Fire Water

There was an interesting news story tonight. It's about a couple in Colorado whose water is flammable. It's intense. Of course, it isn't technically accurate to say that their water is flammable, but the natural gas mixed in it sure is. Check it out. I also wanted to show off a cool service called QUIETube which is an awesome service with a bookmarklet that creates a blank page for the sharing of any youtube video. It's great for emailing and everything because it eliminates all the extraneous junk. They say that it's youtube without the distractions.

You can watch the fire water video here.

If you are not sure what a bookmarklet is, feel free to read this article by yours truly on the TatStore.com blog.

A couple recommendations

Two quick recommendations.

22 Practical Uses for Lightsabers

Check this free work from the band Hollus, very cool, and very free.

Easing of Budget Woes

Everyone has budgeting concerns around the holidays. Thankfully, my woes have been eased by Chad as I no longer need to buy him a Christmas present this year. You and he might be wondering, what is it that he could have done to earn such a fate. Oh, I'll tell you. Mindy and I sit down to watch the best show that exists on television - Dexter. If you aren't familiar with Dexter, you should be, so wise up. But here it will have to do to say that it is the most phenomenally addictive show that I have ever watched. More than Lost, more than Fringe. It's amazing… or at least it was UNTIL I WAS WATCHING A BLANK SCREEN BECAUSE HE HAD TO TAPE THE F-ING CLONE WARS!!! Which he already *owns* by the way (almost certainly multiple copies).

Now, I know at this point Chad is just about losing it with laughter because he can see me sitting there watching my pathetically small television that I got free from one of his bosses three years ago, hanging on every word, waiting to see how Dexter Morgan could possibly get out of this one, when the screen fades to the most desperately insulting gray-mauve I've ever seen, and he can see me getting up stomping around the house doing laps around my ludicrously small apartment cursing infuriated that I had been so masterfully denied pleasure. You see, he had earned some wonderful gift this year by in fact taking the time to actually record the entire season for me on DVD and then mailing it to me; however, he masterfully guaranteed himself a full stocking of coal when half way through the first episode the picture vanished leaving me with nothing but questions, naughty words, and an awful attitude.

Upon further consideration, I might additionally drag his stockings through a burr field not too unlike the soccer fields at the old Mattawan Elementary playground. Seriously, you have seen The Clone Wars approaching one billion times. ARRRGGGGGGG! [Wallows in rage and self-pity]

In other news, I did two little banner ads at work today that I am pretty proud of. I like the backgrounds particularly of the buy the whole set one, which is desaturated from the outsides in making an interesting vignette effect, that really makes the blue pop. *Quick note* Just because I am putting some of my work on this blog don't feel like I need compliments on it. I would actually prefer criticism, but they make me happy to look at so I thought I'd share them.

PS. This sale doesn't officially open until tomorrow at ten, but I have left the links in if you would like to purchase the pack (after ten feel free to read Bonnie's post blog.tatstore.com). Special sneak peek just for you guys. Ooooooooooo!

Google's Strat and Today's Development

I recently had a conversation with Grandpa and Uncle Tim about Google and their strategy, specifically when it comes to internet apps. I won't bore you with the long and slightly manic argument I outlined for them, but suffice to say that I think Google has decided to forsake the old model and build their own. Let's look at free mail servers as an example. Services like Hotmail and Yahoo! mail were big innovators, in the fact that they took email service out of the hands of the ISP and provided free mail service for anyone. They traded you an email account for the right to advertise to you in a captive setting. However, this trade limits inherently limits some of the features that they can provide to their customers. For example, free mail forwarding - if they forwarded my mail that was addressed to my Yahoo! account on to my Gmail account they lose their ability to advertise to me which, in their eyes, leaves them with an empty deal.

This is just one example, but I believe that Google has it's eyes on a bigger prize. Google decided that they will offer not only free online services, but they are going to provide the best, easiest, most powerful, and most compatible service that they can. And best of all, they are going to encourage you to use it however you suits you best. If that means checking your email online so that it can be surrounded by their ads (semantically targeted based on the content of your message) that's great, but if that means you check it using your third party mail client, they are fine with that too. Not only fine with it, but they will provide you with a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial on how to set it up and get the most out of it. Why would they do this. Because what they want more than you seeing their ads, Google wants to become an such an integral part of using the internet that you don't even notice. They want to own your internet experience, and they are not going to even ask you for it. They are setting up a world where it is in our best interest to lay it at their feet, and thank them profusely for the right.

Let's look at what I mean, when I use email, I use Gmail. When I make a schedule, I use Google Calendar, when I read blogs, I use Google Reader, when I want to get an answer, I use Google search, when I want to communicate, I increasingly use Google Talk, when I write a blog, I use Blogspot (a Google product), when I need to watch something, I use Youtube (a Google product), when I organize pictures on my computer, I use Picasa (a Google product), if I view any page on the internet, Google wants me to use Google Chrome as my browser… Believe me, this is VERY limited list, I could easily go on and on. I have deliberately tried to limit this to products that I use every single day. And how did they earn this right? Simple, they offer the best product out there absolutely free.

Maybe this sounds a little ominous, some of you may be saying "My gosh, it's Big Brother, I had no idea." That is not at all what I mean, I am a huge Google fan, and will continue to be, even while honestly believing that they are trying to become so intrinsically fused to our experience of the internet that we don't even think about it any more. Why am I not afraid? Because, I believe that they are giving the industry a huge kick in the pants which is currently and will continue to inspire others to explore competitive advantages in a way that benefits the customers first, not simply their immediate bottom line. Google can be the giant who inspires the man in the boy to step up with his stone and sling and take his best shot.

Wow, I guess I will bore you with the bulk of my argument. Sorry for that, but their strategy is so inspired, I love to tear into it.

Finally here's the reason I was actually inspired to write this blog

Google just did something that I find exceptionally unusual even for them. Not only is my Gmail account fabulous because of it's unprecedented compatibility and ease of use, they just delivered creative and appealing themes for spicing up your gmail service. Today they were blogged about on the Google Blogoscope here, and I'm crediting them because I want to steal their pictures. Note that a few of these themes are actually dynamic meaning that their appearance is conditional, for example, Mindy's favorite, the beach theme is a nighttime scene in our nighttime hours, and bright and beautiful during the day.

If you would like to add one of these great new themes to your Gmail account simply log in and go to settings. There you'll see a themes tab on the right. Pick the one you like and let it rip.

As a post script other Google products that have occurred to me as I finished this blog

• Directions - Google Maps
• Internet statistics - Google Analytics
• Office suite - Google Docs
• Internet photo albums - Picasa web albums
• Advertising (TV also now) - Google Adwords
• Watching TV - Google TV (currently in very limited beta)
• As you think of more, feel free to add them in the comments section

My (Post-) Christmas Wish List

Here's a great article from BusinessPundit.com. You absolutely have to read this article, if you are having a rough day... Read this and it will make you hopeful. Simply put this incredibly well-written list enumerates the reasons that I believe that there is hope with Obama steering the ship.

Just absolutely wonderful.

[crosses fingers]

Google Sketchup 7

Google, you had me at hello.

Boy oh boy. Does it seem to anyone else like google and adobe might have more and more in common all the time? John Battelle might - read what he thinks about a possible adobe / google team. That sounds like a winning team to me.

Congratualtions Chad!

Subtitle: Pimping 101 (hey I'm a marketer give me a break)

I just wanted to congratulate Chad on his marvelous performance in the San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon yesterday. He truly is an inspiration for working hard and following through. Make sure to check out his blog at starwarsrunner.blogspot.com which doesn't yet have a new post but hopefully will soon.

Also, I'd love for any of you to check out Jackson's newest blog post where he shares his thoughts that were stirred up by the current thread of posts on personal rights and the role of government in serving those rights. (If you have some time also hop over to Dan's blog and Bunkley's blog for some "Big Three" bail-out editorials which are quite tangential to my post but really much more timely and educational, I found both very convincing).

Lastly, feel free to take a look at my post this week on using bookmarks effectively.

Anyways, love you all.

My Jamendo.com pick this week is This Ain't Hollywood by Silence is Sexy. Specifically grab the title track, very nice.

The problem with us

Tonight I read an article by a great friend of Kirk's on his blog at investinginvacantland.com. The article, entitled "In Praise of Selfishness," reminds us Americans of the powerful case for capitalism and a limited government. As a citizen with strongly conservative economic views, I really appreciated his voice and wisdom behind his article.

His article got my own ideas stirred up on the topic, so I'm going to try to make some sense of them here (as I partially did in my lengthy comment on his blog which is currently awaiting moderation).

On my trip to New York City with Mindy and Bonnie back and April, we were discussing politics and we had come to talk about Libertarianism and it's most visible proponent, John Stossel. I remember saying that the problem with Libertarians is that we are all giant assholes. I'm not quite sure what it is, but this particular belief set attracts a certain personality of individuals who tend to be very self-assured. Not only do we almost always know what is unequivocally true, we have no qualms in sharing it with you. We also usually can be seen by some as heartless because we often have a quite matter-of-fact attitude towards the hardships, losses, and failures of others.

Now I by no means was apologizing for who I am, but I was acknowledging that our cause is difficult to evangelize because while many (usually most) Americans agree with our points on a cognitive level, and will say so, they are easily turned-off by our delivery of that message as they are likely to see us as arrogant, selfish, bossy, and unfriendly. This is a horrible shame, and a terrible detriment getting any of the policies that I believe will maximize our quality of life. So, in keeping with the personality traits that I addressed above, I wanted to enumerate the biggest issues that we must avoid to further our cause.

• The single biggest problem crime (which I am ironically committing with this sentence) is our use of untamed generalities. One thing that contributes to our perception of being heartless, is that we often pretend that more homogeneous than it really is. We might say, for example, that welfare programs create a culture of dependency and cripples our society. Of course, we are discussing principle and will usually not defend our stance when applied to every case - unemployment insurance, pre-natal care for underprivileged women, and medicare come immediately to mind. The problem is that this gives us an air of insensitivity and makes it seem like the policies we espouse aren't useful in the real world because we discuss a weird, general imaginary world.
• A related sin, which is shared by many groups, especially fundamentalists is the tendency to pretend that the world is black and white. We pose questions and answers in a binary format. Either it is on or it's off. It is or it isn't. It's right or it's wrong. For some reason, fundamentalists feel very comfortable in such a framework and actually seek it for it's seeming simplicity. For example, one might say or imply that freedom should not be traded for security. We say freedoms should not be traded, but what we mean is much more delicate. We are sharing our bias as if it were a commandment. This can really distract people because it can set us up to seem hypocritical. We say that we support deregulation but maybe I support trade embargos and my friend supports minimum wage. Most of us are real people who understand that problems are not cookie cutter so neither can the solutions be, but we tend not to project this.
• The last issue I will cover here is that we frequently downplay the pain and hurt that is a necessary byproduct of our views. We would love to talk about the efficiency provided by an unencumbered job market, but we would rather ignore the pool of unemployment that drives it. We would love to talk about allowing a monster car industry giant to fail as just wages for its own sin, without talking about the enormous price paid by the individuals who have no culpability in that failure but depend on that giant all the same. It is not fair to talk about the benefits of freedom without realistically and honestly addressing the pain that it invariably causes. Full transparency of both benefits and costs is the only way that we can differentiate ourselves from the herd.

Family Fun

Today Mindy and I took a day trip to Mattawan to see the fam. We went down to Grandma and Grandpa Hegedus's for a family dinner where I got my hair cut (yes, I know that certain of you readers are very excited by that) and got to see Dad, Stacy, and Sierra's pictures from their missions trip to Jamaica the land of no problems.

After that we stopped by Uncle Tim's to see Grandpa before he took off for Texas. To our great delight and surprise, not only was Grandpa there but so was Sarah and Uncle Tim, so we hung out with them for quite a while (Mindy says I bored them nearly to tears with my ultra-fast rambling tech talk) and then we all played Rock Band on their Wii. So good.

Anyways, I am about ready for bed, but I wanted to say that I just finished my blog for Monday which is scheduled to be published at 10:00AM on the TatStore Blog which I have linked at right on my list of blogs that I'm following. If however you would like to access just my blogs sorted out from the rest you can read them any time at blog.tatstore.com/category/benn. I will probably suggest that blog just about every week if I think it's something that some of you might be interested in. This week, last week, and some indeterminate weeks into the future I am exploring a series on efficient computing. Last week, I covered Cut, Copy, and Paste, and this week is about using tabs in a browser. Feel free to check them out anytime, and leave a comment here there or anywhere or email me at bennthewolfe@gmail.com or benn@tatstore.com.

I love you all and hope that your weeks get off to a great start, Benn

PS. I would also urge you check out two other blogs from my close friends Jackson and Dan which you can find also at right named Considerations and Hannibal Ad Portas respectively. I have really enjoyed several of the posts on these blogs which explore technology, politics, sports and more.