This started off by a post by Mike Masnick, of TechDirt, on Why the Segway failed. Clearly the Segway and it’s ability to maintain balance through computer programming was a step forward in innovative history. But what happened? The Segway didn’t move forward due to innovation.

I posted Masnick’s article on Twitter (what can I say? I liked it). It spread, like any tweet, and Brandon Kelley picked it up, pointing me to an interview he did with Dean Kamen. The interview, I think, was about innovation…about half way through, they went into a spew how Kamen’s company is innovating, which I feel is slightly off, but on track. They touched briefly on the Segway and Kamen’s feeling on it. Kamen’s point was simple – society needs to change. This simply is incorrect.

The point of innovation is actually adapting technology to the market needs. Insulin pumps clearly had a medical need. However, judging from this description a “big blue brick” clearly did not have a market need. Kamen mistook the insulin pump as a need that people needed to adapt to.  But what actually happened was innovation: the pump changed. It became more practical to use. Today, it’s as simple as a quick shot, which you can hide in your pocket until the time of need. The original need, an insulin pump, never changed. If you attempted to release it again, as a “big blue brick” it would, again, be rejected by society. The market didn’t change. The invention didn’t change. It was innovation that changed the way the invention worked to make it more market savvy.

Innovation isn’t about changing society. It’s about the invention changing to society’s needs. It’s about the invention adapting to become something society will accept, often by becoming more compact/portable or simple more affordable.

Back to the Segway — it was clearly an inventive step forward, but it didn’t meet any market needs. Who needs to pay five grand to stop walking? Who needs to pay five grand to walk 12mph? Motorcycles cost less than the Segway.

The invention — the ability for a computer to self collaborate equilibrium and maintain balance — was an amazing step forward. But the innovation, a wanna-be scooter (?) … an alternate method of walking (?), clearly did not meet any market needs. And so, this is why it didn’t make any headway.

photo credit: freezelight

If you’re here due to spam, it most definitely was not me. I hate when people use my email address and my domain for spam. Unfortunately, There’s nothing I can do about it. /cry

I do not support spam in any way. These spammers just happen to locate some email address that has worked on some mailing list and use that as their “From:” email address with some random name. Due to the design of the SMTP protocol, there isn’t anything I can do about it. So, just delete the email and please, don’t black list me.

photo credit: mr.bologna

I decided to change the theme up a bit. I found this one; not too bad, although I’m not 100% satisfied. I plan to make a few updates here and there to get it just the way I like it.

My biggest peeve is only one post is shown on the front page. I really would like to have at least two, maybe three. I do like the sidebar posts, tagged with my Twitter updates. It makes a perfect spot for those. Not to mention the solid empty bar at top.

I’ve went through so many themes … it was a pain. To be honest, this was the best of them but yet … it’s still not working right. Ugh!

Update: Okay, I think I’ll stick with this one for now. It’s cleaner and easier to grasp. I might, however, change the header mountains graphic one of these days.

photo credit: sindändùne

I’ll be the first to admit, my blog was pretty bland without any pictures or images. I did intentionally build the blog like that to keep the load down, and easier on the browsers, but lets face it: it’s just a page full of text. And like most people, you hate just a page full of text.

To rectify that, I’ve installed a new plugin called Photo Dropper which allows me to pull in photos from Flickr and drop (duh?) them right into me posts. Now, you have something to look at while reading me posts. Yay! I know you’re excited; don’t try to hide it!

You can view the movie trailer on their site: http://www.hazethemovie.com/

First off, can we show that in public schools? Probably not. The government or ESRB would dub it rated R for graphic images and adult content and thus not permitting public schools from showing it. /sigh

Now, the video, I feel, does over dramatize things. Coming from a viewpoint of a parent, you have to expect that. However, it does have some valid points, non-hazing specific.

Kids aren’t being taught well enough, in general, because parents aren’t educated enough. Everybody looks to outside sources to “teach you” when you should be taught to teach yourself. Laws isn’t the answer here. I hope nobody is thinking this. More laws == more abuse. Kids abuse what they cannot have. While living under the rule of the house, they must secretly drink or listen to the law. However, once they leave the eyes of “responsible adults” … lets just say “the mice play.”

I think the real answer here isn’t “stop hazing” but stop the reason why it’s become so popular: kids are having fun doing things they couldn’t otherwise while under the eyes of authority. We shouldn’t add more authority; that only causes more problems. We needs to remove the things that makes these activities to lustful, enjoying. The leading one, they brought up many times, is alcohol abuse. Well, it’s abused because kids learn (*cough* first hand experiences *cough*) how to properly use alcohol. How can they? It’s illegal to drink under the age of 21.

Lets learn from history here. The Prohibition: the government made liquor illegal, even for adults. As Wikipedia says, “Many social problems have been attributed to the Prohibition era” ( source ). To put it frankly, from articles online, things went to hell in a hand basket from alcohol abuse.

This is the same thing is happening with the kids, today. Because they cannot have it, they are unable to learn how to drink responsibly. So, they go to college where they are out side the eyes of the law and authority: they test things out themselves, legal or not. In alcohol’s case, the inhibiting effects often causes misjudgments which can lead to abuse. (I’m trying to be as straight forward here without using misleading statements as “often leads to”).

Lets fix Hazing by fixing what leads into it: drinking. Teach kids to respect alcohol by not making it illegal (*remember*prohibition). Remove the taboo affects. Let kids learn, as they grow up, too much of a good thing == a bad thing. (and yes, drinking is healthy, but only ~one glass a wine a day).

And before anybody brings up “too much drinking can kill you,” too much drinking of water can kill you, too ( more info ). Too much of anything can kill you. Everybody needs that *engraved* into their brains: especially kids.

Please don’t take any of this the wrong way. I’m trying to be as objective as possible, trying to view this from all sides: the kids, authority and parents. You cannot come at this any other way. If you feel I’ve misrepresented anything, leave a comment, let me know. I love a good discussion.

My step-mother forwarded me this video. It looks to be a commercial to educate the people the dangers of putting water on a grease fire and what to do / not to do in the event of a grease fire. The email also gives a nice story of an example giving at the Charleston Navy base:

 At Charleston Navy base at the Fire Fighting Training school they demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer set on the fire field.  An instructor would don a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a 10-foot pole toss water onto the grease fire.  The results got the attention of the students.  The water, being heavier than the oil, sinks to the bottom where it instantly becomes superheated.  The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out.  On the open field, it became a thirty-foot high fireball that resembles a nuclear blast.

This is definitely common knowledge, or at least I hope it is! However, I do think it’s worth repeating: Do not use water on a grease fire!

The email also gave another interesting note, which I personally didn’t know:

Also do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire.  One cup creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.

And the commercial, of course:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBDqwOQiZn4[/youtube]

I hate overweight, unfit, people claiming they deserve to be represented, too. That’s just bs. You’re overweight because you’re lazy. There is absolutely no scientific findings linking obesity to genetics. Your obese “genetically” because that’s “how you were brought up.” Your lack of knowledge is what made your kids fat, not McDonald’s. Being fat, in my eyes, is a lifestyle choice I feel people shouldn’t expect special treatment for. You should have to buy two plane seats if you’re unable to fit into one.

I’m sorry if I sound hostile towards fat people. The simple fact is obesity is not genetic, it’s personal choice. I think it’s complete bs that we, the healthy, have to put up with this on top of excessive health care costs because of these obese people requiring additional treatments.

In all this “hostility” don’t get me wrong. If you’re overweight and wish to (genuinely) loose weight, I’ll give you all the help and direction I can. However, don’t expect me to respect or even accept your obesity. It’s a self-inflected health disorder. Like a common cold, it needs to be irradiated.

Now, this brings me to an interesting article by the UK’s Telegraph. See, in the UK they have free health care; however, obesity is causing an issue with it now. As noted above, obesity causes a lot more health problems than just being overweight. These problems require additional treatment which costs additional money. So much that doctors, actual professionals, are calling to allow them to deny treatment to fat people. I already give my scope on this, but as I said over there, I’m biased — I’m healthy.

What’s your input on this? Either one  — the article or just being fat.

So, here’s the scoop: the patriots must be a bunch of arrogant pricks or something. I don’t know bright idea this was, but somebody thought it was worth while. What am I talking about? The patriots, as in the team, thought it would be a good idea to trademark “19-0″ which would have been their record if their victory hadn’t gone to their heads. Some in the background you can hear Homer running around yelling “Doh!”

Now if that wasn’t enough. Check this out: if you happen to be browsing around Amazon in the last day or few, you may notice something new upon their shelves. A book was put up, talk about the Patriots and their record season, except there’s one problem … yes, winning 18 straight games is ground breaking, but this book … it’s not about 18 games, it’s, you’ve guessed it, 19 games. Hum, somebody jumped the gun! I mean The Super Bowl … err … The Big Game … no, the “event” hasn’t even happened yet. And wouldn’t you know; they lost. Whoops, again! Maybe they can make some quick edits to that. What do you think: 18-1: The (Almost) Historic Championship Season of New England’s (not quite) Unbeatable Patriots?

Sorry boys, maybe next time you should hold off the excitement until after you win.