Google announced a new mobile phone today. We have seen a number of announcements for ground-breaking, sexy new mobile devices in recent history
- AT&T/Apple’s iPhone
- Palm/Sprint’s Palm Pre
- Verizon/Motorola’s Droid
Google’s new Nexus One is available exclusively from … wait, it isn’t available exclusively to any mobile phone company or locked to any network. As subtle as this can seem on the surface, it changes the game in a profound way. Customers have been oppressed by artificial limitations placed on their hardware- well, the hardware that they kinda own- for far too long, and this simply needs to stop. It is inherently evil for any company to cripple or severely limits hardware they sell for the sole purpose of competitive advantage and to hold their customers captive. Apple learned this lesson many years ago when it lost market share to the PC. The cell phone companies must adapt or die.
Personally, I have had dozens of phones on every mobile network under the sun, and don’t recall many, if any, particularly good experiences with any of the companies I did business with. At the end of the standard two year contract period, I regularly jumped ship even if I was reasonably happy with my current provider. There was no reason to stay, their only goal was to hook you and forget about you for two years.
We’re reaching a point where it doesn’t really matter who carries your bits from your mobile device to whatever destination you send them to. They’re just bits, 1’s and 0’s whether they represent and email, a photo, a text message, a tweet, or a voice call. So long as they get where they’re going reliably, the pipe they flow across is completely irrelevant. I still use SMS to communicate with my low-tech friends, but have to pay extra for a communication that would be free via email, Twitter, Facebook, et al. Give me a pipe to the Interwebs and get out of my way!
The concept of buying a phone and being able to use it on any network its hardware will allow for is necessary step to repair the reviled mobile phone industry in the US today. It is also time to stop arguing VHS vs. Beta and standardize on GSM like the rest of the world already has done. Concentrate on what customers really care about: a fast network, a reliable network, and their choice of any phone they choose to buy.
With this crucial shift today, the future is bright for the customer to take back what is rightfully theirs – choice.
It is Fall, and a season of change for me. This post is long overdue, but today is the first day I've been able to relax a bit and think about blagging.
photo by 416style
A lot has been going on in my life lately. Namely:
All of that in the span of little over a month has been daunting, but overall very good, other than the car dropping incident.
With Volvo, it was my time. After four and a half years there, a change was long overdue. Overall it wasn't a bad job, which is what made it so difficult to leave, but I had reached what I like to call a "career cul-de-sac" and had been keeping my eye out for a fresh new opportunity for some time.
When I got the call from Microsoft saying they wanted to hire me as a contractor, the news was bittersweet. Having lived all my life in Greensboro, NC there was no way for me to know what the coming transition would be like, or would feel like. I didn't really hate my job, and loved the team I worked on. CWPTeam is a unique and talented bunch of people whom I feel privileged to have
been one of the original members of. Then I'm reminded of this quote from Mario Andretti
”If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."
While mostly tongue-in-cheek, there is a lot of truth just behind the seams.
Seth Godin's book The Dip had been a quick read around this time and put some important thoughts in my head. You have to close a door, even a perfectly good door, to open another one. When you distill things down enough, I was afraid of being a quitter, afraid of change, afraid to go outside of my comfort zone, afraid to jump. But to jump is exactly what I needed to do.
Since joining Volvo IT as a "permanent employee" in February 2008, to say things had gone downhill would not really be full disclosure. Sure the manufacturing and transportation industries are quite cyclical, but things had realigned at a very fundamental level. I joked that our motto had morphed from "Let's make sure" to "Let's make do," but this was hardly in jest. This environment had made me stop caring, an unnatural stance for me. When that happens, it is time to leave and go do something you can and *do* care about, for every-one's sake. The shift in focus helped me to realize that my passion was solely for the software, and the rest didn't matter to me.
Oddly enough, my current manager and I discussed this during my interview, as he had recently left a job with a large bank for a similar reason. It was a light-bulb moment when I came to realize the stark shift in priorities between a company that makes software, and a company that just happens to write software to accomplish a line-of-business task they haven't outsourced yet. While my team there was a talented group of individuals, each of whom I would jump at the opportunity to work with again - but that culture and quality was the exception rather than the rule in the wider scope there.
My first day at Microsoft was tough, and included a minor fender bender at lunch, but I learned the ropes quickly and was committing code to source control before the end of the first week. The fresh new challenge was a welcome one and I buried myself in the codebase, learning everything that I could from the collective intelligence in the air around me. I'm learning new things every day and that's exactly what was missing.
We'll have to see what the future holds, but no regrets thus far.
Charlotte has reminded me how easy I had it with Greensboro traffic. It is no DC, or Atlanta, but commuting was much more challenging until I moved into my new place yesterday. Now my commute is 15 minutes and I can take the light-rail to work if I want. This evening I walked a few blocks to enjoy dinner at Thai Taste and am surprised to admit, that I like urban living.
Update: Badge turned blue on December 21st. A dream realized!
The morning started out normal enough- a sunny Sunday morning with pavement waiting to be ridden on. About 25 members of the Impatient Triad Riders met at the usual spot, the Shell Station in Oak Ridge at 68 and 150. There was a great turnout for this ride in memory of Mason Levin, one of the founders of the group, who lost his life from injuries from a ride on July 18th.  
So we rode out and hit Highway 66 near Danbury for some twisties and stopped here at the shack for a short break and then began the ride up to Hanging Rock.
When I got to the end of Lynchburg Rd I became increasingly concerned that, unlike a minute or two before, there were no riders in my mirrors. I hesitated (and shouldn't have) for about a minute and turned around to find out what was up.
It wasn't instantly apparent what had happened when I arrived on this scene, but I knew it wasn't anything good.
To make a long story short, the rider behind me, Chris, had a Tree Fall On Him!
His reaction to this completely random flying timber was absolutely spot-on. He cracked open the throttle, hunkered down, and hugged the gas tank as closely as he could. With his side mirrors ripped off and helmet scuffed, he miraculously kept the bike up.
 
Next in the formation, Richard, wasn't as fortunate. Seriously, what are you supposed to do when a tree falls into your line of travel? There is no amount of experience to prepare you for that kind of thing. He did all he could with the brakes and limited stopping distance and reaction time, and laid it down before impacting the unexpected tree. He sustained some leg and knee injuries, but still made it out relatively unscathed for such a strange chain of events. He was taken to Baptist Hospital for treatment of his injuries.
Overall I was extremely impressed with how the other ITR members reacted on the scene before and after medical personnel arrived. Kudos guys, you're a top-notch bunch!
All photos
Google provides a Charting API with a
host of useful charts. I spent a few minutes playing around with the map chart section to create a
color-coded map of the states I have visited in the USA.
The Venn Diagram was an interesting option that I had not expected, but good
stuff.
If you are building a dashboard, the Google-o-meter might come in
handy
I find myself spending quite a bit of my spare time on Stackoverflow in recent weeks, and decided I wanted to
display my current rep on my blog. A few days ago I built a dynamically generated
(and cached for 2 hours for traffic's sake) user ranking report, since my request for
this on Uservoice was not
approved.
HtmlAgilityPack has been my
weapon of choice in recent days. It was a good fit for this project and the end
result looks like this:
And in case you might ask "Show me the code!" here you are.
Feel free to use it for your own project if you like.
<%@ WebHandler Language="C#" Class="Badge" %>
using System;
using System.Web;
public class Badge : IHttpHandler {
public void ProcessRequest (HttpContext context)
{
string includeLogo = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(context.Request.QueryString["useLogo"]) ?
context.Request.QueryString["useLogo"] : string.Empty;
string userId = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(context.Request.QueryString["userid"]) ?
context.Request.QueryString["userid"] : "1551";
string jsMode = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(context.Request.QueryString["jsMode"]) ?
context.Request.QueryString["jsMode"] : string.Empty;
PageRetriever pr = new PageRetriever("http://stackoverflow.com/users/" + userId + "/");
pr.GetPage();
User userBadges = pr.ExtractBadge();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsMode))
{
context.Response.ContentType = "text/javascript";
context.Response.Write("document.getElementById('stackoverflowRep').innerHTML = '");
}
else
{
context.Response.ContentType = "text/html";
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(includeLogo))
{
context.Response.Write("<div style=\"height:40px\"><div style=\"float:left\"></div><div style=\"float:left;\">");
context.Response.Write(<img src=\"http://www.chrisballance.com/so/resources/stackoverflow-logo-250.png\" />");
}
context.Response.Write(userBadges.Rep);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(includeLogo))
{
context.Response.Write("<br /><a href=\"http://stackoverflow.com/users/");
context.Response.Write(userId);
context.Response.Write("\">");
context.Response.Write(userBadges.Username);
context.Response.Write("</a></div></div></div>");
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsMode))
{
context.Response.Write("';\n");
}
}
public bool IsReusable {
get {
return false;
}
}
}
Since I could not find a chart of some sort showing current rankings on
StackOverflow.com, I decided to roll my own. The link that follows points to a
static cached version of the page that will only update manually for now. Enjoy,
and feel free to give your feedback or suggestions for improvements.
Current StackOverflow.com
Rankings 
On my commute into the office this morning I heard of the most recent government bail-out of a private bank, CitiGroup. This is the second second installment, at CitiGroup alone, of taxpayer dollars being used to try and fix problems the average taxpayer did not create.
While it makes some sense to put measures into place to ensure that major financial companies do not fail and collapse industries beyond the financial sectors, are we fundamentally doing the right thing by the American taxpayer?
Of course not!
photo courtesy of dalydose
Have we reached the point that our government is borrowing money to cover for haphazard and irresponsible behavior by investors and BANKS? Why yes, yes we have. But who started this mess?
The way I see it, here is how the snowball began rolling downhill:
- For the past 10 years or more since the tightening of regulation following the savings and loan crisis, government regulation of the U.S. financial markets has loosened significantly.
- Banks saw this combined with low interest rates as opportunities to increase their revenues significantly by tapping into the elusive "subprime loan" market.
- A increasingly credit hungry society took advantage of achieving the previously out of reach so-called "American dream" of home ownership, regardless of whether or not this made good financial sense for them at the time. (The former "dream" is now more of a nightmare.)
- Banks decided they could crank up profits by closing a bunch of loans quickly and immediately selling the loans to someone else so they didn't have to keep these risky investments in-house, on their own balance sheets.
- Banks, unsure of exactly what was the current risk with these subprime mortgages started selling "mortgage backed securities" like hotcakes. Investors and other banks bought them by the truckload.
- Ratings agencies tasked with rating the risk of these strange new investment vehicles did a rotten job rating the actual risk and kept slapping AAA ratings on everything in sight
- Mortgages within these investment backed securities start failing exponentially, and banks start cleverly hiding them off their balance sheets.
- Banks start to fail, starting with smaller players, then major banks and financial powerhouses start to fail when they can no longer hide their failing mostly-imaginary-now investments.
- And then....the story comes full circle....and here comes Uncle Sam to save the banks by throwing BORROWED money at the problem to buy up these toxic financial investments.
Who screwed up? Most everyone involved screwed up in one way or another. But who enabled this to happen? As we have seen, given enough rope, investors and banks will hang themselves.
Perhaps we should stop providing the rope and repeal the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act that allowed the creation of Citigroup and others?
Hindsight aside, why did we let Lehman fail and others who made the exact same bad decisions survive?
It's time for a large helping of what everyone should have had more of all along, Fiscal Responsibility. Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Vote_1999.png (138.89 KB)
Likely a fake, but a cool video nonetheless....
Plane loses a wing during an air show and then flawlessly lands the plane.
photo courtesy of Travis S.
Video: planeLosesWing.wmv (1.51 MB)
The UAW and what's left of the ‘not-so-big-anymore’ Three.
Photo of the Renaissance Center by Casino Jones
The basic premise of any Trade Union is to work to achieve the common goals of its members. These common goals can range from higher wages, better working conditions, improved benefits, to any key factor affecting member workers. These organizations rose out of 18th century industrialization in order for personnel to collectively bargain for a better deal than they could negotiate on their own. With minimal labor laws on the books and significantly dismal working conditions in industry, these groups championed harsh and unfair conditions through various methods and put power into the hands of rank and file employees who otherwise would have had no capacity to make things any better on their own.
While they bear stark similarities to Medieval Guilds in their member composition, their basic premise diverges significantly. The key difference that makes many modern ones self-defeating is that their interests do not lie in the preservation of the Corporations their workers are employed by. In many cases their only role seems to spite the companies of their members.
Trade Unions exist in order to restore an order lost in the employer’s lack of vested interest in the goals for which the unions are created. They work to restore an order that would otherwise be lost without the collective bargaining power they provide. During early industrialization, these entities were essential to workers.
The case in point is the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). The “Big Three” in the U.S. are often referred to as “Pension Funds that just happen to have car companies attached to them.” Unfortunately, the realization of this just doesn’t become apparent to those who could do something about the situation.
General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have become dinosaurs that simply cannot compete in today’s market, end of story. Fueled by big oil in more ways than one, they have consciously chosen to continue doing things the way they always worked, “build it and someone will buy it.” With a lineup of models orders of magnitude more numerous than leaner, more efficient competitors, they have lost sight of one of the most basic principals of doing business successfully. “Do one thing, and do it well” Compare the model offerings of Volkswagen or BMW and the problem becomes more apparent. American car companies have become Jacks of All Trades, inherently doing none of them well. Poor management, a disconnect with what consumers want and really need, and I would venture to guess Chronic American Isolationism and inflexibility have all contributed heavily to their serious loss of market share and profitability in the last decade.
However, the most serious problem they currently face is that without major changes in their fundamental ways of conducting business, they will all be gone and carved up to the highest bidder within a year. While too late to save Chrysler, Ford and GM could stand a chance if they would heed the following:
Disband the UAW immediately and fire every worker that refuses to burn their union card.
Harsh as this sounds, and it is, the only way they can hope to have a possible path to viability in the market again is to take this route, effective yesterday if possible. The UAW, and many other Trade Unions, are vestiges of a bygone time and lack relevance in today’s market. How does a group sworn to protect its members do so by being the single largest factor in putting their members’ employers completely out of business? Each and every worker has needs that should be met to the best of the ability of their employer, but let’s be realistic folks. The UAW jumped the shark years ago and this destructive path taken in the name of those it claims to protect is a ruthless paradox.
A recent strike organized by the UAW was one of the most laughable and pointless ventures imaginable. Shutting down the assembly lines for which the end products have few or no interested buyers? This just defies the most basic capitalist principals, Supply and Demand. If the demand for what you supply is severely waning, bullying those in charge of selling these outmoded and undesirable products has no hope of improving your situation.
The pension plans put into place by the Big Three during good economic times, and dependent on the continuation of that prosperity are going to have to be re-evaluated and modified such that they are sustainable. An overarching symbol that applies to several parts of this equation is Sustainability. Sustainable promises to employees, or none at all if nothing can truly be delivered, sustainable products that meet the needs of the consumer, and sustainable long term plans which take into account diminishing demands for the product the way it is currently made.
Obviously there is no silver bullet, but the UAW and the policies it has bargained for and put into place are killing auto-making in this country. This is not something that can be fixed; it needs to go away as quickly as possible such the Big Three can rapidly generate plans for a road to recovery. It’s only a starting point, but a crucial one that cannot be ignored. The dichotomy between what the workers really want and need and what the UAW is fighting for on their behalf should be abundantly obvious by now, but somehow is not. There is no blood to be had from a turnip, no matter how effectively you negotiate with said turnip.
The current efforts by the Obama camp, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, are wholly misguided and if carried through will only prolong the inevitable, and do so on our dime. If companies are poorly managed, make bad decisions, and can no longer compete in the market due to the culminations of decisions they have made and directions they have freely chosen to go, then they fully deserve their fate. Loans and government subsidies seem like a quick fix to do what we can to save these companies, but let’s face it they just aren’t worth saving. They had their fair chance, and face-planted in the dirt time and time again. It’s simple capitalism, and Darwin wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Green Drinks Greensboro chapter has its second meeting this evening at Natty Greens Brew Pub in downtown Greensboro. With 88 members on the current email list and 30 people attending the first meeting, I would venture to say it's off to a successful start. I look forward to seeing you there!
From Greendrinks.org:
"We're off to a great start. Over 30 people showed up at the very first event! The next date is....
When: July 16th, 5:30pm
Where: Natty Greene's Brewing Company, 2nd Floor
Why: See below...
What is Green Drinks Greensboro? It's a social hour. It's a networking event. It's unwinding with friends. It's a time and place where it's okay to be green and to find out what others in your city are doing to be green, work green, play green, or live green. And it happens all over the country and the world in over 300 cities. Proving that it's never too late to join the green movement, Green Drinks Greensboro will be meeting every third Wednesday of the month on the 2nd floor of Natty Greene's Brewing Company (345 S. Elm St.) starting from 5:30 until 7:30(ish).
Green Drinks Greensboro invites all those who care about the environment, teach about and learn about the environment, work in an environment-related field, have interest in the environment, environmental products, sustainable building, environmental protection, eating local, ecological design, alternative energy…you get the idea. There will be no agenda and there are no dues. From time-to-time we will allow a few minutes for short presentations. To get on our e-mail list, simply send an email to greendrinksgso@gmail.com and we will keep you posted on our events. See you there!"
~A Camping Trip~
April 18th to April 20th ("May" was a typo)
We are thinking of staying at or near Linville falls. It's either there or at Price Park and drive over the the nearby falls. Let me know if you and/or friends want to go. The more the merrier. We just need to know how many so we can try to reserve enough space for everyone. If you need a tent let me know, I have a couple or three extras.
Linville Falls Campground, located off the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 317, is family oriented, located next to the Linville River. It provides easy access to numerous hiking trails to some of the most beautiful scenery in the Linville Gorge area. Interpretive programs are provided on weekends during the peak recreation season. Fishing opportunities are available on the Linville River.
   
Julian Price Park Campground is located on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone and Blowing Rock NC. The campground is adjacent to Price Lake. Fishing and boating are allowed. Fishing requires a state license and no motor boats are permitted. Canoe and rowboat rental is available from Memorial Day - Labor Day, and on weekends in early May, late September and the month of October. Hiking trails and trailheads are located within the campground.
   
Please RSVP as soon as possible but at least by Wednesday April 16 if interested.
//Chris
I finally got around to creating a blog, so here it is. It could use some content, but I'll get around to it soon enough.
I started as a full-time employee with Volvo IT North America earlier this month, where I had been working as a long-term contractor for just under three years. Things are nearly as busy as they always were, but looks like we're finally going to have a bit of structure in place and maybe start doing things the right way. Only time will tell how much of "doing things the right way" pans out, but I've got a good group of developers in my team who have some great ideas and the ambition to move on them.
On the homefront, Bridget and Roxy are both doing well. My home's aquatic residents are most blissful and doing just great also. Bridget's classes are going to keep her out pretty late in the evenings for a while, but soon she will be done with all her post-licensing classes and have her EcoBroker designation. I'm proud of her new endeavors in the real estate market and think the career suits her well.
In entertainment news I have decided to become a rock star in my spare time, dusting off the strat and putting some effort into getting my fingers well calloused. This evening I'm checking out Steady Elegance's hip-hop group "Ricardo Sanchez's Escort Service" at Greene Street in downtown Greensboro and Big Mike's gig at the same venue on Saturday night.
And now....back to keeping this web server happy!
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