Monthly Archives: January 2008

Red, White and Blue Tag Sale

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Red, White and Blue Tag Sale – New York Times

This is in excellent column by Maureen Dowd looking at what is happening to the economy of the United States.  People are so focused on the illegal immigration along the Mexican border, our economy is becoming one of the worst in the world and we are ever-increasingly dependent upon foreign investors.

One of the biggest investors and holders of our bonds is the Chinese.

The Americans need to become more concerned with our ever-increasing deficit.  We need to ensure that we have fiscal responsible people in the government to ensure we have a balanced budget and pay off our debt.  If we don’t, the price of oil will continue to go up and we may sink deeper into a recession.

We will also become more dependent and beholden to foreign governments.  We need to be careful and be prudent.

VideoEgg Not Worth It

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I had just listened to Leo Laporte’s radio show from September, show #385 (I know I am behind), and he spoke about VideoEgg.  He said that it would allow you to control which pages or sites that it could play on. So I tried it out.

It just didn’t cut it.  This service was no different than any of the others and it doesn’t come close to Vimeo.

VideoEgg limits your upload to 5 minutes or 100 mb.  At least YouTube allows you go up to 10 minutes.  Also, if you mark your video as private, people still can copy and embed your video on their site.  It doesn’t limit which site can play your video.

I was trying to find a service so I can post family videos and have them show up on my blog, but not allow people to copy the embed code and play it on other sites.  Well VideoEgg allows you to make a video private, but then it allows people to copy the embed code and put it on their site.

I use Vimeo now and really like it.  It has a lot more functionality than VideoEgg and I think a bigger network.  There are several levels of privacy and you can prevent people from downloading the original format if you want.

Vimeo provides a great way to  share original videos or just videos amongst family and friends.  Vimeo also allows for the uploading of HD Content, allows for albums, and even has channels.  It is a great service.

YouTube is YouTube and I probably won’t be putting anything else up on that site.

What I am looking for in a online video player is a player that does what Vimeo does and a just one thing more.  I would like it to restrict what pages a video can play on.  For example, I upload a video to Vimeo and then have a setting that prevents others from embedding the code on their website, but still allow people to see the video without being a contact or using a password.

Vimeo is a great service and worth the time to get an account.  Try it out, for me it is the best way to share video online.  You will like it!

Working my way into shape

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Well I have been trying to lose weight with diet for about a year-and-a-half and I have managed to lose about 30 pounds, but have plateaued out. I needed to do something to keep it going.

To help out, I joined Fitness 19 and got a trainer to get me started. It has been fun and I am getting into it.

My trainer is also helping me with my nutrition and I am going to work on better tracking how many calories I burn.

To keep track of my progress, I have set-up a new blog just for that. You can find it at westminsterworkout.wordpress.com. Take a look. I can always use a little encouragement.

Gawker tells the Church of Scientology to Stuff it

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Gawker Media received a take down notice from the Church of Scientology for two videos it is showing that are used to indoctrinate people into Scientology.

The videos came to life when Andrew Morton wrote the unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise. The videos show Cruise talking excitedly about Scientology.

When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help…

Scientology is known to be litigious, so journalists have been said to shy away from being critical of this so-called religion. But Gawker stood up to them and told them they are covering this as a news story in the pubic interest and they would not be removing the videos.

The videos were previously posted on Google Video, YouTube, and other video sites.

This video is down right scary. How this can be classified as a religion and have tax-exempt status is beyond me. I think Germany got it right in seeking to ban Scientology.

160 people fail to show up for jury duty

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9NEWS – Article – RSS – Apologies flooding in following jury duty roundup

To all the lame people who failed to show up for jury duty in Greeley:

I can’t believe it.  It is your civic duty to show up for jury duty.  If you don’t show up, you better have a good reason.

As the article implies, the weather was fine.  So no “Too much snow!” excuses.

Because you were selfish, many more people were inconvenienced when they were taken off the street to fill your place.  People who were going about their business were then served and had to immediately report.

People should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Shame on you!

Michigan Results Interesting

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I am wondering how long Fred Thompson is going to stay in the race.  In watching the results, he was even losing to Ron Paul.  Finishing fifth in the race does not show well.

I am wondering how Giuliani’s strategy of waiting to Florida is panning out.  He wouldn’t have done well in the early states anyway, but by not campaigning in those states, a half-hearted attempt in New Hampshire, he has lost the momentum that he once had.

Giuliani finished behind Thompson.  By waiting to Florida, he may already be out of the race.