Ok that said, I’m not an American car guy. in fact I’ve never

owned, been inclined to own, or liked anything made in America. Sure there’s some nice whips coming out of Detroit, but none made me want to walk away from my beloved Austrian Engineering.

While I’m not about to sell my paid off A4 to get a Volt, if my situation was different, the Volt would be a contender.

But the Volt is a nice looking ride. Externally it’s a sporty little hatchback, with clean lines and some definite aggressiveness. The headlights (usually my first impression is based on them) are nice and angular. They were your basic Halogen, which felt cheap to me.

Before I go inside, my only complaints on the exterior are: the mirrors are a bit big and stick out like Alfalfa’s ears, and at least on the model I drove, weren’t automatic when parking, etc. And the front end sticks a bit out from the wheels. Even with just me in the car, pulling out of the alley I park in caused some scraping. My A4 with sport suspension has no issues. Big nose.

Ok interior stuff.

The inside is pretty nice. A good amount of brushed alum, which always adds class :)

The console is all touch button goodness,  with very few actual moving buttons. I found the interior quite nice, which is usually what I hate the most about american cars. Chrome does not make something that sucks, better on it’s own.

My unit came with Navigation, it was ass.  One of the worst UX’s I’ve ever seen. The screen was way too busy, the touch screen (oh yeah, the center screen is a touch screen!) buttons were confusing, and overall it wasn’t fun to use. Worse yet, if you were moving you couldn’t use it. On the move and need to change your destination? Too bad. Find yourself lost, too bad. I understand it’s a safety feature, my car displays a disclaimer that the passenger should be the one to use the nav while in motion. The Volt straight up locks the user out of the Nav until you come to a stop.

This is one of the less busy nav screens.

As you can see, the buttons are quite nice, pretty responsive.

The only downside of this dashboard…. It’s packed with buttons. A few times I found myself driving and staring at the dash trying to find the button to change the temperature or radio station.

Much like a prius the Volt has a gas motor as well. Unlike the Prius the motor is just to generate electricity, not provide drive power. Accelerating simply takes more juice, but you never get a bump from an engine.

The battery is only good for about 30 miles or so, then you switch to the gas motor. It’s very flawless, I didn’t even feel it. If your daily drive was under 40 miles you’d almost never use gas as long as you got to charge the car at night. If you could plug in during the day you’d be golden.

Also like the the Prius, the Volt has a mesmerizing display showing energy usage and flow as well as a fun little ball that bobs up and down to show you how your driving is impacting energy usage. The data and graph types will love the display. It’s chock full of neat tidbits about your driving and energy usage.

I can see why Prius people love to draft, you quickly get to a place where you want that ball to be neutral at least. Once you’ve used up your battery, I’m pretty sure you’re done. I did notice once or twice “Motor and Battery” as the driving force, but once I was on gas, it never that I saw went to “battery power” only. I wish when idling or coasting, the motor would charge the battery. Maybe it does, since on 110 it takes 8 hours to charge it, the motor just may not make a dent.

Speaking of charging, the Volt does not like sharing outlets. Twice i popped my GFI outlet while having the Volt.

I was definitely bummed when they said they needed it back, it was a fun car to drive. I was very impressed. I got tons of questions and everyone i saw asked about it, which was cool. I definitely hope to see more vehicles like the volt in the marketplace. I really… REALLY hope Audi rolls something like it out. While I do love my Turbo charger, I might sway to the Hybrid side.

Oh and the storage space.. While no where near a sport back like the A4, it did hold two full sized suitcases, and then some, so that’s not bad.

Their reasons for not being fans of kickstarter are their own, and while I agree Kickstarter needs some overhauling, I’m not opposed to it in general, in fact I’ve backed 3 things.

I do think they should take a little oversight, and implement some rules. I don’t normally like rules for the sake of rules, but a good case in point is a project I backed called “The Present”. I backed it in late 2011. It funded the next month. The planned ship date was “beginning of 2012″ well even loosely, that would be what? First quarter? I backed it because the intro movie was incredibly inspirational to me. I backed it because at the time, time was on my mind.

16 updates since funding, no new ship date is known, and the creator (I’m sure a great guy) seems to be traveling the globe, making (admittedly) very cool videos to share with backers on his thoughts on all manner of things. He also mixes in moaning about not finding the right mediums for the product, not being able to have it made in the US. He’s basically started from scratch after funding. It might have been mentioned, but I don’t recall US manufacturing being a factor in the initial “please back me” phase. If it was, perhaps he should have worked out arrangements ahead of time to ensure it was possible. I’ve no idea what it will be made of, the initial information was metal and glass. Two things I like a lot. Then he was talking about wood, no glass, and now I don’t recall what he’s thinking of using. Definitely not the experience Kickstarter wants. At least I assume they don’t want this type of experience.

Obviously things happen, but I think it’s fair if Kickstarter had some rules in place  to make sure the people getting backed had the ability to deliver. Whether that’s more escrowing of money or something else I don’t know. But had I know the thing I bought (I actually bought two. one was to be a gift) wasn’t gonna make it’s ship date, and then wouldn’t have a ship date, I wouldn’t have backed it. He’s got my money, in fact he’s had it for 5 months now. The thing I eventually get, may not even look anything like the thing I backed. That’s pretty crappy.

Of course other projects rock, they fund, they create, the ship. More importantly when they update the backers, they actually give new information. I love my Lunatik iWatch, and I’m anxious to get my LunaTik stylus thing next month.

So yeah I’m being way more careful now in backing Kickstarter projects. I love the idea of crowd funding, but worry now we’ll see projects fund that sound great, and never deliver.

Figured I’d throw this out really quick.

I like iOS 5. It’s better than Ice Cream Sandwich.

the iPad(3) means my Xoom is being sold to offset the cost of an iPad.

So yeah not at all disappointed.

I’ve railed about this before, but wanted to bring it back to the top. It’s simple, I have money, and I want to spend it. BUT I want to spend it on what I want, not a bundle of shit with a few nuggets of goodness in it. That means I don’t want ESPN, I don’t want MTV or Nicktoons and I certainly don’t want Lifetime, but I do want HBO, USA, the main networks, FX, etc. I’d pay per network or per show. But I’m not against paying people who make content for that content. I’m also not against suffering through ads in exchange for it (within reason)

I’ve been paying for Hulu+ since it went live. Many networks were onboard and I want to pay them for their content….  Except… The only way Hulu is usable is if you use the desktop app, because of licensing bullshit, the mobile apps can’t show certain shows, some are web only, etc. The desktop client skirted that shit and we could watch whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, on our TV via a Macbook running the desktop app.

Too bad Hulu’s desktop app is a red-headed step child and hasn’t been updated in years. Not only is it not updated, but now it’s so old that if you update your Flash player, the app breaks. So you have to choose, new flash or hulu.

Ok fine, the PS3 has a hulu client and is HD with surround vs. our Macbook that is simply stereo. Except… The PS3 client is hamstrung with all those stupid licensing rules. Some ABC shows are ‘web only’ All USA and Sci Fi shows are too. So now I’m paying for shows I basically can’t watch. Why can I watch Castle on the  PS3, but not (it’s for my wife) The Bachelor?

So what’s the solution? Torrents. I was already torrenting CBS programming because they won’t be a part of Hulu and have even said they believe “cord cutting” is a fad that will pass and are willing to wait it out rather than offer streaming options.

The downside of torrenting TV programming is that the network doesn’t know I’m watching. The advertising don’t get my attention, and the net effect can be canceled shows, etc. It’s a trade off, be treated like shit, or risk not being counted as a viewer. I choose to not be treated like I don’t matter.

All that said, Dear CBS, ABC, Fox, HBO and the rest. Figure it out, it’s 2012. We don’t fax things anymore, we don’t gather round to watch TV when it airs, and we don’t want to pay for things we don’t want. Adjusting is up to you, not us the consumers. We’ve moved into the 21st century, and we’re waiting for you to join us.

My friend Dave (@courier_new) asked some questions clarifying my position, so I thought I’d write my thoughts up (not new here, check the eBooks category) in a bit more than 140 chars.

Publishers are fighting companies like Amazon on eBook pricing. Many have won with agency pricing. Agency pricing lets the publisher set the price and more often than not you see this.

The publisher has set the digital price to be the same as the Mass Market Paperback.

Here’s why that sucks and is the wrong path. BTW Dave’s argument which was “aren’t you paying for the content, not the medium?” is very valid, and I’ll explain below why it’s flawed (at least right now).

I very much would pay the same price for dead tree or digital if the same rights existed on both. But that’s not the case because while the publishers want to rape us on eBook prices, they don’t trust us to actually own the content.

if I bought the paperback, I could sell it. I could lend it out as many times as I wanted. I could trade it for another book at a used book store. I could do whatever the hell I wanted with it, since I paid for it.

If i bought the ebook, I could do none of those things. Well I might be able to lend it to someone… once, for 14 days, if the publisher decided to allow that feature (most don’t). Hell I can’t even have my kindle read my book to me, because publishers think it takes away audio book sales.  So by purchasing an ebook, well purchase is wrong, I’m actually renting since I don’t own the content, I’m paying the same price, but getting far less.

Some examples that help clarify my thoughts. Would you lease a car for the same monthly payment as owning it? Would you rent a house, for the same monthly payment as owning it? Would you rent a movie for the same price as owning it? Most likely the answers to those are all ‘no’

So yeah if I could do the same thing with a digital book as I could with a paper one, paying the same price would make complete sense. I’ve already written about why I don’t think eBooks should cost as much since there’s far less involved in their creation, but that aside, I agree with Dave, it’s the content I want to pay for, but it’s the rights around that content that (at least right now) are out of whack with the prices.

I replied that i was mainly reading series and Trade Paper Backs because those are what are easiest to get, because I torrent them. Yup I said it. I torrent comic books. I’d pay for them, I absolutely would. But neither Marvel or DC can wrap their collective brains around digital comics. Sure they have the PC?Mac desktop reader, and an annual subscription to that isn’t really too expensive. All you can read for $50 or so. (Tom tried to get it for me as a gift one year) Problem is it’s desktop only. No tablet reading. When i’m in the mood to sit and read a comic, it’s not when I’m at my desk, and it’s not when I’m at my machine. When I’m on my laptop I’m reading email, checking twitter, etc.

I’ve tried the various the comic apps that each company has released, they’re ok, but a digital comic, much like an eBook shouldn’t be the same price as it’s paper version. Unless of course I can do what I want with the file afterward. If I’m leasing a file, I want to pay a lease price. Marvel, and DC, just look at car companies. Lease payments aren’t the same as car payments.

So the my point is simple and I come across it in events and coworking too. If someone wants to give you money, figure out how to take it. Don’t tell them they’re wrong, and need to give you money only in the way you expect it. Only in the way you took money 20 years ago. If you can offer what they want, and make money in the doing, take their money. It’s Win win. They get what they want, they get to pay for it (which almost all of us want to do as consumers) and you make money, and your product is seen.

HBO, CBS, Marvel, DC, etc. All companies who feel you should be the consumer they want, not the consumer they have. Wake up CEOs and Boards. It’s 2012 and you’re still operating like it’s the mid 90′s

Oh and how this all ties back to my business. I get emails all the time from people who don’t want to pay the regular price of the conferences for whatever reason. Rather than send them away, I figure out how we can both win. I want their money, I want them at the conference, and they want to be there. There’s a win in there if you look for it.

My .02 as a business owner and a consumer

I’ve been a Kindle owner since the K2 came out, and I paid almost $400 for it. I dropped it one morning and busted the screen, and bought a K3 for 1/3 the price of my K2, and I love it. It’s light, easy to use and great at the one thing it does, display words on a readable screen.

Enter the Kindle Fire.

I’ve been using the Fire since I got it, and like it, mostly. We’ve drafted it into service at Uncubed as a digital lending library, loading up PragProg books and the Magazine on it for any member that wants to check it out.

But I’ve been using it as well for various things.

Reading.

I’m very much anti reading on backlit screens. I’ve tried it on the iPad and end up staring at my eyeballs and falling asleep. Same with my Xoom, even when both had screen covers to make them less mirror-like. I tried on my iPhone, nope, same issue.

The screen on the Fire is definitely shiny but the default look of the Book reading app is a pinkish tinted background with black text (I dunno if it’s me, but the text seems to change color randomly in places, which helps focus my eyes). That color/contrast actually is quite readable. I’ve been using the Fire to read at night or at my desk. Both use cases work great.

The page turning is a bit sensitive, I’ve accidentally changed pages a few times, the lightest touch in the wrong place and it’s a new page. That’s something you get used to though.

Where it doesn’t work is the gym. The Fire is heavy. I don’t know if there’s lead shot in there somewhere or what, but it weighs A LOT. so the gym is out, I don’t want my reader to be my resistance training.

Amazon Experience.

From the moment the rumors started to fly about a Kindle Tablet, I said they were the only ones who had a snowballs chance to compete (maybe not beat, maybe, who knows) with Apple. They have the closed system with lots of lock in. My books were immediate available on the fire, I just had to re-download them. If you have an Amazon Prime account (you really should get one) then you can stream all kinds of video content, You can borrow books, you can upload music. The Amazon eco system is really a strong player. I immediately had music, books and video content at my finger tips and it was easy to access.

The other thing I think Amazon has going for it is, they can take the opposite approach Motorola and HP took to compete with the iPad. You can’t be the same price or worse yet more money, than the iPad. But if you’re half the price, and can offer an awesome foundation of apps, video, music and more, then there’s very few

Apps.

The app store is, meh. Everything I’ve bought from the Amazon App store that was compatible with the Fire was there and ready to be re-downloaded, which is nice. A lot still isn’t Fire friendly, but can be side loaded which works ok. But in general the app store is as much a mess as the Google one, with shit quality apps mixed in with really great ones. That’s likely to fix itself tho. My favorite news reader isn’t on the Fire but I found one that is ok. It’s good enough considering reading RSS feeds on the Fire is likely to be a not very often thing.

Video.

Vide on the Fire seems ok to me. I tried out hulu and Netflix, both were great. Dear Hulu, the Fire can run your app by my Xoom can’t? that’s craptastic, just sayin’. I also tried out the Amazon Prime streaming video and that was fine, it wasn’t HD and that was clear, but much of (that I’ve seen) the Prime video library right now is older TV shows and movies.  Overall It’s a great little movie watcher. The lame amount of internal storage precludes you from loading your own movies on it. You can, but only 1-2 movies are likely to fit. But if you’re in the net, stream away and enjoy.

OS.

To the casual user, I doubt they’d ever know it was Android, it’s so heavily skinned and modified. To someone like me that’s annoying. I want to tweak settings, etc. and Amazon has taken a very Apple-like stance in that you can change the most basic of settings, and that’s it. The rest is locked down.

The carrousel thing SUCKS. I’m guessing it’ll be gone in the next major OS revision. it’s retarded. It’s a running history of everything you do on the Fire, apps, movies, books, etc in one big ass list. And it takes up most of the screen in portrait and all of it in Landscape. It’s terrible. Amazon find a better UX for the home screen.

There’s things Apple just gets, that others need to shamelessly copy. Changing screen orientation is one of them. Rotating your iPhone you see a nice animation of the screen kind reshaping and fitting into the new size. Rotating the Fire and you see the old orientation, a blink of nothing, and the new orientation. like the damn Matrix redrawing when something is changed. It’s really terrible. Not OMG I can’t use the device, but OMG how did no one flip out about this before launch?

Magazines and Comics.

I was really excited about comics. I’ve tried every reader made for the iPad and Xoom, they all blow. Amazon secured some awesome exclusives so I assumed the comic reading experience despite smaller screen would be great. I was wrong. I’m glad I sampled the comics first before buying. It’s close, I’ll grant you, but having to double tap the panel you want to zoom into, and then again double tapping to get back to regular page view is terrible. Why not once zoomed in, allow me to swipe panel to panel, in the proper order? Reading comics was the pits.

The magazine experience wasn’t much better. Mostly because of the screen size. Zinio is a great app, I can see why it isn’t on the Fire, but that’s a loss for users. It might blow on a tiny screen too, who knows, but the amazon magazine viewer is useless. Bummed I didn’t sample the magazine I bought.

Hardware.

I already mentioned that the Fire is heavy, like small dog heavy. Really the hardware is probably my largest complaint, even beyond the stupid carousel UI. Where to start?

The power button. Clearly someone who’s never seen a kindle and never unplugged a device one handed did the design work on the Fire. Every Kindle since the beginning of time has had a slider for sleep/wake. the K3 it lights up all pretty etc. The Fire has a button, like most other tablets, but it’s right next to the USB connector. I can’t be the only person who unplugs devices with one hand, grasping the cable and pushing against the device on both sides of the plug. Doing that withe the Fire presses the power button. LAME.

Speakers, not including speakers might have been better. The Xoom has them on the back of the device, which blows. The Fire has them on the side, on the same side! Watching a video or listening to music, it’s very clear the sound is coming at you from only one direction. It’s a little off-putting.

Did i mention that is’a heavy device?

So, second tablet? For me a Tablet is a news reader, email browser, and web client… mostly, sure I game little, and other stuff. I’ll remote into a laptop once in a while, manage my torrents, write notes in Evernote, etc, but for the most part it’s browsing and reading content. The Fire is just not right for that. Too small screen makes reading more than books, a pain. I love the size, it fits in my back pocket and the pockets of my coats, which earns it some serious points. Of course it’s weight pulls my pants down, so…

I think the next version of the Kindle Fire, both Hardware and OS will kick ass. This one is very much a “let’s get it out and see what people love and hate, and make the Fire2 (forest fire? Blaze?) the best Kindle Tablet possible”

You know an industry is bloated and corrupt when they’re first and only motivation is profit, even and especially at the expense of return business. That’s the Hospitality industry. They don’t care if your event sucks, another is dying to book the space next year.

It’s a lot like banks being too big to fail, hotels are too needed to fail, at least in the conference organizer world. It’s hard to do a conference without a hotel, even if you host the event elsewhere, you need hotels for your attendees, whether you make any special plans or not. It’s way worse when your event is at a hotel, then they have you.

Don’t sell enough tickets and fill guest rooms? They can charge you for possible losses whether losses actually happened or not. Kind of an insult to injury scenario since not selling enough tickets is a huge hit on it’s own.

They deliver a crappy experience? so what, you still owe them nearly 30% service charge for bad service.

This is super generalized, and I’m not naming names, but my current situation, is a direct reflection on this corrupt industry. Hotels are not conference organizers’ friends. Some are awesome and nice and I enjoy working with them, and they earn their 30% service charge (I still think that’s a ludicrous amount, and is highway robbery, but they at least work for it) busting their ass, not for me, for my attendees. When attendees compliment me, i pass it on to the hotel staff who deserve it. Great meal, i didn’t cook it. Great staff who helped solve problems, not me. Others simply suck, say they’re sorry, smile and hold their hand out for their check. It works the same here.

All things flow to the organizer, whether it’s a good or bad experience, whether it’s his fault or doing or not. Hotels love to hear the compliments, they smile, they nod, they give each other awards for it, etc. But telling them where they dropped the ball, well that’s helpful, but please pay your bill as you leave.

As a small and struggling businessman it pisses me off. When things go right, the model of conferences that don’t cost and arm and a leg works really well, but it’s a fine line for sure. I knew that going in. I still do conferences like this because I know it can work. Not because I’m an idealist and haven’t made any money, but because I have made money. Sometimes it’s enough to make sure I can eat and pay the mortgage, sometimes it’s enough to look back and smile at a job well done and know the next event has a bit of a buffer in the bank.

example:

When someone emailed me to complain about the video quality of a session recording (he bought the bundle, $85 worth) i refunded him the entire order. Told him to keep and hopefully enjoy the rest of the videos, and that i was sorry and session videos are something we’re trying to do better at.

What I didn’t do, was say, you bought hundreds of hours of video, for $85, and you’re complaining about 70 minutes? On their own the videos are only $3.50 because they’re not super great. they’re good, some are great, some aren’t, but at $3.50 you’re not out a lot of money, and you most definitely get AT LEAST $3.50 worth of value from them. Most often you get way more than that. I didn’t say anything about that. I didn’t say other events charge way more. I didn’t point out that video sales help cover hosting costs, and buy coffee. I didn’t point out that he probably pays more for Angry Birds levels, and that one video is less than a grande latte. I certainly DID NOT apologize and thank him for his money.

I apologized, and refunded the money. I have no idea if he thought the other videos were bad or not. Frankly i don’t care. He had a problem with one, and to me making sure he remembers that my event is run buy a stand up guy is more important. Will he attend next year? Probably. Hopefully. Sure $85 and what the hotels want isn’t the same, BUT it’s less about the money and more about that customer service, and frankly not being a money grubbing suckwad. And yeah it’s a little about the money too. I’ve refunded conference passes in the same fashion before.

A recent conference I organized had basically 50% crappiness level. Thru no fault of my own, no balls I dropped. No loose ends I neglected to tie up. The first two days had useless internet, tons of balls dropped, things not set up like I asked sponsor tables not where they should be, my reg table not set up right, etc. etc. Worst of all the A/V was useless pretty much 80% of the conference. The guy was never where he was needed, feedback was everywhere, etc. It was terrible. One general session was effectively ruined, as was the session recording) by feedback that made your head hurt. Things got ok the last two days (AV not withstanding), not stellar, not OMG you’ve raised the bar, just good.

As a businessman this is where i get annoyed. I’m the guy who’s gonna write  a check for 100k and you can’t get my reg table right? or my sponsor tables? Sure if I had the space for free, you were doing me a favor etc, I couldn’t and wouldn’t complain, but I am paying. I’m paying A LOT. and things like power strips aren’t put where I asked?? Really?

Did the hotel offer anything for those fuckups? no. Well to be fair I got lots of ‘sorry’ and ‘our bad’ and ‘we fixed that eventually’ and of course ‘next time you don’t need to use that AV company’. When I complained, nicely because I’m a nice guy, and I try to compose myself in business as partnering with vendors and customers, I got song and dance about discounting the service charge on Food/Beverage would make that team think they sucked. I finally got a tiny (relative to the bill) discount on NEXT YEAR. So it’s back to, “we’re sorry we did a bad job, please pay your bill in full as you leave” never mind that in this case, i’ve yet to get a bill that’s correct. Every bill has had errors in my favor and theirs. You can’t adequately bill someone? Hell I’ve tossed invoices when I messed up and just given the sponsor a free ride to show I wanted their future business. THis hotel is busting my ass about a bill i’ve yet to agree is correct.

This has happened 2x, well kinda 3x. Each one was a hotel that didn’t see me as a valued partner, but as the guy who no matter what happened the next four days, would be writing a check for more than 100k. When you think like that you don’t do your best job because you don’t have to. Every year I bust my ass to make sure my sponsors know I want them to succeed, because at the end of the conference, they will either come back or not, based on how I did. That is 100% NOT an issue for hotels. Because of how I think business should be run, I did exactly what they expected. I wrote checks for bad or non existent service. MY sponsors wouldn’t, not for a second, they’d say thank you, we won’t be back. Sadly some have, and I’ve regretted each time, and tried to make sure I learned from those mistakes. Attendees who were treated by me, like I am hotels, wouldn’t come back, and might ask for a refund. Heck I refund people 3 weeks from the conference. Hotels fuck you 6 months out if you need to cancel. Too bad so sad!

It’s a very one-sided relationship. Sadly the conference industry doesn’t help. Most organizers are marketing departments or internal event organizers, etc. While they have a budget target, etc, at the end of the day they don’t care. They still get paid, they can still eat. So what if there’s a 30% raping on top of $4 cans of soda, and $6 cupcakes. It’s not their money. I know they don’t care, because that’s how business works. If hotels didn’t have people lining up to pay $4/can for soda, they wouldn’t charge that.

So this is also kind of an open letter to my fellow organizers. We can do better. We should do better. I’m going to start doing better. To the hotels, well fuck you guys, you don’t care about me, and I’ve hardened my heart to you, so now we’re enemies and fighting each step of the way. That’s not how business should be, and really not how I want business to be done, but it seems in the short term, there’s no choice.

Take a minute and click the bar over my top banner or this link. It’s definitely important.

I don’t think anyone (well maybe the 1%) would argue that it’s a pretty fucked up time in America right now. Record unemployment and foreclosures. The Middle class is vanishing faster than Bengal tigers, and the wealthiest 1% is quickly rising to essentially a ruling class. Didn’t we have a revolution about that notion? Before anyone jumps in. I don’t care if the rich are rich, nor do I think they should just give away money to balance the scales. That’s not the same as expecting a bit more equal playing field to compete and earn money.

We’ve got banks making terrible decisions, doing shady ass deals to get richer, and then being bailed out by the government because we let them get so big, failing would further damage our fragile economy.

We’ve got small businesses struggling (mine included) to stay afloat while big businesses get loans and buy outs. You know, I’d love it if the American public owned a portion of my business, can I get a small bail out loan?

And while all this is going down the government is trying to install a kill switch on the internet. You know like what Egypt and the rest of the middle east, and of course China, like to use when their citizens get uppity wanting peace and freedom from oppression.

I’m against anything that puts the internet in the control of anyone, especially a government or corporation. I think it’s a US responsibility that the internet be free, open and as makes sense unrestricted. I remember watching the news feeds, and of course tweets about shit going down in Egypt and elsewhere. People rising up against their corrupt and sure I’ll say it, evil, governments. The first thing almost every government does in that situation is kill the internet. I remember thinking how strong and brave those folks were not having twitter, Facebook, etc to use to rally. Having to rely basically on old school approaches, and risky in person exchanges before rallies to spread the word. I thought how impressive for one thing, and how sad. And mostly how lucky I felt that such bullshit didn’t happen here. Heck we’ve got popular revolts in many major cities right now, enabled, supported, and enboldened by the internet.

How many occupy(city name) websites do you think there’d be if the US government could simply turn off the net. Block sites they don’t like or that disagree with their world view?

It bums me out when people we elected to office do things that are so far from what the general population wants, let alone cares about. I mean really, do our law makers think the guy who’s struggling to make his mortgage cares about whether the internet has a kill switch?

Think he’s concerned right now as he decides which bill to pay and which to put off until the second notice, that the government is enabling big business to come in and shut down sites that they think might be poaching their shit. Sites where someone made a disparaging comment on a blog post, etc.

He doesn’t care, he can’t. Oh wait, i guess that’s probably their plan… silly me.

Go click the link up above, it really is important.

I got back from my trip to LA and found out. I didn’t know Jim all that much, he ran the motorcycle museum below us, mostly opened on the weekends. He’d come up and chat once in a while, lend us a tool during the construction before we opened. He was a good guy, who loved motorcycles.

His kids came by shortly after his passing and held a wake in the museum, and since then it’s been closed up.

Last night I left the office and was taking the trash out and walk passed the dark windows of the museum. Now the lights would never be on at night anyway, but walking past I knew that they’d never be on again, at least not for Jims’ museum.

Death is a funny thing. I’ve been fairly blessed  in that my family hasn’t suffered many deaths. At least deaths of people I knew or had met. Great grand parents passed when I was a child. That’s changing of course as grand parents are getting older, but they’re still kicking.

But now other people in my life are passing, and it really does (as Steve said at Stanford) make you think and evaluate.

This is kind of a navel gazing post, but i just wanted to share that it’s weird as life goes on, that deaths start to occur and you really do start thinking about life, goals, that kind of shit.

I almost wrote this up and deleted it, but meh, I figured I’d post it just to put it out there, so that next year I can come look at it.