BANK BAILOUTS WILL COST US PLENTY

I just received an email from Representative Ed Royce of Orange County.

Listen to what he is telling me. There is a bill before congress that will bail out the banks to prevent them from going under. First the banks get to rake in the bucks on tons of loans and then they get to dump their bad loans on the American people? I don't think so.

Here is how Mr. Royce puts it (btw, he is voting against the bill):

The bill included a $300 billion plan which would allow banks to dump their least appealing loans onto the Federal Housing Administration. By taking on these mortgages, we are shifting that default risk, currently held by institutions and investors around the world, onto the backs of the American taxpayers. Perhaps less obvious than the $300 billion bailout, but in many respects more egregious, is an affordable housing fund which would funnel as much as $600 million every year to activist organizations with long histories of both voter fraud and anti-free market advocacy throughout the country.

300 Billion dollars? Who's got that? Not America. We loaned all our money to other countries. Whatever money we have left is used to keep the lights on in Iraq for our troops.

I understand that the economy would be devastated and we could have another depression if the big three banks went under. I wouldn't even mind helping them out in some capacity, but first they should start by cutting into the millions that the CEOs are getting. You know those salaries won't be touched.

Now as you guys know from my past blog I have pulled all my savings out of the bank. I have it in an off site secure location just until this stuff blows over. And all my money is going strait in my gas tank. I have no more to give. So if a bank gets to reap the rewards of profit they should also pay the penalty of bad business decisions.

IPHONE 3G DISASTER - PART IV

I am feeling way better now that the iPhone is having major problems.

Most of you have been following my iPhone frustrations. I am the only one that has to pay $499 for my iPhone if I want one because I am an unloved AT&T customer that isn't due for a phone upgrade until January. So I have to pay the "hell will freeze" over price of $499, if I want one.

Well, it seems that the discount $299 price might not be worth it either from what I am hearing.

Let's look at the problems:

1. 3G speeds aren't true 3G speeds. They are somewhere between what they are right now (EDGE speed) and what they claimed they should be. It still takes a while to load an internet page.

2. Can't run any applications in the background of the iPhone. So basic software that notifies you of a stock market boom is not in the near future. This is probably not an iPhone feature due to problem #3.

3. HORRIBLE LIFE ON THE BATTERY. I would have to see for myself, but the guys over at TechCrunch keep complaining about battery life being very short and I tend to believe them. It doesn't take much to impress TechCrunch guys, but it takes a lot to irritate them.

4. White iPhones are cracking. That's right. There are many cases out there that are showing cracks as you can see from the image above. That's not good since they aren't even a month old. More stories are coming in. I am curious about how the black models are holding up.

5. Unable to capture video was a surprise on this iPhone. My toaster can capture video. Also, the camera is still 2 megapixel. Wow. What's up with that???

As I am impatiently waiting to buy my iPhone in January (SIX WHOLE MONTHS!!!), I am at least getting some relief by people having a miserable time with the iPhones they have.

as Nelson would say on the Simpsons: HA! Ha!

BOYCOTT EMPLOYMENTCROSSING.COM

For those of you who don't know, Randy Pausch sadly passed away on 7/25/08 at age 47.

He received major notoriety for his amazing "Last Lecture" he gave before he died.

It seems that Employmentcrossing.com decided to use his death as way to promote their site. They did a 3 minute video on Youtube. They spend 50 sec. talking about Randy and the other 2:10 talking about Employmentcrossing.com.

I am appalled that any one would be so heartless as to use the death of another for profit like this.

I am asking that you BOYCOTT EMPLOYMENTCROSSING.COM. Please call the company at 800-680-7345 to complain about their video.

BOYCOTT BEIJING!!!

There is a show on PBS called Frontline. I was watching an episode titled "Young and Restless In China".

It was a little shocking to find out that China built huge power towers in the middle of little towns to help with the coming Olympics. It was more shocking to know that over a million people were pushed out of their homes and their homes were demolished for the Olympics.

China is so worried that the look good in front of the world that they are destroying their own people by doing it. I don't believe China cares about anybody but themselves. The are monopolizing all our earthly resources like gas, steel, food products, etc.

They barely doing any importing of our products and yet they are making billions a year on exporting to the USA.

Now I do blame the USA for continuing to import from China. USA is mostly to blame on a lot of the problems in America. That doesn't mean we can't stand up for what we believe.

I can not support the Olympics in Beijing. I will not watch any of the Olympics. I will not use any products with the Olympic symbol on it, and I will tell everyone I know to Boycott Beijing. This country is still a communist country and yet we bring them the glory of broadcast all throughout America?

Watch this documentary "Young and Restless In China" online. Once your done watching it, then try to explain to me two things:

1. how can we support a country that fines you $95,000 for giving birth to a second child
2. how can we watch the Olympics when it became possible by destroying people's lives.

BOYCOTT BEIJING.

WHO ARE THESE GEEKS???

I have been a tech guy since the internet was only being used by companies like Prodigy and AOL. In the past 5 years, I have become a much heavier user of the internet.

I run 4 blogs, one company website, I have developed three other sites for other companies, I am on myspace, facebook, pandora, youtube, metacafe, twitter, friendfeed, loopt, twitterberry, and so much more that it makes my head hurts.

If there is one thing I have learned is that everyone on the net is fighting for attention saying "look at me. look at me". You have no idea of the different types of people there are.

Let's review a few. I may get some of the details wrong on some of these people, but you'll get the jist. Also, Please remember that this is strictly my opinion.



Kevin Rose - Although Kevin is probably the least selfish of the bunch and most successful, I must say I feel opposite about his site. Kevin developed Digg.com. You may not know digg, but every liberal 19 year old male does. They have huge traffic and yet no one in the real world of business knows who they are. Kevin comes across as a nice guy, but his website is very anti-Microsoft, Walmart, Religion, Bush, and Macs. So trying to get an unbiased view of the world is pretty hard, since the lunatics run the assylum at Digg.



Robert Scoble - Not sure what this guy does. He is always writing on twitter and friendfeed and yet never has much to say. He's managing director for FastCompany.tv. I have subscribed to FastCompany for about 10 years and never heard of FastCompany.tv until I came across Robert. He has loads of time to text things 24 hours a day and he is always posting picks on Flikr, which means he can't have time to do any real work.



Michael Arrington - He is the creator of TechCrunch.com which is truly one of the few and best places to get the latest info on technology. I subscribe to his newsletter. In that newsletter Mike is always talking like he is the biggest man in the business. People throw products at him for free or even pay him to review their stuff. Sometimes it crosses the line and he starts pushing his own interests. He has many subscribers. He is his biggest fan.

I don't know what's more pathetic. People tracking down Mike Arrington (TechCrunch) and pitching their company's website or the fact that Mike shows it to the world and makes fun of the guy. The worst part is that Mike held the meeting with this guy in his kitchen.



Jason Calacanis - here is someone I don't even know. He supposedly is a successful blogger, whatever that means. He has since gone public about stopping his blogging profession and only write a newletter to a private few. He will only allow 750 people on his private newsletter. He claims it isn't a publicity stunt and yet over the past few days he has changed the subscriber limit twice. First it was 750, then 1000. Now anyone can sign up with his approval, which is fully automated. Wow. How elite do I feel being on that list. And to make things worse, I get his email hoping for some intellectual conversation and it's nothing but a bunch of plugs for him, his interview on the web after the Batman movie, and other things he is so wonderfully doing.



Andy Beal - I just read about this guy for the first time today. His tag line about himself is "co-author of Radically Transparent: monitoring and managing reputations online." I didn't know there was a market for this. I have never heard of this book, if it really is a book. They write it like everyone knows it. What does a co-author do, anyway? This guy also has his own workshop based on the book. Wow.

Andy was the last straw in this self serving imaginary celebrity cluster. These guys are their own biggest fans and it shows in their writing. They might not realize it, but their little bit of a fan base has gone to their heads.

It reminds me of the unsigned bands that were on MP3.com back in the day.

These bands were the hottest bands on MP3.com. They had over 300,000 fans. The only problem was no one IN THE REAL WORLD knew who they were. It was a make believe world at MP3.com and I am starting to believe the same fate will come to most of the above mentioned names.

I guess the reason for my post is this. It's easy to get a website, send a few twitter messages, post video on the net, and say your someone big. Let's not glorify these guys more than they are already doing to themselves. Take what they have to offer. Tell them thank you and move on. Don't be a follower.