Five for Charity

In the spirit of the holidays:

Lowen & Navarro along with Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik and a group of ALS affected families perform in the "Learning To Fall" video. Watching is the easiest way to assist Augie's Quest, an ALS charity associated with the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. Each click earns a buck for Augie's Quest, and best of all, it's free! Just click the link below to go to the WhatKindOfWorldDoYouWant.com website, and click the frame to watch the video. It's that easy!

WhatKindOfWorldDoYouWant.com Video

Food shortages?

It is scary to think about food shortages happening here in America. Do you think it is all a big scare tactic theory? Look no further than the free market:

Sams Club, Costco Curbing Rice Sales (NPR/Reuters)

Pizza and beer now cost an arm and a leg (MSNBC)

So much for Tuesday Night Japanese Food. At least all that corn we are using for fuel has lowered the cost of driving my car. Actually.. hmmm.. wait a minute...

Five SEO misunderstandings

Search engine optimization is a small hobby of mine (still #1 on "Spruce Pine" woo-hoo). This blog posting is a good list of myths that are often believed by beginners.

Top Five SEO Misunderstandings

Five words you can cut

Make your writing stronger by leaving these five words behind.

Five Words You Can Cut

I'm quite sure that perhaps I should really just follow their advice.

Are you better off than five years ago?

Are you better off than five years ago? That's the question the Wall Street Journal asked today. The results may surprise you.

WSJ Poll: Are you better off than you were five years ago?

The 5th Amendment

Here's an important 5: the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Remember that the Constitution was written to enforce restrictions on the government, as set by the people. It was not intended to be used to enforce restrictions on the people, as set by the government.

New five dollar bill

A friend of mine sent me this in email, and it seemed relevant given the name of this blog (and kind of funny, if it weren't so true).

Georgia invades Tennessee. About time, too.

Georgia is trying to annex part of Tennessee. Seriously, no joke.

Story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I'm a bit torn by this as I lived in Georgia for about 3 years, but all of my extended family lives in Tennessee. I'll just wait to see who is winning and then pull for them (i.e. the McCain doctrine).

While Tennessee is under attack from the south, maybe we should fire up the old State of Franklin again on the east.

Real Dumb Crook News

I have always assumed that half of the "Dumb Crook" stories you see are made up, or at least greatly exaggerated. Now I have one of my own, and I believe there probably are that many dumb crooks. This one happened to me personally, so I know that it is true.

My wife and I own a rental condo in the town where we live. Our tenant decided to move out at the end of the month, and had advertised his washer and dryer set for sale. For about a week, the washer and dryer stayed in the empty condo while our former tenant lived in his new apartment.

The condo upstairs (which is NOT owned by us) learned that he had sold the washer and dryer. Their dryer was broken, so they decided to break into our condo and steal the dryer for their own use. I can only assume they thought it was an apartment owned by the same owner, and that the appliances were "communal".

So they climb up to the windows, break the screens, pick the window locks and get into our condo. They take the dryer out and move it upstairs to their condo. And (here's the really dumb part) they bring their OLD dryer back down the stairs and put it in our condo's utility room. In other words, they switched the dryers which were different styles and models and HOPED THAT NO ONE WOULD NOTICE.

Why in the world would you bring the OLD dryer back down? You might as well leave a calling card with your name on it... lol.

Guinness Superbowl ad

I heard today that the Guinness advertisement during the Superbowl was the most expensive ad to create ever. Apparently it topped $20 million to make.

I seem to remember just before I left Diageo that the Guinness team required three meetings and five telephone calls to convince them that a GBP 75 charge (about $165) was legitimate.

I am so glad I am out of there.

Needed: good wireless mic and headphones

As some of you know, one of my side projects is designing a way to get my mother on the Internet in some capacity. Since her stroke in 2003, she is totally blind. Her speech is good, but she sometimes has trouble remembering complex instructions (like dialing the phone for example).

Thus was born Project Victor. Victor was named after the first voice pack I choose for the system and it stuck (plus I just love to name things). I've talked to Mom a lot about what she might want, and the list of features is not simple:

• Online radio (particularly WMIT streaming from Black Mountain, NC)
• A Telephony interface that she could use to call people
• Podcasting streams (set up in advance and downloaded automatically)
  
• Some simple audio games, like guess a number

Additionally, there are other features that she needs to make it work:

• She has limited space and mobility, so I would like to place the "server" in a different room
• The voice interface has to be a simple, command and control voice interface
• Automatic sleep and wake modes. This means that after x minutes of inactivity it goes to "sleep" until it is awakened by calling the programs name ("Hello Victor").

My current problem is the remote server. I need some way to give Mom a headset with a microphone in the next room over (about 15 feet) and have it work. Rechargeable is preferable. I have been unable to find any reasonably priced wireless or bluetooth headsets with microphone that could handle command and control voice recognition. Anyone have suggestions?

Amazon plugs DigitalChalk

DigitalChalk, in Asheville, NC, is the company for which I work. We make online learning systems, focusing on the entire multimedia experience. The classes on DigitalChalk are composed of video, audio, slides, time-controlled outlines, and more.

We recently got a nice plug from Amazon. Check it out.

Five at Random has a new home

Five at Random has a new home here at http://fiveatrandom.blogspot.com

If you want to read the historical posts, they still exist on http://www.fiveatrandom.com.