the trickels

Ever just not know what to pack when going on vacation? What should I bring? Don’t forget this. Don’t forget that. And then when you finally go on vacation you forgot something super important and it puts a hamper on the whole trip. Well that definitely happens to me. I guess it’s because I wait to pack until the last second. Kind of the price you pay I guess. Since I don’t have the time to have that second wind to remember stuff I just end up forgetting it. Until that new GM makes the amazing teleporting car I guess I will just have to make a list.

So Lem from bunny-comic.com had a very interesting post the other day.

The hidden text on this post is “tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito” which is latin. It’s from the poet Virgil and means “Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.”

He was actually inspired to write this because of a post from XKCD. He basically uses legos as a metaphor for people. When they are taken down to their individual parts they don’t mean anything. So shouldn’t the parts do some good? The XKCD post is kind of a pro-organ donor blip.

Lem got inspired by this. He took from it that we should make every moment of life worth while. Fear nothing and be fantastic. That seems like a very silly motto but I like it. It says so much. Don’t be scared to move forward in your life. Don’t be afraid to do things you haven’t done before. And when you decide to do these things, do them with all the effort you can muster. Be fantastic.

I find it interesting to come across old writings. I recently discovered some stuff that I posted on fictionpress.com. It’s very interesting to see yourself evolve as a person through what you’ve written. I’ve linked to my page there under the Writings button to the left. I would recommend caution in reading a couple of the short stories though…

I have, again, spent a large amount of time away from my blog. This time I actually have something interesting to talk about.

Today General Motors has come out of bankruptcy in record time. Only 40 days after they filed for Chapter 11 they are back out again. The new GM will have have only the major brands: Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac. The new GM is also free of much of its former crushing debt. They are ready to be a leaner meaner company that will be profitable again. Good thing right? Well…there are some other numbers involved…

Guess who owns the new GM? The good old US of A. The only reason why GM was able to get out of bankruptcy so fast was because of backing from the US government.

This is something unprecedented in US history but, hell, we already did it with a couple of other financial companies. We might as well own a car company too right?

The US Government, in fact, financed GM’s road out of bankruptcy and will end up giving them about $50 Billion. The entire reasoning behind this was that it would save American jobs lost by a GM failure. At the end of 2008, GM employed about 91,000 people. In the new leaner GM they will cut about 27,000 jobs. This will leave a grand total of 64,000 jobs that were saved. I don’t mean to insult anyone with simple math, but taxpayers have just spent $781,250 per job that was saved!

Workers at GM make an average of about 40,000 per year. Let’s be generous to the government and say all those people fall into the 15% tax bracket. Let us also assume that inflation stays at an average of 3%. If you treat it like a no interest loan, it will take about 53 years before those 64,000 jobs pay back the loan in tax revenue!

I will be 75 years old by then. These guys better start making some good cars…

I, like many other people, am a rather large fan of the Star Trek series. The original series that I got into was The Next Generation. For a TV series it had pretty amazing writing and acting. I guess that’s why they were able to make a few good movies with those actors. The Next Generation Star Trek cast was not the only ones that I liked though. I am definitely also a fan of the original series and movies. The Wrath of Khan is still one of my favorite Star Trek movies.

All that said. The new Star Trek movie has brought new life into the series. I think the creators of this movie really thought about how to make it appeal to a whole new audience. I found that the movie gave homage to the original but still became a new being.

The opening sequence is by far one of the more dramatic that I’ve seen. You are immediately brought into the story and care about the characters. This is pretty rare for a movie to accomplish in the first 10 minutes. I don’t want to give more away about the storyline for those who haven’t seen it yet. I would definitely recommend this movie. I have already seen it twice and will probably see it again.