Michael Braun's Blog

We’ve made it – the three-hundredth post, arriving today on the two year anniversary of the first post on this blog! Now, you could always argue that this blog truly began on LiveJournal, thus making this post neither the 300th nor the two year anniversary, but I think this post still matters.

So what’s happened in those two years? Not much. But there’s been some drama… debates about responsibility for death of a child driving a car with her siblings, debates about the values of scientology, and probably some other stuff that I can’t remember. Why do you read this blog? If you don’t know me, then I don’t know why you do. Let me know. There’s also been cases of people reading this who shouldn’t be and using that to cause trouble. Watch your backs, is what I say!

The best part is that I can write this post with no content whatsoever, and it still counts as the 300th post. So, thanks for reading, and here’s to 300 more!

Yours,
Michael

I haven’t yet written about the iPhone on this blog. Why not, you ask. Because I don’t care that much about it. I’m not going to buy it, so what’s the point. But there are a few things about the iPhone that I wanted to offer my opinion on. Here’s goes.

1. The Price – $499 and $599. Same price points as the PlayStation 3, which can’t seem to move off the shelves nearly as well as the Wii or the XBox 360. I’ve heard shocked reactions to this price, but seriously, I spend $200 on my phone, which barely does any of the things that the iPhone does. I paid that money purely for aesthetics. Plus, the iPhone has similar prices to a lot of super fancy smart phones. I don’t see this as being a factor in sales of the iPhone

2. The iPhone will kill the iPod. This is the dumbest of all predictions I have heard. I stand by my claims that super devices will not take over (any time soon anyway). For that reason, there will be a lot of people who do not have any interest in having all these devices bundled into one. Sure, calendar and address book on an iPod can be helpful, but no one is using their iPod as their primary scheduling device. And now an iPod on the phone is cool, but it’s an additional helpful feature, rather than something that everyone needs. Maybe someday super devices like the iPhone will take over everything, but not just yet. Plus, with 4 gig and 8 gig models, this is hardly enough memory for me to carry around such a large device. If I want a small amount of music, I’ll stick to my iPod nano.

3. The iPhone will be the greatest thing ever!!! No, no it won’t. There will be a lot of drawbacks, including the fact that you are tied to an AT&T network. It’s also a smart phone, so if you really need internet and email on your phone, you’re probably a jerk. No, maybe not, but there is something weird about you. Maybe you travel a lot, maybe you are a nerd, or maybe you’re just addicted to the internet, but there is something weird about you. So if you honestly expect the iPhone to change your life, there is something in your life that probably needs changing.

But even with all these complaints, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on an iPhone, just to see some of the cool touch screen features. And I am looking forward to the next version of the iPod, which will probably feature an iPhone-similar design. Maybe I’ll actually be convinced to buy an actual iPod; let’s just hope they don’t add in a camera and a million other features.

Those were the words Joseph Fredrick displayed on a banner when he was 18 during a gathering to watch the Olympic torch pass thru his town. He was suspended for the action and his suit against the school wound all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Court rejected his claim that his rights were violated, and used the ruling to further restrict student free speech. Here’s why the whole thing is stupid.

1. The kid is stupid. He wanted to get in trouble, he has reported, as he had been recently disciplined by his principal. So he unveils a banner with a stupid message. ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’? That was the best thing he could come up with? He was asked by the principal to stop displaying the banner, which he refused. At that point in time, he had the banner confiscated and was suspended.

2. The principal is stupid. Didn’t she realize that he was trying to get a rise out of her. There must have been a better way she could have handled the entire situation. Instead, she takes it too far. It wasn’t enough to take the banner from the kid; she had to go and suspend him as well. Was the banner’s message so dangerous?

3. The court is stupid. I agree that the kid’s suspension should have been held up. He did something stupid and was punished accordingly. He was at a school supervised event and then refused to cooperate with his principal. This is not free-speech rebellion. He’s just acting like an idiot. But to then use that ruling to say schools have a right to advance their educational mission? The terms are so vague that this could be applied to so many different cases. Students protesting something by remaining silent for a day – if you aren’t speaking, you aren’t learning, which is the educational mission of most every school (I would hope). So hello suspension, for doing nothing.

In the end, I hope the ruling will not be applied as far as it could be. This could put an end to a lot of positive activity by students. And in a day and age when we want to encourage civics in our high schools, anything that restricts legitimate political action and speech is sure to be a detriment to that mission.

Back after September 11, 2001, Bush put out an executive order creating an independent government agency charged with making sure agencies who handle classified information were handling it appropriately. This was meant to cover a whole bunch of agencies, under the umbrella of the Executive Branch. But, when this agency asked Dick Cheney for how the Vice President’s office was handling classified information, he refused to cooperate, saying he was not covered by the act. Now, the White House has said Bush is not covered by this either.

I don’t even know what to make of this. Bush creates an agency via Executive Order to monitor the Executive Branch, then says that he isn’t covered by it. Is he no longer part of the Executive Branch? I can imagine the answer at a news conference.

“Mr. President, Michael Braun, blogger, has noted that you no longer consider yourself part of the Executive Branch. How do you respond to this?”
“Well, heh heh heh, see, when our founded fathers looked to, ah, make the government, see, they, ah, they didn’t mean to limit the powers of the majority. And, ah, the people, they know what’s important. I’m the decider. So, it’s not about executiving, it’s about deciding. I’m part of the decider branch. I make, ah, decisions, and the people respect that. Next question.”

Who knows what is going to happen about this, but it’s really just another example of how Bush isn’t fit for office. He doesn’t get how the whole government thing works.

In other news, I haven’t written much in the past few days. What have I been doing? I’ll tell you.

Moving more stuff, cleaning old apartment, working out three times a week, going out to dinner at Lombardino’s, seeing the moving ‘Fracture’, sleeping late, working, and organizing.

But because of this, it looks like I may be able to time my 300th post with the 2 year anniversary of this blog. Let’s see if it works out that way!

Hey – I’m back online after moving over the weekend. I’m now to be found on the West Side of Madison, back closer to Lauren and the city I love!

Moving has been a bit taxing. I could not have done it without wonderful contributions from Lauren and John. There’s still around 3 carloads to move, including scads of books, but that’s okay. I brought back some more stuff tonight and overall, it’s been peaceful.

I’ll write more later when I get a chance. Until then, stay cool!

The time has come for me to pack up my belongings and take part in a common summer ritual for the last 6 years or so – moving! Saturday is the big day. I’ll be picking up a U-Haul truck at 9:30 and then it’s off to the races. I have yet to enlist specific help just yet, so if you’re interested, drop me a line.

The furniture will naturally be the most difficult. The toughest pieces are the bed and the sofa, but I’ve got a table with a glass top I’ll need to be careful with. And I’ve also got three chairs, a desk, a long shelf, and a TV that I’ll need to move. Everything else is pretty light. Ideally, the truck would be all packed by noon. We’ll see if that happens. After that, I’m not too concerned. The rest of the little stuff will take time, but running a couple of loads a day shouldn’t tax me too much. I’m already starting to put a lot of it in boxes, so that it can be put right on the truck too. The more the merrier, as it’s not costing me anything more than time and energy.

Not too much else going on. In case you missed it, Paris Hilton was released and then returned to jail to serve out the remainder of her sentence. And Scooter Libby will need to report to prison while his appeal is pending. I swear, if Bush pardons him any time soon, we’re thru. I mean that, George, you and me, all our years of good relationships, we are finished. That would just be the last straw.

Hope all is well with every single one of you readers (except those dirty spies, watching me from behind. Better watch your back ’cause when I snap, the whole world will feel my wrath)!

I’m usually not one to root for any side in the Israel-Palestinian boxing match that’s been going on for quite sometime now. The way I figure it, Israel took the land for their own and then took more of it in the 6 day war. That gave them the whole problem of having to deal with these broke Palestinians. So, sucks to be them, right? And with the international community on the side of giving the Palestinians their own homeland, it also seems to me like a good idea.

But here’s the thing. A while back, Hamas, a radical faction of Palestinians won big in some elections. With fear of losing all money from aforementioned international community, they formed a power sharing government with Fatah, their rival faction. But these two groups can’t seem to get it to work out. So they’ve been brawling in the streets, killing each other and making a giant mess out of everything.

So that gets me to thinking. Why the hell should I support these bunch of idiots in their plight to freedom? Now, you can argue that it’s the common people who need their freedom. I disagree. Israel isn’t trying to put all Palestinians in jail. They are just trying to stop a select number of Palestinians from blowing themselves up on buses and in cafes. Is that too much to ask for? If these numbskulls weren’t in charge of leading the revival of a Palestinian state maybe the Palestinian people would by now have a state or would at least have some economic upturn.

And maybe that’s actually the whole problem. Any idiot who would live in these areas is wasting his or her time. There aren’t jobs, food is expensive, housing is terrible, and you’ve got psychos blowing themselves up everywhere. Ancestral homeland, who cares? Get the hell out of there as fast as you can, even if that means going to somewhere like Saudi Arabia or Egypt. So you have a country filled with idiots, willing to fight and die for something so meaningless.

Who knows. All that really matters is that the Palestinian government has lost my support. I’m sure they will be devastated when they learn that.

Hot and sweaty as I am, I hope my keyboard doesn’t short out as I write this. Today, a most miraculous thing has happened – I found a Wii in a store and bought it!

It all happened on my way from the Twin Cities to Baldwin, WI for a family friend get together thing. See, a long time family friend from Finland, Tiia, was to be in the US with her husband (Lauri) and daughter (Elli). My father was planning to have them over to another family friends’ place (the Wolski’s) for brunch. I wanted to see Tiia and family, and dragged Lauren along too. To make the weekend more fun, on Saturday we went up to the Twin Cities and spent some lovely time up there, before driving back this morning and stopping at Baldwin for the brunch. This morning, my dad called me to ask me to pick him up some film, and recommended the Target in Woodbury, MN.

So Lauren and I stopped, and while looking for film, happened to see that they had a whole bunch of Wiis! Naturally, I was excited! I found a store clerk quickly who got one out for me. She said they had gotten 21 in that morning! And they were far from sold out. I also purchased another game – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princes – and an additional controller.

When Lauren and I arrived back at my apartment, we immediately unpacked it and set it up. What an amazing machine! We both really enjoyed playing Wii Sports, an awesome game. Tennis first, then on to bowling, baseball, golf, and finally boxing. Lauren killed me at boxing. Overall, we were both amazed at how fun it is.

After I took Lauren home for the evening around 8 and arrived back, I continued to play on my own. I played all the sports and then went back to boxing. I found myself dominating! As I taunted my opponents, gloves in the air, yelling curses at the screen, I realized, this is an amazing way to take out frustration. I may make Miis (characters on the Wii, especially used for Wii Sports) to represent certain people I know, whom I might like to bully around in the ring for a while.

So now I’m tired, and I have other stuff to do. But I will be back! I haven’t even opened Zelda yet, so a whole wonder of possibilities awaits me. So far, the Wii looks amazing!!!

Oh those US car makers! A while back I had written a post on why American car companies are failing to compete in today’s market. I cited poor design, unreliability, and a failure to read what customers want and plan for the future. With all those factors working against them, they certainly need a break! Someone has got to do something nice for them.

I thought the US Congress was about to do something right sweet for ol’ Ford, GM, and Chrysler (a company failing so much that their parent company paid to have them taken off their hands). They were talk, talk, talking about raising fuel standards for motor vehicles. I heard up to 35 mpg! What a boon for US automakers! They can claim the high cost of retooling means they aren’t going to turn a profit, meaning less stock holder pressure, as their owners can get made at the meanie government. And then they can go on to produce some nice cars with good fuel efficiency, something consummers would actually want to buy.

Instead, the automakers get up on Capital Hill and gripe about how this will set them back even farther! Those ungrateful idiots! What do they expect? That Congress will lower fuel standards, leaving the door open for Ford to produce another fleet of SUVs? I was just thinking the other day about the entire lineup of SUVs that Ford had – the Escape, the Explorer, the Expedition, and the Excursion. That was how they expected to secure their future in the auto market?

Anyway, this is just further proof that American car makers are idiots! Read the market, you morons. People aren’t buying your SUVs anymore. Take a hint and go with the flow. Oil prices rising, your sales drop. If you don’t make better cars, it’ll never stop!

That’s true, right? Remember Putin and Bush stomping around his dude ranch shortly after Bush got elected? It seemed like something special was going on between those two, like a former KGB man and a rich kid alcoholic could really get along! It was exciting, especially as we continued to put the cold war behind us.

Then Bush got this sweet idea. He would follow in Reagan’s legacy and make a missile defense shield to protect this glorious nation of ours. From what?, you ask. From evil rogue nations, of course! There are a lot of nations in the world with rogue regimes with nuclear weapons and the ability to send them to the US. What did you say? No, there aren’t any nations like that? Well, Bush figured that one out too, so he decided that we better deploy this shield in a couple of Eastern European countries as well. He picked the Czech Republic and Poland and thus picked a fight with old Russia. Seems that these countries are right in Russia’s backyard.

Russia gets mad, says it’s directed at them, so Bush fires back. He says, again, that this is just to protect these countries from rogue nations. Putin disagrees and says he will be forced to turn missiles towards Europe if the shield is deployed. Meanwhile, the people in both the Czech Republic and Poland are up in arms, saying they don’t want the damn shield. And here in America, we’ve got people all over claiming that the shield doesn’t even work for sure, so what good is it?

Overall, it’s a big mess. And I take a look at those two cowboys, Bush and Putin, and watch them get all upset. Putin feels like he’s being trapped. Like his own country’s good intentions towards the world community aren’t being recognized. Bush feels like he’s got to do something over there, should somebody go crazy. He still feels boxed in by Russia and who knows what else. The man’s clearly not thinking much of anything through right now.

As their relationship has devolved, it’s funny to look at why. It’s not because they are two very different people. I believe Bush was right when he said they had a lot in common. Rather, it’s because they have both tried to consolidate their own personal power, crushing enemies and doing whatever it takes to win. Because we’ve got the power, we can criticize Putin for what he’s been doing. But we also know that it’s a lot of the same tricks Bush has been pulling for years. He just can’t stand to see someone else getting away with it.

So, here’s what he should do. Offer the damn shield to Russia. If he can’t do that, then it’s clear it’s because he’s scared of Russia, in which case he better not deploy the shield in those other countries and trust that we can all work it out… once Bush is GONE!

Ah ha, just a quick note for you all here. I’ve just figured something out.

While hanging out with Tony for his birthday on Saturday, we found ourselves in Best Buy, looking at computers with Windows Vista installed. On one of the computers, I noticed that Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s Widgets (Microsoft calls them Gadgets) were up on one of the screens. I pointed these out to Tony, sure that he would think they are an interesting feature. Instead, he remarked that Gadgets are huge hogs of system resources. In fact, he said that the only time you would want to use them is if you had a computer that was too fast.

And just now, I realized what evil plot Microsoft has. First, they blatantly copy a unique and helpful feature that Apples has in their operating system (we will selectively ignore the fact that Widgets are not something Apple invented, though right now the name of the original program escapes me). Then, they make it absolutely horrible. There is no reason a tiny little HTML program should hog system resources. Who are they kidding? Then, when people use Vista, they discover that the feature doesn’t work, so when an Apple person tries to use it as a pitch to that person, they disregard the feature totally. So the Dashboard, an awesome little feature in Mac OS X, becomes a stupid, useless, and probably functionless piece of junk for any potential Vista switcher.

Brilliant, Bill Gates, just brilliant.

That’s right, Microsoft, long known for its brilliant and beautiful design, has crafted what every American household needs: a 10,000$ coffee table. But this is no ordinary coffee table. Believe it or not, it has a computer built right it! That’s right, finally your furniture will also need to be plugged into the wall to get it to work. I hope soon electric computer chairs will fill my household. Better start stocking up on extension cords and surge strips.

Seriously though, the big product announced by Microsoft this week is a table with a touch screen display. Now, sure, it’s a big fancy display that multiple people can interact with at the same time. But that’s only because it’s got like five cameras reading what touches it. The video demos make it look really cool, but simply the fact that interacting with a device like this is wild and different, that doesn’t mean Microsoft has reinvented the wheel.

This device is nothing new! People have done it before. In fact, this device isn’t even being marketed towards consumers. Instead it will make its debut in stores like T-Mobile, where users will be able to view specs on cellphones while interacting with the table. It’s easy to see how this will be so much superior than actually touching the phone itself and reading about it on a piece of paper.

No, in the end, this is Microsoft trying to be Apple. But rather than looking to the market, seeing a need, and making a better product to fill it, Microsoft has invented a need. They did it with Origami (where the hell did that project end up?), they did it with Zune (sold 1 million units while Apple sold 24 million iPods), they did it with Vista (selling a high number of copies does not mean consumers were ready to need 2 gigs of RAM; my laptop has 1 gig and I’m blown away by its speed), and now they are doing it with Surface. Microsoft is a company that lacks vision. Simply the ability to make something cool does not put you on the cutting edge of design. It merely proves you are not completely irrelevant in the world of technology.