Author: luken7

An avid and passionate sailor, drummer and technologist. My career focuses around computing and storage technologies. My passion is sailing and playing drums. I love music, especially progressive jazz and rock.

The East New York Project @ tapeshare.com

Posted on by luken7

Since getting on Facebook, I’ve found old friends and collegues dating back to elementary school. Today, through my friends network, I’ve learned about The East New York Project. This site documents the history of the neighborhood where I grew up, and the history dates back over 100 years. Simply Fascinating. It’s great to see and in this case, experience the power of the Internet as it connects and reconnects people long lost. In fact, my 1st grade class photo is on the site, guess which one is me 😉

The East New York Project is a multimedia archive of the history of my childhood neighborhood. In general, it is the area currently referred to as the Highland Park area in Brooklyn, bordered by Atlantic Avenue to the south, Elderts Lane to the East, and Broadway to the West. However we also feature pictures and history south of Atlantic as well. It is intended to be a collaborative effort, and contributions in the form of stories, pictures, and even video are welcome. Use the menu bar above to navigate to areas of interest.

How Complex is the Tax Code when Smart People can't Get It Right?

Posted on by luken7

WASHINGTON (AP) – Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding “unintentional errors”—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

You know, either the tax code really is that complex and difficult or there are a lot of politicians who feel that they just don’t need to pay, albeit imposing rules that you should. My point? Why can’t we have a simplified tax code? A flat tax, percentage of your income, obviously including a sliding scale that gets reduced for the poor. And the elimination of deductions. Whoa, what about the home tax credit? That would stop people from buying homes or apartments, and housing would collapse, right? No, people still have to either buy a home or rent it. And if they rent, they will be renting from someone that owns the property. So that argument is off the table. Now I’m not one of these folks that’s all up in arms about paying taxes, or that I’ve found something in the Constitution that says I don’t have to pay taxes (you always run into these folks).

Taxes are a necessity for the services that are provided, and its a good thing. I think most people’s reservations stem from the fraud and waste that they see, from still subsidizing helium production for dirigibles (that’s right) to trying to fund a multi-million dollar “bridge to nowhere”. People need to feel and see that their dollars are used wisely and for good purpose, and value. Next, the tax itself, 10, 15, 20%, and it should be adjustable twice a year, at the discretion of the Treasury, the CBO and GAO, with a plus and minus maximums of a percent or two. Just like the Fed with the short term lending rate to regulate the economy, this measure would help regulate the federal income.

With todays structure, you have people sheltering their money in tax havens and other trickery like for example, the Kennedys. They’re a clear example. Ted Kennedy was once quoted saying “The estate tax is the most progressive of all federal taxes. It would be terribly unfair to tax work while giving inherited wealth a free ride” but in one year, the family only paid $137K on a $300 Million estate due to creative trust funds that were set up. Do as I say, not as I do. Pay what I say, not what I pay. But it’s more than that, there seems to be a culture amongst those that craft these tax laws. They seem to be above them. Lets level the playing field. Today, the top 5% of income earners bear almost 50% of the nation’s tax burden. And to say that because they are rich, they can afford to and should is not the correct answer. Remember that the 5% has an adjusted gross income of ~150K. So we’re not talking about just the Bill Gates here, but also the everyday person who from whatever means, be it luck, silver spoon, or just hard work, have entered into that space. Tax by class is not the answer it’s what creates malcontent and what drives people to pull these tax stunts, even by those who write the code. Tax equality and fairness is the correct answer. Note that if our President’s recommendations go through, almost 50% of eligible tax payers will not any tax burden at all. So who will shoulder all this? You can only tax the rich so much until hey kick in their influence and withhold political contributions. It will fall on the ever tightening middle class which doesn’t have the financial resources to reach their congressional representatives.

So in summation, flat tax, based on a percentage, allowing for a means test to reduce the burden on lower income earners and those at or below the poverty level.

via Sebelius admits errors, pays $7,000 in back taxes.

A silent Killer in you Home?

Posted on by luken7

From an article by George Will, Perils of a Bright Idea.

“Clear people and pets from the room and open a window for at least 15 minutes if possible. Avoid vacuuming. Scoop up larger pieces with stiff paper or cardboard, pick up smaller residue with sticky tape, and wipe the area with a damp cloth. Put everything into a sealed plastic bag or sealed glass jar. In most cases, this can be put in the trash, but the EPA recommends checking local rules.”

What kind of horrid device in your home and around your children, would carry such a stern warning? An Easy Bake Oven – Anthrax Edition? What household item could this possibly be? A CFL, Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb. I never thought about how dangerous these things are. Now many people believe that using CFL’s is the way of the future to use less energy and cut carbon emissions. Maybe so, but at what cost? Health risks and injury? Now before you start getting all beady-eyed while reading this, note that I’m not against these bulbs, we have them throughout half the house. But we’ve notices some problems and I thought they were exclusive to me, based on my wife’s belief in karma and that I haven’t always been a good boy in my life. Bulbs going out way before the suggested 10,000 ours and taking a while to light up. Then I read this…

Although supposed to last 10,000 hours and save, the Times says, “as much as” $5.40 a year in electricity costs, some bulbs died within a few hours. Some experts, reports the Times, “blame the government for the quality problems,” saying its push to cut the bulbs’ prices prompted manufacturers to use inferior components. Furthermore, some experts have written a guide saying the new bulbs require “a little insight and planning.  ” The Times says that “may be an understatement. “The bulbs, says the Times, “do not do well in hot places with little airflow, like recessed ceiling fixtures,” and some do not work “with dimmers or three-way sockets.” And: “Be aware that compact fluorescents can take one to three minutes to reach full brightness. This is not a defect.” Well, if you say so. Because all fluorescents contain mercury, a toxic metal, they must never be put in the trash, so Home Depot and other chains offer bins for disposing of dangerous bulbs. Driving to one of these disposal points might not entirely nullify the bulbs’ environmental benefits. Besides, the Times summarizes the Environmental Protection Agency’s helpful suggestions for coping with the environmental dangers caused when one of these environment-saving bulbs breaks. Worrywarts wonder what will happen when a lazy or careless, say, 10 percent of 300 million Americans put their worn-out bulbs in the trash. Stop worrying. What do you think? That Congress, architect of the ethanol industry and designer of automobiles, does not think things through?

So in an effort to get these bulbs out, the government pushed companies to get prices down, and how do companies rapidly get pricing down? Use less quality components, doe less research and take short cuts. But I don’t recall that stern warning on the box, or it must be in real fine print that we all ignore. I’m not sure what the ordnance is in my town. I can imagine many people have just dumped them in the trash. And to think, after 2014, you won’t be able to purchase an incandescent light bulb, they are banned as of 2014, part of that recent energy bill.

When it comes to reducing the carbon footprint and greenhouse gases, one cannot simply mandate new technology until it’s fully proven and also  note that alternatives and additions to the problem must be considered. Items like increasing energy output with clean technology, and smart energy usage. We have these CFL’s in our family room which are recessed lights. They are not as bright, and do take the three or so minutes to get to full lumens. Frustrating to say the least. Well, unless that’s resolved and the labels clearly states, we fixed it, I’ll be sticking with the traditional recessed bulbs until 2014. The rest of the house can use the CFL’s, they’re working OK, unless I start noticing the actual reduced hours vs. what’s advertised. You know, for centuries people used candles. Hmmm….

via George Will : Perils of a Bright Idea – Townhall.com .

Are My Time Warner Cable Days coming to an end? After today's fiasco, yes, rapidly….

Posted on by luken7

img_0141img_0139Great news. AT&T’s U-Verse is getting closer by the day. Just this past week, contractors were running fiber under the street to connect to the DSLAM that services my subdivision. We’re expecting to have U-Verse by the fall. Some of the features that I’m looking forward to.

AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR, which gives you the freedom to watch recorded Standard Definition (SD) and HD programs from a single DVR on any connected TV in the home. You can also pause a recorded show and pick up where you left off in another room, and play back multiple recorded shows at once. Total Home DVR was recognized by the 2008 TelcoTV Vision Awards in the service provider innovation category.

Today, we have multiple HD-DVR boxes that TWC charges fee for. Having one box to serve the house will be great. Lets hope they have larger capacity drives than TWC. Record a few series of your best HD programs and you’re already out of space, have to spend a weekend catching up or deleting something.

The ability to record up to four programs at once using a DVR (up to four SD programs or two HD and two SD programs) — another feature that is exclusive to AT&T U-verse TV. You can store up to 37 hours of HD content or up to 133 hours of SD content, which is more storage than most cable providers’ DVRs.

So what happens when you want to record you Friday night lineup and check out something new on SciFi? Not happening today. But being able to record up to four programs at once is a great idea. It seems that my favorite programs always seem to have scheduling conflicts. Or used to now that BSG is finished.

Max 18: Downstream speeds up to 18.0 Mbps, upstream speeds up to 1.5 Mbps

Not exactly Verixon FIOS speeds but much better than what’s available from cable, and it’s probably cheaper. Eventually Netflix will start streaming full HD content, and you’ll need that bandwidth to watch a movie while others in the household are doing something else online.

And most importantly, adding competition to the area. No better example than what is happening today. Stagnant innovation and limited services and options, with inflated pricing.

picture-1

$50 for broadband that is only 6Mb and ~480K upload? Believe it or not, even in a residence, people have a need for upload bandwidth.Perfect example, Mozy Online backup service. What should take a couple of hours can last overnight or take a day just to backup a GB of data. Just totally unacceptable in today’s connected world. High speed data transfers to and from business, residential and mobile devices is what is moving the world forward today. At times I wonder if our data communications network shouldn’t be treated like other core infrastructure components such as our highway system. Owned by the government to serve the needs of citizens, but contracted out for the design, building, operation and maintenance of it. Yes, I know, a whole left vs. right discussion on that, but let’s reserve that discussion for a later date.

So lets move on to the second part of this post, the latest fiasco by TWC. This past Monday, they added more HD channels and in the process, screwed up badly. Most people haven’t noticed the problem yet. I discovered mine on Wednesday evening when going to watch MLB-TV. A message on that channel stating that the channel was unavailable, please try agin. Then I noticed it on several more channels, while even more were just blank. But the box in the family room was fine.  So a call into support. They show nothing wrong and dispatch a technician. You know where this is going, right? The drama begins.

He arrives and I show him the problem. I also show him the system upstairs in the family room and that it’s fine. Back downstairs to the theater and he spends the next several minutes selecting channels, hoping that by flipping channels as fast as feasibly possible, the problem will go away. I suggest just switching the box to see if it’s the box, always start troubleshooting at the endpoint and work your way back. I guess they don’t believe in that because he asks, where it’s terminated. I take him to the (IDF) room  where the smart cabling system is located. He goes…”ah, smart wiring, this is the problem”. And immediately begins disconnecting and reconnecting cables, bypassing the OnQ system and plugging the coax cables directly into a 3 way splitter. Well, the problem doesn’t go away. Next he on the phone with support for about 30 minutes, while recycling the box and looking at the diagnostics on the screen, checking signal to noise ratios and such. Still nothing. I get wind of his conversation that one of his peers had an identical issue earlier in the day but it wasn’t resolved. Hmm, to me, sounds like a network system problem back at home base or in their network. He’s insistent that it’s in the house. So he finally goes out to the truck and gets his test box.

Meanwhile I’m trying to watch the rest of Friday’s Dollhouse episode as I’m thinking that if his box works, I’m loosing my DVR and the remaining programs. He returns and tries his box and guess what, same result, several of the channels have the same problem, but his box is known to be good as he used it earlier in the day. So he takes his box outside the house and connects directly to their system. Same problem. Well, I guess that rules out my DVR, the smart wiring, the barking puppy and everything else within these walls.

So what’s the problem? Apparently after the upgrade on Monday, the DVR in the theater rebooted, the one upstairs hasn’t been rebooted. So once a box is rebooted after the channel upgrade, you loose several channels. So folks, pray your box doesn’t reboot until they fix the problem. And what is the problem? TWC transmits channels in two forms. Some channels sit on a fixed frequency that’s assigned and permanent. Other channels only get transmitted to you upon request (when you select that channel) and is assigned a frequency. They call it digital selection or something like that. This is how they are able to add more channels, by only sending a channel upon request. All those channels are unavailable after the recent channel upgrade and a cable box reboot. So no it looks like Monday when someone will be dispatched to look at the equipment in my area….six days.

So yes, I’m looking forward to AT&T’s U-Verse. It will accomplish several things. First, it will (hopefully) get TWC to adjust their pricing to be more competitive, and/or add new features. But personally, I’m really just looking for the bandwidth. With services like Boxee, Hulu and Netflix Streaming, I’m hoping in a couple of years, our antiquated program delivery type will be relegated to the closed. Streaming, on-demand, anytime multi-viewing and recording services are the way going forward.

Keeping a positive thought, good things are going to come.

My first "Big" SAN Project

Posted on by luken7

Back in the Day….the rebirth of MCI (after the bankruptcy) was launched with the new MCI Portal. This customer facing website was the face of MCI in all her renewed glory. HP servers, Cisco MDS directors and an EMC CLARiiON CX500 to the rescue. A complete Microsoft solution with SQL2K, IIS and messaging services. Software development by Accenture. Just goes to show what good integration with vendors and customers can accomplish. Racked and stacked, and implemented in a couple of days. I’ll tell ya’, it was COLD under that raised floor moving some copper and fiber cables. A good project and a lot was learned. My first major datacenter SAN implementation for storage, getting outside the campus based level. A lot of good folks chipped in to get this done and on time. Oh, and this was just one location….

mciportal4

Disaster revisited…The World Baseball Classic

Posted on by luken7

Today, America has a chance to redeem herself in the World Baseball Classic. At 2pm, we yanks play the Canadians in Toronto. Two years ago, Canada knocked America out of the Baseball Classic…..CANADA. They don’t even play baseball, I mean, they don’t even have a steroid scandal for heaven’s sakes. How can they be a major baseball contender? I can understand Hockey or Curling, but we’re not supposed to loose in baseball.

Well it’s time for redemption. If by some aweful reason the gods fail to look down and bless us, and we loose, I’m asking my congressman to form a special subcommittee and hold hearings as to why the greatest baseball nation can beat a bunch of toothless, beer drinking (better than us) hockey players who say”ey?” at the end of every sentence. God Speed, May the Force Be With You, and anything else that may help in our revenge. Stand up America, support our Baseball troops, buy Baseball Steroid bonds and help a player stay on top of his game.

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste"

Posted on by luken7

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”

Proves my point about a stimulus bill really being a spending bill. Purely an opportunity to leverage a crisis to push through an agenda that really does not address the problems at hand, but does get a particular agenda going. Under normal circumstances, this bill would have never made it throu without the proper debate requirements in congress, and that’s what troubles me. Just like George Bush with the Patriot act, we knee-jerked a reaction and we’re dealing with that hangover, as we will with this.

When the reasons for the current economic situation stems from lack of and poor banking regulation, greed, Fannie and Freddie pushed into making bad loans, corrupted bond-rating agencies, house-flippers and homebuyers who knew they couldn’t afford what they were buying, and also fly-by-night mortgage companies taking advantage of home buyers who didn’t understand what they were signing, you would think that those would be the first issues to be addressed. Instead, we have a bill that doesn’t address the root causes of the problems, but a large social program to act as a stop gap, so the problems still remain and will sooner or later have to be addressed. The fact that today, as an investor, I could still go out and buy an unregulated CDO and CDS is a problem.

Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

So why has the market dropped so rapidly over the last couple of weeks. Because investors understand several things. First, nothing is being done about the root causes of the banking system. Second, they know the spending hangover is coming in the form of very high taxes, and know that will slow growth even further.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy — worthy and weighty as they may be — are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

The time to address healthcare, education and energy is not now. Trying to address these without first addressing the core financial problems will only make these initiatives falter. I would like to see fair and equal access to primary, secondary and higher education, but that costs money. We need to generate wealth to create the money to pay for these programs. Healthcare is not a right, not an entitlement. But it’s in our best interest to help those who cannot afford it to get coverage somehow. That also takes money. Alternative energy. And we definitely can’t artificially inflate the costs of fossil fuels to make expensive alternatives palatable via cap and trade systems.

via Townhall.com – Printer Friendly .

Unemployment will spur more "Radical" Social Spending Plans

Posted on by luken7

As the economy continues to contract, and job losses continue to increase at an alarming rate, Obama is being pressured to take more action. Now that we have a 2 trillion deficit, folks are calling for more stimulus next year. Well, if there was a stimulus plan in 2009 instead of a spending bill, we would have seen a real impact already.

“You may need more fiscal stimulus in 2010,” Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The impact of the package already passed will start fading by early next year, he said.

The President says that bold actions and big ideas are needed. That’s code for increasing taxes further, and socializing as much of everyone’s lives as possible. We will continue to spend what we don’t have, and force our kids to pay the bill. If you’re looking for bold action and big ideas, here’s some thoughts. First the premise that only people with money can spend money, and only people with money can invest money, basic fact. Next fact, if you have a tax policy that encourages investing and lending, people will do so. And if increased lending and investing occurs, then capital is raised by companies and that’s how jobs are created. When the jobs are created, people will then have money to spend, and the cycle continues and grows.
So what bold action and idea is needed? Let’s start with this. Eliminate any barriers to investing and saving. Get rid of capital gains. This gets people with money to invest and lend. Next, really cut payroll taxes, not just this $13 per week thing that just got passed. Do a real tax cut so people have real cash to spend. A real tax cut so people can save, which will go into the capital markets for companies to borrow and create jobs. A real tax cut and helps people pay off some debt, allowing more savings and spending. A long time ago, a crazy man once said, “people who don’t have money can’t buy anything”. He was talking about a different issue at the time, Nafta, and that statement is applicable todays situation. I don’t want this to come off as sounding cruel, but it is a fact. Folks that are poor do not have the collective financial resources to drive and spur an economy. It’s the middle and upper class (as it relates to wealth and spending power). So it would seem to me that there is a two fold initiative. First, providing a safety net for the poor which I’ll address in another post, and incentives for those with money to spend, save and invest. The latter is done through a tax policy that steers people to invest and spend, not punish them for making money.

Obama said yesterday that the “astounding” job losses show “bold action and big ideas” are needed to revive the economy. “We have a responsibility to act, and that’s what I intend to do,” he told a group of Ohio police recruits aided by his stimulus package.

Obama touts jobs in Ohio he says stimulus saved?

Posted on by luken7

Wasn’t the stimulus package just signed several weeks ago? And weren’t these recruits already in training? Which means they was already budgeted by the state. Sounds like a little positioning and salesmanship here to sell something we know is a broken idea. These 25 police recruits can’t possibly have started training and graduated after the signing of the bill. But he did state that without this stimulus spending bill, they would have been let go.  And lets say that in a few months, more graduates enter the police force that are directly related to the spending bill, the problem is that it’s unsustainable. You pay for public services through taxes that is generated from a vibrant economy, not by endless borrowing which results in hampering an already fragile economy.

Obama spoke at the graduation ceremony for 25 police recruits who owe their jobs to the $787-billion economic recovery bill he signed into law less than three weeks ago.

via Obama touts jobs in Ohio he says stimulus saved — Newsday.com.

And GM is doing what right now?

Posted on by luken7

Another example why investing in smaller, nimble companies is better than pouring billions of dollars into that sinkhole that is GM, the company that can’t seem to move forward.

A 187-MPH Hybrid As Fast As It Is Green

Italdesign Giugiaro is a familiar name to gearheads the world over, and its designs for everything from Hyundai to Ferrari are well known. Frazer-Nash, on the other hand, is generally considered the answer to a trivia question, but it was once a respected sports car company.

All of those names came together at the Geneva Motor Show to bring us the Namir concept, which combines Prius-beating fuel economy with Ferrari-like speed to produce what the companies say is the quickest, greenest hybrid on the planet.

Namir is Arabian for tiger, by the way. Given the specs on this ride, that name sure fits.

That’s right, this angular, scissor-doored sports car concept is a hybrid. The drivetrain was designed by Frazer-Nash, which Archie Frazer-Nash founded in England in 1923. Once a sports car maker, the company is now in the business of designing, building and marketing hybrid systems. The Namir combines an 814 cc endothermic rotary engine with four electric motors in a system that those involved in project claim delivers 91 mpg and CO2 emissions of 60 g/km. The Toyota Prius emits 104 g/km. Those are impressive numbers, but the number that really wows us is the claimed top speed of 187 mph and a zero-to-60 time of 3.5 seconds.

In theory, anyway, given that it’s a concept.

But the Namir is more than a design exercise. It’s a fully developed prototype. Giugiaro’s engineering division handled the chassis, body, and mechanical layout while the Italdesign Giugiaro Style Center penned the exterior and interior. Frazer-Nash oversaw the electrical and electronic elements, and the whole thing was built by Italdesign Giugiaro plant.

Who knows if this will ever see production. But Italdesign Giugiaro and Frazer-Nash are outside design and consulting firms, so they will work for companies like General Motors, Chrysler or anyone else in desperate need of a high-performance fuel efficient car to boost their sex appeal and CAFE numbers.

Just sayin’…

Main photo by our friends at autoblog.nl, which once again comes through when the automakers at the Geneva Motor Show don’t. Check out more pics of the Namir in autoblog.nl’s gallery. All other images by Italdesign Giugiaro.

via A 187-MPH Hybrid As Fast As It Is Green | Autopia from Wired.com.