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I know it's been far too long between updates, but I had to make a post about the fact that for the first time an American president has endorsed same-sex marriage. Everyone knew it was coming, but it's nice to just stop the BS and just come out that giving people in love equal rights to everyone else is the right thing to do, and on the right side of history.
This Onion article pretty much sums out how the future will judge this point in our history, where they'll be just as saddened that gay people couldn't marry as we are that inter-racial people couldn't marry back in the 60's since blacks marrying whites would "destroy the sanctity of marriage". The best part is that you have people like Newt who say this while on their third wife after cheating on his first two.
The fact is that this is an inevitable change. Younger generations like mine realize that two men or two women being in love has absolutely no effect on my marriage. The fact that 7 states now allow gay marriage and it has had ZERO effect on any else should be proof of that. And the fact that we're denying people the same commitment, recognition, and legal rights that I get to enjoy with the love of my life is simply outrageous. I truly don't understand how someone can be against LOVE!
If all the people against gay marriage only got to actually meet and know the people who are trying to get married, I honestly think this would solve 90% of the problem. A friend of ours just got married in New Zealand to a wonderful woman, and there is no way after meeting her that you could say to her face that she doesn't deserve the happiness and joy that marriage can be.
It's been a while hasn't it!
The most recent news has been that I bought a Kindle Fire while it was on sale, meaning I got a refurbished one for only $140.
I tried out the default interface, but I found it kind of lacking. It was OK for what it was aiming for, but I knew it could have been so much more. So with a bit of exploring on the XDA Developers forums, I now have Android Ice Cream Sandwich on my Kindle Fire, and it's a thousand times better! Well except that currently ICS doesn't support streaming from Netflix or Hulu+, but otherwise browsing, apping, and emailing are soooo much better. And the rest will come soon!
So basically I got a really good competitor for the iPad (now that I have ICS on it) for about 1/4 of the price. I love browsing the web on a 7" screen compared to my 3" G2, and with ICS I get all the good apps like Google Maps, Swype, and Google Play. Definitely worth the money considering how much time I spend on the couch surfing the web on my smart phone.
Of course eventually having a full blown tab with camera and microphone would be nice (I think it's amazing that we have the ability to do video phone calls on a tablet today. It's the AT&T video phone back in the 90's, but reality today!), but for the price, I really can't complain.
Speaking of living in the future, Google produced a really fascinating video of what their "Google Glasses" might be able to do in the future. I can't wait! And with the what's being worked on today, it won't even be "glasses" that do this, it'll be contacts!
Even the things possible right now today are amazing though, as seen by the Google project for an autonomous car.
Me and Kara drove to Hot Springs, AR to meet up with her Dad for his birthday and to do some horse racing betting (we ended up $7 up for the day!), and I couldn't get out of my mind that the 8 hour trip could be completely automated with the technology available today. Driving on the Interstate is almost trivial for the automated driving programs that are possible today, and I can't wait until that's available in a production car. I predict that by 2020 it'll be available, and by 2030 it'll be standard in just about any car you can buy.
It's been a long long time since I updated. It has been pretty busy, but still.
The biggest event was a 3 week trip to Asia I took with Kara and some friends back in November. We went to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Tokyo, using some airline miles from the British Airways Chase credit card offer. It was really really fun, and the highlights of the trip was Hoi An, which is a town in central Vietnam known for their tailors and paper lanterns everywhere. The other biggest highlight was Ha Long Bay, in North Vietnam, which was so incredibly beautiful. We spent 2 nights on a junk and did a bunch of kayaking.
One of the other highlights was using those miles to upgrade to business class for the 16 hour flight over from Chicago to Hong Kong. We figured if we were ever going to do that, then this would be the best time. And even though it was 16 hours, it's the first flight I ever didn't want to leave. You have this comfortable reclining chair, a 15" LCD monitor with hundreds of on-demand movies, and people to bring you food and drinks whenever you want? What's not to like!
Other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot of new things over the last few months. Did some business trips to San Jose and Rochester, and went to Arkansas for a wedding.
I'll have to update later with some photos and all the Christmas goings on.
Every once in a while when the Republican's get bored, they like to go with the attack line that the poor and middle class need to pay more taxes, as half of American's don't pay taxes. Except that well, there's some problems with that theory:
1) Everyone pays taxes. Everyone pays sales tax, social security taxes, gas taxes, medicare taxes, phone taxes, state and local taxes, and more. Some people, because they make so little money, don't pay a federal income tax, but to claim they get off tax free is incredibly disingenuous.
2) Considering that the top 50% control over 97.5% of the wealth in the United States, I'm pretty OK with letting the other half off the hook for federal income tax.
3) Finally, as The Daily Show points out, even if the government took a full HALF of the entire bottom 50% of what US citizens make, it would still only bring in the same amount of money as putting the tax rate on the top 2% back to the levels they were back in the '90's.
So this isn't class warfare on the rich because poor and middle class people are jealous of them. It's about the facts and numbers showing that the sheer amount of wealth the top 1% has gained over the past 10 years has been enormous, while everyone else has gotten poorer (in real world terms), and thus the tax burden should be allocated to reflect this reality.
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