49ers in Santa Clara

A measure in support of a new stadium for the 49ers in Santa Clara is going on our June ballot. There are groups against this activity. It is always easier for opposition to confuse issues in the minds of people. They are trying to do that here with rather silly points. One argument I've seen used against the stadium is that it would require more police on the day of the 49er games. Umm, of course it will. This is job creation and good for the economy!

Another thing I don't understand is the statement that projects like this shouldn't use public funds. This never made sense to me. This is America, right? Investment is the American way! If we expect to have financial gain, we should be willing to put some cash up as an investment.

The proposed stadium location is within a mile of my house (walking distance). It's near 3 freeways and right next to a mass transit station. It's going to create 2650 game day jobs and bring in an estimated $249 million dollars a year once it is built. Millions of money from taxes will be available for local programs.

If the stadium is truly state of the art, it will likely be chosen by the NFL as the sight for future Super Bowls. Just one Super Bowl in Santa Clara could bring much more money and prestige.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to just getting this dang thang built by the 2014 goal.

Avatar now highest grossing movie ever? No.

I got a chance to meet James Cameron this week. I told him I liked Dark Angel, while I was having my photo taken with him. There, you can see me saying out of the corner of my mouth.

I do love Avatar. I've seen it once in AMC's fake IMAX theater in 3D. I want to see it again soon. This week, it has become the highest grossing film of all time in terms of actual dollars. However, it is not even close to being the highest inflation adjusted grossing film of all time. Right now, Avatar is #21 and Titanic is #6. Adjusted for inflation, the highest grossing film of all time is actually Gone with the Wind currently at over $1.5 billion, followed by Star Wars at $1.3 billion in today's money. These numbers are well over double Avatar's earnings of $603 million.

Though it doesn't benefit me at all, I am rooting for Avatar to approach those numbers. If Cameron can keep the magic of this new franchise alive, the rumors are that this movie is the first of a trilogy. My hope for any sequels is to not allow familiarity with the characters to interfere with making two more great films. Star Wars balanced this fairly well with its first sequel, Empire Strikes Back, but lost much of its magic since. Here's to the hope of continued high quality entertainment from James Cameron!

Ballot initiative for 49ers Santa Clara stadium

With an estimated 7060 valid signatures, the ballot measure to support the building of a 68,500 seat modern stadium in Santa Clara may likely be added to the June 2010 ballot, according to a letter from Registrar's Office to the Santa Clara Clerk's Office. With this little bit of news, the effort for the new stadium moves ever closer to being successful.

Now, it should be noted that if the ballot measure happens to be rejected by the voters of Slara Clara city, that may not necessarily end the move to build the stadium. The bureaucratic process to get approval for the stadium seems to be a mostly city hall affair. The ballot measure is just meant to reinforce efforts (assuming it is approved).

Tuesday Two: Quantum Motions

Tuesday Two

Here's motion control that doesn't require bright lights, tons of balls, or expensive high speed cameras. Instead, it uses a relatively inexpensive pulsating projector with sensors that record movement patterns at 500 times a second.

Keep those rubidium atoms separated in your quantum computer by using polarized light! Your qubits won't be the same! No longer will they interfere with each other, causing screwy quantum calculations. Quantumfy with assurance!

Epoch-Fail

Apple has had fairly high representation in the as of yet short life of the Epoch-Fail awards. Do I hate Apple? Not at all. They just make themselves such an easy target. Epoch-Fail award again goes to the iPhone 3GS for having what some claim to be broken encryption that will not be able to protect sensitive data.

Star Trek: The Exhibition at The Tech in San Jose, CA

Star Trek: The Exhibition is currently travelling around the country, presumably before Star Trek: The Experience reopens at its new home Neonopolis Mall later this year. The Exhibition is a seriously scaled back version of the The Experience, without the live actors, large scale stories in the form of rides and adventures. It's pretty much just a museum style display of some of the more common Star Trek vintage items.


They have this scale "authentic replica" of the Enterprise in the first main hall, along with displays giving mundane details about the various Star Trek series and movies. There are also display cases with phasers, tribbles, tricorders, etc.

The Guardian of Forever greeted me. I have no memory of any events that may have occurred as I walked through the gate. Hmmm, I wonder what adventures I had.

49er's Stadium: What does Cedar Fair really want?

Perhaps there is some legitimate concern for proper bureaucratic process over at Cedar Fair, owners of California's Great American theme park. Why else would they file a lawsuit against the City of Santa Clara complaining about how paperwork was recently handled in the process to approve the new 49ers stadium? (Santa Clara County Superior Court Case number 109CV158836.) Well, maybe they seek to take advantage of the delicate phase in the planning of the new stadium?

Given the lack of enthusiasm for the new stadium previously expressed by Cedar Fair, I'm guessing this is more of a ploy to legally extort conditions and concessions from the City of Santa Clara. Cedar Fair may feel it needs more money from the city simply because the new stadium site is a direct neighbor to the theme park. Here's the funny part. Even though Cedar Fair does own Great American, the City of Santa Clara actually owns the land upon which Great America rests. The City of Santa Clara is the landlord to Cedar Fair. Santa Clara has already bent over backwards to make Cedar Fair feel at home. Cedar Fair now seems to be abusing their position as our guest and interfering in our business. Is there a San Francisco connection, as SF City Hall tries to buy yet even more time in their uber-pathetic effort to keep the 49er's in San Francisco? They've already had over 1.5 decades to do something.

Frankly, there could also be a Sac connection, since some big names in our state and even the Federal government are against the 49er's moving to another city in the Bay Area. Again, there is another funny part to this. If the 49er's do not find a new home in the Bay Area, they have suggested that the will leave the area completely. So, all this effort to pin the 49er's down in San Francisco could backfire by slingshotting our team to another state altogether! How embarrassing would that be?

And now a new wrinkle. Cedar Fair was just bought by a private firm that has yet to comment on their position. My hope is that they do not interfere with local economic endeavors, and instead help boost the local economy by supporting the new 49ers stadium.

Blossom Hill Road drive

Blossom Hill Road is a fairly long street that cuts through several areas of southern Santa Clara Valley. Usually, people see only one short stretch of the street, but I'm guessing most have rarely seen its entire length at one time nor in parts. Besides that, when seen in parts, it's not a particular interesting street. Most of it is fairly straight. However, when driving its entire length at one time, it is actually very interesting. It ends at Freeway 101, crosses Freeway 85, cuts through south San Jose and Almaden, goes up the green and slightly overgrown Blossom Hill (from which its name comes) and starts up just north of Downtown Los Gatos. Quite a strange mix of sights.


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Tuesday Two: City bruizin'

Tuesday Two

The eco-friendly Gocycle is a hybrid electric bike that weighs a mere 16.2 kg due to its special composite material. This folding bike is designed for city living. It converts from human power (peddle power!) to electric with the push of a button. Will it save the world from eventual doom? Only time will tell.

I know whenever I here the word "Nanotube", my ears perk up. Imagine how excited I am to see a recent article about vibrated nanotubes used to filter water so well that anything larger than a water molecule is removed! Imagine how fresh and tasty such pure water would be. Wait...technically, humans cannot taste water, right?

Epoch-Fail

So far, Epoch-Fail awards have gone to particular unsuccessful ventures. Today, I'm handing an Epoch-Fail award to something that does seem to be successful. Why? Because I dislike the trend. This week's Epoch-Fail award goes to every city council that is banning plastic bags from the grocery stores! Aren't we destroying enough trees? Need we bring back the stone age paper bag and pretend it is from a renewable resource; when the reality is that the resource is not being renewed? Sure, plastic clog our bogs, and choke our rivers, but hey, they are more reusable than paper bags! And what of reusable canvas bags? Heh. Guess what. You have to buy them. They get very unsanitary very quickly. Wanna guess how many patrons are not washing them regularly? There are reasons behind our strict food handling guidelines, and canvas bags now represent a very weak link in food safety.

Snow in the SF Bay Area?

It snowed over night in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is not competely uncommon. The hills around Silicon Valley often see snow during winter. However, this is just about as low as I've ever seen the "snow cap". In fact, it did even snow in Livermore, CA (which is not exactly at a higher elevation).

Hiller Aviation Museum

I recently had a chance to visit the Hiller Aviation Museum. It's an interesting place. The museum is housed within a former industrial building.

In the main entrance hall, the visitor can view a sizable restoration shop with its menagerie of old equipment and tools. The shop is bigger than some machine shops. There are also many scaled airplane models dangling from the ceiling. Let's not forget the rather sizable souvenir shop. Yes, I bought the t-shirt. :)

The main viewing room is the entire right side of the building. It houses many full scale and scaled air machines, with some original airplanes mixed with replicas. Where there's space to fill, you'll find an airplane or parts thereof.

One of the more interesting facts promoted at this museum is that there where successful attempts at powered flight long before the Wright Brothers. The Herman Avitor Jr. (or just Avitor) was powered by a 1-hp steam engine that drove twin propellers. It was was the first successfully flown heavier-than-air aircraft to employ a three-axis control system. It was built in San Francisco, CA. In 1869 it took flight near the modern day SF Int'l Airport. Sometime after its first flight, the contraption was destroyed when it caught fire.

Another interesting exhibit was the Pepsi Skywriter, used by Pepsi to promote their product for a few decades starting in the late 1920's. I'm not sure if this is a replica, but it is interesting to see the old Pepsi logo and figure how long ago companies where using inventive new marketing techniques to promote their products.