This is not the first time I have heard that Juno is a fantasy movie, but this story is not very useful. It does not really show the problems with the story. It says little about what real teens face. I get up set when I read news stories with so little news.
I know that newspapers have a limited amount of space, but websites do not. Even if you do not have a full story in the paper you can have it on your website.
The San Jose Grand Prix is no more. Next Year Champ Car is not coming back to San Jose. There will be no cars racing around the streets of San Jose next year. I missed the San Jose Grand Prix all three years. It looks like I will never get to one. I kept on telling myself I wanted to go. This year could have been the year, but it was at the same time as Comic Con. Of course Comic Con won for me. Now there is not next year.
I am sad to see the Grand Prix go. Many of my friends did not like the Grand Prix, but I thought it was good for the city. San Jose has to find ways to get more people to come here. I think San Jose has a lot to offer, but it needs to be pushed to develop. Lots of people are happy to see us as a suburb of San Francisco. I think that San Jose can be more than that, but only if people have vision. This is a sad day for San Jose in my eyes.
I am happy I was not the guys that figured this out. I would have been cheesed off, the same way I was when I finished reading the Crying of Lot 49 back in 1996. My reaction to that novel when I was finished was, "really, I just spent a week reading a novel and that is the ending I got." I guess I am just not a Thomas Pynchon fan. I have like see his appernces on the Simpsons.
The popular Mercury News roadway columnist Mr. Roadshow declared today, June 29th, Drive theSpeed Limit day. The idea was to have one day where everyone drives the speed limit. I know that is a funny sounding idea. Silicon valley might be the biggest speeding place I have ever been.
The two reasons to drive the speed limit are safety and fuel consumption. Safety one is a hard idea for people to get there minds around. Most people think it is going to be someone else who gets into an accident. They will drive a speed that feels safe with their car and the road environment. It is really hard to tell drivers their speed is not safe, I have heard people try. I think the problem is that it is a risk that people cannot get their mind around. It is not easy for the average person to figure out how much an extra 5 or 10 MPH will effect the odds of them getting into an accident.
When it comes to using fuel, speed had a whole different sent of issues. It becomes a question of how I spend my time. Is a little extra gas worth a few extra minutes. If I am getting those extra minutes back every day. If those minutes are extra minutes with family or friends, it is easy to say it is worth the money. It is one of the few ways money can buy extra time.
My answer to Drive the Speed Limit Day was to work from home. It made it very easy not to speed. Today is a big getaway weekend so I will be staying off the roads tonight also. I saved a lot of gas today.
Call me a skeptic about video game addiction being its own mental disorder. I know I am not a doctor, but this seems to not have enough research yet. I know that there is little barrier to entry, but it being addicted to video games different than being addicted to other forms of escapism. I have known people who have been addicted to video games but they do not act differently that other people who avoid reality. It seems very trendy to make it a stand alone mental disorder.
I saw a story in the Mercury News that two brothers in the ares are running a faith healing scam. It seems that the two men have been charged with theft. Unless the police can prove that the men knew they were scamming people, would this be a religious faith issue? Can't they defend themselves with Freedom of Religion. I am not someone who believes in faith healing, but is it a crime to get other people to believe?
I think that we should all be writing our law makers. We should be asking for two things. First, we need a federal shield law for the media. Second, all existing shield laws should be extended to blogger and video bloggers. I have already sent an e-mail to my congressperson. I think it is important thing for all bloggers and blog readers to do.
The most compelling reason to ban plastic bags in my mind is litter. In one story I saw that plastic bags cause a big problem in the sewer system. You always see them blowing around the city. If banning plastic bags address this, it will be a good thing. I am not sure what kind of problem we are adding to get rid of the problem we have right now.
It is not clear to me how San Francisco defines a Grocery store. Being a single male, I do a lot of my shopping at convenience stores, are they going to be covered? I also get a lot of plastic bags from other retailers, will those stores be covered in some future bill? Has anyone done a study to see where the plastic bags are coming from?
There was a quote in the NPR story that made me think of my father.
"As far as I'm concerned I don't care what they bag it in, they could easily bag it in paper," Pat Coleman said. "And I'll recycle the paper. As long as it has handles on it."
For years my father would make the grocery stores put a paper bag in a plastic bag. That was the only way he could carry the bag. I have not see the bill say anything about the bags the stores offer having to have handles.
There is an interesting quote in the Mercury News story:
Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would be disappointing if grocers rejected the biodegradable plastic bag option since more trees would have to be cut down if paper bag use increases.
The new breed of bags "offers consumers a way out of a false choice, a way out of the paper or plastic dilemma," Noble said.
The best thing about this quote is that the average person has no idea what Craig Noble is talking about. The average person does not know a biodegradable plastic bag from an old plastic bag. It might be bad PR for a store to use biodegradable plastic bags.
I still have the feeling this will blow up in SF's face.
I have not thought about gender and work in a while. In the Merc news today there is a story about how jobs are divided by gender. This is pretty interesting. I wonder if this has anything to do with women settling for less in salary negations. I wonder if this might pull a whole profession down.
I also wonder if it is something else all together different. This stat really stood out to me.
About 42 percent of the nation's working women are employed in just 20 occupations out of 450 on the government's standardized roster of jobs, including preschool and kindergarten teachers (98 percent female), secretaries and administrative assistants (97 percent female), receptionists (93 percent female), registered nurses (91 percent female) and maids and house cleaners (88 percent female).
It makes me wonder about the labor supply and demand in these fields. I wonder if this is more than just labor the difference. Is there a difference in the competitive nature of these fields? Is like fields for a men more dangerous or dirty. I think looking at the top five might give us some insights.
1. Logging workers 2. Automotive body and related repairers 3. Cement masons, concrete finishers, terrazzo workers 4. Bus and truck mechanics, diesel engine specialists 5. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
To be honest I do not hear feminists yelling for more women to be in these fields. I think you need to see longer lists to see what is happening. I am not sure that these things are going to change any time soon. I am not saying that sexism is not at work here, but there are forces more powerful than just regular men being sexists here. Unless those forces are understood nothing with change.
I was a little surprised to hear that KCNL is dropping Spanish format. Over the past decade or so Spanish language radio has been very profitable in California. I wonder if this is a change in radio. Has Spanish language radio his a saturation point or was this channel just doing it poorly?
I have not listened to the new station yet. I know I should check it out. I found this quote to be interesting.
The station, licensed in Sunnyvale with offices in San Jose, plans an ambitious new lineup, which will include listeners picking what to play and announcing songs from mobile studios built into two Scions that will rove the area.
I have been holding onto this story for a while. I found this to be funny. Study finds Web isn't teeming with sex. It still does not say what is making money on the on the web. There are lots of people like me not making any money using the web and producing lots of pages.
It looks like labels might be seeing the advances of music on MP3. I hope that MP3 or open formats like MP3 win out. I looks like music labels might start treating customers like customers. That can only be a good thing. I think it will be good for everyone in the long run. Lets see what happens.
I do not want to sound discouraging, but banning Styrofoam containers feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The Mercury News did do a Pro/Con list for getting rid of Styrofoam. The real problem I worry about is not addressed by the list. I worry about how much energy it takes to make each kind of containers. If global warming is the most important environmental issues for us to address, how much energy it takes to make containers is more important than if it degrades or not. There is no two ways around it.
I am sad to say that I live in the kind of city where a Group of men beat teen over an iPod. I know it is just a mugging like any other mugging. The idea of being mugged over an iPod just depresses me. It might be because I am always wearing my iPod. I will say if you try to beat me over my iPod it will end poorly for all of us.
Today the Mercury News is asking, Is Steve Jobs safe?. The options backdating scandal is still out there. A lot of Silicon Valley executives have already been forced out because of this scandal. The questions is, will it catch up with Steve Jobs or not.
"I don't think there is anybody who is too big, too important or too rich to go to jail. That applies to Steve Jobs as well," said Paul Hodgson Sr., a senior researcher for the Corporate Library. "If he has done something wrong, he has got to go, regardless of the situation."
I wonder if people are painting a bulls-eye on Steve Jobs. There are a lot of people out there that would like to see him go down, I am not sure if government investigators are some of those people or not.
Steve Jobs lead Apple back from the dead. He is also the CEO of Pixar and on the board at Disney. I am not sure what would happen to these companies if he went to jail or had to resign.
I find it interesting that they are ending Home re-listings right as the market is starting to get soft. This sounds like a move that favors the buyers. It was not that important in a market where things sold quickly. It is much more important when houses stay on the market.
In the Mercury News today there is a commentary by Ted Galen Carpenter titled Keeping the Al-Qaida Threat in perspective. (the website has a different title for it). Lately the Bush Administration has been comparing "Islamic Fasists" to Nazis and the Cold War. The administration has received some heat for this, but few people have put together good arguments for why the administration is wrong.
I think that Ted Galen Carpenter makes some good points. During World War 2 Germany was the Second biggest economic power in the world. During the Cold War the Soviets were the Second biggest military power. I am not sure how you can determine Al-Qaida's power, but they are not that powerful. Even if they took over the whole Middle East, they would not be this powerful.
I heard Louise Richardson speak about the September 11th attacks on KQED Forum. She wants to remind everyone that every year six times as many people die from drunk drivers every year than died in the September 11th attacks. The number I found for 2002 was 17,419. People do not talk about outlawing drinking. I do not think people see it that way.
I know lots of people who think that Google is perfect. They think there is no need for any other search engine. I like Google, but it is not perfect. It looks like other people are looking for better search also.
It is hard to describe what is wrong with search engines. A user needs to know how to make a better search themself. They need a better idea of what they want so they can find it. I know that a lot of this has to do with ranking search results and putting more work into search might not work for people.
I wonder if anyone will beat Google or if Google will offer more ways to search the same data.
Growing up outside of Philadelphia I usually think of Camden, New Jersey when I think about Mayors being indicted. People most have known I was getting hope sick. In San Jose, Prosecutor accuses mayor, aide in 'secret bribery, fraud scheme'. It looks like my boy Ron Gonzales might be on the wrong side of the law. Looks like he will not be running for governor any time soon
"Aided by changes that took effect in 2002 making it easier to vote by mail in California, the ranks of absentee voters have more than doubled in the past 16 years, from 18 percent in the 1990 general election to nearly 40 percent in last year's special election."
I wonder if the voting booth will be a thing of the past someday.
