Charles W. Moore

Too Many Distractions

I must be getting old and even more lazy than I have been.  But then again, it may be the distractions…..

I now have a Droid 2 and it has kept me more than occupied for the past two months.  I have installed a lot of apps and, of course, I must know how the work.  All my sundry emails come into the Droid so I get buzzed every few minutes all day.  A lot of my apps deal with sun/moon, marine weather & water conditions, weather conditions and winds.

I am disappointed the Droid does not play Flash and Java via the browsers – I have FF mobile, Opera mobile and the installed browser.  None will play the Sailflow WindFxAni, which is a Java animated wind flow forecast, and thus it is worthless as a wind prognosticator.  Many others have voiced this complaint too so it may be coming if the corporate legal boys do not get too involved.

As a parting shot – Boy am I glad I am retired,  all you poor slobs working to pay taxes when, for example only, GE with sales of $5.1B paid no taxes.  Are we daft boys? Corporations must pay their fair share.  Men, we simply cannot keep passing along corporate tax breaks while the dwindling middle class gets breaks too.  Legislators, beware GOOOH is out to get our house back and put in order.

At the beach

We went to the beach today for an hour walk today on the beach.  Quite nice since the storm of two days ago washed up lots of treasure’s.  By our return the Starbucks coffee cup was full.

After that it was to Burger King and other shops.  All-in-all it was a nice sunny great day with moderate temperatures.

I have my smartphone programmed to Craigslist in the Kayaks, Honda Generator and Kindle areas.  I WANT MY KINDLE!

Moore later………

James Randi’s Homeopathic Medicine

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMukj31qw1U&feature=player_embedded

The Big Snow

We were pounded by a big snow of 12″ more or less and high winds that produced drifts in excess of 4′.  Then yesterday another 5″ of the white stuff arrived just to add a interest.  Of course, the driveway is not plowed nor will it be in the near future.  The snow is packed and we could probably make  an igloo if we wanted.  It might be kind of fun to try.

As a youth, I read one of my Dad’s Book Oft The Month club books called Kabloona.  The book related the experiences of a man who lived with the eskimo’s and traveled across Canada with them.  I still have the book and may read it again for the 4th time.

However, I now await a Kindle to re-read the book.  Who knows what will happen with regarding that subject.  Marc, my son, added some birthday $$ to my Amazon account so I can afford to get it.

My birthday is past but Martha, Sharon and I will go out to Sonny’s for an early bird meal this afternoon.  One more birthday past with the feet above the ground is sufficient reason to celebrate ad since this is Sunday there is even more reason to rejoice.  Moore later………

Web Work

I have spent the day adding content to the Angola Assembly of God website and losing some more money on my latest Cloud Computing acquisition’s.  Boo Hoo – the story of my investing life – buy high and sell low.  Well, not really, as I usually ride the stocks to the bottom and lose everything.

No one at AAOG church really understands how much time it takes to do creative manipulations with the pictures they send me and want “put on the site”.  I have to admit I am not the best at artistic renditions but I have improved and like playing with the layouts.  I could spend days doing this and usually do.  I like to make collages of different shapes and then put them into a blank picture that has a transparent background.  They will fit in almost any site that way.

The temperature is in the high 30’s today and it is raining with a few spits of snow.  There goes the snow and my X-C ski course.  Oh well, I cannot ski anyway as I am too sore from the backache I received in my header I took skiing last week.  SAM is upstairs banging around in the kitchen so that probably means I will get something good for dinner tonight.  Yumm – Moore later…….

What was I going to write?

I forgot why I came to the blog to write.  I know it was important at he moment but before the “Freak Waves” program on PBS.  A container ship got hit by three 100+’ waves within a few seconds in the Atlantic.  I guess I will not be making a crossing.  I cannot even imagine such brutish waves in a 35′ sailboat.  The TV is still on but I have lost interest in what is playing.

I started a search of A/V Receivers.  I am on the low end price range and am looking at Denon AVR-391.  They are selling for $159 as Reconditioned/Referbished on eCost.com.   You can check it out for yourself but it has 4 HDMI 1.4a inputs with 1 HDMI 1.4a output.  I am focusing on HDMI since almost all players and TV’s have these inputs.  Of course, a few component, s-video and other I/O’s are good things to have too.  The machine has a limited number of these I/O’s.  There are many things that it does not have as well such as digital to analog outputs and analog REC output.  It does have one valuable feature my present AVR does not have – a remote controller – and, yes, the AVR is that old.  The Radio Shack unit has been running for 20 years and is never shut off except when we go away.

The TV to go with it will be  47 -55″ with with wireless N connectivity and Apps to allow NetFlix, Blockbuster and other services.  I am not sure about 3D but it seems reasonable to add it to the list since the HDMI 1.4a supports 3D.  Moore later….

IEEE: US grid getting less relaible

“The U.S. electrical grid has been plagued by ever more and ever worse blackouts over the past 15 years. In an average year, outages total 92 minutes per year in the Midwest and 214 minutes in the Northeast. Japan, by contrast, averages only 4 minutes of interrupted service each year.”  Here is an IEEE Article and Smart Grid Newsletter to enlighten your day.

Rant: Talk about burning the candle at both ends or squeezing blood from a turnip – we have used up about all (the infrastructure) that has made us great:  Manufacturing, Electrical Power production, Great Lakes water (down 12″ in 2 years), Aquafir being depleted and the list goes on and on.

Resignation:  I thought it was the Pickens Plan (PP) but people scoffed.  I thought it was Global Warming but people are too occupied being Birthers, Far Lefters, Far Righters, Flat Earthers and even denying Global Warming is happening.  Then I thought it was NAFTA, the War on Drugs and other pretty sounding names.  What does it take to get people mobilized on the path to self-correction?  Beats me and the dead horse I rode in upon.  I offered the PP my resignation today – no focus, no more.

Senator Lugar response to my query

Subject:  Term Limits and Salary

Richard G. Lugar
United States Senator

RGL/cga

Do you receive The Lugar Letter? Send an email to newsletter@lugar.senate.gov to stay current with Senator Lugar’s activities.

No incentive

[singlepic id=274 w=140 h=140 float=right]I had no incentive to do much today.  I did rise a bit earlier than normal to go into talk with an investment man.  We ended up talking for an hour and a half about a lot of stuff besides investments.  It was sort of fun but when I got home the coffee buzz was wearing off and I settled into a sort of funk for the rest of the day.  I did watch a few Hulu episodes of Caprica and StarHunter 2300 (I like Perry).  I finished off by watching Human Target and No Ordinary Family.  Sort of a wasted day huh?

There was some more snow today and if it snows just a bit more then I can be out X-C skiing again.

Re-greening the desert