles of shirts.

After going through the appraisal a few years ago I knew that all of our work was really in vain. They aren’t looking for many of the things we cleaned and handled. We used the pressure of what they were coming for to help leverage our desire to do a thurough cleaning. The lady who came was in and out of the house in 10-15 minutes. Very nice, courteous, flick flick of a tape measure through the house a handful of questions and she was gone. However our place still looks dyn-o-mite. I certainly hope the numbers come back what we expect them to. I’ve been burned before on what I expected their to be and what happened. Appraising is a lot of subjectivity and you hope the pull up fair numbers for your apple to apple comparison. My neighbor got a great number on his property and I hope to gain the same. I’ll be sitting real pretty if that happens.

-a

Comments

Quote: Orison Swett Marden

December 20, 2004 at 7:12 am · Filed under Quotations

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
— Orison Swett Marden

Comments

Quote: Henry David Thoreau

December 17, 2004 at 7:30 am · Filed under Quotations

Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s nobler faculties.
— Henry David Thoreau

Comments