AirHogs Press Conference

The Grand Prairie AirHogs are a new minor league team in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and we have some footage from a recent press conference:

VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Dallas Morning News story on the new AirHogs

The AirHogs season begins in May, and I’m looking forward to taking in a game or two this year.

links for 2008-04-11

links for 2008-04-10

Do you know what you’re seeking?

Tony Woodlief, “The City Where Nobody Smiles”:

Millions of people visit every year, and I wonder, does a one of them find what he is looking for?

Do they even know what they seek?

Which I suppose can be asked of us all, not just the poor souls sitting numbly in front of those cold machines with the pretty, pretty lights. The answer, I think, is that we are seeking something that will fill the great Empty.

It runs right through the middle of you, this emptiness, and though every good writer has tried to describe it, and though we all know it is there, we are most of us terribly afraid to think about it, which is perhaps why a place like Las Vegas can exist at all.

Regarding those nasty unintended consequences…

Thomas Sowell:

One of the biggest problems with government intervention in the economy is that politicians usually have neither the knowledge nor the incentives to intervene at the right time.

Bruce Bartlett has pointed out that most government intervention in an economic downturn comes too late. That is, the problem it is trying to solve has already worked itself out and the government intervention can create new problems.

More fundamentally, markets readjust themselves for a reason. That reason is that people pay a price for their misjudgments and mistakes.

Government interventions are usually based on trying to stop them from having to pay that price.

People who went way out on a limb to buy a house that they could not afford are now being pictured as victims of a heartless market or deceptive lenders.

Just a few years ago, people who went out on that limb made money big-time in a skyrocketing housing market. But now that they have been caught in the ups and downs that markets have gone through for centuries, the government is supposed to bail them out.

Solving short-run problems, especially in an election year, often means creating long-run problems. Pumping money into the economy can help many problems, but do not be surprised if it also leads to inflationary pressures and financial repercussions around the world.
In other words, people should bear some personal responsibility for their choices and actions. The government should leave well enough alone. Better yet, perhaps the government would like to admit to some responsibility in the matter, and perhaps rather than bailing out people from their own mistakes, rectify it’s own? (Yeah, I know, fat chance of the latter.)
[Emphasis in the quote added. –R]

Ride’em, cowboy!

This past weekend, we spent a few days visiting my parents in the suburbs of Birmingham. (That would be Alabama, not England. Just in case it wasn’t clear.)
My dad pulled my old rocking horse, Donut, out of storage, cleaned up the parts, and assembled him in the basement, all for my son to ride while we were visiting.


If you want to see a slightly larger version, click on the video.

I got Donut about the same age as the little phisch is now, roughly 1974. The nostalgia from watching my own child ride the same horse I did thirty-three, thirty-four years ago, was overwhelming.

links for 2008-04-07

links for 2008-04-05

links for 2008-04-04

ATPM 14.04

The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Wes kicks things off with a look at what’s been popular in the Mac blogosphere of late, and that’s namely been about a product that isn’t a Mac, but works with your Mac: the iPhone. The announcement of the software development kit (SDK for short) for the iPhone has generated quite a lot of discussion amongst developers and pundits.
Mark talks about chips of all sorts, from his uniquely Brit point of view, as well as the latest DRM nonsense across the Pond. Charles has another Filemaking, and walks through relational databases.
This month’s desktop pictures are courtesy of several ATPM readers, and feature views from all around the globe. Thank you, all, for sharing!
Back in meatspace, Todd turns the tables on the enemy with a reprogrammed Lisa. Cortland and Angela arrive safely from the Mudrix, but Cortland has paid a heavy price…
My good friend Tom Bridge returns to the pages of ATPM with a look at The Book of Wireless. Lee rounds up the latest iPhone accessories from Newer Technology, while Ed puts PhotoAcute Studio through its paces. Paul is pleased with Take Control of Permissions in Leopard, and Ellyn closes out the Tome Edition™ of ATPM by digging through Wikipedia: The Missing Manual.
As always, you can read ATPM online, as well as in three other formats of your choosing. Thanks for reading!