I have a very close friend (who shall go unnammed) that seems to admire Fidel Castro. Well my friend, I came across this post at IBD editorials about Cuba’s 50 years of failure, and I just had to share it!

Spare us the fireworks and media-parroted claims of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship bringing universal health care and education to Cuba. The real story is that a prosperous Cuba was turned into ruins in just five decades.

Its inflation-adjusted gross domestic product is a mere 5% of what it was in 1958, the year before Castro took over, according to Jorge Salazar-Carillo of Florida International University.

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Here is a special treat for you guys. Last week I got the opportunity to take Cali and Neal from GeekBrief.TV to visit the old Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Dallas, they brought their cameras so everyone could tag along. Why were we there, you may ask? Well, the Layered Tech datacenter in Dallas is located in the very building that was the old Federal Reserve Bank, which is now designated as a City of Dallas historic landmark.

The seven-story building was originally completed in 1921 to house the United States Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The Beaux Arts-style limestone building established Dallas as a center for economic development in the Southwest prior to World War I. The Bank significantly expanded and modernized the property in 1959. Its distinctive architectural style and detailing led the city of Dallas to designate the building a historic landmark in 1979.
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I know that UPS and FedEx are rivals, but this is getting ridiculous!

Bill Maher seems to be following in Michael Moore’s footsteps by putting out a movie called Religulous. This film, which I’m certain will prove to be extremely divisive, makes the case that the most dangerous force on earth is religion.

Maher’s ultimate message is simple: Abandon religion… or we’ll all die.

In the clip that follows, Maher lays out the foundation of this statement. Here are a few choice quotes which I believe pretty much sum things up:

• “If one believes that the world is going to come to an end, does it not drain one’s motivation to improve life while we’re here?”
• “Religion must die for man to live.”
• “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.”
• “Those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders.”
• “Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings, who don’t have all the answers, to think they do.”
• “The only attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.”
• “The solace and comfort that religion brings you, actually comes at a terrible price.”

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m in the shower it seems like I’m always coming up with good ideas - or at least thinking of things that I need to do. The problem is, I’ll think of five things… but by the time I’m done I can only remember two!

Well, I was watching a show with some divers in it when one wrote on a notepad to communicate with another and it hit me! That is how we can make notes in the shower! So, I ordered a large underwater dive slate from Amazon and gave it a try. Guess what… it’s perfect!

You can just use a normal pencil and eraser on the pad, which works out very nicely. I would also advise purchasing a small suction cup with a hook on it so that you can attach it to your shower wall and leave it hanging there.

So if you have this same problem, now you’ve got a solution for under $10. Enjoy! Oh, and please let me know how it works out for you if you actually buy one…

It pains me to share this, mainly because I don’t think anyone really wants to see themselves on video. But we launched a new video blog over at Layered Tech (where we do dedicated server hosting), and this is the very first episode. So if nothing else, I’ll share it for posterity.

The initial video primarily focuses on cloud computing, and gives a few industry updates as well as addresses some of LT’s cloud computing news. If anyone enjoys these shows we’ll keep em’ going. Otherwise, we’ll kill them off. You decide!
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Now this is funny. As you guys know, I’m pretty technical. In fact I happen to know that a lot of people read my blog to pick up little tidbits of technical advice here and there. Like which camera to buy, reviews of gadgets, and perhaps the occasional discussion on blogging or Web Development. But I have friends who are so crazy technical that sometimes even I can’t follow them! Elie Khoury (my partner from Woopra) is one of them…

Right now those of you who think of me as a neophyte can head on over to PushingPixels.com and read the interview with Elie in which he talks about the development of the Woopra client. Which even I learned he used something called Swing to develop. (And all this time I just thought it was Java!) And for the rest of you, if you want to read something that you’ll never understand, head on over and see what really smart people talk about when you leave them alone at a party.

I guess this German Shepard was offended by the “No Dog Allowed” sign?

Chris Bliss is a comedian and a juggler who has appeared on The Tonight Show and even opened for Michael Jackson on his Victory Tour.

Watching this guy juggle is a competitive sport. Just try keeping an eye on all the balls he’s got in the air and it will make you wonder how he even moves that quickly much less throws and catches things without a single miss.
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Why is it that people always climb the management ladder only to crap on the little guy?

Leave it to the Brits to properly report on US news. According to the Independant, California will run out of money in February.

The State of California will run out of money within two months, forcing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to start settling bills and paying employees by issuing “IOU” notes, his chief financial officer has revealed….

Unless taxes can be raised, or spending reined in, millions of public-sector employees and private contractors face having their salaries paid in “registered warrants,” a piece of paper which the Governor will promise to exchange for cash as soon as he is able.

The effective bankruptcy of an entire state is unprecedented in American history, even during the Great Depression. Yet despite California’s standing as one of the most prosperous regions of the wealthiest nation on earth, its Governor seems powerless to stave off disaster.

So-called “direct democracy,” through which small interest groups can enact laws by making them the subject of an electoral “proposition” or ballot measure that attracts more than 50 per cent of the vote, has severely limited his ability to manage finances.

Property taxes, the mainstay of any state’s income, have been frozen for many homeowners since a proposition was passed in the late 1970s. A separate measure, introduced in the 1980s, means that income taxes cannot be raised without the agreement of two-thirds of the state’s lawmakers.

Meanwhile, a raft of other ballot measures control spending, meaning that only 25 per cent of California’s spending is considered “discretionary”. The rest has been “earmarked” for a particular cause or project….

So to summarize:

• The state is OUT of money.
• They are not allowed to raise income taxes.
• They are not allowed to raise property taxes.
• No one is willing to stop spending!

Well, I guess we’re all about to learn what happens when a state goes bankrupt! As if we couldn’t already learn that from the History channel when every major global power eventually gave up the ghost because they were broke.

California is about to lose it’s place as one of the world’s great super-states. Yee-haw for Texas!

Ok. Here is a question for you. Are the balls between the black squares in the image black, or white? Or maybe they are gray? Hmmm.