evolution creations

So last week the final episode of Stargate Atlantis aired. To much shagrin it was actually fairly bland but a bit fantastic–the wrath getting a ZPM and building a super ship? I would have liked to see some of the personal relationships getting wrapped up, such as between Shepard and Tala, or Ronin and his new flame (they elude to this by her appearing at his bedside at the end of the episode). Also putting Atlantis back on Earth puts the future of Atlantis not in the Pegasus galaxy but in the Milky Way? Ah, well, it’s over, I’ve yet to see a good Scifi series come to an end (heck look at Sliders and what a mess that was–they couldn’t even bring back Jerry O’Connell in the last season!). 

As most American’s and the world for that matter know, the automotive industry here in America is not doing so well. GM, Ford, and Chrysler are all pleading with the federal government to afford them $25 billion in tax payer monies from the $700 billion dollar bailout, to help them through their hard financial times.

Really I do empathize with them, companies now are looking at hard time whether its services and goods that are consumer driven, or if your consumers are governments like it is with my company, we are all feeling the pinch. But most companies don’t have the luxary to look to someone like the US government for assistance to help coderize the bleeding that is occurring within their business. Business sure up their practices by looking inward for things like MUDA (Japanese for waste) improvements, process, documentation, training or they look at reductions such as travel, operating costs, and the dreaded head count. Surely there are a variety of ways, more than are even listed here, for a business to look at improving itself to be able to weather through these hard times.

But when we look at companies like the big three, take GM for instance, they are a multi-national conglomerant with many different brands. For instance GM’s active brands include:

• Buick
• Cadillac
• Chevrolet
• Daewoo
• GMC
• Holden
• Hummer
• Opel
• Pontiac
• Saab
• Saturn
• Vauxhall

If I was in a position to look at ways to limit my exposure, here are a list of things that I would start to do. First off, the Hummer brand to consumers needs to end immediately. Given the cost and ecological footprint, its just not a brand that should weather through these economic times. All consumer locations should be closed and another brand, such as GMC should take over the servicing of existing Hummers that are out there.

Second, I would look for ways to synergize my line of vehicles. SUV’s in all the lines should be looked at and reduced. Start eliminating diversity and consolidate into a core line of products that can be retooled and made better. If you look at the GMC line for instance, there are 4 SUV’s that are currently active–and that’s just one GM company. Buick and Saturn both also have SUV’s. These aren’t selling, so if they aren’t hybrid or have a positive value in the marketplace, stop making them and stop selling them immediately. There are a lot of high cost lines within GM:

• Cadillac
• Saab
• Buick

Get rid of one of the brands and consolidate. Or reduce the overall line to focus in on core values.

Also if I was CEO of GM, instead of asking Congress for a crapload of cash, I’d go to them with a proposal to help stimulate the economy, that is provide economical, fuel efficient vehicles and have the government subsedize them to the consumers. I.e. make a car that costs less than 10k, will last at least 5 years, and has a MPG higher than 50. Ask Congress for monies to develop this type of vehicle, retool, and backend into some sort of tax credit for folks who purchase these types of vehicles. This is the car of the future, where you get a lot but less emphasis is put on the fashion trendy aspects of what we’ve come to expect of a vehicle.

As many of you guys have probably seen the movie Contact, or watch James Bond slide down the rim of the massive dish in Goldeneye, what you probably don’t know is that this wonderful invention and tool of the cosmos is at risk of seeing the absolute end of all things–itself. It’s own end is at risk here because of funding issues from OUR GOVERNMENT!

Now I plead with all of you, do the right thing, take the 10 minutes of your day to complete this petition and the stamps that it takes to send it to your representatives, and LET THEM KNOW that we the people of this great nation, pursuers of science and exploration demand of our government to stop spending BILLIONS on the war (in fact an additional $162 Billion has been provided for this) and start spending money on things that will lead this great nation to the next frontier–one that doesn’t have war between fellow people as the prime driver for technological advances.

So do me a favor and go to this website:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/arecibo_letter.php

and put your information in, enter the full zip code include the 4 digits at the end (the page has a link that you can look this up with), and send your letters to your respective representatives. This time the powers that be have gone too far, in pursuit of all the wrong things, and we watch with splendor as they continue on this track without any regard for what those consequences are. Here and now we can make the stand and for something that we all know and appreciate can save this for future generations to come.

So I picked up on this article that Slashdot was running that had a link to a proof of concept video from a few Apple developers working on the iCall project. Needless to say I’m a bit interested because I’ve always wondered why it has been such a problem for mobile providers, such as Verizon or Sprint, to incorporate such technologies into their phones. I mean, for the majority of us, we use our phones in our homes for a significant portion of the time, or for those who don’t have a home phone, mobile phones have become a home phone replacement. But when we use the phones in our homes or at our work places, we run the risk of poor reception due to all the layers of physical infrastructure that stand between us and the closest cellular tower. From my own experiences, mobile calls into my office which is in the heart of Downtown Chicago, are absolutely the WORST and I’m using a Blackberry 8830 on Verizon, so I guess the network got stopped at security downstairs! Needless to say if I had an option to transfer the call that came through my mobile from mobile to wireless, that would be infinitely better in terms of QoS and in terms of cost savings.

So check this out, and see for yourself. If ever there was a real reason for me to switch my mobile carriers, this may very well be it!

As of Spring 2008, I made the Deans List at Lewis University! Yahoo! Only 8 weeks left to go!

Was watching the movie: What A Girl Wants–yeah, I know it’s a chick flick, but for those who know me, those are my secret movies that I love to watch! At any rate, this song is pretty good:

So the wife and I embarked on one of those time tested traditions–that is to create a personalized space within our home by adding a bit of color to it. What’s odd is that we’ve lived here for a few years now, so it may be a bit odd to people that we have waited up until now to paint.

It does not come as a surprise to anyone that I’m not the most handy kind of person. True, I can put together a kick a** computer, but when it comes to matters of the handy, that I am not. But unlike the typical male stereo-type, I am freely admitting this to all. When we had our garage door put in, I called in the professionals. When we had our storm door put in, same, more professionals, so wouldn’t it surprise you to know that when it came down to painting, my first inclination was to hire in those trusty professionals again, but the wife and friend convinced me otherwise.

The situation then came to which paints to use. This seems to be an age old question, similar I’d say to the question of stick shift verses manual. There are SO many different kinds of paints, and producers of paint, that the process took a longer time than I had expected. We had to choose between Behr, Sherman Williams, Benjamin Moore, Glidden and others, and I have to admit, that was probably more thought than I had expected.

In the end, we choose Benjamin Moore for a new line of paint that they had–Aura. Now the tag line for this paint is: Quite Simply the finest paint… and I have to admit, the name lives up to the tag line for once.

First off, the paint is going to be more expensive. But the trade off is two fold: First you don’t seem to have to prime the surface (give it a good wash to remove any dust and such), and Two you don’t have to put more than 2 coats of paint on, Period.

Having said that, the colors in the palette were also very interesting. All of them were in harmony, meaning they could be used with each other without fear of clashing. This isn’t to say that you are limited, as the good folks at Benjamin Moore can mix whatever color you want in the Aura formula.

For our house, we choose the Eggshell finish, and we used Aura in all our rooms. So far we have only done part of the living room and the kitchen, but as you can see, the results are AWESOME!

Also just to give credit were credit is due, not all Benjamin Moore stores are alike. Living in the Chicago suburb area, we are close to two stores. The first:

MEADE BALTZ PAINT 01
928 N PLAINFIELD ROAD
JOLIET, IL 60435
(815) 726-5400

Was terrific. We went in on a Saturday, and got our paint, and the guys there were both knowledgeable as well as honest. They didn’t try to sell me a bunch of stuff, such as brushes, drop cloths, and most importantly primer. The sales man was a former painter by trade, so his advice was invaluable, and the customer service was terrific.

But that same weekend, we needed another gallon of paint, and Meade Baltz was not open on Sunday, so we headed up to the Benjamin Moore store in Naperville:

JC LICHT (F) NAPERVILLE 06
419 S WASHINGTON STREET
NAPERVILLE, IL 60540
(630) 961-1771

What was great was the fact that they were open on Sunday, the downside is that the customer service was POOR! This was very surprising after our previous experiences with Meade Baltz. We walked in and discussed with the gentleman what we needed, we needed another gallon of paint, here was the color, and we even gave him the information from the lid of the previous gallon as we wanted a perfect color match. Wouldn’t you know that the first thing he said was that we probably need another as we have to put 3-4 coats on and the fact that we didn’t put primer on would result in poor quality. Now I’m thinking, this guy works for BM, and is trying to tell me that Aura needs 3-4 coats, when the advertisement saids no more than 2 coats–EVER, and is self-priming?

At any rate, we paid the man, got home and after the 2nd coat, the walls looked AMAZING! Now I don’t consider myself to be someone who is handy, we know this, but the job looked professional and the walls were even coated with no evidence of brush strokes or rollers. The paint didn’t drip, and went on very evenly. Head to my gallery (link on the right side) to view pictures from the paint job.

All in all, I’d recommend Aura for anyone who is considering to touch up their room or add a bit of color, like my wife and I went out to do.

Looks like things are on the move. Going to the WHOIS record, the Name Servers have been updated. Surprised to see that the registrant information has not been:

Registrant:
Comcast Corporation
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
US

Domain Name: COMCAST.NET

————————————————————————
Promote your business to millions of viewers for only $1 a month
Learn how you can get an Enhanced Business Listing here for your domain name.
Learn more at http://www.NetworkSolutions.com/
————————————————————————

Administrative Contact:
Domain Registrations, Comcast kryogenicsdefiant@gmail.com
Defiant still raping 2k8 ebk
69 dick tard lane
dildo room
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103
US
4206661870 fax: 6664200187

Technical Contact:
Comcast Corporation kryogenicsdefiant@gmail.com
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
US
215-320-8774 fax: 215-564-0132

Record expires on 24-Sep-2008.
Record created on 25-Sep-1997.
Database last updated on 29-May-2008 00:35:38 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

DNS101.COMCAST.NET 68.87.64.204
DNS102.COMCAST.NET 68.87.66.204

What’s also interesting is that the name servers that were poisoned appear to be clearing their caches (Since I use OpenDNS, they allow you to clear the cache at the DNS level, so cool!):

Refreshed results for comcast.net
United States
New York, New York, USA Palo Alto, California, USA

* 205.178.189.131

* 204.127.195.15
* 204.127.205.8
* 204.127.228.15
* 216.148.227.202
* 63.240.76.72

Seattle, Washington, USA Washington, DC, USA

* 204.127.195.15
* 204.127.205.8
* 204.127.228.15
* 216.148.227.202
* 63.240.76.72

* 205.178.189.131

Europe
London, England, UK

* 204.127.195.15
* 204.127.205.8
* 204.127.228.15
* 216.148.227.202
* 63.240.76.72

Checking on other forums, looks like the officials at Comcast have been woken up and action taken. Checkout the responses from the official forum moderator over at DSLReports:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20555206-Comcast-hacked~start=40?r=111#20555482

Seems I’m not the only one that noticed:

http://digg.com/security/Comcast_Hacked_2