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So I found this the other day. It's a small OBDII reader that plugs into your car and gives you a digital display for various automobile readouts (coolant temperature, speed, RPMs, horsepower, miles per gal, etc, etc) and works in any car with a OBDII port. It also has the ability to download error codes and reset them (i.e: the check engine light).

I got interested in buying this because I'm looking for ways to improve my gas mileage. I'm stuck with a fairly long commute to work and anything I can do to burn less gas will be helpful. I've had a car pool buddy for most of the last two years, which has helped a lot, but she is having family problems and I've probably lost her for the summer (yey, just when prices go up).

I've already adopted some of the 'hypermiling' techniques and have actually been able to bring my mileage up by 4-5MPG just by driving slower (50-55 on state roads instead of 60-70 -- 60-65 on the highway instead of 75-80) and planning ahead. Figuring that this device would give me more instant feedback on how I'm doing -- plus it looks like a neat geek toy ;)

Seriously, it's like they designed it for geeks. How many other devices are designed so that you vary the output intensity on three different color LEDs to create the exact backlight color that you want? That's just awesome ;) I can reduce my carbon footprint and geek off at the same time. What's not to like?

So Obama basically crushed Hillary in North Carolina and turned Indiana into a nail-biter that Clinton managed to win by 1% (or roughly 14,000 votes out of 1.2 Million). This is the exact opposite of what Clinton wanted: A decisive win in Indiana and a nail-biter in North Carolina. I'm not going to gloat too much -- I've been on the losing end of a few campaigns myself and it always sucks. The emotional investment that you make is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been there -- losing feels like being punched in the gut. I know it did for us in Ohio after we worked our hearts out.

The big question now would seem to be who will tell Hillary that it's over? Obama leads in the number of states won, the number of pledged delegates and the popular vote. He leads in all of those categories even if you include Florida and Michigan, where he wasn't even on the ballot in one of them and didn't compete in either.

Granted, the Clinton team will doubtless say that both candidates still need some superdelegates to put them over the top. This is true. Are those superdelegates really going to take the nomination away from the person leading in every category (including the only one that really counts -- the delegate count) to give it to the person losing every category? The person whose campaign is broke and whom apparently loaned another 6.4 million of her own money to remain competitive?

It's just not going to happen. It's time for the olive branch and reconciliation. It's time to beat John McCain.

Stumbling around the internet today and I found this op-ed in the NYT. I found it to be a pretty good read and would like to encourage everybody to check it out.

The author makes the case that we need a President who will level with the American people about the challenges that lie ahead. He states that anyone of the three candidates can answer the red phone at 3AM -- he is voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people at 8PM.

Some of the examples and contrasts that he cites fit nicely into what I've been saying for awhile -- we need investments in infrastructure, education and science. These investments seem to have taken a backseat to our endless obsession with instant gratification. This is exemplified by everything from massive deficit spending (credit cards, sub-prime mortgages and the Federal deficit) to live beyond our means, to a corporate culture that seems more fixated on next quarters results/the share price than it does with long term success.

Conservatives seem to like to blame "Big Government" for all of our problems, as if the Government is the source of everything that's gone wrong in this country (they don't seem to mind "Big Government" when they are running it). Liberals are equally guilty of this -- we are all too happy to blame "Big Business" for all of our woes while ignoring legitimate gripes about Governmental programs/mandates. The reality is far different of course -- everything is broken.

The Federal Government is broken -- frozen in inaction and unable to take meaningful steps to address major issues thanks to partisan gridlock. Gridlock that is assisted by (IMHO) the hyper-partisan elements of the blogosphere, the 24 hour news cycle and a political culture of "win at any cost".

Big business is broken -- thanks to the aforementioned obsession with short term success at the expense of planning for the future. We also have a business culture that seems more interested in litigating (Exhibit A: the patent system) than innovating -- hardly a recipe for long term success in the global economy.

The American people themselves also share some of the blame for our situation. The "I deserve it" mentality that uses credit to live beyond our means is not sustainable in the long run. This attitude is encouraged by the commercials that we watch, the banks that give us overly generous credit lines and even our own Government (help the economy, go shopping!). At the end of the day though we have only ourselves to blame.

All of the above are major reasons why I became an Obama supporter. He was one of the few candidates that actually seemed to "get it" and talk about these issues. Lately it seems that they have taken a back seat to the more mundane parts of our politics -- the tacky photo ops (did we really need to see you feeding a calf?), the back-and-forth mudslinging that benefits no one besides Hillary (nobody can beat the Clinton's at that game) and the spin.

I had previously held out some hope that Hillary "got it" and while I wouldn't vote for her that we might still be in capable hands if she somehow won. She's made statements in the past along the lines of "Borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Saudis is not sustainable". Gives you some hope, right? Then she turns around and advocates for a gas-tax holiday that every creditable economist says is a bad idea.

She differs from John McCain only in that she purposes to pay for it via a windfall profits tax, proving that she apparently missed Economics 101 -- specifically, what stops the oil companies from raising their prices to recoup the cost of this tax? Investments for the future (alternative energy and infrastructure) would justify the impact to the oil companies (and society) of a windfall profits tax. A short-term band-aid that won't actually save anybody anything while still managing to impose those costs on society gains us nothing and benefits no one (not Government, not Business and certainly not the American people).

Ironically enough it was that same issue that actually gave me some hope about Obama again. These last few weeks have been pretty trying for those of us in his camp -- his principled stand on this issue has reminded me of why I'm supporting him. I still think he'll be the nominee and I still think he'll beat John McCain, but I'm really ready for the fight over the nomination to be over with.

I'm not betting on that happening tomorrow, though maybe my friends in Indiana will surprise me? Here's hoping.....

.... and not because of the contested race between Hillary and Obama.

Got myself an e-mail from the DNC today. Subject, "Our First Ad". Followed by a nice bit of fund raising. Hmm, this could be interesting. Wonder what they made the new ad about? Minor little problem. Either of the included links in the e-mail actually work. In fact, this is the exact link that was provided in the e-mail. Notice anything wrong there?

WTF? Let's send an e-mail out to a few million people and not bother to make sure the links we include actually work. Am I wrong to think that somebody should probably be proofreading these things before they go out?

1. User attempts to open a PDF file, however Adobe Reader is not installed. User gets "Which program would you like to use?" dialog box and selects Word. User leaves "Always use this program to open these files" checked. Naturally Word can't open the PDF so User complains to me about it.
2. I install Adobe Reader.
3. User still can't open PDF files because Word has taken over the file association. This file association is only for this one user account, not system wide. I attempt to fix this but am unable to do so because the user isn't an administrator.
4. I log out of her account and log in as me. My file association shows PDFs going to Reader (only on her account remember). Only way to fix problem is to add her to administrators group, go into her account and fix the association, then log back out and remove her.

Wtf? Non-admin users can't edit their own file associations yet that stupid dialog box gives them the option to "Always use this program to open..." and allows the change to be made?

Yeah, that's logical Microsoft.....