San Francisco Pics

As promised, I've sorted through our TONS of pictures from San Francisco, and put the best ones up on Flickr. Here is a very small selection... Please take a look at the whole collection, if you love SF as much as we do. :)

Coming Soon: SF Stuff

Yo, folks. We're back (a day late) from San Francisco. Soon I'll be posting two things:

1. A selection of great photos.
2. Recommended places and services, based on great experiences we had.

Stay tuned!

Off to San Francisco

Suzy and I are off to San Francisco tonight. I might post a few pictures while we're there, but for sure I'll have stuff to post by the time we get back! Hasta! :D

Scarlet A

Let's Regulate Bubble Wrap, Too!

I work at a UPS Store. My store's franchise owner was recently commanded to appear before a special session of the United States Congress. There, he was grilled by a congressman. A portion of the transcript follows:

Congressman: Sir, you have been summoned before this special session to resolve a troubling matter. Is it true that your store raised the retail price of shipping boxes and bubble wrap by an average of 15% last year?

Franchise Owner: That is correct.

Congressman: Would it be correct to say that our national economy is struggling, and the average consumer already faces the heavy burden of existing prices?

Franchise Owner: Yes. However, we are also struggling to some extent -- with a difficult economy, retail stores usually face a drop in customer count. To be able to cover operating expenses, the cost of supplies, and payroll for my employees, price increases are sometimes necessary.

Congressman: I see. And yet, despite the "difficult" economy, as you call it, you gave one of your employees a $1 per hour raise and instituted an incentive program to offer bonuses to high-performing staff.

Okay, you've probably guessed that the owner of my little UPS Store was not summoned before congress. But looking at this fictionalized exchange, does it not strike you as a bit ridiculous? I can't think of any good reason why the government would have any business demanding answers to questions about my store's pricing, or how bonuses or pay raises are handled. I'm sure you'd agree that it's really none of the government's business how we price things or how employees are paid. If prices are too high, customers will go elsewhere, and we'll be forced to lower prices or suffer from the loss of revenue. Similarly, if employees are treated or compensated poorly, they may leave. The market has a way of working these things out and punishing business leaders who make poor decisions.

And yet, so many people who read this (and so many people I know) think that the above conversation (and government intervention) is completely justified when it comes to things like health insurance. In a just society, there would be no difference between insurance companies and my company when it comes to government meddling -- namely, the government has no place asking about prices or raises or bonuses in any business, much less demanding answers or demanding compliance to arbitrary regulations to make "the people" feel good.

On NPR tonight, they were talking about Anthem Blue Cross in California, and the large rate increases. Nevermind the logic that says if the number of paying customers drops, the overall rate for remaining customers will probably increase to pick up the slack. Logic is not allowed in this kind of discussion, apparently. But there were a couple of points in the news coverage that pissed me off:

• The government demanding answers and "grilling" executives from Anthem Blue Cross. What the %$@# business is it of the federal government? If the premium prices really are too high, then Anthem Blue Cross will either correct the prices or lose customers to a cheaper competitor, and/or go out of business. Problem solved, no government meddling necessary. Of course, everyone conveniently ignores the fact that if the government hadn't regulated health insurance in the first place, there would be more competition and these premium hikes would likely not occur. Regardless, government has exactly ZERO business in investigating, much less dictating, the price for any product provided by any industry. Zero.
• The government goons saying, in effect, "WELLLLLLLLLLLL, you gave some executives $1 billion bonuses last year, didn't you?" Again, government, none of your freaking business. If a company wants to give bonuses for good performance, or even give bonuses for being able to balance a pencil on top of one's head, that is their business. Nobody has the right to tell a company what to do with their money. If they give huge bonuses and it screws up their pricing for customers -- too bad! Now the company gets to face those consequences by losing customers, or losing money, or having to trim payroll, etc. Saying that any company has an obligation to keep prices low, regardless of what the company wants to do with its own money... That is socialist bullcrap.
• NPR quoted some lady saying, "If I sent a letter to my customers telling them I was raising my prices by 39%, I'd likely be out of a job." Hey lady, the great thing is that your business is not regulated by the government. You have the freedom to make the business decision of raising your price by 39%, or not. You have the freedom to make bad decisions that may put you out of business. If you decide to raise your price by 39%, or 390%, you can do that! Nobody -- not I, nor Uncle Sam -- can tell you not to. If we tried, you would rightly tell us to shove it. And yet if it's health care, suddenly it is everybody's right to stick our collective noses into how a company prices its product. This logic is just couching socialist ideals in fake concern for the success of the company in question. "Oh, don't do that! You might run yourself out of business!" What that actually translates to is, "We've decided we have a fundamental right to the fruits of your labors, and you no longer get to run your business freely."

Of course the reason this all occurs is because the sheep in this country have decided that we all have rights to nouns and things, rather than rights to freedoms of action. Here's the dirty thing nobody wants to hear and few people want to say, but I will say: nobody (not even YOU) has any right to health insurance or any other product or service. I say this as a person who does not have health insurance and cannot afford it. Neither you nor I have a right to health insurance, or to water, or to food, or anything else. If we want those things, we have to pay for them. If we can't afford them, then we either have to go without or we have to find some way to get the money. I can't afford a Lexus, but the government isn't going to give me one of those -- why is health insurance different? Why doesn't the government go investigate the high prices of Lexus cars? They're just begging for regulation, those guys.

Now you may say that the difference is, health care is required for a healthy life, but a Lexus is not. Fine. But food is also required for a healthy life, and I don't see the government investigating Whole Foods for charging $1.50 for an apple, while Wal-Mart charges something like $0.49. They don't demand Trader Joe's justify charging $3.49 for a bottle of orange juice when Kroger sells some brands for $1.99. In food, there is a much freer market with supply-and-demand forces in play. If prices are too high and the product value or quality is not there to justify them, people go elsewhere and the offending businesses will naturally lose money or be forced to change their business models.

If the government had kept its paws off of health care all these decades, we would have a similarly broad range of choice and competition as we enjoy with the other "necessities" of life: food, employment, education (not always a good example because of government regulation, but still not as eff'ed up as health care), etc.

When will people learn that the more government "oversees" and "regulates" any business, the more it ultimately hurts us all? It doesn't look promising so far.

The Last Supper

Opera May Steal Me Back

Way back in the day, Opera was my main browser of choice. Having abandoned Windows in 1998 and adopted Linux full-time, the browsing scene was a bit dark and dreary. Prior to Opera releasing a stable version for Linux, the only viable choice was Netscape Navigator 4.x, with its hideous interface, horrible speed (or lack of it), clunky appearance, and proprietary garbage out the wazoo. Opera, by comparison, was speedy, rather good-looking, and loaded with great features like tabs, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and mouse gestures.

With the release of Phoenix (which became Firebird, and which then became Firefox), I gradually shifted away from Opera. As Firefox became more stable and offered a big playground of extensions and themes, Opera started to look a bit tired and old -- not to mention that it was (and still is) closed source, which I've never been a big fan of, philosophically.

In the years since, Firefox has held a pretty solid grasp on my browsing. I've dabbled in Opera, Safari, and Chrome off and on, but I usually end up going back to Firefox. It's been showing its age in the last couple of years, but its virtually flawless compatibility and open development have usually won me over.

That may change very soon.

For the last couple of months, I've been playing with the very early pre-alpha builds of Opera 10.5 for Linux. They've been very bleeding-edge so far -- more than a few crashes, some wonky site compatibility issues, and a bizarre tendency to peg my computer's CPU even when Opera is not actively doing anything.

With today's release of Opera 10.5 alpha for Linux (and the beta for Windows, which will soon come to Linux), I've seen massive improvement. Gone is the CPU-hogging inefficiency, gone are many of the crashes I encountered before. In place of those things is speed, speed, speed and all the customization glory I've always loved about Opera.

Opera 10.5 may be the release that finally steals me back from Firefox, after these many years. I love to see the browser wars heating up again! With years of stagnation and boredom behind us, the excitement of competition and new features is back!

Whether you're on Linux or Windows, I highly recommend downloading Opera 10.5 and checking it out.