Vox Populi

"What's that?"

"What?"

"That."

"You mean this?"

"Yeah."

"It's called a newspaper."

"A what?"

"A newspaper. Haven't you ever seen a newspaper before?"

"I dunno...Hey, did you see the speech?"

"Yeah, I saw it."

"Pretty historic, huh? Man, after that speech I don't even want to hear what that old guy's gonna say. I mean, I don't need to hear it. You know what I mean?"

"Are you new or something? Man, that guy's just feeding us the same old bullshit that they all do. Saying how he's gonna do this and do that, and they don't ever do none of it. Like if he's elected President he's gonna cure cancer or turn sewer water into gasoline or something. I can't believe you bought into that shit."

"No way, man. This guy's different. He's gonna be our first black President."

"So?"

"So? What are you talking about? You don't think a black man can be President?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yeah you did. You're a racist, man, that's what you are."

"Screw you, man. I didn't say anything about a black man can't be President. You're the one talking about race."

"You don't think a black man can be President?"

"Sure he can, but that don't mean he's gonna be a good President just because he's black."

"Yeah, right, whatever man. I know who I'm voting for. That old guy wants to start a nuclear war and throw poor people out in the street, talking like it's not the government's problem. Well then who's problem is it, huh?"

"Since when did you start caring about politics? You never even voted before."

"Well this time it's different. I got to get involved, you know. The people have got to rise up and take action. It's our time, you know...Hey, I think I saw one of those things before."

"What? You mean a newspaper?"

"Yeah, over at my grandma's house. She had one of those. I can't remember what she used it for, though. I think she used to wrap fish in it or something."

"You never read a newspaper before."

"Nah, c'mon. That's old people stuff. Let me see it."

"Sure."

"How does it work?"

"It doesn't 'work', you just read it."

"You just read it? Are you serious? How are you supposed to post comments or links or things like that?"

"You just read it."

"That's some messed up shit, man. You know what I like to do? I like to read something then go down into the comments and post something like 'You suck' or something like that. Man, it pisses 'em off when you do stuff like that."

"Well, you just read a newspaper."

"That's messed up."

"Don't you care what's happening in the world?"

"Yeah, I care. I follow the news, but I don't read boring crap like this newspaper thingy. I read about the things I care about, you know?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno, cool stuff, you know. Like that guy who put a Bic lighter in his microwave and the thing exploded and burned his house down. Did you read about that? What a dumbshit."

"That's what you care about?"

"No, I read about Iraq and stuff like that. How the government's sending people over there to die just so Dick Cheney and his oil friends can get rich. I know what's going on."

"Oh really? But how do you know it's true?"

"Give me a break. What? Do you think we're really over there to fight terrorists when there weren't even any terrorists over there till we arrived."

"No, I mean if you pick and choose only the news that you want to read then how do you know that what you're reading is true? If you're only interested in hearing the same old sermon, then how do you know that the preacher isn't lying?"

"I know when something's bullshit or not, ok? Just because I don't read newspapers that doesn't mean I'm stupid. And besides, I don't get all my news from the internet. I watch TV and things like that."

"No, it doesn't make you stupid - it makes you narrow. You said it yourself. You don't even want to hear what the other guy's gonna say."

"I already know what he's gonna say. I'm not gonna waste my time watching that crap."

"Did you see those May Day parades they had in Moscow?"

"What?"

"I think it was on Youtube."

"So what?"

"Russia's been making lots of money lately on account of all this oil and natural gas they've got and you know what they've been doing with that money? They've been rearming. That parade was pretty impressive. Tanks, missile launchers, troops - all kinds of stuff. When I was watching that speech for some reason I just started to think about that."

"So you're saying if Obama gets elected then the Russians are going to come over here and kick our ass? That's a bunch of bull."

"No, I'm saying that everybody is saying that Obama is the next JFK, so, ok. JFK was young and inexperienced and when he was elected a lot of people around the world percieved him as being weak. That's a big reason why Khruschev built those missile bases in Cuba. The Russians wanted to test JFK and they were pretty sure that if push came to shove he would back down. He didn't, of course, but you gotta think the Russians are looking at Obama and wondering what he'd do in the same situation. I mean, you don't build a huge military machine just to look pretty in the May Day parade."

"What the hell are you talking about. Who the hell is Khruschev?"

"I'm not saying it would be one way or the other. I just think it would be ironic that if confronted by the Russians, maybe this time it would be the U.S. that would back down. Maybe pull our missles out of Poland or something like that. It'll probably never happen, but...I don't know."

"Yeah, well maybe if that old guy gets elected then he'll back down too."

"No, I don't think so. I mean his wife's over in Georgia right now. Sure, it's all for 'humanitarian' purposes, but it's also pretty in your face. The Russians know how McCain would react. I guess that's why Western Europe is so gung-ho for Obama. The last thing they want is a confrontation with the East or another Cold War."

"A 'what' war? So what if Obama backs down, we're better off making friends than enemies. No more of this Iraq shit, or maybe you think we should just blow each other up."

"It's all just hypothetical."

"Here, you can have this back."

"Don't you want to finish reading it?"

"Yeah right. I can't believe people actually used to read these things. What a dumb idea. Why waste a bunch of trees when you can just post it online?"

"These things won't be around much longer anyways, so I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty soon they'll be in museums in little glass cases with signs next to them explaning to people what they were. Kind of sad really."

"Kind of dumb if you ask me. It' not even Web 1.0. No video, no audio, no comments - what can you get from one of these that you can't get online."

"The stuff you don't want to know about."

"I gotta go. We've got a couple of the VC's coming in after lunch and I've got to show 'em how wisely we're using all that seed money they gave us. It's a pain but they're pretty cool about it. I'll see you later."

"Sure you don't want to take this with you?"

"No thanks. Ah hell, why not. I was thinking about swinging by the fish market after work anyway. It might come in handy."

"I got to be going too. Shoot me an email and let me know how the meeting went."

"Will do, and try not to worry too much about the Russians invading Poland or something, ok?"

"And don't go sticking your lighter in the microwave. See 'ya."

Just Another Cheap Thrill

Now that they've finally captured Bigfoot, there are really only a few great mysteries left to ponder - who are we, where did we come from, and, of course, what kind of crazy scoring system are they using for those Olympic boxing matches. Five judges sitting around pressing little buttons, and if they don't press 'em then you don't score. Talk about a system just asking to be abused (not that anyone would ever accuse boxing officials of dirty dealings). It's so bad that I heard one of the announcers wonder if it would be possible for one boxer to knock the other one out and still not score a point.

In Olympic boxing, believe me, it's possible.

But let's not worry about that now. What's done is done. I thought instead what I'd like to do is take a few moments to talk about this video camera I bought. This has absolutely nothing to do with boxing, of course, but it is something to blog about.

First, just let me say that I'm no "tech expert". In fact, even though a lot of people call themselves "tech experts" I'll bet that there are maybe only a dozen or so people in the world who really fit the description. Just because the local news anchor says "and now for a report on this new whiz-bang electronic wonder, here's our tech expert Johnny Kool with all the details", that doesn't mean Johnny's really an expert.

As far as I'm concerned, people who do reviews or reports on new products aren't "experts", they're "consultants". That is, they have some knowledge about something or some experience on how to do something and they're here to pass that knowledge on to others. Some might call them "teachers", but I think of them more as "consultants". Either way they certainly aren't "experts".

So like I said, I'm no "tech expert", but I can tell you a little about this thing from Oregon Scientific called the "ATC3k" - a video camera I bought which has the singular distinction of being (a) waterproof and (b) shock resistant and (c) extremely cheap (like me). I bought the camera so I could record some of my bike rides, and it comes with lots of different mounting options for the helmet, wrist and handlebars. That's the good part.

The bad part is the wobble. I've searched around the web and read all kinds of explanations for it, but for whatever reason the video you get from this camera has a serious case of the wobbles. Some say it's the shutter, some say it's the CCD's, some say it's the compression algorithm done inside the camera, but all agree the camera simply can't handle fast moving objects. I never expected to get Hollywood quality video from a cheap little camera like this, but I certainly wasn't prepared for the wobble.

To show you what I'm talking about I'm posting this video of one of my recent rides. The video has been heavily compressed for the web so the picture quality isn't actually as bad as you see here, but even as poor as it looks you still can't miss the wobble as it ripples its way up and down the screen.

I also muted the video so you don't have to listen to that annoying wind noise you get from in-camera microphones. An option to attach an external mike that could be shielded from the wind would be nice, but you're not going to find that in this price range. The usual procedure for on-bike video is to mute the sound and add some background music, so that's what I've done.

Please take a look and see what you think. I'm no tech expert but I'd say that this camera sucks.



Sunday Ride from Tony Myers on Vimeo.