Jim Rants On, and on, and on, and on

... and sometimes raves!

Editorials - My Opinions

A few news items that rocked me.

Illegal Immigration - A Workable Solution (May 2006)

Pro-war? (March 2006)

P2P File Sharing and the Music Industry (Jun 2005)

I will not run for Governor (Aug 2003)

Insurance Pools - the business behind insurance (Jan 2003)

Performance Management (May 2002)

Joining Non-Profits for the perks (Nov 2001)

Me on Politics

How the Dems will Lose - *Please* get your act together (Sept 2005)

Bush Admininstration - embarrassing the country (Jan 2005 )

Bush Lost - and by a Landslide! (Nov 2004)

Ideas

Cite Search - An idea for search engines (Sept 2004)

Tempurpedic - Where to sleep on one before buying it. (Sept 2002) 2006 Update

Science Fair projects

 

In the works (future essays)

National Sacrifice Areas - I read about one of these in National Geographic. Apparently "we" are sacrificing this area to extract natural gas. I thought "well, if there's that much gas there, maybe it's worth it." Then I read that the total expected extraction from this big area would only provide for 1% of our natural gas needs for 10 years. Now I think this is crazy.

The Lie of Sustainable Logging - I'm not saying that it can't be done. I'm just saying that the big loggers aren't doing it. To wit, they say "oh, we're sustainable. We replant what we harvest" in one breath. With the next they say, "we want to get access to more old growth redwood forests for logging." If the industry is really sustainable then why not just "harvest" what you "planted" back in the 1970's?" I think this is evidence that they are not managing for sustainable harvest.

PPOs Do Not Offer More Choice - I used to belong to a PPO for health insurance because I thought it gave me more choice than an HMO. Then one day I went to an "out of network" doctor and learned that "out of network" also means "unlimited liability." It turns out that the yearly out-of-pocket limit the PPOs tout is no limit at all.

Amtrak Recommends the Bus - We tried to reserve a train ride but the Amtrak web site kept putting us on a bus. And the train is always late. And there's no parking. And it's a great trip.

SETI - If you want to contact another civilization, send a probe to a solar system with a certain type of planet in it. Not to find a civilization there, but to look for a probe from someone else. These would be good universe-wide rendezvous points.

Elephants in Captivity - Why they kill their young. A theory on animal intelligence.

Rave - I Love 'em

TomTom One - Portable navigation (June 2007)

Slingbox - You need to buy one (May 2005)

5 Megapixels are worth it. (May 2005)

Chipotle Tabasco Sauce - It rocks! (Jan 2004)

InFocusX1 - Home theater on the cheap - sort of (2002)

SliMP3 - A device for playing your MP3 files on your home stereo. (Dec 2002)

Power Strip Liberator - Simple, but so useful (Oct 2002)

ReplayTV - Buy one now and start living. (July 2000)

Rave and Rant - Good and Bad

AT&T U-verse - Pretty damn good

Tivo Series 2 - Not a ReplayTV, but the only game in town (June 2007)

Veo web cam - Good with low light (Oct 2003)

Sony web cam - Best buy, if you have the light (Dec 2005)

Land's End - online catalog shopping (Nov 2003)

Netflix - good and bad, but overall good (Dec 2003)

Rant - Some Bad Experiences

United Airlines marriage tax - how to pay less when traveling together (Jan 2006)

Being a Wells Fargo Premium Account Customer is a drag (Jan 2005)

Quicken Billpay - unfortunately, even Intuit support says it is not reliable (Jan 2004)

Some Quicken Bugs - if you use Quicken for financial planning, you should know about these (Mar 2004)

SBC Yahoo DSL - offshore customer support is a disappointment, use cable modem service instead (Jan 2004)

DishNetwork - their PVR is lame (Dec 2003)

Lens Crafters takes a lot more than an hour. (Sept 2003)

CellularOne - It's voicemail is not what you think. (2002)

U-Haul - They lied to me about my reservation (Oct 1998)

Bandwidth Stealing - They use your bandwidth, but give you no value (May 2004)