Disqus - Latest Comments for Broomball Participant

Re: what’s a little debt?

Broomball Participant — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:35:41 -0000

I could be outraged about it, if I was surprised that it happened. I am not, I expected it. It was a well established pattern before the second election. However, what I am outraged about is that people do not want to pay for the damage done by the reckless demagogue [arr…leader] who they elected to be the president. And by the way, we do not even know a half of it yet [future will show the true human, social, political, and economic cost]. How is that for taking responsibility for our mistake? Who is going to pay for it, our kids or the Chinese ? I am not happy about it, but I am surprised that he came up with an unpopular idea looking like he wants to fix his problem [NOT a part of the past patterns]. He could have just cruised for the coming three years, and let the next dude deal with it. It could be another political diversion tactic, after all we never know Karl Rove’s motives for these odd ball ideas - W does not have to succeed, but gets the credit just for "trying". Yeah, lets go to Mars… Anyway, the alternatives are dire, per numerous articles in The Economist, this amount of our debt could cause total US or even world economic collapse if called. Chinese have been buying our bonds to stabilize the dollar from a free fall, but if they pull the plug [ask for their money back] US government could be insolvent… That’s a lot of power for the communists to have, and they could use those strings as political leverage as well. Good news is that for now it's not in their interest to destabilize US [who would buy their stuff then?]. Yet…

Re: Broomball bday

Broomball Participant — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:43:56 -0000

I keep discovering new bruises here and there, and my score was Ice:Me = 5:0 . But, it was a great fun to feel like a kid again, and be in your company. So, Cheers and till the next time.

Re: GDST D-2 Champs!

Broomball Participant — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 21:52:01 -0000

Great job guy, You deserve it. Congratulations ! Hopefully next time we will come closer to challenging You at the last stage. Cheers

Re: skiing/waxing

Broomball Participant — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:23:49 -0000

The key to using a 10-pass is to start early. I bought one a few years ago at the ski show and the season was not that good, so even with the best weekend intentions I only punched out seven times. So, for now I stick to Costco discounted coupons on three pass for Meadows.
This year looks better so far. My daughter and I got out boarding at SkiBowl a couple of weeks ago. The night shift was fun [largest night ski area in US], and easy enough after a couple of years of break. But, I am ready for Meadows, so hopefully I will see You there soon. We will try on Christmas and/or New Year days.
Beer at a high attitude seem to taste better and heal the wounds faster, let me know what You think...

Re: Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale

Broomball Participant — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:10:19 -0000

For those in search of nearest place for emergency supply of Nectar try:
http://beermapping.com/maps/portlandorbeer.html

Re: Bum toe

Broomball Participant — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:22:33 -0000

Sorry to hear that You needed fixing, so young ;-)
But You can always check out the Polish Festival [http://www.portlandpolonia.org/festival/index.html] they will do your favorite Polka dancing for You.
Cheers.

Re: Broom freakin ball

Broomball Participant — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:19:56 -0000

Have been waiting and practicing all year for this... Gretchen and I are in.

Re: Is google losing their edge?

Broomball Participant — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:00:45 -0000

I agree with Rick, and actually have been thinking that myself for a while. At my job in IT, I have opportunities to work professionally with both Google and Microsoft – we buy their products, but I also use many of their tools for personal purposes.

While initially working with Google felt like a being a part of great new adventure and people acted like under a spell - they could do no wrong; however, more recently in dealing with product bugs and release delays Google feels more like good old MSFT. I am not sure this can be attributed simply the fact that “they do not get it”. I think it’s a result of combination of a Complex system with human nature; since I am sure there are people there who do get it.

I think that like with any fast pace growth, over time there is risk of becoming complacent, bureaucratic, and full of fragile legacy code, etc. – very easy to accumulate when simply running without alignment to a strong vision. It’s difficult to see who is providing that vision at Google nowadays… That becomes a lot harder when dealing with many new employees; they added thousands in recent months, and over the last couple of years many of these new employees came from high up or creative positions at Microsoft. It’s bound to have some impact on their direction and ethics.

Sometimes, Google is reaching out; like in recent case of enabling their GMail for IMAP interfaces. So, when it servers them, they know how to add some strategic and architectural thinking to the process, however I agree with Rick, it’s usually an afterthought and driven mostly by some business arterial motives rather than simply serving the community well.
I am not sure what is happening to their motto “do not be evil”.

Check out this recent monologue for additional interesting details: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_...

For the purpose of full disclosure, I do own some Google and Microsoft stocks, but I do not care much about the financial gains, I would prefer to be proud of either or both of them.

Re: Is google losing their edge?

Broomball Participant — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:18:52 -0000

Absolutely, looooong way to go !
However, the question could be: did they start in that direction ?

Re: It always has to be the wrong way

Broomball Participant — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:29:25 -0000

I do not believe that cars and bikes can share the US roads safely. They are OFTEN too narrow and poorly design to server that purpose. They force the drivers to slam their breaks for slow bikes, or dangerously cross the divider to pass them. It not just all bad drivers or bad bikers fault [I see bicyclists running Stop signs and Red lights ALL THE TIME, like rules of the road do not apply].
Willamette Week had a good set of recommendations a few weeks ago. But I really liked what I saw in many West European cities. There simply the sidewalks are wider, so bikes and pedestrians can share them; there is a meter wide bike path and couple of meters wide pedestrian walkway. They are much more compatible, and they both safely can wait at the lights for the cars to pass on crossings. I realize that this may be not feasible in every place in town, but how often do you see pedestrians on Interstate? So, may be we could convert part of the sidewalk to a bike path instead,
Cheers, J

Re: I know where I’m going to be tomorrow…

Broomball Participant — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:19:11 -0000

Sounds neat, worth a try.
Very conveniently located just across the street from my daughter's high school...