Welcome to the World of Sling

Did I mention that Ladan gave me a Slingbox SOLO for my birthday? Nice stuff. She got it off of Amazon, which had the best price by a long shot. One nice feature is that the Slingbox can be tucked away, out of sight. It doesn't use an IR remote control since you control it all from your PC. I put mine in the cabinet behind the TV and ran all the wires behind the cabinets. It's hooked to the component jacks of my HD TiVo so I can stream both live or TiVo'd shows no matter where I am.

I did buy, for $30, the Sling player app on the iPhone. It's a great addition. It comes in handy when I'm traveling around town or around the country. It requires that I be on a WiFi connection, but that's not generally hard to find when I'm in a fixed location.

Restoring Government of, by and for the People

At first, this might sound like an impossible idea, but I think that over a sufficiently lengthy implementation period, perhaps five years, it could be made to happen successfully. Please read this with a long term mind set...

It occurs to me that one way to move our government forward, to make it more in touch with the people again, to make it more responsive to the needs that each of the departments of the government serve, and to increase it's ability to function in a time of national crisis, would be to disperse it.

I propose that each department of the US government be moved out of Washington DC to a new location more aligned with its function.

For example:

Transportation: Detroit, MI (perhaps waning as the best choice?)
Agriculture: Des Moines, IA (heartland of farming)
Interior: Casper, WY (home of Yellowstone National Park)
Energy: Anchorage, AK (our largest energy exporting state?)
Homeland: New Orleans, LA (justice served?)
HHS: Minneapolis, MN (home of the Mayo Clinic)
State: NY, NY (along with the UN)
Education: Louisville, KY (or some place where public education needs help)

I can't even name all of the departments, and I'm sure lots of good thought beyond my thinking ability (and probably graft beyond my comprehension) could be put into the best locations for each department. These are just some examples off the top of my head. Defense should be in the geographic center of the continental US, not sitting on the coast. Why not Minot, ND?

I'm suggesting that the entire headquarters of each of the departments be moved out of DC and to these new locations. There should be a limit of one department per state (or territory). The current employees of each department should be invited to move to the new HQ, or for staff that don't want to relocate, positions would be opened and replacements hired into the new locations. And by HQ, I don't just mean the office of the Secretary of each department, but the entire staff currently working in and around the DC area.

Perhaps their are closed military bases that could be used a centers for the relocation points? The government already owns the land, and there are probably structures that could be used rather than having to start all new construction?

Essentially, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President should remain in DC. The cabinet secretaries would have offices at the new HQ's of their departments, and they would need to telecommute to DC for cabinet meetings. An occasional trip to testify to Congress or something would be as routine as an occasional trip today out to do the Department's business.

Frankly, I'd hope there would be a lot of turn-over in staff. But I don't suggest that it should be done harshly since everyone would be offered a job in the new location. Relocation benefits might not be offered because of the extreme cost of moving all those people.

I expect that there would be no shortage of states offering to serve as host for a department. It would have an economic impact on each receiver, to be sure. Certainly there would be a negative economic impact on the Washington DC area. But it's been living high off of the largess of the federal government for well over 200 years now.

In addition to the movement of the department workers, there would also be a large movement of the beltway bandits associated with each of those departments. This would strictly be by their choice, and not part of any federal action. But business tends to go where the opportunity is.

The survival through dispersion benefit is more of a "knock off" rather than an important part of the plan. But imagine the impact on our country if DC were to be devastated by attack or natural forces. Sure the government has contingency planning to deal with an emergency, but how crippling would it be if it had to be used?

Mobile Phone Wars

Updated on 22 Jan 2012: I now have an iPhone4, for about a year now, and I'm updating this post and my suggestions to reflect the current state of the phone.

I finally took the plunge and moved to an iPhone 3G over the holidays. I've been lusting after one since the first generation came out, then decided to wait for the 3G models to roll out. Since I didn't feel like standing in the lines or pre-pay-ordering a 3G phone when the supply was low I stood back and waited. Then came all of the press about dropped calls and poor 3G coverage and I waited some more. So finally over Christmas my son Sam and my wife Ladan pushed one on to me. I couldn't be happier.

You might know that I had a Palm Treo 650 with Verizon and had been using it for perhaps 4 years. It was a good smart phone in its youth, but its lack of contemporary features was really showing its age. No one in the press had anything good to say about the newer Treo's so I didn't go there. Though I loved the TomTom GPS system that I ran on the Treo and I miss its turn by turn directions. But there's a Google Maps application that's well integrated into the iPhone that, with its GPS location ability, does a worthy job of getting me places.

I looked at the Blackberry Storm that Verizon pushed out onto the world, but I found the touch-and-push screen weird. It seems that it's the worse combination of the cons of a touch screen and the cons of a thumb keyboard. I'm sure users get used to it over time and since they've sold a million of them, I hear, obviously some people must like them.

All of the other "traditional" Blackberry's looked worthy, and my son has a Curve. My brother-in-law has a Bold with a Roger's logo on it (an unlocked phone from Canada). They are not bad at all. But their browser isn't close to the visual quality of the browser on the iPhone and I really enjoy using the iPhone as a MID at home. And then, of course, the WiFi in the iPhone kicks the Curve (which lacks WiFi) into the dust.

The Apple AppStore is just wonderful. For about $53.92 I've decked out the iPhone with several very functional applications and several fun applications. I've gotten an engineering calculator. I added a file transfer utility that lets me connect to the iPhone from my computer over WiFi and that lets the iPhone be an FTP client. I put a free e-reader on it and pulled down a bunch of content from Gutenberg (which the app supports directly) as well as a set of PDF files from my own archives. The big ticket item is the Slingplayer for the iPhone, but even with its WiFi only limitation, it's a great tool. There are so many iPhone apps that the AppStore's structure is just too weak to make finding what you want easy. Apple needs to do something to make the AppStore easier to browse, and it doesn't need to do it by getting rid of a lot of the product. If Apple asks me, I'll give them some ideas.

I've played with HTC's G1, and found it interesting and a good first effort, but it needs a lot of maturing before I'd want to run my life on it. I hope that it and future Android phones help to push the market up the feature curve fast. I have lots of hope for that product. 22 Jan 12: Android is alive and well and a very functional challenger to the iPhone. See below for my main concerns about Android phones.

Also, Palm's new Pre phone looks interesting, and I'm made more curious by the rave reviews it got at CES '09. I've not had my hands on one though. The reviews of it state that its good and it might save Palm, but its not going to displace the iPhone.

Here's my list of what Apple needs to do with the iPhone. I've updated and renumbered the list since loading OS3.0 onto the iPhone. Some of these are well known gripes:

x) Add cut and paste. (in OS 3.0)

x) Added sync integration between Outlook and iPhone Notes. (In OS 3.0, but the notes app clearly needs to support "folders" or what Outlook calls categories.

x) The iPhone lock / light tie was never broken, I just wasn't using it right. Its fine.

x) Email now supports the accelerometer. (In OS 3.0)

x) MMS support is there now. I think it was added in 3.0 and AT&T allows it.

x) The iPhone4 camera is much improved. I've shed most of my camera add-on apps and often use the phone's camera for candid shots. It's no SLR, but it's very handy.

4) There's no CODEC for MPEG2 or for WMV. Most motion video Emails I get use WMV. But I did find an App, finally, that integrates with Email and allows the play of many formats. It's called "OPlayer Lite".

5) You still can't see Flash objects in the browser.

6) Back Button. When you leave an Email message by following a link to a web page, and you leave the web page to follow a link to a YouTube clip, you can't "exit back" from YouTube to the browser then from the Browser to the Email message. The iPhone has multi-tasking, but it needs a back button. Maybe the could overload the volume button?

7) The new Reminder's feature is lame. You need to be able to send them. It would allow someone to send me a grocery list (like on that Microsoft commercial). They need to integrate with Outlook.

8) Finally, a "double press" of the button to get to the running apps menu is very difficult. As often as not, I end up in the wrong place.

9) Siri. How rude of Apple to yank Siri from the App Store and reserve it iPhone4S on its servers. There are a number of jail breaks that let an iPhone4's use Siri by lying to the Apple servers. Just proves that it's Apple being mean to its customers.

10) The navigator needs voice prompts. It's rather dangerous without them.

I could list more smaller things, but those are my key gripes.

Here's my list for Android phones:

1) Outlook integration is poor. There are several apps that say they provide Outlook integration, but do I want to pay the money and take they risk that they come close to the Outlook integration the iPhone offers natively?

2) I despise the features of the native Email client. It really lacks the ability to have it "auto-blind-copy" an address so that I can save a copy of my outgoing Email.

3) Upgrades. The lack of commitment to keeping phones upgrade by the OEM's is sad. I can understand their need to sell new phones, but it doesn't well match the 2 year commitment the phones are sold with. Hear that Samsung? I'm talking about you!

All BD'd Up!

With the loss of MovieBeam, I've been without good HD content, except that which TWC sends down the cable. To be sure, the NFL in HD, and even the MLB in HD is really nice. And the PGA in HD is beautiful, as anyone that's been to a nice golf course would expect. But HD movies on the cable just don't "pop". So we took the plunge and entered the world of BluRay in force this past week.

First, I got a BluRay burner for the computer. The 50 GByte storage capacity in a disk is impressive, though at today's prices it's probably cheaper to buy what's now a small hard drive and use it for permanent off-line storage.

For a player, we opted to get a Playstation3. Why? Well, when it became obvious that BluRay won the format war, I wanted to join the club. But it was well know that "BD Live", or BluRay 2 was due out soon and that most currently marketing players were not upgradable. But Sam learned that PS3 was BD Live compatible and at a price of $400 its BD feature, game play ability, and other on-line features make it a pretty compelling option today. Maybe I'll get Guitar Hero or something that our family can enjoy later on.

So we got the PS3 this week and watched our first full length BluRay movie last night. It really was awesome. As I'd hoped, there was none of the motteling or contouring that I could see in DVD and cable HD. Sam noted that there was no stall switching between VOB files that we saw on the DVD player.

The negatives are that the PS3 has an RF remote, and my Logitech universal remote will never be able to control it without some RF to IR help. Also, the PS3 runs pretty warm, but not much more than the MovieBeam box did. It does has an "off" button, and there's no reason to leave it on when I'm not using it.

BluRay: good PS3: good

Trap and 5-Stand

With my son having presented me with a Mossberg 535 at Christmas we joined the San Diego Shotgun Sports club. Many weekend mornings now we spend a couple of hours "breaking some clay" at their Trap and 5-Stand ranges. It's a very nice experience. You can look them at on the net at http://www.sandiegoshotgunsports.com/.

Sam is a far better shot than I. But he's a good sport about it, and we have a great time on those mornings participating in the sporting games. They frequently run events and tournaments at the club in Trap and Skeet but neither of us have participated in any of them so far.

Many people there reload their own shells. They report that it costs them about $4 per box of 25 shells doing that. We've found that we can get a box of 100 shells at Walmart for $21 plus tax, which comes to about $5.50 per box. So I think I'll hold off on reloading for now. It looks like a lot of work for very little savings.

Update: The USMC at Miramar closed the range and threw the SD Shotgun Sports club out after 40 years on the base. Thanks for being true jerks, Marines.

Move That Bus!

"Move that bus!" on 14 Nov 07. What a week and a once-in-a-lifetime event for my brother Patrick and his family, Patty, Patrick, Jesse, and Cameron. They were whisked off to England for a vacation while their home in Louisville was razed and replaced by a wonderful new home.

.

Shown here is a composite image of the new home under construction, and a local billboard congratulating the family and promoting the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition television show that paid for it all, and the home builder that did the work. The people of Louisville did themselves proud with the tremendous number of volunteers that pitched in to work; so many in fact that thousands were turned away.

.

The TV show is supposed to air on Sunday, 17 February, 2008, on ABC.

Only by the grace of God

The 2007 San Diego Wild Fires devestaded our neighborhood. Our house was spared, and is undamaged. Our family got out with minutes to spare, and are all unhurt.

On Sunday, 21 Oct, there was smoke in the air at lunch time. We got updates on the fires during the NFL games through Sunday. At midnight the news reported that the fires would enter San Diego through San Pasqual Valley about 1 AM. Since we live at the far end of the valley we started packing pictures and essential clothes. At 4 AM the sky had turned red and the wind was howling so we decided to get out. Fire engines and police cars were racing down our street. I went out to look and the sky was orange from the fires behind and to the right of our house. We loaded up the cars in a storm of ash and were out by 4:15 AM.

We went to LA knowing our neighborhood had burned. On Tuesday, 23 Oct, we received a report that our house had survived and others around us had not. On Wednesday, 23 Oct we had solid evidence that our house survived from web sites listing house status by address in our area.

On Thursday, 25 Oct, our neighboorhood opened up and we moved back in. It turns out that skylights leak ash. There were piles of black ash all around our house. The pool was full of it. The house behind us burned. The house in front of us burned. Most of the houses with shake roofs burned. Lots of stucco houses with tile roofs burned. Some of Sam's friends homes burned. Having a wooden deck looks like a bad idea. Spreading bark mulch around your foundation and yard looks like an invitation to fire. Having a cement patio is a good thing. Using lots of water to keep your yard green costs a lot, but seems like a good idea.

But mostly, having God decide to spare your place seems to be the key.

Here's a link to the Google Maps page with the fire symbols on or near homes that were destroyed in our area. We're on page 2.

Henry Arch Hughes, 8 Jul 29 - 11 Oct 07

At 3:55 EDT today, 11 Oct, 2007, my father Henry Arch Hughes died. God has ended his suffering and taken him from our presence to be with Him. Dad is now in heaven with his son, and my brother Joe, and my father's brothers and sisters who have gone before him. Dad's illness has caused me to miss him for a long time already. I truly loved him, and he has my thanks for helping me become a person of responsibility and morality.

We Must Win

According to "Der Spiegel", this week "when [US] voters hit the ballot box in November 2008, they will be looking for more than just a candidate charismatic and clever enough to lead the country politically. They will also ask themselves which of the candidates is sufficiently tough, crafty and brutal to win the multi-front war that the Bush administration has begun."

Let's hope so.

A Nation at War?

"The U.S. is not at war. The military is at war." (Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt) We are brandishing our sword, but we're not putting our might into the blows.

There's no "national sacrifice". The war is a TV event. It's not a war. No one here feels a threat. No one here is asked to pay more money, use less gasoline, work more hours, pack boxes of canned goods to send over seas. Nothing. "...the nation today is spending 3.9 percent of gross domestic product on the military and the war on terrorism, far below the level of national sacrifice during World War II (38 percent), the Korean War (14 percent), Vietnam (9.5 percent), the Reagan-era buildup (6.2 percent), or even the Clinton-era post-Cold War draw-down (4.8 percent)." (DoD)

A military draft, or a national service mandate, would be a good second step. Second to coughing up the treasure needed to equip and grow the services.

Orange Bowl Victory

What a great season for Louisville football this year. Capping it off was a hard fought win in the Orange Bowl tonight, 2 Jan 06. Great job guys!

UL Football Site: http://uoflsports.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/010307aaa.html##

ESPN's Story: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=270020154

Here's a re-cap of the 12 and 1, 2006-2007 season:

Date.......Opponent.......Result

09/03/06...Kentucky.......W, 59-28
09/09/06...at Temple......W, 62-0
09/16/06...Miami (FL).....W, 31-7
09/23/06...at Kansas St...W, 24-6
10/06/06...at Middle TN...W, 44-17
10/14/06...Cincinatti *...W, 23-17
10/21/06...at Syracuse *..W, 28-13
11/02/06...West VA *......W, 44-34
11/09/06...at Rutgers *...L, 25-28
11/18/06...USF *..........W, 31-8
11/25/06...at Pitt........W, 48-24
12/02/06...UConn..........W, 48-17
Orange Bowl
1/02/07....Wake Forest....W, 24-13

Christmas Time

It's almost Christmas. The tree is up. There are wrapped packages. The children are home from school. My family and I are living in a free society that has peace and security at home. Thank God for all of our blessings and for our health. God bless all of those people helping to make this happen, including the members of our military, many of whom are not in their homes and with their family at Christmas, and including all those emergency responders that help keep us safe and healthy. All of you have our strong appreciation for all that you do. I hope for your safety, your success in your work, and your safe return to your homes and families. Merry Christmas.

US in Iraq Too Long?

I hear we've been in Iraq for almost four years now. People point out that that's longer than our participation in WWII. Interesting.

During WWII the US pretty much destroyed the significant German cities, destroyed its military, and got rid of all of its political structures. It took just over three years to accomplish this. The war ended in 1945.

The last time I looked, we're still have a vast number of soldiers and bases in Germany and Japan. That means we've been there about 60 years.

How about Korea? I guess we're still there, too.

How about Bosnia/Kosovo? Yup...still there.

It took us 3 months to win in Iraq instead of 3 years and we didn't have to drop any nukes on them. Now, just like Germany and Japan, we're engaged in the rebuilding phase and we have some 50-ish years to go.

Dear Mr. Blair

"The danger is if they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved," Blair said, spelling out his political vision in a pamphlet published by The Foreign Policy Center think-tank. "The strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in," he said.

Why is the rest of the world and half of this country, otherwise, so unable to see the need for and value of American leadership during this new cold war?

Citizenship Amendment

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment has been misused for too long now. All of the freed slaves from the Civil War era have been enfranchised. Now is the time to put an end to the automatic citizenship entitlement based on someone happening to be within our borders when their mother pops her cork. So, I propose a new amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:

I. The rights and privileges provided for through this Constitution shall be reserved to its citizens, and to those non-citizens legally within its territories and conducting themselves in accordance with its laws and the laws of the appropriate local governments.

II. Citizenship flows to the natural born children of any citizen of these United States and may never be revoked. Others may make application for and retain citizenship in accordance with the laws and regulations enacted by the Congress.

III. Section I of the 14th Amendment to this Constitution is hereby replaced with "All citizens of the United States shall be citizens of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any citizen of the United States of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any citizen of the United States within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Happy Birthday Stella

Stella Katherine Teeters, daughter of Sarah Jean Logsdon and Jaymes Harvey Teeters. Born at 5:30 p.m on 14 April, 2006. She's the catch of the day, weighing 6 pounds, 13 ounces, and measuring 20 1/2 in long. Welcome to the family Stella!

General, please sit down and shut up!

Retired general's calling for the resignation of political leaders? Is this a good thing? While on the one hand any person in our functioning democracy has the right to express political opinion, we have a fundamental principle that our legally elected leaders are in charge of the military and that the military is required to execute the legal orders of their civilian commanders. So while these retired generals have a right to express their opinions, and the media will happily play their statements to entertain viewers, I have far less sympathy for their opinion than I have for the opinion of the political opposition to the elected leaders. I can see and understand the agenda of the political opposition. I have no idea what the agendas of these retired generals are. Perhaps they are simply high minded and want to right a perceived wrong. Perhaps they are positioning for a future political appointment. Perhaps they are malcontents who didn't get their way in the military. But all in all, it just seems wrong for them to have sat on their hands while on active duty to protect their retirement, and then take advantage of their recently retired status to address an issue they failed to take on while on active duty.

The word is "Illegals"

Illegal aliens. I wonder why those that don't want immigration controls object to this term?

Let's see.... Illegal: <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=illegal> "Prohibited by law. " Clearly a bad thing.

Alien: <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=alien> "Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents"

I married an alien, and she became a citizen. I don't have anything in particular against aliens.

Illegal aliens are, by definition, breaking the law. We are a country of law, a country where the rule of law is paramount. It seems some groups in our country were recently upset thinking that the NSA wiretapping circumvented the "rule of law" principle. Maybe it did, and maybe it didn't. I don't have all the facts yet. And don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the "rule of law" thing. It's served us well.

And why do we want a bunch of people in our country that owe their allegiance to another country? Perhaps all of those Mexican flags flying in my country this past weekend at the pro-Illegal Alien rallies are really showing us that it's not about immigration, but it's about cultural migration and we're just too blind to see it, and to timid to stop it.

Why is it that people from non-Mexican countries (like Guatemala) can come into Southern Mexico, walk all the way to the US, and come into the US, be we can't kick them back across the border into Mexico where they came from? If Mexico doesn't want them, perhaps Mexico should stop them on both of their borders and not just play us for fools?

Patrick Henry's Birthday!

Happy Birthday nephew! See his web site at <http://www.patrickhenryhughes.com/>

More on the MovieBeam Launch

I've been quite busy lately with MovieBeam. When you put a product into the consumer market place, there's a lot to do and a lot of feedback comes back. We visited a local Best Buy store on 2 March, 2006, the day after it was installed there, and saw our product in the store. That's me standing beside our demonstration kiosk in the store.

What a great feeling to see these years of work culminate in the release. People are reporting hearing MovieBeam radio adds in their markets. Sales are taking off.

If you want to see more pictures about MovieBeam, you can visit <http://web.mac.com/armando_santana/iWeb/Site/MovieBeam.html>. I don't know how long this person will leave the photos on-line.

Happy Valentine's Day

To my wife, my son, and my daughter. You are my life. You are my joy. I'll always love you all.

Welcome MovieBeam!

Today is the day. After two years of work, The next generation MovieBeam(TM) service is on the market. It's been a great experience, and there's still a huge bow-wave of work that the MovieBeam team will have to push through. (Use the MovieBeam link in the right-hand column if you want to jump to the web site and see the box, read about the service, and buy one.)

To all those at MovieBeam that I've worked with over the years and are no longer there (especially Mark B., Bruce F.) it was great working with you and I wish you were still here for the launch. For those still at MovieBeam and working your tails off to have made this launch happen (too numerous to begin naming) I salute you for your un-tiring efforts and professionalism. It's a great team at MovieBeam, and it's an honor to work with you all!
Here's to a continuing, productive, and challenging future together!

Arab Fury?

I see from the news that the Arabs are furious about the film of the British soldiers kicking the shit out of some kids that were throwing rocks at them. Was it called for? Heck if I know, I wasn't there. But I learned a long time ago that when you throw rocks at someone, there's a risk they are going to catch you, and when they do they are not going to be turning the other cheek.

Where is the Arab fury about the terrorists in Iraq trying to kill anyone they can, be they Suni, Shiite, or something else? Where is the Arab fury about kids throwing rocks at soldiers? Where was the Arab fury over Saddam's paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers? Where is the Arab fury over Iran's chase for nuclear technology?

I'm tired of hearing about Arab fury. Let's hear something about Arab leadership in human rights.

Politics at CSK Funeral?

Is it appropriate to bring a political fight to a funeral? If someone came to the funeral of a family member of yours and started making political speaches rather than honoring the family member, would you not want them to stop (or not have started in the first place)? Come on Jimmy, try and get some class!

Welcome to my blog...

Happy Feb 7th. I just created this little blog. I wonder what I might do with it?