Let's just say I'm kind of a big deal over at Disney

Some of you may know about my celebrity status at Disney. When I visit the parks, the red carpets fall under my every footstep. Signs read, "Nate Long - Epic to the Max." They even changed the Mickey Mouse March to read, "T-H-E, P-R GUY, NATE LONG'S REALLY COOL". They name rides after me, for Goof's sake. If you don't believe me, I've provided a video of the news coverage surrounding my latest episode at Disney -- for your viewing pleasure.

Peruse at your convenience.

(If the video doesn't play click here to go straight to the Sun 7 News site where my story is a feature headline -- you can't miss it!)



Believe me now?

The truth is you can share my celebrity status -- or maybe even make me the next Disney C-List celeb. I would hang out with the likes of Scar, Steamboat Willie, Pluto, the bird from Aladdin and... Alec Baldwin (huh?). All you have to do is watch my video and then change the name when it asks and you'll be the star. It also allows you to send it to friends and family. I'm going to predict the future and say that there will be some who use this viral Disney campaign to make some funny videos. Mark my words, the names will get very creative.

Weighing in from a public relations standpoint, I think this was a genius idea from Disney. It's very fun and easy to share and it strokes our egos -- the main ingredients of a successful viral video campaign. Not only that, but even though the video content is customized, the quality is incredible. Goofy even said my name smoothly in the middle of a sentence. Impressive to say the least. The idea, of course, is that you matter to Disney. No matter who you are, when you go to Disney, you'll get celebrity status. My bet is that this campaign will be a huge success. I've already sent customized versions to friends, coworkers and family members. I usually just like to send them the Nate Long version though; it makes me feel epic. Well done, Disney.

By the way, I guess you could say I actually do have some Disney celebrity status because I received my Nate Long customized video from the man I call "The (International) PR Guy" of Disney himself. Thanks, Tony!

The New Blog

Just a quick apology. This week on Geocentric (have a listen on the player over there on the sidebar) we told you to come check out all the new stuff on the blog. The problem is that, as you can see, there's not a lot of new stuff here as of now. We had big plans to have had all the new stuff ready for you by today but because of some unforeseen technical problems, it's not ready for launch yet. We'll let you know as soon as it's ready. Thanks for being a fan!

Get Ready...

With the holidays well underway, we at Geocentric thought it might be a good time to start consolidating and expanding our content.

Don't worry, this won't be causing any hangups in the blog or in the podcast. Instead, we'll soon be rolling out a few noticeable upgrades.

Many of you may have noticed that our official tech resource, Ethan Clark, has begun contributing to the blog and pretty soon our official music aggregator, Patrick, is going to start writing as well. We're not stopping there though. With any luck we'll be able to put together a whole batch of contributors in the near future.

Certainly not least of all we're going to be upgrading the website. As of now we're obviously using Blogger.com for the written posts and bringthemagic.com for our audio posts (although we've tried to integrate the two as much as possible). However with the wonderful assistance of some open source software we'll soon be mashing both of them together into one place under a more suitable domain name.

Don't be bored! Hack Holiday!

Fight being bored to tears by holiday "extra time". This is one of my favourite times of year. Not just because of the Holidays, but due to the fact that I'm given copious amounts of time to hack, download, watch movies, and play. The best website to give you great ideas for a Hacking Holiday is instructables.com. Last year, I added a "killswitch" to my Fender Squire Telecaster. This was a simple hack, and has proven well in the past year.

Have an old iPod video not being used? Put Doom on it. That's right, Doom.

Does your iPhone battery die really quick, and you'd rather not shell out 99 bucks to get a external battery? Use this page to build one yourself.

Impress the family with a stunning cooler like this one. Definately a great party idea.

See? Hacking can be fun, and simple. Who knows? You might be able to MAKE all of your presents this year for cheap! Happy Turkey Day!

The Infamous DRM Letter

"On the whole, I think DRM feels good." -Steve Evil

In February 2007, Steve Jobs published a letter stating a position against DRM in the music industry. That position has since been analyzed to no end. Though it has been criticized by some and lauded by others, the analysis leaves one question unanswered: Is Steve Jobs really against DRM?

And the answer is... of course not. Then why write the letter? Because the music industry is one area where DRM is not necessarily on Apple's side. In the letter, Jobs lists three possible futures for Digital Rights Management and the first two, continuing on the current path or licensing FairPlay out to other companies, are bad for business.

The third possibility is to do away with DRM entirely. While arguing in favor of this alternative, Jobs throws out the red herring: "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats... This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

Notice that this is the only scenario in which Apple risks no obvious loss. It provides for interoperability within the market, meaning any music purchased from Microsoft could still be played on an iPod, and establishes conditions within which none of Apple's "secrets" are "leaked." In fact, these two points are stated openly and plainly throughout the letter. Also, since Apple doesn't own the music, the company has less vested interest in digitally managing the rights to it.

Here, Jobs begins to sound sucpiciously like the average consumer who feels the pinch of DRM and wishes it would go away. In other words, a hypocrite. The classic case of dishing it out but not wanting to take it. So in order to back up these claims, perhaps we ought to examine some other areas in which Apple has involved itself with DRM.

First of all, notice that Jobs' letter refers only to the music industry and, as I mentioned, does not address products that are actually made by Apple. On the other hand, Apple dvd players may only change regions five times, Apple is currently working with Nike to restrict what you can do with your shoes, and perhaps less obvious, try watching an online NetFlix video with a Macintosh (<- that's just a picture, by the way). The Netflix example is my favorite. It's difficult to believe that Apple would actually keep me from receiving a service I currently purchase from an entirely unrelated company. Sad as it is, because of Apple's quest to maximize profits by managing media, even Netflix has become a no-no.

A clock that runs on beach water!

Attention Beach Bums!

The innovative gadget company, Bedol, now has a clock just for beach bums like you and me. Of course, that's my own product description. Theirs is that of an eco-friendly, water-powered device that, "keeps perfect time as electrodes harvest energy from water."

I first heard about this at Coastal Living. The clock runs entirely on tap water and a dash of salt. Coastal Living likes it because it saves the day when your battery dies overseas. I like it because I can power a clock with nothing more than a dip in the ocean! It's truly a beach bum's clock.

Or is it? After all, true beach bums don't use clocks. Time doesn't matter to a true beach bum. Nevertheless, I think the clocks are pretty cool. Check them out and tell me what you think. You can choose blue, green, orange or charcoal... Charcoal? That's an interesting color for a "green" clock. Maybe they can call it "clean coal" instead...

World Politics vs. American Politics

I have a theory. The mutual misunderstanding of politics between the U.S. and the rest of the world is a large cause of internal political anger right here in American politics.

(Let me note here that I know the United States is not the only country in America. However, rather than continually referring to things as having to do with the United States of America, I'm going to abbreviate for the sake of efficiency and call those things "American.")

Perhaps most people don't understand that American politics can be very different from world politics. After all, despite what many of you may think, the U.S. has never been under the control of fascists, communists, or otherwise tyrannical dictators, despots, or monarchs. Here I'm including a picture to illustrate a simple version of world politics.

What you can see is very basic. We have two major axes symbolizing equality and order. As you move higher on the equality axis, government is geared more and more toward ensuring that members of the community are equal. The common left wing of the world heads toward socialism, sometimes degrading to its extreme form known as communism.

Conversely, moving down the axis of order, we come to world conservatism which demands that a few rights be waived for the sake of societal order. The extreme form here is of course fascism, where order, nationalism, and the state supersede all else. It should be noted as well that under both extremes, rights and individuality end up revoked by government.

At point (0,0) between the two axes we find world liberalism, or what is sometimes called "classical liberalism." The philosophies surrounding this point were pioneered by writers such as Mill and Locke, and were consequently taken by the founders of the U.S. and infused into the fabric of the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution. The idea here is that liberty should be placed as the highest priority without government intervening "inappropriately" to advance either equality or order.

Now let's zoom in on the graph a bit.

Being founded mainly upon classical liberal principles, and also because the U.S. has never been under the control of an absolute ruler, mainstream American politics has traditionally not ventured beyond the shaded area on the graph. Although a few policies have come closer to world conservatism or socialism (a couple of particular targets for such accusations are the Patriot Act and Social Security), the left and right wings have so far been able to check each other sufficiently enough that the USA houses neither a communist nor fascist party strong enough to present viable candidates. In essence, the actual range of mainstream American politics is much smaller than the range of politics in many other places in the world.

The problem comes then, when those who are not Americans but perhaps live within the current sphere of American international hegemony seek to compare what happens in the U.S. with what has happened in their own various countries over time. In this case, and as Americans seek to make the same comparisons, we begin to hear accusations of "fascist!" coming from the American left, and "communist!" coming from the American right directed toward their respective political opponents.

In reality the United States has never come anywhere near fascism or communism. Instead, when American political views drift toward the edges of classical liberalism -- further toward world socialism or world conservatism -- the opposing American side generally goes berzerk, drawing upon exaggerated notions of that drift.

By the same token, a European may learn that the "conservative party" has won the election in the U.S. and assume that America has moved much closer to fascism than it actually has since the word carries very different connotations in these two regions. Thus, I present the crux of my theory: that much of the political fear and anger experienced by Americans, and many of the ridiculous accusations made by either side can be traced back to improper comparisons of American politics to world politics.

This, of course, is not to say that without improper comparisons we would have political peace. Rather, it is partly the perpetual recurrence of these comparisons that causes the inflammation of our debate into the ridiculous demonization of those who may be on the opposing side.

Top ten ways to bring Talk Like a Pirate Day to the office

Arrrrr! Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day so we decided to prepare a list of the top ten ways to bring the celebration/holiday to the office. We begged, borrowed, stole and compiled the best of the best from all over the internet and added a few of our own. So get ready for some pillagin' and plunderin'! See how many of these you can try out before you're politely asked to leave the office (or asked to walk the plank!).

#10 - Give co-workers pirate nicknames based on their titles: Buccaneer (CEO), Captain (Manager), First Mate, Cook, Privateer, Land-Lubber (Intern)

#9 - Plan and carry out a mutiny against your boss.

#8 - For lunch, call a fellow shipmate and say, "Arrr, matey, have your parrot call my parrot and we'll partake of noontime grub together." And then go to Arrrrrrrrrby's for lunch.

#7 - Start every email with "Ahoy Matey!"; "Me hearty" or "Scurvy Dog!"

#6 - When accounting asks for numbers, say "I'd rather walk the plank!!!"

#5 - Spike the water cooler with rum (see picture at right).

#4 - Do all your expense reports in Doubloons (use a currency converter if you need to).

#3 - After the staff meeting, yell "Hop to it, dogs: Thar be leftover catering booty in the break room for plunderin'."

#2 - Change the dress code to a "Pirate Dress Code" (shirts must be torn and untucked, peg legs must be covered, eyes must be fully patched at all times, arrrrgyle socks only) and if you don't comply, you'll get sent to Davey Jones Locker for insubordination.

#1 - When the xerox machine flakes out, yell "Avast, ye demon copy machine! Taste the wrath of me arse!"

Do you have any to add to the list? Comment below!

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Thanks to cisley and zappowbang for the photos through Creative Commons on Flickr.

The Question of "Dangerous Ground"

Just who is Mark Penn? The name in question belongs to the former top campaign strategist of former presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton. Penn held that position until April of this year when the two parted ways in regard to a disagreement over a certain free trade agreement which the Senator opposed. This comes to us by way of Sourcewatch (and the crazy picture of him comes courtesy of thesun.co.uk).

Not to be forgotten, Penn came back into the news today when, in an interview with CBS, he stated that the media were on "very dangerous ground" in their treatment of Governor Palin.

"I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race," Penn stated, "And they continue to have growing credibility problems ... This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them."

When I read this I wondered whether or not anything Penn was saying could be verified. Being a Geocentric co-host then, I set out to investigate. Are the media really losing credibility?

Last October, Gallup came out with an article showing the results of a poll that had been in process since 2001. As can be seen in the chart here, "more than twice as many Americans say the news media are too liberal (45%) rather than too conservative (18%)."

So how does that measure up against Americans' party affiliations? This next chart gives you all the numbers you could want. I should point out here that the 45% mentioned above are composed of 77% Republicans, 43% Independents, and 15% Democrats. Of course Democrats, being affiliated with the more liberal of the two parties, are more prone to believe the media present information "just about right."

This potentially speaks to one of two possibilities. Perhaps Republicans are way out of touch in their opinions of the media. Or perhaps the fact that their sentiments are supported (though obviously not echoed) by the views of Independents shows that they are on to something. But these are the results of only a single poll.

So now I must leave the matter up to you. What do think about bias in the media, or what do you think about their treatment of Governor Palin? Has the media lost credibility with you? If so, and if their credibility continues to decline, what do you suppose will be the future of media coverage in this country?

Lest we forget...

Today, I would like to honor those who lost their lives during the tragedy that happened seven years ago on 9/11. It's hard to believe that seven years have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Like most, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing that day. Like most, I didn’t fully understand what was going on as the first events unfolded.

I was a senior in high school and sitting in my physics class when I saw the second plane hit. I remember watching in disbelief when the first tower collapsed. I was thinking of the last time I saw the World Trade Center in person. The summer before the attacks, I took a trip to New York City with my dad and some friends. We were on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and I had a friend take a picture of me with the NYC skyline and the World Trade Center in the background. Who could’ve possibly imagined a view of that skyline without the World Trade Center? After class that day and for the rest of the week, I was glued to the news stations (a rare occasion for me as a high schooler). I have a detailed account that I wrote a couple years later that I’ll have to share sometime.

The main reason I have for posting today, though, is to challenge you (and myself) to learn something new this week about the heroes of 9/11. I watched a couple of really good programs this week about the United 93 flight. The shows inspired me to learn more and so I researched a few of the passengers on Google. It was amazing to see the profiles of the everyday people from different walks of life who came together to stand up to the terrorists. So this week, try and learn more about these heroes and you’ll grow to appreciate them even more. To the heroes of 9/11 and their families: Thank-you.

During this week’s Geocentric Podcast, we will have a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11. Thanks to Jason Wilson and Jackie "Sister72" for the photos on flickr.

You are what you listen to

We've all heard the saying, "you are what you eat." What's more telling, though, might be what you listen to.

A new study at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland found strong correlation between peoples' personalities and their choice of music. The study, which included 36,000 people from six different countries found that people had more in common with fans of their favorite music in other countries than they had with fellow citizens who preferred different styles of music, according to a CBC News report.

Here's what CBC News reported about the results of the study:

"Jazz fans tend to be creative and outgoing, with high self-esteem, in keeping with the innovative and sociable nature of the music.

Country western fans were found to be hard-working, but introverted, fitting with the blue-collar image of country music.

The research concluded soul music lovers are a well-rounded bunch — creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and with high self-esteem.

Rap fans are outgoing and far from gentle, while indie music lovers lack both self-esteem and the work ethic.

[There is also] a link between income bracket and musical tastes, with more affluent consumers liking more exciting, punchy music while those lower down the pay scale preferring more relaxing sounds."

Perhaps the most unexpected finding of the study revealed the many similarities between people who listened to heavy metal music and those who listened to classical music. Both groups were described as, "gentle, creative people who are at ease with themselves."

Keep in mind that this study isn't a personality test. Most people listen to many different kinds of music and also have very unique personalities. They can't be fit into such general categories as the ones presented in this study. But the key to this study is that certain types of musical tastes correlate with -- not cause (necessarily) -- certain types of personalities. Correlation isn't causation. We can't gain stronger work ethic just by listening to country music. On the other side, many already hard-working people don't like country music. The findings are still very interesting though as long we remember that personality isn't solely based on musical tastes.

What I like about this study is that it proves what we've already known: love of music is universal. It penetrates borders, language and culture itself. Music defines who we are. Like the great Bob Marley still says, "One good thing about music -- when it hits, you feel no pain." That's something we can all relate to.

Good Job, Google

On Thursday, Episode 11 of the Geocentric podcast mentioned the first negative aspect we'd heard about Google's new browser, Chrome. That point in particular was related to the EULA, or more simply, the browser's "terms of service." Momentarily I'll give a brief explanation of what the problem was but for now I would like to announce that apparently Google has remedied the problem. I bring you this announcement from the gadgets related blog of Matt Cutts.

So here's what happened: Originally, there was a portion of section 11 in the EULA stating that by doing anything through the Chrome browser, you would give Google “a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.” In other words, if you do it through Chrome, Google owns it. Those of us who were aware of this were irritated to say the least.

To their credit however, Google has officially changed this section to the following:

"You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

Much better. Of course the original wording of the EULA was rather confusing to those who understand the history of Google, not to mention that such a rights claim seems odd in connection with an open source product. So to help us understand what happened, Google released the following explanation:

“In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.”

So basically, it was a case of bad cutting and pasting. Well, I suppose you can't expect perfection from anyone, even Google. However, those of us who are just waiting for Google to become that which it hates can breathe a sigh of relief... at least for now.

Was Geocentric Wrong?

Here at Geocentric, Nate and I pride ourselves on being fair. Although absolute fairness may be an ideal only attainable by one without true opinions (maybe not, I don't know), the simple fact still remains that we are at least a bit more fair than many of our counterparts in the one-way news. Admittedly, it is hard to strike a balance between equal presentation of both sides when one side is something like anti-balloonism or flat earth theory, but in the interest of fairness, I present you with an article refuting a big part of what we said (and in fact how we titled) Episode 9 - Cold War II. HERE IT IS.

Above - U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin

"Why Georgia is Not Start of Cold War II" is an article in the Christian Science Monitor by staff writer Robert Marquand and was published the day after our episode aired. For those who don't feel the need to read the article, Marquand presents various contrasts between the present world context of international relations and the context that existed during the Cold War. Many of his points are well made. Also, he presents quotes by high ranking officials and various experts directly voicing opinions that we have not entered a second cold war and that the use of the phrase "cold war" could even be damaging to the situation.

Lastly, in the interest of self-defense, Marquand has provided a plethera of evidence indicating that Russia's recent actions against Georgia mentioned in THIS ARTICLE, for example, do not herald the beginning of another Cold War. However, in Episode 9 we presented the viewpoint that if another Cold War is beginning, that notion should be based on Russia's threat of nuclear attack upon Poland if it were to sign the missile defense deal with the U.S., which it did. Here is a quote from the Telegraph:

Earlier, a senior Russian general warned that Poland has made itself a nuclear target for Russia's military by hosting elements of a US anti-missile system.

"By hosting these, Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 per cent" certain, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted General Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying.

"It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority," Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.

He added that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them," Interfax said.

Our reasoning was that since Russia had made this threat and was subsequently defied by Poland, the "Cold War II," as we called it, is the time-span in which we now wait to find out if Russia makes good on its threat. Though Marquand does mention the fact that Russia would be "forced to react, and not only through diplomatic means," he does not mention the seriousness or specifics of the threats made, and focuses primarily on actions in Georgia and Russo-American relations in the article for his definition of "cold war."

Some Extra Comments

This week in Episode 9 - Cold War II, we mentioned a couple of images that we really wanted you to see. The first one is of windmill hating John Yancey standing with "his face contorted in anger and pain" as he is forced to endure the presence of wind turbines that he himself helped build and install even though he opposed them from the beginning. For the sake of copyrights and such, the turbine images and the previous quote all came from CNN.com.

Here we see Mr. Yancey making the classic pout face. His father signed a deal with Big Wind allowing a number of turbines on Yancey land. Though he earns something along the lines of six grand per turbine per year just to have them on his property, the fact that they are "unsightly," noisy, and cast unacceptable shadows at different times of day all outweigh the benefits. (Did I mention he helped build and install them?)

Also, just throwing this out there again, how many of you actually like the look of turbines strewn across the landscape? I personally enjoy the scenery. This photo here makes me a little melancholic, but in a good way, if that makes sense. I'm reminded of my childhood back in Indiana. We weren't farmers but we had scenery like this all around (minus the wind turbines). Looks like a calm, cool, lonely day.

The other fun photo we talked about comes to us from modern day believers in the flat Earth idea. Fascinatingly, they are still around and even host a forum style web site. Although the brotherhood of flat Earth supporters apparently does not have a cohesive set of philosophical tenets, there are a few things that must be agreed upon because of observable phenomena. For example, if one travels far enough south from any point on the "globe," one will inevitably end up in Antarctica. How might the FEers explain this? I draw your attention to exhibit A:

What we see here is that Antarctica is actually a giant ice wall that encompasses the disc, making sure the water doesn't flow off the side... or something. Since in this digital creation obtained from Foxnews.com we have more than doubled the generally accepted distance of over 6000 miles between Chile and Australia, the flight time can only be explained by an extremely fast jet stream running around the Earth's circumfrence. Why that jet stream doesn't double your return flight time, I'm not quite sure...

Another interesting point we could make here is that most of the "science" of the FEers depends heavily on conspiracy theories such as the notion that "the government" won't allow you to explore the ice wall. I think in order for you to be kept in the dark, the airlines would have to be in on the conspiracy. In that case, I wonder why airlines go bankrupt every now and again. We've all seen what the government did for Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. I suppose if my company was in on the conspiracy, I'd have some pretty good leverage to make sure the government saved me from any financial trouble I might be in.

Funny thing by the way, planes always take the shortest distance from one point to another (unless of course they're purposely avoiding the shortest distance so they can utilize a super jet stream and keep the masses in the dark). On a globe, the shortest distance from Caracas, Venezuela to Melbourne, Australia runs entirely through the southern hemisphere. However on this diagram, the shortest distance would take you right over the North Pole.

Who's really to blame?

Here's a debate worth following. As we all know, oil prices are up. Airlines have been trying to make up for revenue lost in high fuel prices by adding fuel surcharges, baggage check fees and most recently, by charging for in-flight meals on international flights. They've also flown slower and got rid of many items on the plane, in order to conserve fuel. As inconveniences continue to stack up at the consumers' expense, at what point will the airlines decide they've done enough? Recently oil prices dropped back down quite a bit, but the airlines didn't respond to that. Fees and surcharges are still high. Clearly the airlines must do something to make up for lost revenues, but must the consumer have to bear that much of the burden?

In Geocentric's Episode 4 podcast, we talked about the decision by Delta and others to sell ad space on e-tickets to make up for lost revenue. Our view is that seeing an ad (which can be turned off by the way) is a lot less painful than paying $50 to check bags. We gave kudos to Delta for that decision. What else could airlines do that would be less painful for consumers? Or are their current methods necessary and sufficient?


Airports and flights are becoming more and more frustrating. The big question is who's to blame? I present to you comments from two very opposing sides of the issue. The first is a letter signed by 12 airline executives sent to airline customers by email. They say blame should be placed on oil speculators who have driven the price of oil up and that they are just doing what is necessary. They further suggest that we, the consumers should push congress to act on the matter and stop the oil speculators. Click HERE to read the actual letter to understand their stance.

Next is a formal (but very sarcastic) rebuttal from Kimberley Strassel who writes for the Wall Street Journal. She blasts (and I mean blasts) the airlines for blaming oil speculators for the terrible service she and other customers receive at airports and on flights. I'll leave it at that because you really have to read the actual letter by clicking HERE.

So after reading both sides, who's right? Who's to blame for this mess? I'll say that when I recently traveled to Europe, I had a good experience with Continental and Czech Air, but Air France was only mediocre (not bad though). We also had no problems with TSA or extra hidden fees. Having said that, I have read airline horror stories and even witnessed a family forced to fly on separate flights while in Newark. So the problems are there, but I ask again, who's to blame?

Another Photoshop For You

Just thought I'd add my own contribution to Nate's post.  I bet this one becomes a reality before the end of the year!  Anyway when I first heard the media reporting this one I thought they were going to say the Bush administration had photoshopped the picture to make Iran look scarier.  Nope.  Looks like the good old Revolutionary Guard takes credit for this one.  If that's the best the government can do, I'd hate to see the special effects in their movies!

Added: 12:45 pm 7/12/2008 - In case anyone wants to know how easy this is, I didn't even use real Photoshop.  I use GIMP which is sort of like a free Photoshop available for anyone to download.  If you want to download it for Mac OS X, make sure you have X11 installed.

This blog was posted by John Newman of Geocentric.

Could someone teach Iran how to use Photoshop?

You’ve seen it all over the news – Iran has been testing long-range missiles with a death threat to Israel attached. After all, if it weren’t for those pesky “Zionists” and their American friends, Iran could finally enjoy world rule and power to the people – except Holocaust "myth" believers and infidels, who will die. And women, who will be silenced, beaten or jailed. And homosexuals, who will be hanged. Or really, anyone who isn’t part of the Revolutionary Guard. But instead of showing the world its superiority, the Guard embarrassed itself in front of the world when it was revealed that a photo taken of four missiles firing into the sky had been digitally altered. It looks like someone needs a few more lessons in Photoshop.

The doctored photo, seen above, was released by Sepah News, the propaganda machine… uh, media arm of the Revolutionary Guard. The truth is that one of the missiles didn’t fire (at least not at the time of the picture), but was later added to the photo and then sent to AP News, Reuters and major news outlets. Look for patterns in the smoke on the ground, similarities in the third and fourth missiles from the left and the weird smoke coming out of the third missile. Sepah News should have learned more about the clone tool because it wasn’t long before the photo’s inauthenticity was confirmed. The picture was immediately retracted from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Palm Beach Post and other newspapers where the picture had already been published.

Above: cloned areas used to add a fourth missile to the picture

Above: major media outlets posted the picture before realizing it was altered

So I say to the Guard, was it really so important to have that fourth missile firing that you would risk worldwide embarrassment? Maybe so if the fourth was a dud and you wanted to cover that up. That would be pretty embarrassing as well. You guys are just having a bad day. But look at the bright side – at least now less people will take you seriously when you say things like “we will wipe Israel off the map!" I’m not so sure about Israel though. They might just decide to bomb the crap out of you. Feel free to respond to this blog with your thoughts, reasoning and insights. In the meantime, I have something to show you…

That’s right, I learned a lot from the Guard’s expertise in digital alteration – SO for fun, I took the original photo and decided to do some Photoshopping of my own! I gave myself 30 minutes and went to work! I figure if I can show Iran my vast talents (see below), they will spare me when that fourth missile is pointed at the US! If you think you can do better than I did (likely), send me your photoshopped Iran missile test photo to our Geocentric email or post it here. If I get some good ones, I’ll post them and you’ll be famous – and spared.


Click here to get this image in full size

More Info on Oil

Hey Everyone!

John here, with my first blog entry for the show.  This week we talked all about oil and energy and although we did cover a lot of ground, there was still a lot of stuff I wish we could have covered.  Unfortunately, we ended up going way over our goal of an hour and we just had to cut some stuff out.  By the way, what do you guys think?  Should we stick with an hour, move up to an hour and a half, or maybe drop the length down a bit?

Anyway, here's some of the other cool facts I wanted to mention but we never got a chance to cover.  First of all, this first link is to the website where I quoted you the yearly averages of a barrel of oil in the Illinois basin.  It covers a lot of time so you guys can check out what oil's been doing since you've been alive.  Here it is.  Secondly, if you want to know all the U.S. oil statistics and see them presented in a way that's not too confusing, I'd recommend the government's official site.  A lot of my data comes from there.

So check it out.  I just wanted you guys to see how the market gets affected by China in particular.  I have to say though that when I first heard the arguement about China's demand being the cause for my gas prices, it sounded like a cop out.  But take a look.  The red line is of world oil prices since 1947:

Do you see how right around 2002-2004 something invisible happens and all of a sudden the price explodes?  So what happened?  Take a look at China's oil import history:

Ridiculous, huh?  Look how it starts to spike between 02 and 04.  That spike corresponds perfectly with what oil prices have done.  But what about the oil supply, right?  Haven't the oil producers kept up with demand?  Well, look at these 2 charts.  The red line on the first one is U.S. oil consumption.  Notice you can still see that spike in prices (black line).  Our consumption has steadily risen since 1983.

Now look at another chart of OPEC Oil Production.  I don't want to take up too much space but there's another chart I have for Non-OPEC countries that is almost exactly the same.

So there you can see it for yourself and if these graphs are accurate, the logic is hard to refute.  Since about 1983, oil producing countries have raised production roughly as steadily as U.S. demand grew.  On both of these charts you can see that crazy price spike that began a few years ago.  You'll notice that oil production did not decrease in harmony with that spike, so that can't be the cause.  It's basic economics, if supply and price are both going up, demand must be skyrocketing.  Where?  Well, go back to the graph of China's imports and when they began to spike and you have your answer.  I don't see any way around it.  I don't have the particular info for India with me but you can see it enough when it comes to China.  World demand is increasing faster than supply.  Thus, higher prices.  Conspiracy theorists, I'm sorry.

For those of you who are interested in just where our oil comes from, here's an estimate of how much oil per day comes from various places.  Of course, we regularly import oil from something like 40 different countries but here are some of the big ones:

The total U.S. imports for barrels of oil per day in April was 9,921,000 barrels.  From OPEC countries we got 5,660,000 and from non-OPEC countries we got 4,261,000.  Saudi Arabia gave us 1,453,000 barrels while Canada gave us 1,952,000 at roughly the same price.  We also import more oil per day from Mexico than we do from Nigeria.  The U.S. has a very diversified oil import system so if Saudi Arabia is just out to get us, so is Canada.  

I recommend we all do our research on peak oil.  It's been consistently right in the past and the prediction is that we're hitting the peak right about now.  If so, this is just the tip of the iceberg and it's time to GET OFF OIL though whether or not you think we should drill domestically meanwhile to offset the price is another matter.