I turned ours in a few weeks ago, and I recall being incredibly disappointed while filling it out. The Census asked how many people lived here. The Census asked if we were black or white. That’s it. The Census did not ask if we are employed, or what our household income is. They didn’t ask about our education level, and they didn’t ask if we had health care.

There was a great opportunity to collect some important data that would affect policy at the Local, State and Federal level. Yet, all they care about is population and race. Maybe instead of spending $144 million on advertising, they could have come up with a form that was more worthwhile.

They spent $144 million to figure out how many Representatives we get. Representatives that will never understand what we need, because they didn’t take the opportunity to ask. $144 million to figure out how much funding we get, funding that will never go to the right places in the right amounts, because they didn’t bother the gather the information that would fix that.

In the genealogy research I’ve done, I can say that they kept much more useful census records in the small villages of England back in 1820. No wonder they already have Universal health care.

This billboard is a lie, and a waste of money. The DOT uses electronic traffic counters when road planning. How would the census be even remotely helpful? It didn't ask how many cars we have, it didn't ask if we drive, or if we use public transportation. It should have asked, but it didn't.

Only the parties involved truly know if this was about disrespect or the licensing price not being right. One side says: “How silly, another stupid victory for political correctness – fine, let us forget your noble tribe and it’s plight in the 1800’s and today by removing your name.” The other side says “You were never honoring us with this name, we want to be remembered as the tribe of peace & love.”

As someone with quite a bit of Norwegian heritage, in a state where the pro football team (Minnesota Vikings) promotes my ancestors as barbarians who terrorized, pillaged, and generally kicked ass, I don’t get what all the fuss is about. But hey, at least everyone will be happy now. Except maybe the guys who have to pay to remove that huge marble inlayed Sioux logo in the Ralph Englestad arena.  Talk about setting the name in stone…

It was driven by,  you guessed it, a 75 year old woman.  It’s a Porsche for seniors, evidently.  Today’s auto industry baffles me more and more every day.

4 Door Porsche

Seems like we went from being impressed by things getting smaller, to impressed by things getting bigger. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I consider it a larger iPod Touch, while others consider it a small computer. Sure, it’s a cool device, it offers most of the features of my iPhone in a size more suited to reading, writing, and movie watching. But I cringe everytime I hear someone say it is going to replace the laptop computer. Here’s why I say that’s rediculous:

A) Multitasking – whatever your taste in OS is, whether it be Windows, Mac OS, Linux, those systems have spent years perfecting multitasking and file management for both business network users as well as home users. The iPad, while a user friendly device for simple computing, is a huge step back on these important features.

B) I cannot run any of my professional applications on it. It doesn’t have the computing power or multitasking flexibility for Adobe Creative Suite or any video or 3D modeling/animation software. Also, no matter how neat Apple’s word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation stuff is, there’s no way it will replace Microsoft Office in the average workplace. The iPad OS is just not suited to these types of business applications.

C) Even if it did have the computing power to run that stuff some day, I don’t like the idea of downloading the software from an App store. I want full access to the system and software I purchased. Its like getting a car and being told you aren’t allowed to open the hood. The dealer has to make all installations and upgrades. If you can’t open it, you don’t own it, I say.

D) The whole refusal to support Flash thing. This should be evidence to any power user that the iPad/iPhone platform is bad news. It’s not just about being a personal supporter/user/designer of Flash content, it’s about the principle of the whole thing. What if Steve Jobs decides he doesn’t like some other technology, is he going to just say that isn’t allowed on the device? As the owner and user of the device, I want the freedom to be able to use whatever technology I see fit. You can’t claim that the “possibilities are endless with the iPad” and then pick and choose what is possible on the device. Not to mention, Flash is still important, whether Steve Jobs believes it or not. A lot of popular websites use it. My son Maxwell will be very dissapointed that he can’t visit disney.com with his iPad.

The iPad definitely has a place in the business, but not as competition to the Personal Computer. If I were in the market for a book reader like the Kindle right now, the iPad would be my choice. If I were looking for a portable device for watching movies, I’d probably go with the iPad even though I still prefer having a physical Blu-Ray disc over a DRM-protected digital file.

It’s a cool device, but please don’t call it the laptop computer replacement. Because if this is the future of computers, I’m a little worried.

I went into the Doctor for a check-up last month and I somehow brought up the new baby and the resulting sleep deprivation. The Doc told me about a study that WCCO did several years ago in which they took a group of first trimester expectant parents and gave them an IQ test. A couple months after their babies were born, they gave them the IQ test again. Scores went down significantly in all participants because of the lack of sleep. I thought that was pretty funny, and it’s nice to have an excuse.

I’m starting to put up some photos on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmarson … if you’re connected with me on Facebook I have even more posted there. We recently took Max out to the World of Wheels car show in St Paul, and I’ve uploaded some pretty fun pictures to see from that.

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.
–San Francisco Examiner, John C. Dvorak, 19 Feb. 1984

There are two schools of thought, I suppose.  On one hand, you have folks like Dvorak; yet, on the other hand you have innovators like this:

“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.”
-Henry Ford

Where is John C. Dvorak now?  He’s still writing about computer technology for PC Magazine as well as some other places – on a typewriter, I assume.  I particularly enjoyed reading this story about his son buying a MacBook Pro.  Clearly, he’s still not an Apple guy.  However, it’s encouraging to read in the article that after 25 years, he’s finally able to admit that “all these whiz-bang features make me realize that I have fallen behind.”

Signing off now, from my mouseless iPhone …

• John C. Dvorak’s blog
• John C. Dvorak on Twitter
• More quotes from critics of the Macintosh from 25 years ago

Still working at the same joint, except we moved to a different building a couple miles further away.  It’s still close enough that I can avoid the freeways and just cruise up the less-crowded streets.  It’s no hour commute like the old days.   The exciting world of corporate marketing is about all that’s been going on for me in terms of work.  But hey, it’s work and we all know plenty of people out of work right now.

In other personal news, Liz and I are frantically preparing for the birth of our first child.  We’re having a baby boy this coming December (2009), and we’re naming him Maxwell Charles Marson, Max for short.  I think I might call him Maxwell even if everyone else calls him Max.  I suppose if he tells me off and tells me to stop calling him Maxwell, then maybe I’ll switch over to Max.  Or maybe I’ll get into the habit of calling him Max anyway, we’ll see what happens.  He decides, really.  Whatever he likes best.  I’ll understand, a long time ago I decided I hated the name Dusty which is a long story for another day.  I insisted to the world that I am Dustin and Dustin only. My track coach got away with calling me Dusty somehow, I guess I just never told him I didn’t like it.

I like the name Maxwell.  It was selected carefully, and with much thought.  It doesn’t seem to have some deep, profound meaning like some names and we didn’t really care about that sort of thing.  You know what I mean, you’ll go on some website or look in some book and see that Joshua means “rescued by God” or Andrew means “Warrior” and that sort of thing.  Nope, Maxwell is just a name.  This could be completely made up but some websites say that some guy named Mack had a well, so obviously people called it Mackswell, or something like that.  I guess it must have been a beautiful and inspiring well, as people started giving the name to their children.  And like all names, letters get removed and substituted.  Eventually that turns into Maxwell and Max, somehow.

Liz is concerned that he might not come out looking like a Max, or a Maxwell.  But what does a Maxwell look like?  What does a Maxwell look like as a baby?  I’m thinking that Maxwell will give the name his own identity.  His name isn’t the only word that describes him, after all.  I already know that his name is Maxwell, what I really want to know is what are all the other adjectives that will define him?

Some people don’t even find out the gender before the baby is born, and here I am going on and on about a name.  Some would say we’re counting our chickens before they hatch, I guess.  A lady who lives in our building had 8 kids, never knew the gender of any of them before they were born.  Now that’s patience.

I think naming your child before they are born it has it’s benefits.  Plus, just calling them “Baby” is so impersonal.  Anyway, I think that telling other people your baby’s name in advance gets out all the good and bad opinions and gives you time to argue it out without already having a birth certificate filled out.  I’ve found that family and friends enjoy pointing out you’ve picked the name that rhymes with something unfortunate, is already taken by a second cousin, or made the top 10 most often incarcerated men list for the last twenty years. Family will enjoy the opportunity to speculate about your future children – their future family members – and if they have a name it’s just so much more interesting.

It’s certainly been interesting – and getting more and more interesting every day.

Pontiac through the decades

You may have heard that GM is phasing out the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010. As my favorite car brand since I was a teenager, it’s sad to see it go. It’s hard to imagine the yearly Twin Cities Auto Show without checking out the new Pontiac models. I’m a former Pontiac driver, and “admirer” of the 60’s GTO’s and 70’s Trans Ams. I remember when I was 16, all I wanted was a new black Grand Am GTP.

Pontiac has been around since 1927. If a car company abandoning a brand with that much history isn’t enough of a sign that the American auto industry needs help, then I don’t know what is.

Here’s a stroll down memory lane featuring memorable Pontiac advertising campaigns from every decade dating back to the 50s. I’m sure at least one of these campaigns was memorable to you, I know all of them from the 80’s to today are for me. Who could forget the “driving excitement” jingles from the 80’s?

2000’s:

1990’s:

1980’s:

1970’s:

1960’s:

1950’s:

Here’s the cool intro, just how I remember it:

It’s stunning watching this and trying to comprehend how people did that kind of stuff without computers back then. I never thought about what kind of work must have gone into it at the time, but I can certainly appreciate it now. Below is a 10 minute documentary from the 80s on how they made the intro, and it’s really surprising to see the clever approaches they took to these projects without any computers at all:

And below is the modern, computer-animated version of the HBO intro. It’s more difficult to be impressed by an intro like this nowadays. We are so overwhelmed with having computer-generated effects in absolutely everything, that this stuff just doesn’t stand out the way that old intro did.