Get money to work, don't work for money

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” - Walt Disney

This Disney quote was John Gruber's muse for his self-described dueling rant with Merlin Mann at SXSW earlier this month.

Another more powerful image John quotes in his summary that you will not quickly forget is from Jonathan Coulton.

But somewhere along the way the bottom line started improving, and I became less obsessed with tracking every little thing. Now I sort of think of the whole engine as a special genetically engineered cow who eats music and poops money — I have no idea what’s going on in its gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars. […]

The state of the industry makes a lot more sense when you think of it this way, all these new business models rising and falling, internet radio choking on insanely high performance royalties, Radiohead and NIN giving stuff away and making a killing. This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop.

You can listen to John and Merlin's dueling rant here. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but can recommend it because these two never disappoint. John's summary is here.

Mia Hamm

Sarah and I have read a Matt Christopher book about Mia Hamm. She is an amazing person and an amazing player. Last time I went searching for Mia highlights they were sparse and the quality was marginal. Better fortunes today.

She exploited the smallest opportunity with such power. See for yourself.

Rendering

I have been reading on Riverview's chapter a weekday text since it started in January and it's been great. I prefer the hard copy rather to web site.

One of the best parts is reading the chapter before bed with Sarah. I'm not sure who's getting more out of it, her or me. When I read these familiar stories with her, it reminds me of the first time I read them in college and how incredible all of these happenings and Jesus' wisdom are.

Last night as we read we read Matthew 22.

Then the Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested.They sent some of their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to meet with him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You teach the way of God truthfully. You are impartial and don’t play favorites. Now tell us what you think about this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed him a Roman coin, he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

“Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” His reply amazed them, and they went away.

It's easy to drive right by this one and see it as a snappy answer to a trick question designed to get Jesus arrested, but because the second half of Jesus' answer was pointed out to me in the past, I get stopped in my tracks by "give to God what belongs to God".

If it's made in Caesar's likeness, give it to Caesar. If it's made in God's likeness, give it to God. Our lives, our entire being is God's. Period. Without him, we would never exist. Without his constant aid, we are nothing. How deluded we are to think we can live "our own" lives. It was never ours, and never will be.

Give to God what belongs to God.

If this idea scares you, your not alone, it scares me too. I don't do it. I find every available excuse not to. The greatest help I've had in getting comfortable with the giving myself completely to God has come from John Piper. He passionately argues that God's greatest glory and our maximum joy are a unified point in space, not two ends of a continuum. Christian Hedonism, Forgive the Label, But Don't Miss the Truth is a good summary of the principle. You can spend quite some time plumbing the depth of this point, so be sure to bring your SCUBA tank.

The best error page ever

Adam Richardson says this is the best error page he has ever seen. I have to agree. The tone reminds me Douglas Adams, and Scott Eisensmith.

Who saw our economic crisis coming?

I find it useful to look back and see how the economic and market experts looked down there noses at the few who predicted that our spend and borrow cultur would eventually breakdown.

Peter Schiff was the first one to be brought to my attention but Schiller, Roubini,Larry Burkett, and Harry Dent also predicted economic trouble. It's interesting to look back and review their predictions, and differing rationales.

The most difficult question is how should I invest now? People are predicting 6 months to 10 years of recovery.

Congratulations, President Obama

Congratulations, President Obama. This is a historic moment for ort country on so many levels. I hope your girls like their new home. I pray that God protects you and gives you wisdom and courage.

My favorite recollection of the day came from Tom Brokaw. He reminisced on Reagan's departure, as Bush 43 flew away in the Marine Helicopter today. As Reagan flew over the White House one last time, he said to Nancy, "There's our old shack."

Weather madness

AccuWeather headline tonight read "Storms Target Major Cities Coast to Coast". Really? Really? It's bypassing rural areas, small towns, villages, townships, even lakes and streams, and mid-sized cities and metropolitan regions? It only targeting the Major Cities? This is new. This is scary. Wait till Al Gore finds out about this new phenomena. With this newly developed targeting ability, weather no longer must inflict global or even regional flooding. All weather can placed with surgical precision. Rain, snow, sleet or hail strikes on hand-picked targets, with laser-like accuracy. Amazing!

While I'm on the weather news, does anyone else think the Weather Alarms are getting a little carried away. It seems every time I check the weather there is an AccuWeather Weather AlarmTM. We get Weather Alarms in East Lansing for two and a half inches inches of snow, possible over the next four days. Two and a half inches ... over four days. If that's a Weather Alarm, Weather Alarms are meaningless.

Wait! Now it's becoming clear. These overused Alarms are just another part of the weather's master plan to destroy us all! First they overwhelm us with Alarms, until they're meaningless, then they drown us in a flood, suffocate is in snow, or slush us to death. I'm onto you Mr. Weather.

A Mac Geek's Christmas Wish

I've enjoyed The Joy of Tech cartoons for many years now. Finally, I'm sharing it with you. A Mac Geek's Christmas Wish couldn't be truer.

bicycnical

bicycnical - jaded or scornful skepticism or negativity on two wheels.

Inspired by an e-mail exchange with my good friend, fellow bicycling enthusiast, visual artist, wordsmith, and storyteller extraordinaire, Bob Barrie, a.k.a. Blinker Bob.

Number 16

My brother, Andrew, completed his 12th Free Press Marathon, and his 16th overall, last weekend. This years training schedule included a DIY 3 story addition to his home. Quite impressive.

This year he has the privilege of getting a small deposit on his fifteen minutes of fame. He is pictured on the WXYZ 7 site AND in the video on the right as he receives his medal.

Note: Anyone who knows how to capture this video for future use, please educate me with a comment.

Late Bloomers

In our pop culture, it's easy to think you might as well hang it up after you turn 40. Malcom Gladwell's New Yorker piece, argues otherwise.

Late Bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity?

In a nut: Keep working. Your best work may well be ahead of you.

Seth Godin lets you choose where $2 of charity goes

Squidoo, a Seth Godin company, is letting votes decide where to send $80,000. Vote for the charity of your choice here.

I voted for Church! at Bethany. You can learn more about them here.

The Fastest Route to Faster Internet Speeds

I faithfully read Pogue's Posts. David is both entertaining and insightful. And I trust his thorough and honest reviews on everything from PCs to digital photo-capable binoculars. His post on The Fastest Route to Faster Internet Speeds made me check our routers firmware. It hadn't been updated since we bought it 7 to 10 years ago.

After updating the firmware, and running speed tests at SpeakEasy and speedtest.net our download speeds have increased from around 3.6M to 4.6M. That's a whopping 28% increase. Total time invested, five minutes. Total cost, zero dollars. Thank you, David Pogue.

If you're running an old router with old firmware, do yourself a favor and install the update.

Now I'm wondering if the spastic performance of AT&T DSL we tried out last winter was caused by our paleolithic era router firmware.

Why Stock Dividends are not just good for investors

Daniel Eran Dilger in his insightful post, Why is Microsoft Buying Back $40 Billion of its Own Stock? points out that executives and other option holders are enriched by stock buybacks without having to increase the value of the corporation.

Warren Buffett on Rewarding Failure.

In a 2005 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett wrote:

Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won’t change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO’s pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO – aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo – all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.

Take, for instance, ten year, fixed-price options (and who wouldn’t?). If Fred Futile, CEO of Stagnant, Inc., receives a bundle of these – let’s say enough to give him an option on 1% of the company – his self-interest is clear: He should skip dividends entirely and instead use all of the company’s earnings to repurchase stock.

How Videogames Blind Middleschoolers With Science

Clive Thompson's Wired article discovers that middle schoolers are secretly appplying the scientific method to their on-line games. It's so secret, the kids don't even know they're doing it.

At one point, Steinkuehler met up with one of the kids who'd built the Excel model to crack the boss. "Do you realize that what you're doing is the essence of science?" she asked.

He smiled at her. "Dude, I'm not doing science," he replied. "I'm just cheating the game!"

. . .

One of the reasons kids get bored by science is that too many teachers present it as a fusty collection of facts for memorization. This is precisely wrong. Science isn’t about facts. It’s about the quest for facts — the scientific method, the process by which we hash through confusing thickets of ignorance. It’s dynamic, argumentative, collaborative, competitive, filled with flashes of crazy excitement and hours of drudgework, and driven by ego: Our desire to be the one who figures it out, at least for now. It’s dramatic and nutty and fun.

via John Gruber

Soccer dribble fakes

Youtube links. Embedding isn't allowed sorry.

Cutting with the ball

Leg Fake

Fake Kick

Scissors fake

It's Your Ship

A few months ago I heard the author of It's Your Ship on the a local radio station. I read some reviews and an excerpt on Amazon. This was part that made me think I should get around to reading the whole thing.

"Pondering all of this in the context of my post as the new captain of Benfold, I read some exit surveys, interviews conducted by the military to find out why people are leaving. I assumed that low pay would be the first reason, but in fact it was fifth. The top reason was not being treated with respect or dignity; second was being prevented from making an impact on the organization; third, not being listened to; and fourth, not being rewarded with more responsibility. Talk about an eye-opener.

Further research disclosed an unexpected parallel with civilian life. According to a recent survey, low pay is also number five on a list of reasons why private employees jump from one company to another. And the top four reasons are virtually the same as in the military. The inescapable conclusion is that as leaders, we are all doing the same things wrong."

Surpised by Apple

On Monday evening, I sent my 3 year old PowerBook G4 in for repair under my Apple Care service plan. The display had a 3/4" wide area in the lower right of the screen that was slightly grayed out. I'd dropped the powerbook from about a foot onto the concrete a couple of times, so I thought they'd say this wasn't covered because of the visible dents in two corners.

I was pleased to see, via the on-line Repair Status system, that the repair was completed the next morning and the system was awaiting shipment. I received it on Wednesday morning at 10:15 AM, and quickly booted it up to see how the screen looked and confirm that my data survived the trip.

Because my battery is so dead, I usually receive a low battery warning shortly after booting up. To my surprise, this didn't happen. I turned it over and pressed the battery monitor switch. The LED's indicated a full charge. Weird. So I checked the estimated time remaining on the battery, 2:56. I was shocked. I even checked the paperwork and indeed it was true and not an error, they had thrown in a new battery. I never imagined they would do this. Batteries are not a covered repair.

Thank you Apple! Depending on how you look at it, they saved me $137 or extended the useful life of this little beauty.

Tour de France Summary for Newbies

The BBC has a nice summary of the Tour for newbies.

A leisurely 3,500 km (or 2,175 mile) bike ride around France and neighbouring countries. That's roughly the distance from London to Cairo or Tel Aviv and an incredible 15m people line the route.

As many as 180 riders will set off from Brest to Plumelec in 20 teams, but many will have dropped out by the time the race finishes on the Champs Elysee in Paris on 27 July.

Le Tour Podium Prediction

1. Evans
2. Menchov
3. Sastre

The order may vary, but it will be these three.