lonecity.com

I was on my way to work a few days back when I got pulled over for speeding.  I admit I was speeding so the ticket was justified.  I was going 70 in a 65 zone by my account.  (Probably about as fast as everyone else on the interstate.)  I wasn’t late for work, in fact I was early and I was only going a bit fast keeping pace with the rest of traffic at that time of morning. 

To describe the scene, I got into the far left lane and there wasn’t anyone in front of me for a good 30+ car lengths.  Its still quite dark outside bieng around 5 am.  A car pulls behind me and gets right on my rear bumper.  I don’t appreciate the bright lights in the rear view mirror so I speed up a bit to keep from getting blinded by the bright lights.  Now I’m going 74 and this guy pulls right up behind me.  We repeat the process again and again until I’m getting up to around 80.  I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to speed up anymore and I start looking for an opening to change lanes.  I figure I’ll change lanes and slow back down so this jerk will finally go around me.  Just as I finally find a spot to get over and am starting to change lanes the guy with the high beams turns on the blue and red.

I guess it really doesn’t matter what the scenario was.  There is no chance I am going to take a day off work and go try to fight the ticket.  In fact he could have pulled me over for something I wasn’t doing and I still would have had to pay the ticket.  Bottom line - It costs me more to take the day off work than it does to pay the ticket.  Then assuming I didn’t successfully fight the ticket I’d be paying double.  Bieng a working class stiff has doomed me to just take it and suffer.  I can’t afford to do anything more righteous.

 The truth of the matter is that I wouldn’t have been going more than 70 if the cop hadn’t been driving behind me so closely that I felt uncomfortable.  I admit I was wrong by speeding up and in fact I’ve already paid the ticket.  Still I feel I was pushed.  The cop said he “paced me at 80.”

I’m not sure there is anything to be done here.  I just wanted to rant about it to get it off my chest.  After all those who don’t speak up are doomed to never change anything.  I feel like this whole “Pacing” thing is dirty politics.  I’m not going to be the one to do anything about it though.  I will be busy watching my family starve till next payday.  After all the money to pay this ticket comes out of our food budget.  Thats the only place where I can find a few bucks and not start getting nasty phone calls.  In the end, I’m just glad there is always cheap ramen!

It probably seems strange to the people I know that I have started to write a blog.  I really don’t enjoy talking to anyone.  In american textbooks the man who invented the telephone is revered.  You can see it everywhere you look people pack around cell phones as if they are an attachment of themselves.  I on the other hand don’t fit nicely into that niche.  I really honestly believe the telephone is among the worst inventions ever to plague mankind.  Sure it has its good points, but as a whole it hurts human development. 

If you take a room full of people (say a jury for instance) and give them a topic to argue about, eventually everyone will come to a consensus.  This is a powerful tool when deciding legislation as it finds ways to be fair to almost everyone.  However say among this group you needed to develop a creative new idea.  Almost instantaneously all creative developments get averaged out among the group.  Unique individual advancement cannot thrive within a strongly connected network. 

To relate this phenomenon to computers concider a shared task networked between two computers.  In this task both computers have been assigned half the work and they need to communicate their calculations regularly in order for the other computer to continue its operation.  Now concider that both of these machines have equal specs.  This creates a situation where both machines can perform optimally.  Now change the scenario and make one computer run half as fast.  What happens?  Well now both computers can only do as much as the slower machine can.  The combined eficiency of the entire network is only equal to the number of stations multiplied by the speed of the slowest station. 

You’re probably thinking that this computer networking talk doesn’t really relate to people, but in fact it does.  If you gather together a group of athletic teens to play basketball and then stick one guy in a wheelchair on the team, what happens?  The guy in the wheelchair feels great to fit in.  The rest of the team feels good about making him feel good, and we all picture this ideal world where everyone is equal.  At the same time we turn a blind eye to the fact that we lose every game and spend alot of time talking about our teamwork.  This shows both a good quality and a bad one of human nature.  Its great that everyone wants to be connected, but it will ultimately be our downfall as a society.  Picture two teens, Suzie only wants to hang out at the mall, and has no apirations.  Jimmy is brilliant and could be an astronaut or engineer.  He wants to study.  Stick them together on the telephone.  Jimmy and Suzie end up going to the mall.

My point in going into all of this is that its important for us as individuals to find a way to disconnect from the social network from time to time.  You can call it “Me time” or simply think of it as shutting the door and focusing on your work.  Many of the worlds greatest inventors are thought of historically as eccentric.  What this eccentricity really means is that they didn’t conform to the societal network and found a way to explore a separate path amidst their group.  Not everyone is capable of producing something great, but even those who are won’t be able to do it stifled within the boundaries of polite society.

A number of years back I believe that someone higher up on the political chain recognized that there are people out there like me who feel the need to not be connected all the time.  Getting back to what todays blog is about, there are times when I simply don’t want the phone to ring.  (more often than not)  I need to have it there for an emergency.  I can forgive an interruption if someone is in the hospital or something like that.  However telemarketers really aren’t someone I need to connect with.    A national do not call registry was created for people like me who simply don’t want to be disturbed with stuff like that. 

At first the do not call registry worked surprisingly well.  I suppose the threat of bieng fined thousands of dollars got some of the more aggressive companies to back off.  What prompted todays rant is how the registry is beginning to fail.  I don’t know whether the law has changed, or if telemarketers are beginning to find loopholes in the law, but I have started getting regular solicitations again.  I count five this week alone.  I have dutifully reported each occurance in a despirate hope that someone will find these callers and leave their corpses in a ditch somewhere.  I know its hopeless though.

A word of advice to those of you still calling me…  I really don’t care if you are collecting money for breast cancer research, the local fire department, or just to put it in your bank account.  I put my name on the do not call registry because I DONT WANT TO BE CALLLED!  I make it a habbit to NEVER EVER give any money to anyone who cold calls me. 

As for the politician who drafted the bill, you need to go back and fix your work.  You left one big gaping loophole in your bill.  The part where it exempts non-profit organizations and surveys from bieng fined for calling me is just wrong.  They are soliciting me just the same as everyone else.  Do your constituents a favor and fix it!

If you are going to take away people’s rights or property, you better not let them know until it is too late. If you are going to take away people’s rights or property, then it is best to hide your intent under the banner of a fight against something so bad that no one dare oppose the fight. For example, suppose that you operate a nationwide furniture store chain and want to eliminate local competition from independent operators. You could ask your Senator to sponsor the “Wipe Out The Little Guy Act of 2008″ but it is unlikely that your Senator or the public would give you much support. A much better strategy would be to hide your intent to wipe out your competition inside a bit of legislation that appears to fight a battle that everyone would support. For example, how about the “Furniture Consumer Protection Act of 2008″ in which you tout the benefits of protecting consumers against deceptive furniture sales practices and price gouging etc. Then in the middle of the Bill you hide a provision that would allow you to press charges against anyone who tries to sell the same types of furniture that you do — effectively putting out of business the pesky independent stores across the country that compete with you. If you read the “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008″ carefully, you will see that this is exactly what it will do. It will let government and big business take away websites (the virtual equivalent of store fronts) from individuals and small businesses — without the due process protections that exist in the current domain name resolution protection and even the current trademark law. It is a brazen grab by the big to take over what belongs to the small. Everyone should support efforts to reduce phishing and online fraud. No one should support the anti-competitive power grab hidden in this Bill as currently worded.” - Bob Connor

By now, we all take the internet for granted.  We just assume its going to work when we turn on the computer and that when we type in a dot .com its going to get us where we want to be.  The web is a great thing and it provides an avenue for everyone to get their voice heard.  My rant Blog is an example of that.  You probably won’t belive it, but right now the internet is in danger. Seriously!

Truth be told, nobody can be right about everything.  The answer to that dilemma is to take everyones ideas, mix them together, and come up with a consensus that works for almost everyone.  Then take the few who don’t agree and force them to conform with the general consensus.  The Snowe bill, an anti phishing act introduced by senator Snowe seems at its surface to be aimed at stopping phishing scams.  This pice of trash Legislation is so full of loopholes that it actually becomes a risk to free speech itself. 

The changes introduced by the bill are supposedly aimed at making it harder for a scammer to register a domain name and use that domain name to perpetrate their scam.  One would hope we all know that this won’t actually stop the scammer.  Someone smart enough to purpotrate a Phishing scam wouldn’t register the name legitimately in the first place.  What it will do is unbalance the way the domain registration and arbitration system works strongly in the favor of trademark owners.  Which by the way has nothing to do with Phishing.  As an example of this, say a Hewlet Packard spots someone re-selling an HP computer on ebay.  If the seller didn’t get explicit permission to use the trademark”Hewlett Packard” in their ad the seller is in violation of the Anti-Phishing Act of 2008.  Furthermore, for letting the seller post the listing, Ebay is also in violation.  Now HP can legally file criminal charges against the seller, Ebay, and sue for up to $6 Million in damages.  Futhering the problem, if the Snowe bill passes HP can take Ebay.com away because it is bieng used to infringe on HP’s Tradmark rights.  The icing on the cake is that HP wouldn’t even have to prove that their trademark was abused for Phishing.  All they would have to do is say their tradmark was used without permission and they’ve already won. 

The example above is probably never going to happen.  Why?  Because Ebay can afford expensive lawyers and even if they fought it out the matter would be settled.  But now think of this what about the same scenario except instead of ebay you have a mom and pop computer shop going up against HP.  Chances are Ma can’t afford all them fancy lawyers.  The end result will be a bankrupt competitor that HP shut down just because Ma can’t afford to fight back.

Presently if someone really had a grudge against Ebay they could register EbaySucks.com and rant away.  (Yes, I’m sure its already taken.)  Under current trademark law this is acceptable, and rightfully so.  The person isn’t infringing on the companies business.  Trademarks are there to prevent other people marketing similar products and confusing consumers about what they are really buying.  (Trade - Mark)  Think about the meaning of the words.  The Snowe bill will effectively kill these types of websites by allowing companies to take away the domains that contend with them without any type of arbitration.  In the end its free speech on the internet that lies in danger here.

To summerize I urge everyone to write their congressman and quash this bill.  Hopefully this senator can find himself a good telephone and then hang himself with the wire…  Seriously this isn’t the first piece of anti-internet legislation he has been involved with, and its downright shamful that he had the nerve to pitch it as a consumer friendly anti-phishing bill.  I’d much rather have the guy in office who just got busted for whoring it up.  He may have hurt a few people’s religeous sensability, but he wasn’t hurting everyone. Snowe is dangerous.  He is risking damage to the world economy and may even succeed in breaking the internet. 

With the presidential elections in the air alot of social topics are finding the way back into the news.  Everyone seems to want to know what their candidates think about abortion, immigration, capitol punishment, racism, and the economy.  I’m far from an expert any any of those fields, but perhaps its time we got the oppinion out there of someone who isn’t an expert.  What I’ve decided to blog about today is immigration.

Picture for a moment a scene from COPS where an officer drives by an alleyway and spots a gang hanging out.  The same typical scene plays out everyday in virtually every low income area in america.  The cop stops by to hassle them a bit while checking to see if they are up to no good.  From the officers point of view he sees a group of boys hanging out somewhere they shouldn’t be and a high probablility that they are about to commit a crime.   From the boy’s point of view they feel like the cop is out to get them. They invision racial profiling and any number of other concepts as why this cop decided to “Pick on Them.”  Most of these boys will see things the way the cop did after another 20 years or so.  assuming they live that long  They’ll look back at all the dumb things they did as kids and feel smarter for having grown out of it. 

This same scenario exists for illegal immigrants living illegally in the united states.  Every day they hear about more bills and legislation meant to “pick on them.”  The big difference is that the gang kids eventually grow up, get into better societal circles, and realize their mistakes.  Immigrants on the other hand get trapped into small divided communities where everyone has the same problem as they do.  They don’t get the opportunity to grow through the benefit of good social interaction.  The law continues to get harsher hoping they’ll go away.  Just like the gang kids though they don’t really have anywhere else to go.  If they fit in the country they came from do you really think they would have come here?

I’m going to let the cat out of the bag here and openly admit to everyone that I am not a great person.  I really don’t care whether we let them in or kick them out.  All I really want is for the problem to go away.  When I make my decision as to who I will vote for it doesn’t have anything to do with the candidates oppinion of abortion.  It doesn’t have anything to do with anything that doesn’t affect my bottom dollar.  I’m going to vote for whomever promises me the biggest tax refund.  Provided I think their claim is legit.

Illegal immigration hurts my pocketbook.  Money I pay for taxes goes to healthcare, public roads, emergency services, ect.  The more people who are drawing on that tax budget without paying into it the more it costs me.  Illegal immigrants are using the same roads and the same emergency services as the rest of us.  They just aren’t paying for them.  So the billion dollar question is how do we fix the leak in the budget?

Here is my approach:  Run a background check on anyone who wants to be a legal U.S. Citizen.  Make them pay for it.  If they can pass the background check let them in.  That way we can start charging them taxes.  We should eliminate deportation and instead jail anyone caught without papers.  Not to be mean, but as incentive for them to get legal and start paying taxes like the rest of us.  We can even run the background check and get them papers while they wait in a cell.  This will take a good portion of the criminal element that exists here without legal papers and eliminate it.  The millions of undocumented illegals will provide more than enough in additional taxes funds to cover any major flaws in the idea.  I know the reason alot of illegal immigrants don’t get legal is because of the exhorbitant cost.  There isn’t any reason it should cost more than a background check and a printed ID card. 

 For those of you who “Wish they would go back to their own country.” Think about it like this.  Why are the ones that really bother you here?  They came across the border to sponge off our economy and send money back to their families in other countries.  If we offer papers freely, and start charging taxes here is how it will go.  The ones that really want to be a part of the United States will get papers and pay up just like a good citizen.  The ones that are here to Sponge off our economy will either stay here illegally, or they will leave.  With threat of harsher punishment they will have a real motivation to either conform or leave.   Its different to come here and live illegally if all they have to fear is deportation. 

Face it, its not the fact that they are here that really bothers you.  Its the fact that they are here living tax free without fear of the law, while you and I are both paying taxes and following regulations every day.  Its time we opened up the borders and put everyone on a level playing field.  The United States would not look like such an attractive destination to the third world if we make it so life is just as difficult here as it was where they came from.   We could finally get back to the great capitalist society the united states was meant to be.  People with great ideas would flock here where their capitalist intentions could flourish.  People who want to be a drain on society would find it hard to compete in a more driven society.  Eventually the bottom tier of our population would start to emmigrate away, making a better life for those who are willing to work hard and conform.

For more than half my life I have worked in and around the traditional brick and mortar retail business.  I’ve gotten to know the trends and can easily see when items will sell or will not sell.   Sadly with the massive growth of the MegaRetailer Walmart and the bursting out of the internet into retail markets, many traditional retailers don’t have alot to look foreward to.   Traditionally a store’s sales plan would be calculated by taking last years same day sales, adjusting for a few economic factors, then adding a few percent for the growth in the community and in trademark recognition.  All in all you could pretty much expect that the sales plan would be a few hundred or a few thousand more than it was last year.  The trend I’m starting to see is that retailers are no longer able to make these increase plan goals.  The brick and mortar system will probably never die but I think it has reached saturation and many retailers will start to plan on making less if they want to survive.

It is with that knowledge that I have started my own foray into the business world looking at online retail as the way to make my fortune.  Everywhere I turn I see the potential to make money.  Many investors were scared away by the big DotCOM bubble burst, and thats a good thing for me.  The problem with most dotcom business models is that they based their ideas on the possibility of infinite growth. To take for an example pets.com they saw astounding increases in sales after launching their website.  Everyone wanted in because everyone wanted a part of the massive increase. The underlying problem is that every day there are a finite number of people who will buy a bag of dogfood online.  At launch pets.com hadn’t come anywhere near that capacity.  Still with massive growth they fumbled right past the point of saturation and found themselves with more goods than they could ever hope to sell.  This same situation plagued most dotcom startups until massive failure swept the market.

One of the most important things to have in business is your brand.  Anyone can tell you that pets.com is a million dollar name.  Even if the company behind it folds and folds again there will still be people every day who type in the name looking for that bag of dog food.  Likewise, everyone has heard about the guy who registered some short easily memorable domain name and sold it for millions.  But what has happened to the entreprenuer who wants to start an online business.  What do we do now that there isn’t any stellar names left.  In recent years companies that once made profits by registering domains for end users have taken to buying up domains.  At first this was to mark them up and soak end users for the profit.  It sucks, but I agree with their entreprenurial spirit.  However now many have gone one step too far.  Instead of marking up and selling the domains at a profit some companies have begun refusing to sell.  One of these companies name media has gotten to the point where they have registered tens of thousands of names and they are holding them for ransom.  So far they haven’t broken any of the rules, but were only talking the rules that exist today.  If these giant companies who aren’t playing fair continue to grow at some point the internet itself will break. 

Instead of bieng able to build a brand small business owners will have to buy visitors from companies that own all the brands.  The benefit to small business is completely gone and soon they won’t continue offering their products.  Business are there to make money and having to pay for each person who walks through their doors just doesn’t make sense.  (except to the guys getting paid)  As business starts to decline because companies can’t effectively market their products at a gain, the internet will stagnate.  Our only option is to change the way people find what they’re looking for online.  I like the type in “something.com” setup and I’d hate to see it go away but the nails are already in the coffin. 

 So what do you think?  Is creating some sort of anti-monopoly domain law the only way to turn things around.  One thing I came across while researching for the article I wrote on fidel castro was an interesting concept he put in place while ruling in cuba.  He made it a law that nobody could own more than 5 acres of land.  This puts an interesting spin on the domain monopoly idea.  If we were to limit the number of domains any one entity could own to say 200 or so every business or individual could reasonably compete and we still wouldn’t be unfair to the registrars and companies that are presently monopolizing the domain names.  They could keep the names they really want but they would be forced to concider what names they really want.  The older brother is hogging all the toys even though he doesn’t have time to play with them all.  Its time mom reached back and made him share with the younger siblings…