Tuesday, June 03, 2003

MicroProjector As cell phones and other small computation devices become more and more popular, some way of displaying this information is necessary. A cell phone today can reach out and access a very wide variety of information, but is limited with the tiny display it has to displaying a small subset. A MicroProjector has a folding, compacted screen. This screen unfolds with a support structure. The screen is only about a foot wide, 8 inches tall, and has the thickness of paper. A small wire or plastic frame maintains the structure of the screen; the wire frame is also collapsible. A project unit is attached to the wire frame such that the projector sits about a foot or two in front of the screen. The angle of the projection unit is low -- keystone correction is used. The user's PDA can be placed on top of projector and connected. The user then looks down at the display...small display/projector technology (using LED flash tech) then projects a video signal onto the screen. Conventional desktop resolution can then be achieved with a personal, lightweight, portable device. 7:55:43 PM    comment []

Executive Compensation. To Buckethead: Every conservative loves to think that the "liberals" (whatever they are) want everybody to have the same income. Horse poop. I make more than the average bear, and you do too, in all likelihood. What we''re annoyed about is the divergence, beyond all reason, between the rich and the poor. You have Joe Paycheck making 40k a year, doing task X in a corporation. Then you have the guy at the top making $25 million, while the shareholders are taking a bath. Market forces, you say. Bullshit, I say. You and I and the SEC and everybody else knows that there is an extremely cosy relationship that has evolved between Board Members and Corporate Officers. This is a "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" affair, and the shareholders (the frickin' OWNERS) are left out of it! Why? Total lack of ethics on the part of most boards. So what do we do about it? Simple...we need a law. Not a law that says that everybody needs to make the same thing. That's silly. What we do need is a simple law that says, you can't be compensated at ridiculous levels, to the detriment of your shareholders. Let's call it the Ebbers Compensation Law. I think a formula is appropriate. CC(max) = 5 * EC(average) + FACTOR*Dividend + FACTOR*Max(Market Cap Change, 0) where CC is CEO Compensation, or any other executive spot. EC is employee compensation. FACTOR is some numerical factor; I have no idea what this should be. Smart people could figure out a nice number. Here's the thing -- you make a FEDERAL LAW of this Formula. It applies universally in America. Good CEOs who raise the value of their companies, helping shareholders, increasing pay to their employees, can CLEAN UP under this Formula, as well they should! Bad CEOS won't find a "special home" with the "pet companies" of their frat buddy board members, where they can idle away their days destroying other people's lives, and saying "oh well" when it becomes obvious. 7:54:55 PM    comment []

And Now the Fish? Turns out that runoff from agriculture is wrecking the oceans, creating such unnatural wonders of the world like the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. I have just about had it with the farmers of this country. First of all, there is massive redistribution going to these folks. Hundreds of billions of dollars have gone to them. Second, they've pretty much managed to ruin a good deal of the land environment. Rerouting of rivers to supply irrigation to farmers has destroyed our rivers and our lakes all across the continent. That same rerouting has also destroyed many coastal fisheries, which depended on the fish being able to spawn (Salmon). So we traded away fishing jobs for agricultural jobs. Now we find out that huge chunks of the ocean are being killed by fertilizer runoff. When are we going to decide to stop subsidizing the food system? We don't need to compete in this area. Overproduction is the only problem. Consumer food prices have stayed high in spite of overproduction because of the oligopolies that are in effect in the food industry. Let's just stop the insanity of farm subsidies, and recognize that the "american farmer" we've been trying to save just isn't there any more. What price will we put on this? We're going to have to change how we fish the oceans; how many fishermen are going to lose their jobs? Imagine how many teachers we could pay; how many job retraining programs we could run, how much we could do for health care...if we had several hundred billion dollars back. And the sad part is...the vast majority of this money has gone straight into the pockets of the giant "middleman" corporations that control most means of food production in this country. It's plain old corporate welfare, disguised as "helping the farmer". It doesn't help them, and it doesn't help us. 7:54:13 PM    comment []