New Movie From All Out Productions- Allout

ALLOUT!

AllOut Productions has just launched the trailer for their new movie, fittingly entitled “Allout”. Featuring racing action from across the globe it will be an interesting and exciting look at the World Cups of 2009.

Allout is a documentation of the 2009 race season; it looks behind the scenes at several teams and a few riders in particular as they battle some of the toughest courses in the world, “as well as American shredders gettin’ greasy on their home soil.” It will be arriving on April 15th, premiering at Sea Otter and is being distributed internationally by VAS Entertainment.

AllOut Productions is a video production company based in Oakland, California. For more information check out their website!

I have never been let down by these guys. Every movie is well done and has its comedy tid bits. Not to mention those boys can rip! BRAAAAAAP.

Sara Palin, President Obama, Pelosi et al.

Sarah palin, WTF is this economic plan you propose? At a Teabagger rally she proposed “cut taxes so people, mom and pop businesses, can keep more of their hard-earned money and hire more people”  as a solution to the current economic crisis O rly? As it stands, 2 in 5 people in the US are not PAYING TAXES. So lets see…you have less people to tax, so you want to cut taxes on them, which would…hmmmm, DECREASE REVENUE!!!!!!!

Yup, you get an F for Econ 101 too. Don’t worry “Barrack Hussien Obama” gets one as well. Why is this so hard for her and beltway folks to understand? Econ 1 oh fuck 1.

A quick lesson:

Here is the equation at heart in order to have a balanced budget:

Revenue – Expenditures >= 0

Sarah, cutting taxes and spending money is equally as wrong as Obama’s plan to increase taxes and spend more money. In fact cutting taxes is part of how we got in this fucking mess in the first place. President Bush cut taxes, but he also increased spending. President Obama has increased taxes, but he also increased spending. You see, both you and President Obama are only half right. Increasing tax rates is really your only way to boost revenue either that or get more tax payers to tax. Decreasing taxes could contribute to increased revenue through consumer spending, ideally.  But where you are both wrong is that you need to do a combo of both. If you don’t decrease spending and increase tax, your problem will perpetuate.
” You cannot cut taxes with a $1.6 Trillion deficit, and expect to cut the deficit by cutting spending…unless you cut every bit of spending above $2.2 Trillion, which means cutting that deficit amount out completely, and even then, because of your tax cut, we would STILL have a deficit equaling the amount of money lost in tax revenues due to YOUR tax cut. ”

–http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/37821

YOU MUST STOP SPENDING. Don’t get me wrong. But under that system of cut taxes only the deficit will only continue to grow and grow exponentially higher every year.  Now, Ms. Palin to your credit you do want to decrease spending, that sounds great, and you should do it if you are elected. But what you cannot do is reduce the taxes you are collecting. I know it sucks, I hate paying taxes. Nothing like watching 35% of my paycheck disappear. Or worse, watching 35% of my paycheck disappear to a system that uses that cash in the most inefficient way possible. Of course this seems to be the case right now. But its necessary! And its also necessary to close the metaphoric drain our hard earned dollars seem to be vanishing in.

YOU MUST KEEP TAXES It is NOT possible to correct a budget deficit, balance the budget and pay off the national debt while introducing even more revenue cuts into the system. You are effectively biting the hand that feeds you by doing so.  Tax rates during the Reagan era were anywhere between 50-70% at the top tier.  Hmm it seems like every republican idolizes the hell out of him.  Was it because he was effective, was it because he cut taxes, was it because he was right to keep taxes at that level? Fed taxes in 2009 for the top tier, ~34%. hmmmm

YOU MUST OBEY THE CONSTITUTION.  The system works, it does.  Take all of the fraud/criminals/useless folk out and it will work efficiently. Let the free market work but do your job as government and regulate!

In closing budgets don’t work if you blow your spending budget.  Budgets equally fail it you don’t collect enough revenue. With increased taxes and new foundation, confidence of the citizens work hopefully opportunities will find their way back to America. But the political shit storm going on right now is certainly not going to take us anywhere, nor will it “Change” anything.  Give me hope, you keep the change.  Sarah, just leave. Please. Pretty please?

1-1 = 0 Honestly I’m surprised there isn’t an “app” for this. Oh wait, Excel?

***Disclaimer, this article does not take in bullshit perpetual spending clauses that some how exist in the world of economics our governments follow. These rules include increased spending without taking on debt, political agreements, etc. 1-1=0 that’s it.

I Did Something Very Stupid This Morning

This is my house plant “Steve”

Being a sunny day and all. I decided to take him outside and let him breathe and be a true plant outside.  Ya know, naturally photosynthesize.

…So I lifted him up.  In to this….

It was spinning.

Poor Steve

I still took him outside but to make matters worse, when I came home this afternoon he had fallen over on the balcony spilling his dirt everywhere.  I think he’s suicidal.

Sorry Steve.

Mr. President & Health Care Pt. 1

Mr. Obama,

I have been a hard critic of your administration. I will continue to be a hard critic of your administration. I do not associate myself as either rethuglican or spendocrat, I share mixed feelings with what you have done with your term thus far. Today however, my hat is off to you. Not specifically for the bill that you passed, but the adversity you faced to get it passed. The adversity im referring to is, politics, and all of the partisan bull shit associated with it. Mainly the fact that republicans cant stand you, and cant stand democrats in power. Anything that you would have written in that bill no matter how conservative would still be ill-favored and opposed entirely by the republicans. They plain and simple dont want YOU or your party to get the credit, and for that matter be successful. Not now, not ever.

You know how I know this? That bill you just passed was almost the same bill they, the republicans tried to pass back in 1994. Strikingly similar, except for all of the damn tax increases and $436 B for the uninsured, but thats another topic. In fact you included over 200 things in this bill that were originally the idea of a republican. Remember those things they were complaining about? Yeah? Most of them were the ideas of their own party. Those things they tried to scare us with, death panels, socialism etc. If you look at any other piece of legislation currently making its way through the Senate, you’ll find the same republican “I dont want to play with you” sentiment. Financial sector and bank reform is getting the same resistance that health care did. Tell me who in their right mind would oppose that? No one in America better be, republican or democrat. Surprise all of the republicans currently in office are opposed to it. Why, for no other reason other than, its you and your party of democrats that will be successful if that bill is. Regardless, none of this matters and you know it, you have control at least until November elections are over.

Back to you and this bill. Another thing that I found particularly awesome about the last year of effort is, you didnt stop listening to both sides of the floor for ideas. I find this not only be admirable, but the way it should have been done, the way it should be done, and should be highlighted in the media, your coming praise and critiques. I’m sure you will bring this up come election time in November as a joker card. Again the perseverence to get this done was amazing. No matter how long it took, you were going to do it. No matter who said what, you at least listened, (more than we can say for most politicians). No matter, how scary the republicans made it, you never lost focus of the light you perceived to be at the end of the tunnel. You maintained your course and you got it done. That is why you get my praise.

…But really in truly the republicans have no one else to blame but themselves. They had control of congress from 1994-2006 and couldnt get this done, another reason for all of the hate this time around. But over those years the problem continuously compounded on itself and the demand to fix it only increased. However, like a bunch of 5 year olds, it was your way or the high way with health care and now look what happened? It is a bipartisan, 2200 page, 1 trillion dollar ball of shit that, emerged from beneathe the metaphoric carpet yesterday, thanks to Obama and Co., not you. Thats right, bipartisan, that ball of shit is just as much your fault as it is democrats. This is both good and bad. There are plenty of things that are not so hot in that bill, but one of those things that will always be tied to that bill is that it was successful because of the Democrats.

No matter what side you take on Health Care Reform, you can no longer claim President Obama does not know how to lead. You republicans can sit there and try and appeal, continue to lie about it, continue the scare tactics, or create an even bigger mess of this, but at the end of the day, you are left with one thing, and its the one thing that drives all Republicans crazy; a democratic president, and a democratic president who has won the war. He just passed the “center piece” of his legislation, a health care reform effort that every President for the last one hundred years has attempted and failed. Do your best to swallow that, not only did he succeed, but he succeeded with a bill that was almost entirely your creation.

Dear Republicans,

As a concerned American, I ask that you please broaden your mindset. You dont have control, nor will you ever if you dont contribute. Scare tactics and refusing to cooperate do not work. Especially when the president has the majority in the house. In fact it is that mindset that probably will lead us to complete government take over, we all fear so much. Its time to work together for our own good. You are up against a president who, just yesterday proved that his determination and political know-how is much stronger than you as a party. A president that currently has all of the political muscle he needs, to do anything he wants. Its time to come together and create this “Change” we can all believe in. Dont fight his will, be a part of it.

k thx bye,

-JXH

P.S. Notice in this blog race was never mentioned? Race has nothing to do with this. It is soley politics, dem v. rep.

Be on the look out for another entry. Im still looking through the bill and its history, I have very mixed feelings so far.

BitOne.1

Its here! Audio gold is at my house.  Hopefully this is the last head unit I ever buy.

What does it do…

I should just take the rest of the day off. Its so nice outside and all I can think about is working on this project.

Is it time to short yet?

So health care passed.  During the first couple of years it will more than likely do way more harm than good.  It will certainly be something Obama will be remembered for good or bad.  Regardless,  there are several cases that this new health care bill brings to the table that postulate the destruction of the private health care industry.  For most this is undoubtedly bad news. For the opportunist this could be the chance of a lifetime.  The chance to short.   Short the health care stocks as the people swarm in masses to a public option, or as corporations drop more and more plans due to their new costs, or even as these insurance giants struggle to keep up with the new legislation, and cash goes from the pockets of citizens to the government instead of retailers .  This could be a very nice opportunity if this bill really does as much damage as people are speculating.  The more I think about it, the more I wish it was happening today, 7 hours after Obama signed the bill.   At the very least we should gather some stocks and add them to a bearish watch list. 

Not breaking any trading rules. Nor will I enter anything without technical indications, but this almost seems like a sure shot.  The question is when? Currently people are buying the hell out of the industry for some reason. To you people I say,  keep it up, you are adding more potential to this plan. 

Be on the look out for another blog post about the health care bill. I’m writing it as we speak, just finishing my homework first.

Planar Transducer Get My Vote For My Midrange, Here’s why

Mid-range frequencies are no where to skimp on. The mid-range  speaker produces the majority of the frequencies that our human hearing is most sensitive to.  The heart and soul of any great sounding system will have drivers that can admirably perform at mid-range frequencies.  Those being ~300hz-5000hz.   It just so happens that planar drivers shine at this frequency range.

A quick lesson.

Planar Transducer- A type of driver in which the diaphragms are flat (singe plane).

These are flat rectangular shaped drivers that radiate in a bipolar behavior.  Nestled inside the flat enclosure is a flexible membrane, with a voice coil woven through out the drivers surface (diaphragm).   The current in the voice coil interacts with the magnetic field surrounding the diaphram causing the membrane to vibrate, creating  a speaker.

The advantages of these drivers are that; when they move, all of the air they move is in phase, because it is all moving forward and backward in the same plane.   This is different from the more commonly found conical driver where  the diaphrams have some height or depth when they move, due to the geometry of a cone.  In turn when the conical driver moves, it compresses air over a distance, this compression corresponds to the cone height of the driver.  The compressing of the air by a driver is a behavior commonly referred to as “cone smear” – essentially a disruption in sonic energy.

Another major difference between conical drivers and planar drivers is simply how they are driven. Planar drivers are driven over their entire surface area, where a voice coil is woven throughout its flexible membrane,  making up the planar control surface. Conical speakers are typically driven from their perimeter through voice coils.  The walls of the conical diaphragm  will flex as the force of the voice coil act on the diaphragm.  In a planar driver everything is propelled uniformly, in sync across the drivers geometry.    Voice coils typically introduce something called “phase shift”  over the speakers operating range.  Phase shift is due to the inductance of the voice coil.  Planar drivers have virtually no induced no phase shift  by their drivers because they do not have cylindrical coils.

In summary, geometry, lack of  time smear, and minimal phase shift account for the majority of the purity or ” audible  image” planar speakers can provide. The rest lies in the dispersion pattern.

Planar speakers have radically different dispersion patterns from round speakers.  In particular their off axis response is phenomenal. It is wide and typically remains relatively flat across the desired frequency range.

This wide dispersion along with the  traits mentioned above in my opinion,  make the planar transducer a superior choice over a conical driver at mid-range frequencies. This is the main reason why I want to use them in my car audio application. In car audio, normally the enthusiast doesn’t have much of a choice as to where his/her speakers can be mounted,  unless they do some sort of major modifications, as speakers are rarely where the audiophile wants them to be.    In my case some  modifications will be necessary as well.  Due to the rectangular, flat shape of these speakers, I plan to mount them in the A pillars of my car at about drivers ear level.  I will feed them about 80-100 watts, cross them at 700 hz and 8khz.

The speaker I have selected for the job is the

Bohlender Graebener Neo8-PDR Planar Transducer

Dimensions: 7-7/8″ L x 3-1/2″ W x 1/2″ D

“The Neo8PDR does not have heavy voice coils, spiders, glue joints, paper cones and surrounds so there is virtually nothing between the electrical signal and the sound – just an almost weightless diaphragm. Hence these planar transducers do not have cone break-up resonance with associated distortion, phase incoherency or signal smearing that is common for conventional drivers. This allows the Neo8PDR to deliver clean, airy, transparent sound that is inherently natural and musically pleasing.”

-www.partsexpress.com

McLaren Goodness

Quite possibly the most bad ass website I’ve seen in a long time. A website of my favorite F1 team.

Look at the videos and turn it up!

“Oh you are sooooo cool…you and your droid”

Per request.

So not naming names, Jackie, I have been asked, why am I so cool with my droid? Why no love for the iPhone?

Its simple. Google. My life is on Google just like everyone else. Google took their internet based database empire and incorprated it all on a phone, thus creating the Android OS. They then took their brilliant software and made it all open source. Not only is it open source, but its not regulated and has a ton of developer support for the applications that run on it.

What is open source? In a nut shell, it is the exact opposite of Apple. No one regulating the apps, what the phone can and cant do, what is supported, no itunes, no restrictions. Open source means anyone can freely develop software for the OS. Bad ass.  Open source and minimal regulation is something apple will never be good at. EVER.  Its just how they roll.  To their credit they are getting better and better at it. 

Now to your credit, the iphone is pretty hot. Especially when loaded with all the games from the itunes store.  In “Apple World” it is my opinion that, you get what you pay for. And pay for it, you will. The same sort of logic applies to the Droid, sans the application costs.  On average 7/10 apple apps cost money vs 1/10 on the droid market.  It is also my opinion that more than half of the apps for the iphone are completely worthless.  Prime example would be Lintroller.  An app where you rub the phone on your clothes, the software then enders fake lint on the screen. From there you can color the lint any color you want.  Cost for this life changing software? $5 buster.  

Furthermore, if all you did was go to a store and play with the Droid at the kiosk, then you probably left disappointed. I did the first time I toyed with the Android OS, then I discovered the Android marketplace. Now my phone does everything I want and more. Honestly its only getting better by the day. Aside from the ergonomics of the phone, this is easily my favorite phone and electronic toy I have owned.

These apps should explain why:
Locale app – based on my gps location, my phone will mute it self, vibrate, or go to loud mode.
Smart vibrator app- I know what a message is based on how the phone vibrates. ( not really new to bb owners) except the droid lets you write your own “Profile Schemes”
KeyRing- all of my gym tags, shopper discount tags etc. All stored in the phone, I can scan the phone at the check out instead of my keys.
Google Finance, Options Express. Any trade I make, any alert I set, anything stock related. Im instantly updated. A must for the misplaced engineer who likes to day trade.

Fios Mobile and Fios Mobile Remote. Control my tv from my phone, set my DVR anywhere, pay bill etc, auto mutes ts when a phone call comes in.
GPS with turn by turn built into phone, perfect in the rental cars for work. Or someone who doesnt have GPS.
Fake a call- Boring meeting? Looks like you’ve gotta take a call, a fake one. Perfect for awkward situations.
Shop Savvy- Scan the bar code of any product, receive the lowest local price and location as well as the lowest internet price.
F1 app. Easily the most well thought out app I have ever seen. A must for anyone into F1.
Facebook app smokes the iPhones sorry ass excuse for a fb app. Apples tight regulations actually made the fb app creator quit his job. Everything works well on the droid app.
PDA Net- Tether droid to computer. Internet anywhere you have signal. Up to 2 Mb down.
Hell, I can remote desktop my pc, or take it even further and install Windows 7 on the phone.
Pandora, Slacker, Grooveshark. All on the iphone too. But the experience isnt the same.
Total spent for all of the apps listed above? $0.00. On top of this, I can move through any and all of these apps simultaneously if I wanted to.

Im also trying to develope my own app. I want to be able to remote start my car with my phone. It should be possible, with the right equipment. Its the software side of it thats slowing me down.

Of course all of this is on top of an already brilliant OS and the entire google suite. Google Talk, Finance, News, Contacts, Calendar, the works.

Im sure the iPhone has some of these apps but…whatever. I honestly forgot the iPhone existed since getting my Droid. Im just satisfied on every front. Ive had a couple of hardware issues but they are easily dwarfed by the experience when the phone  does work. I pay less for my droid than I did for my blackberry. I actually saved even more when I bundled my cell phone with my cable bill. I dont drop calls. I can use it on the DC metro underground! The battery lasts forever when you are not playing on the internet. Blah Blah Blah, I could go on but I think you get the point.  I am happy, and I got everything I want and more.

Things it doesnt have.
ATT- this is a good thing
No itunes, i hate itunes with a passion.

Talk + Data at the same time. 😦
Thinkorswim app 😦
Flight Control 😦
More google

In summary its just a phone, and a very cool one at that. But the droid still cant drink my beer and be social for me, it cant ski for me, cant do my job. It cant be me, but it makes me very efficient at what I do, and what I would like to.

Cheers 

Droooooiiiiiiidd

Market Forecast

My market commentary.

It seems like it has been nothing but positive as we continue to rally off of January’s lows. 8 day win streak for the Dow, and there are resistance breaking and support bounces galore throughout the market. Looking at the Fib retracements and current market trends, im estimating a possible move to DOW @ 11,000 in 9 weeks if this breakout holds. Bernanke continuing to destroy the dollar is bullish, the market forecast study at the bottom of the graph shows bullish traits, the only thing that is of concern is that there is hardly any volume backing this new high. But as the saying goes. “The market can remain irrational, longer than you can remain solvent.”

DOW

As for the S&P, well we broke the 1150 major resistance level on the S&P 500. This new high was confirmed by todays low on the $VIX. Looking at 1250 as a new 9 week possible target should the trend continue.

S&P 500

Russel 2000, bullish as the rest of them.

The Rut

The Nasdaq is continuing its trend upward. Lots of great tech stocks and semiconductors are making this index hot.

Semiconductors
Another very bullish index full of breakouts this week. Really liking the looks of LLTC and INTC. Great volume and great confirmed break outs are everywhere in this industry.

Semiconductors

Financial and Energry sector are on a tear. FAS is still making higher highs and higher lows. Bull flag is confirmed. Makes sense, FAS is an ETF that tracks the russel financial, which have also been on fire.

FAS

Short term trend ` 5 weeks: UP
Middle term 12 wks: Sideways
Long term 12 mo: UP

Stocks im watching: FAS, POT, LLTC, GMCR, IWM, UYP, BA, ERX

TREND IS UP. Volatility is low. Currently looking at positive vega postions in my portfolio to take advantage of a possibile volatility spike. Mainly april-may calendars and diagonals.

Remember to follow your rules, Jon! Sometimes you have to lose money to make money.

Have a good one.