bpope’s blog

I was catching up on some back reading in my RSS feed, and came across an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Common Sense May Kill ObamaCare.”  One section jumped out at me:

The final bill, with all its complexities, will probably be huge, a thousand pages or so. Americans don’t fear the devil’s in the details, they fear hell is. Do they want the same people running health care who gave us the Department of Motor Vehicles, the post office and the invasion of Iraq?

Lets look at those agencies that apparently we Americans fear so much:

(1) Department of Motor Vehicles.
Okay, I can see why people would not like the government because of the DMV…long maddening lines.  However, the DMV is a state-run organization and is not administered by the federal government.  Strike 1.

(2) Post office
What exactly is wrong with the USPS?  Unless I’m mistaken, it’s a highly efficient, affordably priced, federally run organization.  You’re upset because you have to wait in line at 5 o’clock because you chose to go to the Post Office at 5pm just like everybody else?  Please, give me a break.  Strike 2.

(3) Iraq war.
Now, I guess it’s pretty obvious that the Iraq war has been fraught with issues through and through.  However, I think it’s rather silly to not look at the entity conducting the Iraq war…and other wars, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations around the world: the US military.  The US military is a fine example of what a government can achieve.  It is the best in the world, from a technological and a strategic perspective.  It provides for its troops and turns out leaders.  Strike 3.

I’m not commenting on whether or not I like the ObamaCare plan.  I don’t know enough about it to comment.  And yes, I am excerpting from an article that does contain some valid points.  I do, however, think that is one poor excuse for logical reasoning, and shame on the Wall Street Journal for publishing that kind of fear-mongering garbage.

The great part is that my mom thought this was amusing, too.  But seriously, I need more motivation to floss…

Gizmodo is good at some of the things it does…snarky posts about technology.  Not a whole lot of technical detail, but usually cutting edge and sometimes off the beaten path.  More often than I’d like, though, they pick up some cool new product or technology and miss why it’s really so cool, other than being new and shiny.

For example, a few days ago, they posted about SmartBolts.  The indicator on the head changes color based on the tension within the bolt, allowing users to precisely tighten the bolt to the appropriate level.

What did Gizmodo say?

It’s not hard to under or over-tighten a bolt when you are building a cabinet, let alone installing hardware into the human body. Luckily, some clever engineers came up with the idea of SmartBolts.

Wrong Giz…if you want to control your tightness, just use a torque wrench.  This is not a solution for those people that don’t have a torque wrench, though.  The cool part about these things is that because they measure tension in the bolt instead of the torque applied to the bead of the bolt.  According to their literature SmartBolts give as much as 30% accuracy over the control obtained with a torque wrench!

Anyway, I know what I’m getting when I read Giz, or Engadget or anything like that, but every once in a while I’m glad I actually look a bit deeper into what they post. It’s just that sometimes I wish they did too.

For years, I (and I’m sure many other people) have dreamed of an LED billboard on the back of my car, or the front, to express what I really mean to other drivers.  Only things like “thanks for letting me in” or “you’re an excellent driver,” of course.  Never anything bad, I promise.

So, when I saw the “Drivemocion LED signs for cars” headline on Gizmodo, I got a bit excited.  Of course, it was for no good reason.  I had conveniently missed the “Emoticons” precursor to the headline.  Apparently all this sign does is display one of 5 emoticons depending on what you input on your dashboard-mounted cntroller.  Seriously, if I want to let some driver in Boston know that his/her tailgating is not appreciated, flashing a sad-face through my back window is just going to encourage that behavior.

Check out the link for a video if you’d like, and you can be just as disgusted as I was…