Oct
22
I’ve really grappled with my choice for President this time around (it seems like the election has entered my life a lot earlier than in previous election years). It has come down to either Mitt Romney or Ron Paul for me. I write this post to work through my thoughts, and hopefully others grappling the same issues will find these comments and help in choosing the next president.
Right now, my vote is for Ron Paul, and I’ll explain why. This post will be on reasons I’m for and against Romney.
Romney seems like he could really curb spending. He pulled it off at the Winter Olympics and as Governor, why couldn’t he do it again? I really, really like this about Romney. Running a company, I really would like to see a President who measures the need for government spending more like the need for spending when running a business. Our country needs to cut waste.
I don’t think that Romney is dishonest or inconsistent on the issue of abortion. It’s difficult to understand that with a cursory look at his change on abortion. As a Mormon, his seeming contradiction on abortion makes complete sense to me. I’ve studied his words before and after and completely understand where he’s coming from. He personally believes that abortion is wrong except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. He doesn’t want to rule out abortion for everyone because he wants women in the above situations to have the choice. His decision to move the pro-life route was as a result of seeing how far the pro-choice legislation had gone. This just makes sense. Sounds like someone who doesn’t want to impose his belief system on others but wants to protect the babies’ lives as well.
The flop on same sex issues bothers me a little more, but not to the point of deciding against him.
Although I really like Mitt Romney and what he did for the state of Utah, I’ve recently watch a few videos produced by him that really turn me off. First, a high-school like play on partisan politics and second a video that makes it sound like Romney is wanting to chase down the Jihadists. I want to talk about that one a little more.
I don’t think we will win chasing the terrorists. As I said before, I’m a Mormon, and in our faith, there is often comparison between terrorism of our day and Gadianton Robbers of ancient America. I’ve studied the Book of Mormon and the parallels to our time are overwhelming. The problem I have with chasing the Jihadists in their hiding places, is that when you chase them, they are going to come back stronger and they are right here with us in our government.
There are so many indications that similar things are occurring in our time with 9/11 and going after the Jihadists. From the historical perspective that this book of scripture gives me, there are two ways to win this war, preach to them or fight the battle, together, on our own turf. Different times, I know, but I think there is something we can learn from the lessons of how people dealt with the Gaddianton Robbers a few thousand years ago.
Dinner call. I’ve got to go get something to eat with my family, but I’ll post on the great things I’ve seen in Ron Paul soon. Most of my feelings come down to one point, I believe in Freedom over security and Ron Paul shares that value like no other politician I’ve seen in recent years.
Sep
20
Create Space from Amazon Wants LuLu’s Business
Filed Under Business Ideas, Resources, Principles, etc.
Well, I always knew they would and they’ve finally done it. Amazon has really stepped up to duplicate our friends at Lulu – it’s called Create Space and they’re going head to head. I created an account and it felt like I was on LuLu.com with different colors. DVDs, CDs, books and near identical offerings as LuLu.
Unlike LuLu, they’re even offering the ISBN numbers and submission services for free.
SelfPublishing.com has a good article analyzing the move. The article is focused on Author House buying iUniverse, but that news isn’t nearly as interesting as his discussion on Amazon’s move. Author House is just the link between the old world and the new, and, as far as I can see, their subsidy publishing business model has a limited shelf-life and reach. The do-it-yourself model will overshadow subsidy publishing as tools become better and the authors more technically savvy. I’m interested in seeing how Lulu approaches this new challenge coming from Amazon.
The weakness I see in the Create Space site is the lack of community tools for content creators to help each other. This is one of LuLu’s strengths. I suspect that Amazon considers the showcase a traffic driver to the website and that the rest of the community will be built around their books in their Amazon.com store. Still, there is a need for the community to help in the creation process when it’s expected to be do-it-yourself. That or the company needs to charge for doing the service like Author House does.
Amazon, generally, does well with their products…it’ll be fun to see how this self publishing space plays out.
Sep
19
Stop Spam, Read Books, reCaptcha
Filed Under Ideas and Thoughts, Technology
I think I’ve come across the most innovative idea I’ve seen in a long time…doing something good while eliminating SPAM.
reCAPTCHA is a project of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and is stopping my comment SPAM while digitizing books that will be available at the Internet Archive. Very, very cool. I wish I would have thought of it. 
I sent them an email to ask who will own the digital indexes they are creating of these books. I suspect it won’t matter as long as it’s freely available on the Internet Archive.
I’m positive there will be many more “enhance the world” ideas that come out of the Internet age.
UPDATED: The folks gave me back a response within an hour.
| from |  |
reCAPTCHA Support <support@recaptcha.net> | ||||||
| to | |
Neal Harmon | ||||||
| date | Sep 19, 2007 11:02 AM | |||||||
| subject | Re: Rights | |||||||
Hi,
When we put books through the reCAPTCHA process, we make the results available under the same terms as the original version of the work in question.
– Hide quoted text –
On 9/19/07, Neal Harmon wrote:
So,
I’m curious because the information didn’t seem readily available on your website. Who owns the text and indexes after people decipher them? Will they be owned and openly available at the Internet Archive?
— Neal
Jul
10
Credit Card Fees – Where do they come from?
Filed Under Education and Love for Learning, Entrepreneurship
As a merchant and a customer, the credit card industry has been a difficult one for me to understand, but as a merchant, a necessary evil, and as a customer, a convenient and safe way to purchase. I recently read a clear explanation of where credit card fees come from by Braintree Financial. Thanks for the write up!
May
18
Keeping and reviewing my personal journal has always reminded me of miracles that have occurred in my life. It also helps me reflect on my day or week and make a course correction when I find myself off-track. It means a great deal to me and is the last THING I’d ever want to loose or have destroyed.
As the mainstream Internet began to get off the ground in the mid nineties, I felt very nervous about storing personal information on the web, especially my journal. Although I’ve kept a blog for over three years, and my personal information represents the first half of results for “Neal Harmon” in Google, Yahoo and MSN, I’ve been reticent to keep my personal journal online for the following reasons:
- I hate reading on the computer (I can’t wait for Iliad or Sony Reader to support a web-browser. I’ve been waiting for years for somebody to create a screen that doesn’t emit light.)
- Privacy. What if the government successfully forced FamilyLearn to release journaling information? (not that I have anything to hide…it’s just my journal is personal) Of course we’d fight it, but it could happen.
- My journal goes everywhere with me and doesn’t require batteries.
I’m not alone. As Jeffrey conducted a survey for pyxlin with almost 600 students at BYU and folks over at Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we discovered that 48 percent of these folks still write their personal journals by hand.
However, I realized that hand-written journals have the following significant downsides:
- They can be destroyed or lost very easily (37 percent of our survey said it has happened to them).
- No search. It’s hard to find the journal entry when I “proposed,” thumbing through multiple journals and hundreds of pages.
- It’s tough to make a copy to pass on to my kids.
- I chew on pens pretty bad every time I get my hands on one.
- It takes sooo much longer to write by hand than type.
- I can’t include photos very easily.
- I’m not sure my posterity would be able to find a translator for my chicken scratches.
About a year ago, for me, the benefits of the online version began to out-weigh the costs and I began keeping my personal journal online. Particularly because our company’s test product, pyxlin, allows me to do everything I love about the web (search, redundant protection, photos, etc), while cuddling up to a book when I’m sharing the proposal journal entry again with my wife (it allows you to print a beautiful hardbound book).
The only remaining risk for me is the government and I’ve decided they be bored by my journals. If you keep a journal by hand, they’ll have to supoena you and enter your home to get it. That is if you’re spouse, or sibling or anybody else in your family doesn’t stumble upon it first.
During our testing phase, you’d have a hardtime tearing me away from pyxlin. It’s become part of my life. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too as soon as you’re ready to make the switch from hand-written.
Apr
22
U.S. Marketing Genius Behind Toothpick – Charles Forster
Filed Under Education and Love for Learning, Entrepreneurship
I’ve always loved Dick Eastman‘s newsletter and I invited him to dinner last Thursday when I was in Boston. He took me to the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the U.S.
Besides great food and a great evening, I learned from Dick and from a document at the restaurant that Charles Forster from Maine was the first U.S. citizen to manufacture toothpicks. To jumpstart business, he hired Harvard Law Students to eat at the Union Oyster House (the “in” place to eat in Boston) and ask for a toothpick. When the restaurant admitted they didn’t have toothpicks, the Harvard boys were instructed to make a scene about it. After 5 or 6 Harvard boys complaining about the lack of toothpicks, the Union Oyster House placed an order. Apparently, when the oldest restaurant in town carried toothpicks, the rest of the restaurants in Boston followed suite. From Boston, toothpicks spread throughout the country. Nice marketing idea.
Apr
22
U.S.S. Constitution
Filed Under Education and Love for Learning
I fulfilled a life-long dream of boarding the U.S.S. Constitution. I built a scale model of the ship when I was young and I’ve always wanted to visit it. The Navy launches the ship about 8 times per year. They have a raffle for those who get to launch with her. I’m going to enter the raffle until I get to ride that beautiful ship.
Interesting facts given by the tour guide:
- 500+ crew.
- 9-11 sailors needed for operating each gun.
- 44 guns.
- Originally called the U.S.F. (United States Frigate) because of the number of guns on the ship.
- All ships today are U.S.S. (United States Ship) because there are so many different sizes and combinations of guns today.
- Oldest commissioned Naval vessel in the world.
- Had 33 engagements during its day. Never lost one.
- Rudder weighs 5,000 pounds.
- Masts have been replaced 4 times.
- The ship was originally commissioned to protect young America’s merchant fleet which found itself unprotected by the Royal fleet following the Revolutionary War.
I can’t believe I didn’t have a camera when I was there. It gives me an excuse to go back.
Apr
17
I’d like to hear Seth Godin speak in Utah. If entrepreneurship or marketing or sales interests you, I’d recommend participating in this. $50 means you hear Seth speak, have a book and four books to give as gifts. Not a bad deal. Good idea Seth.
Mar
28
Light-based Internet?
Filed Under Technology
I’ve often commented to others… “doesn’t it seem strange that we have bandwidth limits? Surely there will be an invention in the future that makes bandwidth a non-issue.” Paul said to me, “maybe that will happen when things become light-based rather than electron based.”
IBM claims that has happened. The full name of the chipset is the “160Gb/s, 16-channel, full-duplex, single-chip CMOS optical transceiver.”
This means 1 second instead of 30 minutes to download an HD video.
Jan
27
Thanks Prayatna for pointing out GalleyCat’s article. I know the publishing industry is undergoing fundamental changes right now and this article states that A major U.S. distributor Advanced Marketing Services is filing chapter 11 bankruptcy with over 132 million in debts to the largest U.S. publishers.
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