Since I’m relatively new to my Series 2 TiVo branded DVR and have recently networked it rather than use the phone line connections, I though I would play with a few of the less used features today. One of them is to access Internet content in the form of ‘netcasts’ … previously known as ‘podcasts’ until Apple Computer decided to defend its claim to the name? Anyway, here is a YouTube clip that I’ve uploaded that demonstrates how TiVo handles podcasts.
The clip is from the TWIT technology discussions talking about Microsoft’s restrictive reviewers agreement for its “iPod” like device called the “Zune.” (BTW, as for the Zune device itself, even Bill Gates exercises caution when bragging about the device.)
The Big Game you ask??? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you just don’t know college football.
😀 Ohio State and Michigan have always been big rivals … in the biggest of way. This year the level of pressure, excitement and emotion has been taken to a whole new level as the undefeated Michigan Wolverines ranked #2 in the country head to Columbus Ohio to attempt to knock off the #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. Many in the news media are hyping it as the “Biggest college football game ever” … and it is a big one.
As the news came in on Friday from Michigan about the sad passing of Bo Schembechler, I couldn’t help but reflect on the many years of toe to toe football he was able to bring against Ohio State. He was quoted just yesterday that this game was “about as big as it gets” as he was interview about the 3:30 EST game. “I see this game as being a great classic,” he said. What a fantastic coach … and that coming from a Buckeye fan; he was a quality leader, coach and caring man.
The winner of this game not only capture the Big Ten title but a trip to the national-championship game on January 8th in Glendale, Arizona. The loser, if the game is close could still be considered for the Bowl Championship Series to and possibly rematch … but most believe the loser will gain a berth to the Rose Bowl on New Years Day — some would almost say the preferred game?
These two historic powerhouse football schools have met 103 times, but Saturday is the first time the teams have been ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the major polls. The rivalry is one of the sport’s best because of its competitiveness since during the past 50 years, the series record is 24-24-2. Incredible.
Unfortunately the down side to this game has been the violence of fans … most accuse locals and not students for most of the bad behavior, but it is a real blackeye for the buckeyes. (Ohioians) This year the Michigan Police will be attending the game along with some of the Wolverine fans … to protect them we’ve been told. Personally I think it might just aggravate an already tense situation? Hopefully all of the pleading from city officials and university will keep misconduct to a minimum and fans will just experience a great football game … with OSU winning of course.
Our neighbor (West Chester, Ohio) and local representative John Boehner (R-OH) will continue to lead the Republicans in congress, although not as the Majority Leader – his current position. He was elected to the position of Minority Leader and accepted the vote of his colleagues in his leadership role after Democrats took majority control of congress in November’s midterm election. Boehner and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) will have a challenging job in keeping disgruntled Republicans united, but not as challenging as corralling the diverse views of Democrats by newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD).
Most Americans are compassionate people and want to do the right thing. We see immigrates as hardworking, family oriented and necessary to fill many unskilled jobs in America … just as they have in past generations. Unfortunately few of us have the insight or background to fully understand what our current immigration policies are doing to our country and how effectively they help population growth world wide. Hint — our current relaxed policies do little for either … in fact they may make the situation worse in just a generation or two.
Even if you are not politically savvy, do yourself a favor and watch the 13+ minute clip below before solidifying your position on United States Immigration policies. Roy Beck illustrates the problem with clarity and stresses the importance in dealing with it ‘now’ rather than when it become unmanageable. Hopefully after watching the google video clip, a few more Americans will encourage congress to put the issue on the front burner. (a petition available at NumbersUSA.org)
I stopped at unmanned Fuel Depot’s biodiesel (B20) pump today in Delaware, Ohio (central Ohio north of Columbus) … and noted that prices are few cents higher than the more convenient Sunoco’s B20 pump. Price at the pump was $2.68/gallon to the $2.63 in Mt. Gilead. (exit 151 off I-71) Even though I’m considered frugal (I drive a VW TDI!), I’m still fond of the independently own (Earl and Keith McWherter) “Fuel Depot” since they were advocates for biodiesel and put it in a public pump before it was publicized. If you’re anywhere near Delaware, Ohio be sure to fill up your diesel vehicle.
According to the online magazine Winding Road, BMW shared what it is planning to export to the US in 2008 — diesel related — and they will publish it in next months issue. According to Matt Davis from Winding Road, “we’ve just driven the 335d Touring – a thoroughly hot wagon with a bi-turbo version of the BMW 3.0-liter diesel engine first seen in the 535d last year.” He points out that BMW fully intends to talk about their diesel strategy (as well as the Hydrogen 7 mention in a previous post) at the Los Angeles Auto Show later this month. Davis indicates that BMW intends to have their “latest and greatest diesel ideas” ready for delivery by December of 2008.” (Groan … 2 years does seem like a long wait) 🙁
The BMW strategy at this point includes bringing over all six-cylinder diesels first in the 5-series and faces the stiff emission challenges posed by the states which it sell the most cars. According to Winding Road, “BMW North America currently sells 85 percent of its cars in … California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut. By 2009 the California 30-percent reduction laws go into effect in these very states as well and so BMW has a mess of work on its hands.” They also are facing the already promising Mercedes BlueTec diesel which claims to already have a 50 state legal diesel ready; they plan on making this announcement at the Detroit auto show in January and could be delivering them by March of 2007.
VW and Audi have their work ahead of them and are making their switch from Pumpe-Duse technology to the common rail diesels; the next diesel models should be available in North America by the 2008 model year (see comment and comment with photo). One piece of the puzzle missing for them is that a 50 state ready diesel has yet to be seen, although I suspect that at this point it is a necessity? Like Mercedes, the BMW’s diesel platform relies on active urea injection and the latest diesel particulate filters to bring down the diesel emissions. I personally think the most promising diesels could come from Japan — Honda diesels which are building their clean diesel around a difference technology.
Walmart is encouraging associates to share an actual “Merry Christmas” greeting … a reversal of last years policy. Their change is being followed by most major retail stores including Sears, Macy’s, Target and Kohls. One notable exception at this time is Best Buy, who according spokeswoman Dawn Bryant indicates they will continue with “Happy Holidays.” She says, “We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them.” Unlike the majority of retailers mentioned above, Best Buy’s company wide advertising will also omit any reference to Christmas. It will be interesting to if their against the trend ‘politically correct’ position pays off?
Interestingly, the reversal is based on what Walmart refers to as customer response to eliminating “Christmas” from the holiday season, and suspect that more than one voice expressed discontent over trying to be political correct? An ongoing ‘localized’ poll seems to be pretty supportive of this years policies, I suspect it is reflective of most people in the country.
One of the loudest notables chastising retailers for dropping the word ‘Christmas’ last year was that of Bill O’Reilly. In print, on the radio and on his top rated cable news show “The O’Reilly Factor”, he stirred up “the folks.” Yesterday he had a 5 minute segment with a Walmart spokeswomen regarding their 180 degree policy change. All in all, traditionalist and conservative Christians may have lost ground politically in November (not that the GOP controlled legislature was reflective of their views), but at least they have not lost Christmas to the secular progressive movement. By the way, Bill O’Reilly’s current bestseller, “Culture Warrior,” would make and excellent gift — It’s very thought provoking even if you dislike the author. (buy it from here, and a copy gets sent to the troops through Operation Shoebox!)
On October 21st, thirty three BlueTec Diesel Mercedes Benz cars began a 28 day drive from Paris to Beijing; they are calling it “The E-Class Experience.” The rally will consist of 5 legs and many drivers from different walks of life. The route will navigate a trip similar to a transcontinental drive from 1907 and conclude in Beijing, China 6500 miles later on November 17th. (a few days from this posting)
The event does a pretty good job of demonstrating the quality of the Mercedes Benz E320 midsized clean diesel. Follow along as the ‘experience’ concludes, or check out one of the ‘YouTubers’ known as the E320Guy as he updates the trip by video clip. I’ll include his first one below and a link to his updates.
Its nice to see the next generation of our nations’ students focused on science and research … and this looks to be the case for two high school students, Holly Jacobson and Tessa Churchill, from Cumberland, Maine. According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, the 17 and 18 year seniors have been invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to explain their science project. The two girls ‘may’ have found an efficient way to product biodiesel from fast-growing algae. Although many projects are underway, algae biofuel is still in its infancy, but hold promise as a way to help solve a feedstock issue associated with most of the agricultural based renewable options.
According to the article, the girls are heading to “MIT to present their findings to a panel of university judges, who will weigh their project against those of three other teams in the regional finals of the sixth annual Siemens Math, Science & Technology competition. The event is sponsored each year by The College Board and is funded by the Siemens Foundation as a way to give students a chance to achieve national recognition for science research projects.”
According to Ms. Churchill the project started as a way to learn about scientific research. She states that “It definitely had to do with the oil crisis and everybody talking about finding some other substitute for fossil fuels, so we started researching algae. It grows very rapidly, and it grows in environments that won’t support other food stocks so space wouldn’t be taken up that could be used for growing food.” Ms Jacobson continued, “We started generally looking into biodiesel, but it wasn’t until last year that we started identifying the specific lipids.”
Jim Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, who sponsors the competitions praised all the entries and commented that “A lot of these kids are doing work at a Ph.D level.” Each entry will have 20 minutes to make their cases and have an opportunity to meet with some of the best professors in their field. For those of us involved in promoting biodiesel, we’ve been hoping for continued interest and research using algae. Hopefully these two promising students will consider furthering their education at the University of New Hampshire where a friend (Michael Briggs) is involved algae biodiesel. As the slogan goes … “You go girls.”
For an addition good read on algae based biodiesel, consider downloading and reading this PDF presentation.
Since I’m relatively new to my Series 2 TiVo branded DVR and have recently networked it rather than use the phone line connections, I though I would play with a few of the less used features today. One of them is to access Internet content in the form of ‘netcasts’ … previously known as ‘podcasts’ until Apple Computer decided to defend its claim to the name? Anyway, here is a YouTube clip that I’ve uploaded that demonstrates how TiVo handles podcasts. 
The Big Game you ask??? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you just don’t know college football.
Our neighbor (West Chester, Ohio) and local representative John Boehner (R-OH) will continue to lead the Republicans in congress, although not as the Majority Leader – his 
I stopped at unmanned Fuel Depot’s biodiesel (B20) pump today in Delaware, Ohio (central Ohio north of Columbus) … and noted that prices are few cents higher than the more convenient Sunoco’s B20 pump. Price at the pump was $2.68/gallon to the $2.63 in Mt. Gilead. (exit 151 off I-71) Even though I’m considered frugal (I drive a VW TDI!), I’m still fond of the independently own (Earl and Keith McWherter) “Fuel Depot” since they were advocates for biodiesel and put it in a public pump before it was publicized. If you’re anywhere near Delaware, Ohio be sure to fill up your diesel vehicle.
The BMW strategy at this point includes bringing over all six-cylinder diesels first in the 5-series and faces the stiff emission challenges posed by the states which it sell the most cars. According to Winding Road, “BMW North America currently sells 85 percent of its cars in … California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut. By 2009 the California 30-percent reduction laws go into effect in these very states as well and so BMW has a mess of work on its hands.” They also are facing the already promising Mercedes BlueTec diesel which claims to already have a 50 state legal diesel ready; they plan on making this announcement at the Detroit auto show in January and could be delivering them by March of 2007.
season, and suspect that more than one voice expressed discontent over trying to be political correct? An ongoing ‘localized’ poll seems to be pretty supportive of this years policies, I suspect it is reflective of most people in the country. 
Its nice to see the next generation of our nations’ students focused on science and research … and this looks to be the case for two high school students, Holly Jacobson and Tessa Churchill, from Cumberland, Maine. According to an