The title speaks for itself, but why blog about this?  Especially to a group as tech savy as we are?  Well to share an experience I have been going though at work lately.  At the company I work for we have a pretty wide range of age groups, well actually we have a huge age gap to say it bluntly.  I have heard statements that the average employee at my company is 49, I have also heard higher numbers... (wow)  The company I work for has been hiring new employees in a effort to bring in new blood and to secure its future.  Afterall there is a ton of knowledge that the majority of the employees have that must be passed on to the new employee generation. 

So what does this have to do with Blogs and RSS you might ask?  Well its simple really....

Read more...

I am considering converting my 2007 Prius to PHEV.  The cost is still a bit high, I have seen numbers of $6k+ depending on the batteries you use.  I hope that data is old and the kits are cheaper now.  Looks like Toyota and Ford have created a couple prototypes and Berkley and UC Irvine are studying them.  Anyway, here is some information I found out for all you Prius owners out there.  Getting 80-100+ MPG would be sweetness wouldn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHEV
http://www.calcars.org/photos.html
http://www.toyota.com/toyotaSearch/search?keyword=prius+plugin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_conversion
http://www.calcars.org/resources.html (wow, thats a lot of information)

My wife and I are also considering trading our Buick Rendezvous in for another Prius since we love driving that car so much.  Gas prices in St Louis today hit $3.59 a gallon.  Wow crazy how gas prices jump up, but they never jump down.... here is a funny image a friend sent me last week that I think we can all relate to, especially those pick-up truck owners who drive solo down the highway that pump at least $80+ bucks into their tanks ;)

Greetings, I didn't blog about this right off the bat, mostly because I was so ticked off at the decision and I would of just ranted on and on. Also because I work for Boeing and wasn't exactly sure if I could or not.  Than I thought, I can express my opinion first most because I am a tax payer and I can exercise my first amendment rights of free speech :), secondly I didn't work on that proposal so I know exactly the same as what is available to the public.

I decided to say a couple things and to post this link where you can go to petition against the decision.

http://www.house.gov/tiahrt/tanker_survey.htm

I know we have a lot of readers that do not live in the U.S. and probably live in Europe.  I have nothing against you or your place of origin.  (You guys have great beer, period...)

What troubles me is that we are spending our tax dollars (40 Billion, with a possible 60+ Billion dollar follow-on) investing in a foreign company during a time where the American Economy is fragile, the dollar is weak, Real estate market is falling apart and the unemployment rate is falling.  It is just troubling and I feel powerless as a citizen. 

The fact is the Air Force didn't take economical impacts into their decision, is was strictly based on technical merit (which is also being scrutinized) and in times like these I just don't believe that should be the main consideration.  We have the Buy American act for times just like this and yet it was waived....

If you are a US citizen and have an opinion either way, I encourage you to blog about it and vote at the petition link I posted above.  Go exercise your rights!

Well about a week ago I updated to 10.5.2 on my iMac, all was good and I continued to believe my Apple walked on water.  For some reason I simply forgot about Murphy's law, you know what can go wrong will go wrong? (or something like that) 

So at any rate back to my story, last night I was having internet connectivity issues when playing one of my all time favorite games (World of Warcraft -- aka WarCrack).  When this happened, I would run down stairs and look at my modem, check my router, reset both and then run back upstairs to check out my connection.  I forgot to mention, I have Win XP Pro installed on a partition, which is where I do most of my development work and occassional game play. 

Read more...

I was in a meeting at work last week and sometimes they show cool videos, it's usually something about the products we make.  This time however it was very different and I was really surprised and impressed that they showed this video.  It's something I have been pretty passionate about at my company, I feel I am constantly trying to emphasize how powerful todays information network is and I feel my team could really utilize this more effectively when communicating internally and externally.  Anyway, check out this video -- it is pretty powerful just imagine what we will be able to do now with AIR and future technologies!  Let your imagination go, there are really no limits at what we can accomplish.