iBrasten

"He’s fat and he don’t run too fast, but he’s faster than me…"

Woo! My iPod has returned! For those keeping track of the iPod watch, it technically was delivered on Saturday. Not a horrible turnaround time!

I’m seriously hungry. I’ve got some good left-overs at home though, so I’ll probably head out of work here soon.

Democracy is something you DO…
Did you guys watch any coverage on the Iraq elections? Can you believe I just said that? "Iraq elections"? It’s absolutely incredible. It’s amazing to me how we can take something so for granted that other parts of the world are experiencing for the first time. Democracy isn’t perfect. Even less so the procedures set up to facilitate democracy. (Take for example, the Washington State governor’s race. More on THAT in a minute.)

But democracy at it’s core is a beautiful thing. Though I haven’t yet figured out exactly what democracy IS. I used to think it was "consent of the people". But that’s not really true. At 51%, Bush being reelected was FAR from consent of the people. Furthermore, even if some massive majority of the population agreed on a particular position, AND consented to have any opposition to that position silenced or outlawed, that would not be democracy. (For a living example of that, consider the battle going on between Intelligent Design Theorists and Evolutionists.)

At the same time, simply protecting the rights and speech of the minority – or those not in power – is not democracy. Consider the current happenings in Russia, where they are allowed to protest all they want, but Putin continues to diminish democracy there in spite of the protests. I have to admit with a bit of a shrug that democracy has got to be a combination of all those things. Consent of the people and freedom of vocal descent.

I had a whole paragraph on the Washington State elections here, but after re-reading it, I realized it was just venting, and would likely be offensive to some readers. So all you need to understand is I’m very unhappy with the way our state governor election was handled, and we’ll call that good. :)

And now, the less profound…
OH, a friend of mine whom I’ve mentioned before and will refer to as The Squire has resumed posting on his blog! Hopefully he will post regularly, as I think you will all enjoy what he has to say from time to time. He’s much more philosphical with his blog. I’m a drive-by blogger.

... which reminds me, I’m still hungry…

I’m feeling much better this morning, thankfully. Still a little stuffy, but not miserable like I have been.

iPod Watch – Day 3
I received an email from Apple stating that they had received my iPod and would let me know as soon as it’s repaired.

Apple Watch 2005
There are reports around the web of a couple interesting moves made by Apple today, which I will summarize for you here.

Firstly, Apple and WalMart have come to an agreement which will be putting Apple’s new $99 iPod Shuffle into WalMart stores. This seems like an odd move for WalMart, because they will most likely be required to sell them at the MSRP. However, Apple’s pricing of the iPod Shuffle is extremely aggressive as it is, but WalMart may consider that good enough. The terms of the deal call for a 50-unit inventory in each neighborhood WalMart store, with significantly higher inventories in higher-traffic locations. Someone (not me) did the math and came up with a very low-end figure of at LEAST 250,000 iPod Shuffles devoted solely to WalMart’s retail locations initially. Seems to be pretty substancial given than you can’t even find the devices at Apple’s own retail stores at the moment.

Secondly, Apple and Best Buy are working together again. Reports are the Best Buy will be carrying the 1.4Ghz Mac Mini in their retail stores. This would represent the first major distribution of Apple computers to Best Buy retail locations in several years. While this initially looks like an exciting opportunity for Apple, there are reasons to believe it might not last long. Best Buy tends to encourage shoppers to buy PCs over Macs, largely because Best Buy makes more money off of PCs. They do, after all, sell virus software and tech support, two things that PCs require much more of than Macs. And Apple has shown it does not like to play second fiddle to anyone. By contrast, CompUSA’s store-within-a-store concept, manned by staff that are very Apple-friendly, has seemed to work well for both CompUSA and Apple. Either way, maybe Best Buy will do better the second time around. If they do, it could be a great thing for Apple.

General Life Stuff
Clearview Foursquare is having a baptism this Sunday. I’m going to be videotaping the whole thing. It should be a lot of fun! I’m trying to get a 2-camcorder, 2 or 3 digital camera setup going. Then I can just suck all the media into my computer and build some pretty cool stuff with it! I’m thinking about a DVD with an uncut video of the baptism, a little 3-4 minute video to music, and maybe a slideshow from the photos. That would pretty much give everyone something to watch. Anyway, back to work.

whine... I’m so sick today. Sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever kind of sick. If only there was a medicine for something like that. Unfortunately it doesn’t help my work productivity. But my work has a sick-policy: “If you’re not throwing up, you can make it to work.” I suppose I could fake it…

iPod Update – Day 2 I have received the return box for my iPod! I packaged and delivered the return box to my local DHL branch a few moments ago!

Turnaround King? I realized something about myself today. I was talking with a friend about various technologies and companies, and I realized that I really wish I could be in a position to directly affect a high-tech company’s products. And to be honest, I think I would be very very good at it. Not that I just expect a company to make me CTO or something, and I don’t particularly care to create a startup company for some of my ideas, because I can look around and see a lot of areas were already established companies are failing to take advantage of their positions or learn from their failures.

Example? How about RealNetworks. Real is an odd company, because they seem to actually believe that people still use and like them. But it doesn’t take long, talking to end users, to find out that most people think their player is bloated, slow, full of commercial branding, etc. Furthermore, you practically have to be a Ph.D to figure out how to download the FREE version from their website. Their client-side media player technology is in need of a serious overhaul, but COULD be great again. RealPlayer suffers from the same problems that the original Mozilla browser did, and IT didn’t go anywhere either. BUT, some people inside Mozilla realized this and launched the Firefox project, which essentially took out every piece of the browser that was not essential to a good browser experience. And it’s taken off. RealPlayer could do the same thing. Slim down, make it easy to access, fast load-up times, etc… and people would use it again.

But that’s not even RealNetwork’s current strengths. Their current strength is content. They have a TON of it. And they have plenty of subscribers who like to use it. Now, what’s the next big thing in content?? Right, on-demand movies. Everyone’s talking about it, some people are doing it… and yet, despite all the buzz, they don’t really seem to be taking off. Why not? Because - and this is just my guess - most people want to buy and download and watch movies from their TVs, not their computers. Computers are designed for interacting, TVs are designed for mindless watching. I believe the thing that’s REALLY going to make movies take off will be putting all of the downloading and viewing responsibility into a set-top box.

Here’s where Real comes in. Sure, TiVo would probably be the best positioned company to take this on, but Real’s already got a great about of content that would help round out any set-top box offering. Furthermore, TiVo’s interface - while very effective - is extremely cartoonish and not at all sexy. The PVR industry desperately needs a “cutting-edge” company with the kind of interactive content supporting it that would really make people want to jump on-board. For a long time I’ve expected Digeo’s Moxi Media Center to be the answer to the problem, but even they are lacking on content/movie download services and they seem more like vaporware than anything (tho their screenshots are lickably sexy!).

Anyway, I’m just spouting off ideas. We’ll likely never know if they’d work or not.

So, I’ve been informed that “pet-peeves” is misspelled. My apologies. Spelling was never my fourtay.

Haha.. that’s a joke. “Fourtay”. Since I was talking about spelling and all… nevermind.

Anyway, a couple things worth noting. After my post, I found this article which basically validates what I was saying: the Republicans are not out to screw any minorities with Social Security changes. Bush was, in fact, talking about how minorities are currently getting short-changed under the current system.

Also, I thought it would be fun to track my iPod repair status. I’ve FINALLY gotten around to requesting a repair. I received a confirmation a couple hours ago (submitted the request this morning).

I would encourage you all to read DG’s comment to my last post. DG and I have had short conversations on this very issue, and I appreciate that someone who likely disagrees with me on specific remedies to the problem still is willing to have the discussion.

America was founded on debate. Treasure it. Because in the end, my ideas may be wrong, and so might yours. The debate is the first step in finding out.

I woke up this morning with some nasty sinus issue that’s currently in the process of kicking my ass. Ugh… pain… stuffiness… I woke up this morning around 2:30-3 already starting to feel not-so-good. So I wrapped up in a big blanket and plopped myself in front of the TV and played Halo 2 for an hour, then went back to bed. Which reminds me, my XBox Live subscription is nearly expired, I must renew!

Random Pet-Peave Alert! Know what I hate? People who want resumes in Word format. In fact, this goes for a large number of electronic document transfers… letters, memos, etc, but I will focus on resumes. Word documents aren’t designed to be read-only presentations of something, they’re designed to be editable documents. Word itself is not a document VIEWER (although my whole point is it’s being USED that way, improperly), it’s a document EDITOR. The very concept of me building a resume in a document editor, and then sending my editable document to some random person to be reopened in another document editor is just completely irrational! Hopefully, nobody else is going to be editing your resume or cover letter. Nobody else needs access to the original document.

What’s the alternative, you ask? When you send your resume to a company, you’re really wanting to send a polished final “presentation” of that document. For this, it makes much more sense to send PDF documents. Think about it, when you send a paper resume, do you send a piece of paper with all your information taped into place? No. You edit the document so that it looks just the way you want it, and then you PRINT the document on to a final, non-editable presentation media (some nice paper, for example). Think of PDF as “printing” the document for electronic presentation. The reader can view the document without firing up a heavyweight editor; the templates, tables and fonts you used are not immediately discoverable. It’s just your resume, plain and simple. And it looks exactly the same on their Windows machine as it did on your Mac OS X machine.

I’m not saying you need to start sending all your resumes to companies in PDF format. If you want to job, you’d better send the resume in whatever format they’re requesting. I’m merely stating that it’s really stupid for most companies to keep requesting “text or Word Doc” files. Start asking for PDFs!

One last thing. I would like to address the anger I’ve been reading over a suggestion by Republican Bill Thomas (no stranger to controversy, admittedly) that Social Security benefits should be tied to race and gender. I mentioned that’s what the anger is directed at, but it must be pointed out that that was not what Bill Thomas directly said. What he said was that race and gender should be discussed in Congress as potenial factors to consider for Social Security benefits. He also followed up by stating that if Congress decided not to make any changes relating to race and gender, that would be fine, but it’s the responsibility of the Congress to discuss all factors.

Now, far-left Democrats will continue to scream that how dare the Republicans even MENTION such a thing… right? But they’re conveniently ignoring that Rep. Thomas is merely talking about statistical factors, most of which would likely favor minorities. For example, white females statistically live a lot longer than black males (something I heard on NPR. Please let me know if this is incorrect). Which means that white females statistically take a lot more out of the system than black males. How would that fact influence Social Security benefits? I don’t know, honestly, but I can’t imagine any way in which the white female would end up better off.

These types of statistics-based adjustments are used ALL THE TIME, and you don’t see the left complaining about it. Your auto insurance bill, for example, is adjusted based on your gender—specifically what your gender statistically will pull out of the insurance company’s pockets in relation to the opposite gender. And try getting a college scholarship as a white male. THAT’S not even based on statistical analysis, that’s just pure racial and gender descrimination. Where’s the outrage?

But the Dems - hurt and upset over their recent political losses - seem to think that getting even MORE militant, and more obstructive, and raising alarms over harmless discussions brought up by Republicans will somehow help their cause. So instead of actually having these rational discussions, they’ll continue screaming. And they’ll continue blaming. And they’ll continue losing.

Hang in there with me people. I’m still trying to get the hang of this software. Commenting DOES work, but I just noticed it drops you off at a blank page after you submit. :( Dumb… working on that…

So I wandered on over the the Online Apple Store today, and checked out their Top Sellers list. The first thing you notice is that the iPod shuffle is the #1 seller. yawn Pretty much everyone knew it was going to be, except for Creative Technology CEO Sim Wong Hoo ("... I think the whole industry will just laugh at [the iPod shuffle]."), backed by a small and dying crowd of people who buy something other than an iPod just to spite Apple.

What’s REALLY interesting is what is occupying spot #4 compared to spot #5. Apple’s new Mac Mini is actually outselling the iPod. Now, let’s think about that for a moment. Last quarter, Apple sold 4.5 million iPods. Analysts have been calling for another 3-4 million iPods sold this quarter. I’m going to make a series of fuzzy-math calculations, but if you follow closely you’ll see I’m being very conservative in my estimates. Okay, so let’s assume that Apple IS on track to sell 2.5-3 million iPods. Let’s also assume that Apple’s iPod Mini-to-iPod ratio is 1:1 (we don’t actually know, but at the moment iPods are outselling iPod minis). That says that Apple will be on track to sell roughly 1-1.5 million iPods (not including iPod mini). Now, factor in the fact that the Mac Mini is currently selling BETTER than the iPod. That means that if the rate of sales holds, Apple will sell over 1,000,000 Mac Minis. (It’s worth noting that most people do not believe Apple is capable of producing that many Mac Minis a quarter). given the fact that Apple tends to sell some 500,000ish computers a quarter, and factoring in the possibility that the Mac Mini will canabolize some of the other designs, that means that Apple could potentially increase their marketshare for the next quarter to up over 6%.

A LOT can happen before the end of the quarter. I’m merely trying to point out that they’re off to an amazing start.

I promised I would post something today on bloggers and the media. But to be completely honest, the topic bores me now. So I’m not going to. And I don’t honestly think anyone’s out there waiting for me talk on this subject either. :)

GOOD NEWS! I finally got my cell phone transfering photos to my laptop again! I don’t know WHY it was having such a hard time. Anyway, I just shoved all the photos I took over the last few months into a .Mac Slide Show, Here. There are just some general photos taken during the course of my life. I also was able to snag that file of my father speaking at Clearview Foursquare. His lecture was entitled Law and Grace. Naturally, it’s possible that there are readers that do not subscribe to my particular religious beliefs, and thus may not find any particular value in that lecture.

Well, this is a completely pointless post. I will complete the pointlessness by posting a picture of myself, for those who don’t know what I look like. This isn’t the most attractive picture, by the way…

So, I made it to the Apple Store at the Alderwood Mall these afternoon. My reasons for going were two-fold. Firstly, I wanted to pick up two software packages (iLife ‘05 and iWork ‘05). Secondly, I wanted to see – in person – the new Mac Mini and iPod shuffle. The iPod shuffle is sold out, of course, which is great news! But the real excitement of the night was getting to see the Mac Mini. It’s SEXY. And it’s small. And people were gobbling them up much like they were iPods. It’s heavier than I anticipated, but in hindsight it makes sense that it would be fairly heavy.

Anyway, I did that with my parents. It was fun to hang out with them for a couple hours! I don’t see them nearly as often as I would like to! Well, specifically my mother, and my sister for that matter. I work with my father, so I see him every day. And despite what one might think, it’s surprisingly fun working with him! After that I hung out here at my house with Jessica for a while. Watched television, mostly reruns of Frasier. Frasier’s become my favorite television show ever. Sadly, I didn’t start watching it until after the series had ended. But, such is life.

I had an interesting thought. If I manage to keep this blog somewhat active for the remainder of the year (11 more months), it might be fun to take all the blog postings, along with a selection of photos I’d taken over the course of the year, and put together a little book. Like a “Year in the Life of Brasten” book. With CafePress you can pretty much do your own books, so that might be kind of fun. Just for me, though I don’t see why I couldn’t make it available to anyone. It would likely be a boring read!

I promise I’ll write my post on blogs and the media. I have some interesting thoughts. I’ll do that tomorrow. Promise, promise, promise. It’s too late now, gotta get up early tomorrow. G’night, all!

Here’s something funny for you to think about: I hate blogs. I hate them. Really. They’re usually nothing more than someone prattling on about their lives, situations nobody cares about, etc. They’re painfully boring. Mostly. The irony here being that I HAVE a blog. Maybe blogs are all about the blogger, not the readers. I don’t know. That said, there are actually a few blogs that have managed to hold my interest. Not many. For those who are interested, here they are:

• Rands In Repose – a technology leaning blog with extremely interesting applications to real life. I think I like this blog because the author’s life is similar enough to mine that I can relate to most of his posts.
• Squire of Gothos – a friend of mine. We often engage in intellectual conversations about pretty much any topic, from religion to politics to pop culture. A lot of these topics find themselves into posts on his blog. As of this moment, however, he seems to have forgotten about his blog for some time now.
• Loafe – probably the only pure “web journal” that I care to read. Whereas RandsInRepose could be described as having a Technological focus, and Squire of Gothos has more of a philosophical focus, Loafe is just life.

So, I was going to go into a whole discussion about blogs and the media. And I still will, look for that later tonight, but I just realized that today is January 22nd, 2005! For those of you that don’t know the significance of that, that is the day that Apple released about 6 things to their retail customers. So I must now jet of down to University Village to the Apple Store to spend a lot of hard-earned money. :) Stay tuned for part two of this post tho!

PS – I’ve just noticed that my web server shut off for a short while. My apologies to those who couldn’t access the site!

WOAH! Site changed, eh? Due to a valid complaint from probably the only person who knows this blog exists, I felt compelled to switch to a more commenter-friendly blog engine. MovableType to the rescue! Anyway, after an hour or so of fighting with RPM packages and such, we’re back!

And yes, the site’s pretty ugly. Baby blue? Ugh. I will work on a better template shortly.

Anyway, ate lunch with my real estate agent today. It’ll be good to look at options and stuff for real estate. David Fairwell at RE/MAX, if you need to buy a house! He’s very good!

Anyone catch the inaugural speech? NPR analysts were calling it “a perfect speech,” and “breathtaking in scope and presentation…” NPR! The same people who selected the Imperial March as the soundtrack for 2004. I mean, it wasn’t that great of a speech, honestly. Oh well.

More to say, but it’ll have to wait. Gotta get back to work.

“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

Chicken Little seems to be an appropriate way to begin today’s post, as we are currently running around like crazy at work trying to get something done by the end of today that wasn’t really even in our plan until this morning. These little “drive-by” projects can be quite interesting. It’s sometimes frustrating, because as the one actually doing the work, it would be nice if management was able to better shield me/us from these acorn-on-the-noggin moments. But it happens.

No doubt some of you are wondering how I’m finding time to compose this post if work is so crazy. Well, the long answer is that software development is a tricky job, and you’re not always go-go-go. Sometimes there are a few minutes here and there when you’re compiling or waiting for someone else, etc. The quick answer is I’m slacking off for a few minutes. I’ll get back to work momentarily.

Current snapshot for the rest of the work week: 9 high priority bugs, 6 development tasks. One deadline today (2 of those tasks), one on the 24th (everything else).

Nothing really to say on the personal front, but if I think of anything, I’ll let you know. Until then, don’t let the acorns get you down.

Good morning, everyone!

I hope you weekends were all well! Mine was busy, as usual, but fun! Of note: my father spoke at Clearview Foursquare this weekend. I went to listen, and of course it was very good! He’s like me in that he’ll be second-guessing the way he said various things for a while probably… but from an observers point of view, it was very good! On “Law and Grace”, basically old-testiment vs. new-testiment focus and what changed between the two. My favorite line likened the crucifiction to a risky investment in us from God. Investing grace (or the offer thereof) – essentially – with the risk of one not accepting it. I hope to have an audio file up soon of the lecture, tho I’m having temporary issues acquiring it from the church.

Speaking of investing, on a slightly smaller scale….

I’m currently invested into two main stocks… Apple Computer and Environmental Energy Services. I mention that because Apple Computer (AAPL) is doing very well… I bought last week at $62, and we’re up over $70. I suspect that they have peaked, however. I will likely hold on for the rest of the week to see what the stock does before making any decisions.

Environmental Energy Services is an odd one. It’s a low-cap unlisted stock (EESV.PK). I bought 80,000 shares at basement prices, and as usually happens, the value of the stock dropped 80% since I picked it up a few months ago. They have no continuing operations and are currently attempting to buy into Alaskan energy contracts (oil/gas). With 80,000 shares bought at bargin prices, it wouldn’t take much of an upswing to make significant profits. I’ll keep you all informed on that.

I’m meeting up with my real-estate agent later this week. We’re going to go over what it is I would like to do moving forward, so that should be a good discussion. I think, ultimately, I would like to either buy a rental or rent out my current place and buy a new place. Something to keep the money moving and doing something for me.

Anyway, let’s call that good for now! I’m still trying to figure out why I can’t send pictures to my computer from my phone anymore. Once I figure that out, I’ll start uploading more photos of everyday life. :)

What does Battlestar Galactica and Ping-Ping have in common? Nothing really, except I participated in both tonight. Well, I don’t imagine Battlestar Galactica is a “participation” activity, so much as a sit-on-your-ass activity, but either way I watched BSG and played ping pong. Now, the reason I brought this up is actually two fold: firstly, I loved Battlestar Galactica… secondly, the ping pong was played on a minature table that I received as a present for christmas from a friend (A.J., if you must know). It’s GREAT! I captured a little video of us playing a game… this thing couldn’t be any bigger than 1.5×3 feet. It’s VERY funny.. :)

Battlestar Galactica was decent. UK viewers say it only gets better from here, so I’m looking forward to it… it definitely has some huge potential. Even the one-hour episodes seem to have an epic miniseries-like quality to them. Overall, I’m excited to see how the series goes.

Well, I my weekend is going to be quite hectic, and my cat’s freaking out that I haven’t got to bed yet… so for the sake of my cat, I shall do just that.

This is for Apple users only. I have an inter-family (the Apple family!) complaint. My iPod mini broke… again! This is the SECOND time. And it’s pretty messed up this time. Now, Apple’s customer support being second-to-none, I know that I’ll get my replacement within 4 days of me opening a support ticket, but I’ve had this thing less than a year. Anyone else experiencing above-average problems with their iPods? Very un-Apple-like.

So how’d you do for the holidays?

Personally, I don’t really care for the holidays. It’s not like I hate them, it’s just that they’re stressful. Overall it was fairly fun. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the family much. I was sick on Christmas day and had to leave the party for my father’s side of the family fairly quickly, and my mother’s side of the family had to reschedule to a day that I was working.

Interesting little tidbit: the word Xmas is actually misinterpreted by most religious people. The word Xmas actually has Greek origins, and X was intended to be shorthand for “Xristos”, the Greek work for Christ. Early greek Christians understood Xmas to be a perfectly acceptable word, while more contemporary Christians - with no understanding of the word’s origins - view the word as disrespectful.

Anyway, enough of the holidays! Update: I DID pass my Sun Microsystem’s Java 2 Certification exam! So I’m officially certified! That also started kind of a desire in me to acquire more certifications. Not having a 4-year degree has always frustrated me. As someone who values intelligence extremely highly, and considers himself fairly intelligent also, not having that stupid little piece of paper is like a constant jab in the ribs. However, at this point actually pursuing my 4-year degree would be costly and could take a while, which would not help my career at this point. So instead, I’m going to pack on the certifications. Yes, it feels a little bit like cheating, but it seems to have the most bang-for-the-buck for someone in my position at the moment.

That said, I’ve been studying for the Project+ certification. Project management… I’m halfway through the book, and wow… I never knew project management entailed so much stuff! I’m just getting in to the Execution Process Group. Already I’ve had to memorize like 6 documents… scope docs, Work Breakdown Structure, etc… I would like to try utilizing what I’ve learned, but any kind of “process” seems to be frowned upon here at work. If we’re not heads-down coding, it’s a waste of time… according to management. So, no such luck.

Lastly, I’d like to strongly reiterate my love for the city of Portland. I have every intention of moving there as soon as realistically possible. As a reference, please check my .Mac photo albums:

• First Trip – Day One
• First Trip – Day Two
• Third Trip
• Third Trip – Condo Shopping

That’s it!