Max is working on a major project for school right now on makers of wooden, stringed instruments known as luthiers. Part of the assignment includes researching his subject and conducting interviews with at least two experts, one of which has to be in person. For the past six months Max has been teaching himself to play the ukelele and learned about Gary Zimnicki on an online discussion forum.

Max contacted Gary who was gracious enough to meet and discuss his vocation. I drove Max over to Gary's home in Allen Park where he spent 90 minutes showing us his workshop and explain how he constructs guitars, mandolins, ukeleles and other instruments. Gary has been building instruments since he was in college in the mid-1970s and has produced some 300 units since then, each one uniquely hand-crafted to the needs of his clients. He produces about 12-15 instruments a year and they are absolutely gorgeous to look at and listen to.

After Max is done with his report, I'll share it here on G+. I want to thank Gary for taking the time to talk with Max. Check out the album from our visit and check out Gary's site http://www.zimnicki.com/index.html.

In album Gary Zimnicki, Luthier (20 photos)

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Molly Erdman does a fantastic Elizabeth Warren impersonation and finally shows the backbone that real politicians seem to completely lack. In 2 minutes and 27 seconds, she tells more truth than a typical politico does in an entire lifetime.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Too cool! Remote-controlled octocopter + Red Epic for amazing footage you can't get any other way.

Embedded Link

German video effects company builds camera drone for the Red Epic
Engadget

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Reshared post from +Jason Calacanis

Sometime humor is the best medicine huh?

CUPERTINO, CA—Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his shit together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part, adding that Jobs will be remembered both for the life-changing products he created and for the fact that he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen. "This is a dark time for our country, because the reality is none of the 300 million or so Americans who remain can actually get anything done or make things happen. Those days are over." Obama added that if anyone could fill the void left by Jobs it would probably be himself, but said that at this point he honestly doesn’t have the slightest notion what he’s doing anymore.

Embedded Link

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Steve Jobs was perhaps one of the greatest leaders of our time when he finally succumbed to health issues that began with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer several years ago.

Jobs was not an inventor, engineer or even a designer. However, he had an incredible ability to recognize great ideas and talents and then refine them to a level that made them tremendously appealing to a mass audience.

Jobs didn't invent the personal computer, digital animated movie, portable digital music player, smartphone or tablet. Every one of those items was produced by someone else first. But until he and the designers, artists and engineers he gathered around him imprinted his personal design aesthetic on those devices they were strictly niche items for geeks.

Computers were around for decades before Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple. There were even some "personal" computers before the Apple I. But Jobs and Wozniak made computer technology totally accessible to ordinary humans.

Similarly at Pixar, Jobs worked with John Lasseter and the rest of the team to take state of the art digital rendering and meld it with amazing story telling.

Companies like Creative and Diamond had built portable MP3 players prior to the September 2001 introduction of the iPod but they were either too limited in capacity or too clunky to use. Jobs brought Apple's software and hardware engineering talent together with the design chops of Jonathan Ive to create a device with simple controls and an intuitive user interface that would dominate its market segment for a decade.

The first touch-screen phone based on the Palm OS debuted in 1998 and it was followed by various Treos and Windows Mobile phones for the next nine years. It wasn't until 2007 that Jobs and his team created a much more refined and intuitive interpretation that has transformed mobile communications. Today, that design philosophy has infiltrated everything from phones to tablets infotainment systems in cars.

Throughout all of this, he always kept his eye on the horizon. Rather than go for short term revenue gains by cutting prices to maximize volume so that Wall St would be happy, he made sure that Apple created great products and provided outstanding customer service. The result is dedicated customer base that keeps coming back for more and is willing to pay premium prices. Apple is now the most profitable technology company in the world, with the highest market capitalization, despite having only a small sliver of the overall computer market.

Jobs rarely did anything first, but he had the vision to recognize what could actually be useful to people in their everyday lives and bring together the right people to make it reality. Jobs influence extends far beyond the personal computer to communications, transportation and entertainment.

This was all achieved through amazing leadership and thinking differently.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

I'd suggest that we should all boycott companies like Intellectual Ventures for suing Motorola. But wait IV doesn't actually make or sell anything at all. It's entire business model is based on buying up huge quantities of patents (some 30,000 at last count) and then pursuing companies that actually make stuff and employ people for royalty payments. This wouldn't be a problem if the parents were legitimate, but as we know most software patents are so vague and broad as to be meaningless. Even the recent patent reform bill is unlikely to make any difference.

Maybe we should just boycott Nathan Myrvold's oversized and overpriced cook book

http://allthingsd.com/20111006/intellectual-ventures-joins-the-mobile-patent-war-suing-motorola-mobility/

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

When the original iPhone appeared January 2007, it took mobile phones to a whole new level.

With today's introduction of the iPhone 4S, Apple has moved into mature maintenance mode. In many ways the iPhone remains the most refined mobile platform available. It is stable and runs smoothly almost all the time and probably has the best battery management of any phone.

But it's no longer particularly innovative. The screen is on the small end of contemporary smartphones. Dual-core processors are rapidly becoming common place. Most of the new features in iOS5 are lifted straight from other platforms including both WebOS and Android. The new notification system is straight out of the Google platform. The new voice control technology was developed outside of Apple by Siri (a company bought by Apple two years ago) and similar capabilities have existed on Android for the past year and a half. Even the find my friends capability is a knockoff of Foursquare and Latitude.

The iPhone 4S is a very nice device, but there is nothing there that would compel me to switch from Android.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

As usual listening to politicians and pundits opine on taxes is a totally meaningless exercise. One of the most oft repeated messages of late has been "The Top 10% of American income earners pay 70% of the income taxes." While this statement is no doubt accurate, it doesn't mean anything in an of itself. The reason this group pays what appears to be a disproportionate share of taxes is because they get a disproportionate share of the income.

As recently as 2007, the top 10% of income earners accounted for 50% of all the income. In a progressive tax system the top earners should be paying a somewhat larger proportion of their income which accounts for the 50% vs 70% shares.

However, the story doesn't end there. When you start to look at those top earners, you'll find that an ever larger portion of their intake comes not from salaries, but from investments which are taxed as capital gains. Long-term (assets held for more than 12 months) capital gains are currently taxed at just 15% for those in the 25% income tax bracket and above. That means that the people most likely to have a significant proportion of their income from capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than those in the middle class that typically have little or no capital gains.

Again using data from 2007, just before the bottom fell out of the housing market (destroying the net worth of a huge proportion of Americans), those same top 10% of Americans accounted for over 73% of the net worth. As a result of the recession and the unemployment that has come with it, that share has undoubtedly been skewed even more toward the top end.

Given that the top 10% of Americans account for such a large proportion of both income and overall wealth, the fact that they pay 70% percent of income taxes at least fair (from the perspective of the rich at least) and in fact if we really intend to have a progressive (or even fair) tax system. That's before you even factor in payroll taxes. One of the richest people in the world is Warren Buffet and even he acknowledges that in part because of the cap on payroll taxes, he pays only 17.4% of his income in taxes http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html That's half or less of the rate that most of the people in his office pay.

As the old statistician's line goes "tell me which side of the argument you are on and I will give you the statistics to prove that you are right." Any time that a conservative complains about being over-taxed, odds are they are lying.

Embedded Link

It's the Inequality, Stupid
Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Whether we do it in a coordinated, predictable fashion or a random ad-hoc manner we all (by which I mean society as a whole) end up paying for the health care system. Ron Paul and others on the far right of the political spectrum are vehemently opposed to any kind of single payer health insurance strategy and like to tell us that people should be free to choose whether to buy health insurance. They also like to remind us even the uninsured still get health care.

Unfortunately, that care doesn't just drop out of the sky for free. Somewhere, somehow, we will pay for it. When a hospital takes in a seriously ill or injured patient that has no insurance, the cost of that treatment gets passed along to those that can pay. Medicines and supplies are not free and doctors, nurses, and technicians need to get paid.

When Kent Snyder died at age 49 in 2008 after raising $35 million for Ron Paul's first run for the White House, he left behind $400,000 in unpaid medical bills after an illness of just a couple of weeks. You and I ultimately have to pay to cover those costs through higher premiums and copays.

Unless we as a society are prepared to turn away those who can't or won't pay for care or insurance, we need to make fundamental changes. Many of those in attendance at the most recent GOP presidential debate apparently would choose to "Let Him Die!" I'm not one of those people and I firmly believe that we need both a single payer system that covers everyone and we need to take the profit motive out of health care.

Embedded Link

Ron Paul's Campaign Manager Died of Pneumonia, Penniless and Uninsured
At CNN's Tea Party-indulging debate on Monday, Ron Paul, a medical doctor, faced a pointed line of questioning from Wolf Blitzer regarding the case of an uninsured young man who suddenly found himself…

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

I'm inclined to think that unless the crowd is at the Ice Hotel in Sweden, ambient room temperature will probably be higher

Reshared post from +Harry McCracken

The cumulative IQ in a crowd scene on Keeping Up With the Kardashians may or may not exceed ambient room temperature.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.