Author Archives: Brenda Bell

Scalability Rules: 50 Principals For Scaling Web Sites

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Scalability Rules: 50 Principals For Scaling Web Sites
When I went to the post office to pick up the package, my first impression was that Amazon had mistakenly sent me an empty box. After quickly thumbing through the pages, I was starting to feel pretty good about not having spent the usual amount of cash I typically fork over for a good technical resource. Much to my surprise, I could not have been more wrong. The moral of the story is that you can’t judge a book by its size or price.Continue reading→

Steny Hoyer has an idiot moment?

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According to the New York Times, Steny Hoyer (Democratic majority leader from Maryland) was quoted as having said:

Today, Republicans blocked an extension of unemployment insurance for thousands of families who have lost jobs through no fault of their own.

The measure required a two-thirds majority to pass in the U. S. House of Representatives (290 of 435). The vote was 154 in favor, 258 against (23 absent or not voting). Assuming that all 180 Republicans were present and voted against the extension:

  • At least 78 Democrats (30% of the majority party) also voted against it.
  • At least 30% of the Representatives who voted against the bill were Democrats.

They were 136 votes short. Even if 70% of the Republicans had voted for the measure, it still would have lost by 10 votes.

If Hoyer did indeed make this statement, then I think he either can’t add or he thinks the rest of us are really stupid.

References:

The Great American Debate-Out: Energy

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We’re addicted to foreign oil. We’re addicted to oil from any source. We’re addicted to fossil fuels. When we break our addiction, we not only solve the energy problem, but we solve part of the deficit problem and part of the terrorism problem and part of the economy problem.

It’s your inalienable right to drive a gas-guzzling SUV. It is not your inalienable right to pay $1.22 a gallon for gas. It’s your inalienable right to use incandescent bulbs. It’s not your inalienable right to pay $0.02 per kilowatt hour for electricity.

The first step in solving any problem is to admit we have a problem. We need to cop to our fossil fuel addiction in order to break it. It’s hard to hear that, and hard to do that. But it’s our responsibility as Citizens of this Great Country.

Now I know some people are genuine in their belief that we need to “drill, baby drill!” But I ask you to consider this:

In 1966 a Mustang with a 200 V6 got 120 HP and 15 MPG. In 2010 a Mustang with a 227 V6 gets 305 HP and 31 MPG. One of the big reasons is “direct injection,” a certain type of fuel injection. This technology was invented in… 1925. And it was available on aircraft in 1940 and high-end production vehicles in 1955. But it’s been trickling down into general production only in the past 5 years. That’s 50 years of stagnation. Now what could possibly be the excuse for that?

Competition drives efficiency and innovation. When you don’t have competition, you don’t get efficiency or innovation. When you have industry leaders that “game the system,” instead of donating some Old-Fashioned, All-America Elbow Grease, what you get is junk.

Again government can do some, in the way of tax exceptions that motivate the right behavior. But let’s face it, this is again a place where we need our industry leaders to re-pledge their national allegiances. And if they won’t, again, let’s yank them off their toilets. We have to take back our economic freedom.

The next time some politician tells you we don’t need better national MPG standards, tell him that you totally and thoroughly agree. Tell him, what we need is for Corporatists like him to go back under the rock where they came from.