Carl Setzer

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HeraldNet: 1,652 filmed running lights This intersection seems to spawn recklessness. To be fair the ticketed, this light is poorly timed; I can think of several times that, in low/medium traffic I've needed to wait several cycles to get through the light. Not that it excuses running the light, but frustration increases the likelihood. I guess that makes this rather akin to road-rage. This does force one to ask a bigger question, though. There is something rather Orwellian about this system. Is this the first step down a slippery slope towards perpetual governmental monitoring? It may seem paranoid, but I find the question interesting. At what point do we say "no" with a camera based justice system? Cameras at work, at the store, at school, on the bus, now intersections. Where is the "line", and how do we quantify it?

I have no idea what’s up, but I’m just feeling wiped out. Some blasted bug, I guess. Argh…   It’s Friday, if you can believe it. And Sunday is July 1 st ; we’re officially over ½ through this year. Time’s moving fast enough that I’m starting to feel motion sickness.   I’m hoping the long anticipated healing of my car’s transmission will be complete sometime today. Though I do love taking the train, I do miss my car. Not particularly green of me, I know, but I like having flexibility in the morning (only two trains from Edmonds to downtown Seattle ; the last leaves at 7:05). Plus, I’m rather anti-social in the mornings.  

As a child of Lynnwood, this strikes way too close to home.

One worry I had when I chose an iPod over sattelite radio was that my music would become stale. Howver, with so many podcasts, internet radio, and services like eMusic, Magnatune and the like, there is no excuse for musical stagnation. Heck, it's no effort at all, really. I love Irish music, and have spent my train ride to work listening to podcasts by LiveIreland.com and the Thistlepod (NPR's Thistle and Shamrock). All kinds of great new music. Life is good!

Our Family Hostage Crisis - New York Times : "Our Family Hostage Crisis" It's stories like this that make me a fervent believer in critical importance of open, transparent government. The leaders of Iran believe that they are exempt from scrutiny, that they are accountable to no-one. On only one point do I disagree with Professor Bakhash. The actions of Iran in these cases don't make the government look "inhumane", they make them look evil. This shows them to be beasts willing to brutalize anyone who, ever so slightly, diminishes their power.

I am a heavy user of net radio. As such, I’m a bit impacted by today’s “day of silence”. However, I fully support the efforts that our net radio friends are working on to save this medium. The way things are right now, net radio stations are looking at a 300% royalty increase that will be effective on July 15 th . And that increase will be retroactive to January. The net effect (please forgive the pun) will be many of these stations imploding. I am in full support of artists being compensated for their work. However, this will remove a revenue stream as well eliminating a channel to expand their fan base. There are two big losers with this system: artists and listeners.   I urge you to head over to savenetradio.org to learn more about the issue. From there, you also will be shown how to contact your representatives in Congress, where there is legislation underway to reverse this. With all of our efforts, we can bring about a more sensible solution to ensure that artists are fair

Facebook and MySpace are like chalk ‘n’ cheese   Steve O’Hear does an excellent job of breaking down the differences between the two popular sites. He really brings out the somewhat subtle differences (at least the MSM hasn’t caught them yet). After reading this, I’m breaking down and looking into Facebook.

The way this blends music with the film snippet is amazing. Plus, I love this 80's-esque electronica.

As a "true" American, I have a deep love for the automobile. However, I'm a bit urban in my love. Though I have a deep respect for the historical American auto (watch my head turn after a Hudson or Packard), for my Modern car passions, I turn to Europe. German cars, mostly Volkswagen, garner my focus (It is important to note that I currently drive a Honda Accord; necessity, not passion). (I don't know if I would have a wider range of loves if my wallet were fatter.) Comically, my favorite VW has been the van . Though discontinued in the US, the Multivan still exists. The fact that I covet one of these, and would be willing to ship it to the States (with a few years of saving my pennies, of course) marks me as a geek (as if I needed another marker). I guess I'll need to put the Linux penguin on the back window. What I find fascinating is the "why". I can't put my finger on a particular wow factor. Some of it comes from my cyclist/outdoorsy days, where

Spice Girls spark speculation of comeback If we can’t have a Beatles reunion…    

Funny...in a scary way.

Ask not for whom the beeper beeps, it beeps for you.

I was just perusing the Yahoo Go website (Cingular section) and was quite surprised to see every single phone on the “coming soon” list. As I clicked around on the other carriers, I saw every phone with every carrier was “coming soon”. Then, bright guy that I am, I went to the main Yahoo Go page and saw that Yahoo Go 2.0 is coming this Friday (aka: tomorrow). We’ll see what comes.   Also, though the 750 is on the “coming soon” list, the 680 is not on the list, which bugs me. I’m not going to be in the market for anything as upscale as the750 for sometime. Oh well, I guess I’ll need to find another app to play with.

I wonder if Medusa's curse was purely optical. Perseus was able to handle her severed head, but not gaze upon it. Why?

Well, China has been working hard to catch up to the US in many areas, why not this one? As a response to Zou Ji’s comments (he of Renmin University and quoted in the article below). "When we become richer and richer, and feel safer and safer, then people will have more time and more resources to pay attention to something not directly linked to themselves", you need to realize that the costs of retrofitting your economy to both stop polluting as well as clean up your mess will be prohibitively expensive. China , both as a state and its citizenry, would be far better served by its leaders being more forward thinking. Additionally, the long-term health of their eco-system, of which their bodies are mere extensions, is something that’s hard, and expensive, to buy back. This attitude is much like, knowing you have cancer, to wait until you’re richer so the financial bite is less painful.   Anyway, as is so often the case, Grist says it so much better than me.    

On my drive in this morning, I watched a Krispy Kreme truck twice start to merge right with a line of cars where he wanted to be. Even if the driver’s eyes didn’t work, fortunately, the ears did. Part two of my saga: the fellow who tries to pass me on the left…when I’m in the left lane! Then the fellow just zips over several lanes without the slightest awareness of the wee little stick on their steering column. Then there was the several miles where I was stuck behind 3 cars, all in a row, dawdling along the highway. 30 in a 45 in the left lane…sigh…at least I made it in.

Google launches public policy blog today As a political geek, this will be fascinating, I’m sure. However, I haven’t had a chance to review this yet. I’ll take a peek and get back to you all.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19207050/   I’m completely horrified; however, not as much at the 911 operators as at the staff of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital . To just watch someone bleed to death is horrific enough, but to have a job as a medical staffer and do so is a beastly low.  

http://www.apple.com/safari/   Safari on Windows? Right on! However, I can’t get it to work on my work computer since I can’t configure proxy settings. I’ll give it a whirl at home soon, though. Exciting news; but I’m not sure of what value it is. I would much rather had heard an announcement about .Mac upgrade/update/merge with Google. I’m quite close to dropping it altogether.    

Several of my friends have been unaware of the status of this bill. If you live in Washington , get used to no texting while driving and you may want to spring for a decent headset. At least you have until January (texting) and July (handsfree) to get it all figured out.   Cell phone bill, text message ban signed into law http://www.komotv.com/news/local/7470007.html   Story Published: May 11, 2007 at 4:42 PM PDT Story Updated: May 12, 2007 at 4:48 PM PDT By Associated Press OLYMPIA , Wash. (AP) - Hang up or pay up: Using your hands to talk on the phone or tap out a text message while behind the wheel of a car will be illegal next year. Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the measures into law Friday, flanked by children who suffered serious injuries after being hit by distracted drivers. Under the new laws, drivers who read and compose text messages or talk on a cell phone without a hands-free device could face a $101 ticket. The text-me

Well, this is probably the weirdest fish story I’ve heard in a long time. Jumping sturgeon injures woman in Fla. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ROCK BLUFF, Fla. -- A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on the Suwannee River, officials said. Tara Spears, 32, of Bell , was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported. She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported. The large, prehistoric-looking sturgeon have hard plates along their backs. They can grow up to 8 feet long and up to 200 pounds. In April, a leaping sturgeon severely injured a 50-year-old woman from St. Petersburg who was riding a personal watercraft on the Suwannee River . She suffered a ruptured spleen and had three fingers reattached by surgeons, but she lost her left pinkie

Every time I clicked on a word, the blasted “Research Pane” (pain?) opened up. Every single document that I opened was doing this, even after shutting down and restarting Word. I could not find a obvious reason for this happening, so I tried the standard Windows software repair tool: reboot. This seems to have worked.

iPhone launches on 29 June Apple meets scheduled release date   Though initially I was filled with geek-lust for the iPhone, I’m not so certain that I’ll dive into this market. Of course, the $1,500 I’m about to dump into my transmission might also help cool that lust.     Former Apple execs join Palm board Rubinstein brings considerable hardware expertise; Anderson brings cash   I really, really hope that this can instill some vigor and innovation back into Palm. Next month I’m due to replace my Treo, and it’s very unlikely the next choice will be the 680. I’m leaning towards the Cingular Blackjack. More to come.

"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking." Johann Goethe  

Diversity Inc. has an interesting piece on the embattled Rep. Jefferson. I’m not surprised that some folks are calling for his resignation, and that some are holding their tongue. The statement that “ the Congressional Black Caucus is asking that Jefferson not be tried in the ‘chambers of public opinion’ after supporting the House vote” is what grabs me, though. I, too, would like for this machine to remain silent until due-process has been rendered. However, the chamber of public opinion is brutal, relentless and merciless. Unless he can be proven innocent, he will be ground by this machine, and probably so even with irrefutable proof. Such is the nature of this. If he’s innocent, I wish him the best of luck facing this. If he’s not, he would do well by all parties (especially himself) to resign. Only he knows the full truth, and he would be wise to act on that.

“Thus the paradox in all this abundance is that the easier it is to create and store info, the harder that info is to manage, and the greater is the threat that we will not be able to find something when we need it.”   – Deanna B Marcum , New York Times   I’ve certainly found this to be true as I navigate my information saturated life. Data, data, data! How doth I love thee even as I loathe with venom. Anyway, thank goodness for tools such as Google.

FOX News Apology Not Enough for Conyers   Interesting…..

The brilliantly irreverent folks at Grist say it better than I could. Enjoy!   http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2007/06/06/5/#comments   That's It, We're Not Washing Our Undies Anymore Groups ask U.S. EPA to ban chemical in detergent that feminizes fish Your detergent gets your clothes clean, sure -- but does it feminize your trout? Five green groups and a labor union are petitioning the U.S. EPA to ban a family of chemicals used in cleaning products that have been linked to gender changes in fish. Each year, the U.S. produces about 400 million pounds of nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates, much of which ends up in waterways by way of sewers. In lab tests, the endocrine disruptors have been shown to cause male fish to develop female characteristics; finned fatales have also been found in the wild. While the effects on humans aren't known, the groups -- led by the Sierra Club -- say the environmental risks are "unreasonable." Some major companies,