Hermain Cain - Final Thoughts

This is a lightly paraphrased version of Hermain Cain's speech earlier today, in which he suspended his presidential campaign. Enjoy!

From the Borowitz Report:
"A Farewell from Herman Cain"
http://www.borowitzreport.com/2011/12/03/a-farewell-from-herman-cain/

Although it is humorous, there is a lot of truth in there.

"After months of crisscrossing this great land of ours and participating in over three hundred televised debates, I am being disqualified because of an extramarital affair. And that raises the following question: are you fucking kidding me?"

"I mean, let’s get real. I never heard of Libya. I didn’t know whether that CNN dude’s name was Wolf or Blitz. And my only training for running the #1 nation in the world was running its #8 pizza chain. Yet none of that, I repeat, none of that disqualified me. In fact, I was the front-fucking-runner, as long as I kept my 9-9-9 in my pants. (I have no idea what I meant by that — I just like saying 9-9-9.)"

"But here’s the part that really kills me. You’re kicking me to the curb because I was messing around, and instead you’re going with… Newt Gingrich? I repeat: are you fucking kidding me?"

Song of the Day: Old 97s - Question

Here's an older song that I really like, but I just heard it again for the first time in a long time.

"Old 97s - Question"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEwFik6ObJs


I first heard this song on Scrubs, one of my all-time favorite television shows.

Here's the scene where they played the Old 97s on Scrubs:
"Scrubs 'Carla Finally Says Yes'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDUK_h_jxxQ

How to Set Up Your Chromebook

Bias alert: Yes, I already have a Chromebook. Yes, I just ordered another one for Christmas. They're not for everyone, and they may not be suitable as your only computer. But they're very good at what they do, which is ... accessing the web. If you live in the "cloud" then a Chromebook does so with very minimal overhead. Quick to turn on (8 seconds). Long battery life. No need to load or update software or operating systems. No need (I'm told) for virus scanning.

And one feature that I really like about a Chromebook is that even I can share one (and I'm not very good at sharing)! When you log in, it remembers your settings just like it's your computer. When someone else logs in, it remembers their settings. No need to worry about them accessing your data or changing your settings or uninstalling your stuff. Compare this to your phone or your tablet (at least the ones I'm familiar with).

During this holiday season I asked myself, what would I rather have: A tablet or a Chromebook? I went Chromebook. I can't type e-mail and work on documents very easily with a tablet. A Chromebook does what I need it to do.

Okay, so let's say you've taken my advice and bought a Chromebook. How do you set it up? Luckily, Google has provided some instructional videos.

"Chromebook: Set Up"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DazdIFMbC_4

You can see the whole series of educational Chromebook videos here:
http://www.google.com/chromebook/features-videos.html

And there is a YouTube channel for Chrome (including Chromebooks):
"Google Chrome"
http://www.youtube.com/user/googlechrome

I don't think I'm bragging too much if I told you that I knew EXACTLY what they were going to do in the "Chromebook: Back Up" video. You could see it a mile away. It was pretty obvious, wasn't it? :)

For more info on Chromebooks (I feel so dirty, but I can't stop myself), go here:
http://www.google.com/chromebook/

Falcons Rise Up?

So, living in Atlanta, I've been seeing a lot of this commercial lately. From YouTube:
"Evander Holyfield In Atlanta Falcons Commercial" posted by chanmedia247
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXs8vZEAcL8

Every time I see it, I think two things.

1. Around 0:20 of the video they show a clip from a Falcons/Packers game. Do they not remember what Packers do? ESPN does:
Aaron Rodgers torches Falcons as Packers romp into NFC title game

2. Around 0:21 of the commercial Jimmy Carter asks, "What do Falcons do?" And every time he asks that I think, "And where do they do it? In a litter box, just like cats do?"

Song of the Day: Raleigh Moncrief - Lament For Morning

So for my Song of the Day I go from country music to this? Yes, my seven readers, I have strange tastes. I was once again listening to some of my free music sources and this song caught my ear. It's different, but it's growing on me.

Raleigh Moncrief - "Lament For Morning"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg3kPZKqpZM

By the way, can you remind me again why anyone would bother to listen to the radio anymore? Other than talk radio and sports, there is simply no reason for radio to exist.

Google Ngram Viewer

Do you like words as much as I do? Here is a cool tool for you to play with. It's called Google Ngram Viewer.

Google Ngram Viewer
http://books.google.com/ngrams

Type a word and see how its popularity has changed over time. This is particularly interesting as new phrases enter our language.

Re-Engineering Afghanistan

I found another fascinating article the ties engineering and politics together. But they are not a great combination. I guess politics and anything would be a bad combination, come to think of it.

Think about this article the next time you read how government investment in infrastructure will "stimulate" our economy. Government can't even do a good job when it has the best of intentions--and it often doesn't. From IEEE Spectrum magazine:
"Re-engineering Afghanistan" by Glenn Zorpettehttp://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/reengineering-afghanistan

The subtitle says it all:
"The coalition has spent hundreds of millions trying to give Afghanistan electricity. Unfortunately, it made many of the mistakes it made in Iraq"

If I quoted portions of the article that I thought deserved extra emphasis I'd end up quoting too much of the article. And I've already done that in plenty of other posts on this blog.

So I'll leave it at this: Read the article and see what you think about whether government can do a better job than the private sector in allocating scarce resources. And ask yourself what the hell we're doing over there.