John K. Davis, Independent Distributor, SendOutCards

Demanding Justice

Friends and family may enjoy hearing an update on my Parking Ticket challenge. Well, the administrative hearing was recorded and I have converted it to an MP3 sound file. It is fourteen minutes (about 13 MB), so it will take a little while to download and begin playing. You can listen by clicking here:

04-1623 Davis 05-26-2004 Copy.mp3

I hope to receive the decision any day now.

Going To Be There?

I'm ready for the Transhumanism & UU class tomorrow night. It looks like there will be a good turnout and I'm hoping that there will be interest by at least a few who will assist in organizing a continuation of the discussion at future venues.

Health & Personal Care

Amazon.com is now offering health and personal care products. Janet and I have long purchased such items at Drugstore.com where we were satisfied customers, but Amazon.com has changed our loyalty. I checked prices on many of the items we order and in every case Amazon.com was lower. When combined with their $25 minimum for free shipping the bargain is compelling.

I am also impressed with the inventory Amazon.com offers in its new store. First I checked on products that originally drew us to Drugstore.com--products that are hard to find. I was pleasantly surprised to find these items in the Amazon.com store. A good example is Alpha Hydrox Foot & Problem Area Crème:

I love this foot crème. It took me a long time to find something that would keep calluses and cracks from forming on my feet and I was pleased when I finally found something that really works. Not long after I began using the product our local RiteAid stopped carrying it. It was this situation that drove me to Drugstore.com in the first place and now we rarely buy such items at a brick-and-mortar store.

The convenience of having orders delivered to our home, the financial savings and the ability to always get what we want makes online shopping so much more appealing to us. Now we can blend our health and personal care purchases with the books, electronics, clothing, gifts, and toys for the grandkids that we buy at Amazon.com.

Happy New Year!

Life has been good to me. I am a very lucky guy. Janet is an awesome life partner. I am a better person because she loves me. Our kids are wonderful, and our grandkids are each special. We both have loving siblings and other extended family that brighten our lives when we can be with them. Our friends and colleagues are a diverse group of people varied in age, interests and ways of being and we feel privileged to enjoy the contributions they bring to our interactions.

My work as a technology advocate will be moving into the background in 2004 as I move to find a more rewarding way to earn a living. I will continue to blog, but the effort will be less consistent and I will probably consolidate some of the sites as new career opportunities reveal themselves. I will not abandon my calling to assist people to deal with, understand and embrace accelerating change, but the means to this end will morph into something new.

Janet is now comfortable being the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the law school. She has proven something important to herself. She accepted the position worried that the job would be too difficult for her to do well. Now she is confident that she can do the job with excellence and is actually enjoying her role. I marvel at the capabilities of the woman I love.

I am resolved to make a few changes in the coming year. I will exercise more. At least thirty minutes three days a week of vigorous activity and more walks, play and activities that require me to be physically active--an objective that I am confident I will accomplish.

Earning a decent income is another goal that will be a high priority; not that we need more money. I need to restore a better balance with Janet in this department of our partnership. And retirement is not far off. Now is the time to sprint toward the finish line so that I feel good about my effort and satisfied with the result. I am proud of the path I have run thus far and I do not want to sacrifice a job well done because of a lackluster performance in the career end-game.

My wish is that the New Year will be full of positive new experiences for you and yours. May you find challenges sufficient for your capabilities and love that warms your heart. Laugh often. Cry when those moments come. Hug those who you hold close. Be true to yourself.

Copyright Is Broken

I am an enthusiastic member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. People like Lawrence Lessig and Dan Gilmore seem to share my point of view about the current dysfunction of copyright law in the US and I highly recommend adding them to your news aggregator. But, occasionally my views on this subject are reinforced by personal experience.

Last August I published an entry in my TUUN blog titled Human or Robot. I reference an article I saw in Popular Science magazine and linked to a PDF I created so readers could peruse the original source document. A little more than three months later I received an email message from the author of the article, Dan Ferber. Here is a copy of my reply to Dan’s message:

Dick Morris

Chris Lydon’s recent interview of Dick Morris about the impact of the Internet on politics is twenty-four minutes of audio that anyone who wants to understand the seismic changes occuring in the political power structure must hear.

Traveling

I’m at 32,000 feet, flying to Chicago with Janet on our way to visit Stephanie and her family. I am looking forward to seeing her. It will also be good to meet Sydney—Janet was there at her birth, but this will be my first time with our newest granddaughter.

I will be using my wireless camera phone a lot during our trip to post photos here as soon as they are taken. By the way, if you did not catch the article at Gadget Blogger regarding T-Mobile’s great deal on the Sony Ericsson T610 phone, you really should take a quick look. Now that phone numbers can be easily transferred to a new service, it is a perfect time to take advantage of the offer.

Book Archive

First, full disclosure: I am a member of the Amazon.com Associates Program. I receive referral fees when you click-through my site to Amazon.com to purchase stuff. I have a few of the books in my library listed on the About Me page and I hope to have my entire library listed there soon.

Amazon.com is doing something remarkable:

An ingenious attempt to illuminate the dark region of books is under way at Amazon.com. Over the past spring and summer, the company created an unrivaled digital archive of more than 120,000 books. The goal is to quickly add most of Amazon's multimillion-title catalog. The entire collection, which went live Oct. 23, is searchable, and every page is viewable.

You can read many other details in an article to be published in the December issue of Wired News: The Great Library of Amazonia. Better yet, take a look at the Amazon.com page that describes how to use the Searchable Archive.

I don't know about you, but this impresses me to the max. I think this Internet thing just might be alright.

Mexican Cornbread

For all those who begged for the recipe that we brought to last night's potluck:

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 4-ounce can of chopped green chilies
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 15-ounce can of cream-style corn

Add the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Then add one egg at a time to the mixture, beating well after each egg is added. Add chilies, cream-style corn and cheese and mix well. Sift flour, measure and sift again with the cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Add the sifted ingredients to the batter, blending well. Pour batter into a greased and floured 8x12 inch baking pan. Place the pan into a 350 degree oven and reduce heat to 300 degrees. Bake for 1 hour.

Mmmm, good.

PLoS Biology

I am not a scientist, but my obsessive interest in emerging technologies pulls me toward the scientific community. Something special caught my attention today; a new online scholarly journal. I was struck by its quality, the fact that it is "open-access" and some of the content is just fascinating. Here is the information provided at the site describing the journal:

Scope

PLoS Biology features works of exceptional significance in all areas of biological science, from molecules to ecosystems, including works at the interface with other disciplines, such as chemistry, medicine, and mathematics.

Open-Access

All works published in the PLoS Biology are open access. Everything is immediately available without cost to anyone, anywhere to read, download, redistribute, include in databases, and otherwise use subject only to the condition that the original authorship is properly attributed. Copyright is retained by the author. For more information, please read the PLoS Open-Access License.

Contents

* Outstanding primary research articles in all aspects of biology from molecules to ecosystems.
* Synopses are summaries of research articles that will be accessible to researchers in all disciplines as well as a lay readership.
* The Community Page is a forum for organizations and societies to highlight their efforts to enhance the dissemination and value of scientific knowledge.
* Journal Club is a forum for postdoctoral scientists and graduate students to discuss an important paper in the context of their own scientific interests.
* Unsolved Mysteries discuss a topic of biological importance that is poorly understood and in need of research attention.
* Primers provide a concise introduction into an important aspect of biology that is of broad and current interest.
* Essays are pieces that articulate an opinion on a specific topic of interest to scientists.
* Features are in-depth articles that cover topics of broad scientific interest that have relevance beyond the scientific community.
* Book reviews and more.