YouTube – Seth Godin on making your small business indispensable.

A recent Op-Ed in the NYTImes- Start-Ups, Not Bailouts made me smile(go read it now). I get so frustrated as of late listening to politics back home. The conversation so often sounds like the American people are hopeless and not able to do anything for themselves. That companies who fail mean the world will end. Bullshit. Entrepreneurs can be the change we need to address  the problems of today.

I have a friend who once told me when Northwest was about to go bust for the hundredth time, “Let ‘em”. Contrary to all those people around us saying that if we did the economy would suffer and jobs would be lost. He just laughed at this. He theory and one which I now ascribe to is that when a vacuum is created by one company failing, others will spring up from it’s roots and faster than you might expect!

I think he’s right. The bank bailout, what a joke. I know many say that we had to do it, but in the end if we hadn’t bailed them out, we would have saved ourselves the trouble of doing it later on. Culling the herd one might say. The sick and infected companies, ones who’s inner-workings are corrupt with management structures that have more in common with cancerous growths than with good business practices, will be quickly replaced by a new generation of talent and ideas. They need to be cut out before they spread. Yes we may be a bit sore while  the wound heals, and we may have a scar left, but hopefully that will serve as a reminder to future generations. Don’t let the fact that the healing process maybe painful and take awhile stop us from curing the problem now.

Government is becoming a joke in the US. Recently while watching Robin Williams standup he suggested that congressmen wear jackets like in NASCAR with all the logos of companies who fund them. Great for a laugh, but it would seriously be a huge step towards fixing the government corruption. Maybe we need to cull the herd of Congressmen? What if we took a year and started from scratch. Could be fun to see what happened!

Anyways, back to my original point: We need to invest in the little guys, and when I say we, not the big banks, but you and me. We’re the ones without deep pockets, but we have the numbers. What if there was a KIVA for startups, or a micro lending scheme to help people set up new ventures, and test new models for business. I think it would be interesting, might even work. (there probably already is one)

All I know now though is that the system is broke in the US, and most people rather complain about it than actually try to fix it. Maybe voting doesn’t work because our congressmen have become unable to do anything without the cancerous companies helping them along. Which if true just means we need to dig in and do it ourselves. There has to be another way.

The thing though that scares me most is that we are currently putting money towards holding up broken institutions, and not to the things that actually make society stronger. Education, the only thing that can truly make a society stronger is getting beat up even further. America is becoming a joke around the world for education, health care, and public services. And sadly it’s only getting worse. Everyone complains about government, and big corporations, but they do nothing to change it. People like Bill O’Riely and Keith Olberman whine nightly about what is wrong, but from what I can tell, never do anything other than whine, and breed contempt.

Whiners get no where, and usually end up losing. At least that’s what I remember from grade school.

It’s time to stop ignoring the problem and start investing in the solution: Entrepreneurs and the Education system that will create more of them

’nuff said

New Mac was nice, loved it for a month. Then it broke. New hard drive later and life was better for 12 hrs. Now it’s broke again. Monday I will drop it off to be looked at for a full diagnostic and repair. Let’s hope they can fix it, or better yet, give me a new one. I thought Macs were supposed to “just work”. Guess not. Should I move back to a PC, or maybe over to Linux? Who knows…I like the machine.

Hence this has set me back. Hard to get focused when you don’t know which machine your going to be using from day to day. You need to know your machine. You need to have a place to mark the wall, leave a sign that you were there. Without that, it’s hard to work. Rather, it’s hard to communicate. You need a home.

Life is all over, new phone, broken computer, visitors, stuff and travel.

I need stable, if just a for a little bit.

Then again, I do live in Spain.

Fountains in Barcelona from ryan opaz on Vimeo.

Up on Montjuic every night you can enjoy a display of fountains set to music. I saw it for the first time last night, and I have to say it’s amazing!

A visit from relatives was the impetus for our first visit to the famous Montjuic dancing fountains. Glad we did. Set to music these were beyond amazing. Not to mention a nice hypnotic device to let your mind clear and refresh. I changed the music due to bad audio on the video, but you still get the picture. Enjoy.

There’s a tool called Tiltshiftmaker online that let’s you fake Tilt-Shift photography. I would love to play with a real lens sometime but for now I’m happy to have the chance to fake it. I do want to know though the optic science behind why a simple blurring suddenly makes object appear to be toy like. Odd, and yet so magical. Oh and make sure to click on the photo to get the full effect.

La MoDa Mix Tapes.

I’m tired of LastFM, Blip, Pandora, Spotify and all the others…this site does what we used to do back in the day: Mix tapes for friends. The new sites, while fun, just don’t have that authentic mix tape feel with odd combinations being the best part of most! Generally funky, electronic with an eclectic vein that runs from here to there. Most of the mixes are downloadable, and the songs are great. Check it out…