Scanning newspaper - The Capital (Annapolis, MD) article on US crime statistics
FBI ranking of the top 10 most dangerous/safest cities in US (Morgan Quinto Press)
Most Dangerous Safest
1. St Louis Brick, NJ
2. Detroit Amherst, NY
3. Flint, MI Mission Viejo, CA
4. Compton, CA Newton, MA
5. Camden, NJ Troy, MI
6. Birmingham, AL Colonie, NY
7. Cleveland Irvine, CA
8. Oakland Cary, NC
9. Youngstown, OH Greece, NY
10. Gary, IN Coral Springs, FL
First blush pondering:
The most dangerous part of the country could be the Midwest, with 6 of the 10 most dangerous cities.
The safest part of the country could be the East, with 5 out of the 10 most safe cities.
Old industrial cities are 8 of the 10 most dangerous.
All of the most safe cities are smaller than any of the most dangerous cities.
The two cities that I live between (about 20 miles or so from each) are 12 (Baltimore) and 19 (Washington) on the most dangerous list.
Scanning Watts Wacker, fururist, from an online presentation
"Out on the edge is where everything begins. Whatever it is that you want your future to be, it begins on the edge."
"The edge is where everything begins, and it starts its migration to the development of our context for the times in which we live."
"Cultural schizophrenia is really nothing more and nothing less than the gap between the world as we intuit it and the world as it presents itself."
"Autocatalytic change creates its own change as it goes."
"How you organize your view of the future has an awful lot to do with what happens in it."
The Pillars Of Creation/Innovation
"Scope - you have to give yourself permission to think big."
"Attention to detail - anyone who says, "That's just a little thing," I think is a candidate to be fired. Absolute commitment to the smallest of issues is important in creation."
"You have to challenge convention - how do you give yourself permission to break out of norms?"
"You have to insert fun. 70% of everything you learn in life is through play."
"You have to create your own process. You have to find out what inspires you, personally. 80% of life is just showing up, but for just showing up you get a "C." The way you bring your A game is you find what inspires you, and not only do you find what inspires you, you give yourself a chance to reflect, to incubate."
This is all in quotes because I thought it was so good - and I kept pausing the player to make sure I got it right. (I think I did.)
I have the bottom and center books, and the third one (top right) is on my Christmas wish list - I've heard it's excellent. (Hint, hint...)
New census data: US at 300M
300M 200M 100M
2006 1967 1915Percentage of population with at least a high school education
85% 51% 13.5%
Percentage of women in the labor force
59% 41% 23%
Average household size (persons)
2.6 3.3 4.5
Population of Phoenix, Arizona, and it's population rank among US cities
1.5M (#6) 439,170 (#29) 11,134 (not in top 100)
Since the Verizon PHIOS install, a few things have become very clear, very quickly:
PHIOS (Verizon fiber optic) is faster than Comcast, has a clearer picture (so much clearer that we no longer think we have to replace our TV) and is less expensive.
Leading to these questions:
Q: Has fiber optic technology leap-frogged cable?
A: Yes.
Q: Can cable recover once customer loyalty is over?
A: I can't see it happening.
Q: Is there customer loyalty for a commodity?
A. No. Commodities are price/convenience driven.
Q: Can a cable (Comcast) picture get better without HDTV?
A: It doesn't look like it.
Current personal experience/understanding:
The difference in picture quality isn't just noticeable, it's remarkable. I thought our TV was worn out, or at least fading fast. The picture was immediately be better - without adjusting anything. The sound doesn't have variations between channels or between program (normal) and some local commercials (shouting) like it did when we were with Comcast.
Q: Why did/does Comcast let commercials yell at me, and Verizon doesn't?
Q: Why did the Verizon guys do such neat work, and the Comcast guys do such messy work?
Q: Are the Verizon guys Verizon employees, paid by the hour, and the Comcast guys contractors, paid by the job?
Q: Do these two facts tell me a whole lot about Comcast, and maybe about their future?
1. When I called and told them I was canceling my service, no one asked me why - they just said I needed to drop off the set top box and remote.
2. When I dropped off the set-top box at Comcast, no one asked my why I was discontinuing my service. All they did was check the serial numbers and give me a receipt.
3. They don't seem to care. There doesn't seem to be any reason for me to think my experience was unique.
I think it looks like . . .
Dial-up internet access is dead, or dying quickly, at least in populated areas. Point: Having to pay for a dedicated phone line and then pay for dial-up access cost me more than Verizon's high speed fiber optic, which comes with the possibility to link other computers and a no-cost to me WiFi access point for my iBook. Why would anyone pay for less product at a higher price? They are over, but at least they seem to know it.
Comcast has been leap-frogged, both in quality, price and product. They had the advantage of getting here first, and the disadvantage of building an extensive infrastructure with a technology and delivery process that doesn't appear to have the capability to improve. They are in trouble . . . and they don't seem to care.
Wesley Snipes got indicted for tax fraud.
Didn't pay taxes from '99 - '04 and tried to get $11M back for taxes paid in the 90's.
His previous tax advisors told him his income from movies was taxable, but he went with a group calling themselves a Christian ministry.
The government says he tried to pay some of his back taxes between 2000 - 02 by sending bogus checks to the government totalling 14M to the US treasury.
A spokesman for Snipes could not be reached for comment.
Scanning 2005 American Community Survey/Census Data:
Marriage does not describe 50.2% of American households (55.8 million)
14M+ Single women
5M Single men
36.7M Non-family households - gay or hetero couples living together
30M+ Men or women living alone - not categorized as families
55.2M Married couples - 49.8%
Six years ago, married couples were 52% of 105.5M population of US
Unmarried couples gravitate toward large cities - NY, Chicago, LA, San Francisco.
Farm states in the plains and rural communities in Midwest/West remain majority of married couples and traditional.
CBGB stands for Country, Bluegrass and Blues - the kinds of music originally planned for the club owned by Hilly Crystal.
CBGB lost it's lease after 32 years to its landlord, the Bowery Resident's Committee - a not-for-profit homeless service agency.
Song that drew the biggest crowd response during the all-star final show: Blitzkrieg Bop.
Aaron Neville moved his family out of New Orleans a few years before Katrina because he believed them when they said it (New Orleans) was a disaster waiting to happen
"The people in charge of the levees took the money and run."
The purity of heroin is increasing. His day, 45 - 50% pure; today, 90 - 95% pure.
