Idea of the day: Crowd funding government projects

I posted a simple question on Facebook this week, and it developed into a possible solution to the current economy in the US. I see many people expressing their opinions on taxes, and city/state projects that are only wanted by a few, and not the majority. This has always been an issue for us, for as long as I can remember at least. So why has this not been fixed yet. Yes, many of these ideas get voted in, and bundled with other ideas to be voted in, then we are taxed for it. But we need more power into the peoples hands for this, and less power in major corporations who can afford large sums for supporting a project.

The idea I was toying with would be cutting almost all taxes except for sales and a couple others, and then move funding for all of the government projects to an open and croud funded platform. Give the ability for Individuals to donate up to a certain amount, and disallow companies or corporations to donate, keep it on the individual level. Once a project reaches its goal for funding, all individuals who donated to get it there become shareholders, and have a say in how the company progresses. Doing this changes a couple things that I feel we need to change, it forces all public government projects to be completely transparent, and it also tips the scale of power towards the people, the individuals that actually do the work.

This solution also allows the public to get back what they put in potentially, here is an example. Let's say that Martha donates $100 towards a project for the city zoo, that project has a total of 550 donations made, and their donation amount varied up to $5000 and the total project goal was $500,000. So the shares are then split according to % donation amount. After the project is finished and starts to generate profit, the shareholders start receiving checks for their % of the shares. You see how this will go, it is a benefit for all involved.

With our current state of technology and communications, there is no real reason not to continue evolving how we fund and run government. We started off being a self governed nation, and we can get back to that state with just a little bit of work.

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Weekend Project - Android x86 on Q550 & W500

I know that when a normal person comes up with a weekend project, it is usually just one thing, like weatherproofing the deck, or fixing the steps. Not me, I tend to do things a bit differently, no only am I only taking one day of the weekend, but I am doubling up my work, by performing similar mods to two Windows 7 Tablets. This means that I am starting my Sunday off all Geek like and adding the ability to dual-boot into android or Windows 8(Which I already have on both devices).
So I spent most of Sunday working on two tablets. My Fujitsu Q550 & my Acer W500. What I had set out to do is put Android on both of them, and thanks to the Android x86 project, that process went by very smoothly.

The Fujitsu Q550 - Windows 7 Tablet

For the Q550, I started off by going to the Android x86 homepage at androidx86.org. Then go to the download page, and notice that Huang updated the downloads to RC2.  I downloaded the Tegra2 iso , it is the only one compatible with the Q559 currently. While I was waiting for that to finish, I downloaded Linux Live USB Creator, and once it was finished downloading, I used it to write the ISO to a spare USB drive I had. Then once it was done, I powered down the tablet, plugged in a USB hub, with a keyboard, mouse, and the USB drive I just made, and powered the tablet back on.

On the first screen, I selected install, and then selected the third partition of four on the Q550 (I had Win 8 on it too), then after the initial wright, I made the storage disk at 1gb. Then waited for that to finish.
Once it was all done, I was pleased to find that mostly everything works on it already. No HW acceleration, rotation, and Sleep is a little funky, but other than that, the device is far more usable than it was with Windows 7 or Windows 8. So I'm pleased. There was another issue, where it does not support the full range of WPA2 wifi encryption, so I did have to change my routers settings to connect to the internet. ARM emulation also is enabled in this build, so yipee! Here are some more pics of the Q550 in action.

On the Acer IconiaTab W500 - Windows 7 Tab.

The process was just the same, except for two things, i had to use the AMD-Brazos version of Android x86, and this device has half the storage space of my other tablet. So I had to erase an older version of Android x86 from it to make room for the new release. Once the initial install was done, I got it all set up and downloaded a few apps to test it out. I have to admit that Android is quite speedy on this machine. Its almost fast enough to allow me to type at full speed, and my using my ADHD as an enabler for faster typing, that's a good thing for a tablet. After testing out a couple games, it seems as though ARM emulation is not enabled on this build, some games keep on crashing. It could be something else, I'll have to look into the log files to make sure.

On this device, video seems to work fine, as long as I disable HD video first. So there is one sign HW accell is nit enabled. And any 3D game or app I load crashes, so that's my other sign. On the bright side, the Blogger app works great on the W500, so I think I found my new blogging format for now. The Crackle app loads, but video doesn't play, but the TV.com app works well, so I can at least veg out a little with this device. I'm sure there will be many improvements to come, but for now, I'm quite happy with Android on both of these tablets.

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Obamacare meme

I have made it my personal mission today to find a good quality source for memes on the web. To my dismay, I was not able to find much that wasn't a regurgitation of something else, or anything with a partial quality to it. So I decided to donate this small attempt at meme work.

This is a statement regarding our present situation with Obamacare.

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One down, three to go!

Dadds.com site design and update

The site I have been poring my hard work into lately is finally finished. And by the time this post goes live, the site will be live as well hopefully. The biggest part of this project was taking all the old info and updating it for newer devices and services. I implemented a payment portal, HTML5 slideshow, a kick butt content editor, and a couple easy ways to incorporate videos and slideshows easily. So let's start with a small before and after of the website. 

Home page

Here is the old homepage layout for Dadds.com 

And here is the new layout. We have minimized the focus on the page to the opening article, and replaced all the various banners and text info with a few dynamic modules that will automatically adjust to the article size. 

Limo-bus 25 page

Here is a sample of one of the pages on the old dadds.com. This page is about one of their limo-buses. The actual info did not start until you scrolled down a couple pages worth. 

This was fixed with the new design. All of the slides/pictures are contained in a basic slider that scrolls by its self every few seconds. 

Wedding Services Page

With this page, it was the same as all the others, laid out for one screen size, Gallery and videos took up most of the page, and the content was taking up a small part of it. 

With the slideshow implemented, and the modules around the content, we can see a good portion of the content right off the bat. This is a good thing here. 

Other Examples

Here are a few more examples for how the site looks now with a large resolution screen. This is how it would appear on 60% of the computers viewing it.

Mobile Phone Layout

Here are a few screens for how the site layout adjusts for mobile devices. These are what the view on a basic iPhone will look like. The only thing I'm not happy with on this view is that the pictures are still using a 650 width. If I use 100%, I get a slideshow the width of one row/module. So it is one or the other here :)

Mobile Tablet Layouts

When you view the site from a tablet, the format also shifts and you get a couple different content sizes depending on if the site is viewed in landscape or portrait mode. 

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Watching the kids bloom

Summer has finally hit at my house, the kids are all out of school and Donna has been working days as often as possible, while I have been trying to fit in my Web Design work as much as I can surfing the day. On a good day, I can fit in a good 3-5 hours worth of work, so I have to change something soon to allow me a little more time each day to dedicate to my work. I should also remember to fit in my family time during some evenings, since I'm spending the days primarily with the kids during the week, and the wife has the weekends off. I'll figure it all out, it just might take me a couple weeks.

On a different note, I started to do some stretches and katas with my kids during the days. They are seeing the katas more like yoga right now, whatever floats their boat I say. Taking what I learned from Kuk Sool Won and Aikido, I'm trying my best to only show them things that will help others around them. Mandie has really been the one who likes it the most so far, the boys haven't found what they like about it. I keep on telling them that they will eventually find what they like about it, they just have to practice with me. I'm not planning on showing my kids how to hit, kick or even block. I'm planning on showing them how to redirect. This way we can not have any focus on violence, and the focus is on finding a balance. I figure we get into it over the summer, and when winter hits, we find ways to use some of the fluid motions around the house. Who knows, this might be the key to getting them to clean!!

Our collection of flowers and plants in the house has also taken off lately, we have over 20 plants. This is incredible for us, since we have never had a green thumb, but all of a sudden, plants are sprouting and growing up. I am thinking it is because this summer, we have a healthy Willow, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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All about Jenga

Yesterday was a bit of an odd day. It was planned out from the beginning, and most of it was executed to plan, with the exception of a few things. But the day started off on a bit of an odd note, and when I was explaining something to my wife, I used a reference to Jenga. Then later on that day, I had been doing something else, and I said it was like Jenga again. WTF? Why would I mention a game I haven't seen or played for years, twice in one day?

I spend the rest of my day doing my thing, then when my wife and I were talking about it later that night, we had both thought that if another Jenga something came into play later on that day, it has to be a sign for something. Well, the day went by, and we finished out all of our planned activities with minimal difficulty, then when I got to the relaxing part of my evening, I pulled out my iPad, and opened up Draw Something, and noticed i had one game that was my turn. I clicked the play button, and watched my friend guess my previous artistic rendering of a word, then it was my turn. And there the word was again, Jenga.

I cant seem to resist tempting fate sometimes, so I clicked on the word, and proceded to draw a Jenga game, then my iPad crashed, and the app closed. Before i could hit the send button. When I opened it back up, Jenga was not on the word list for that game. So I just picked a random word and did my best to depict it. The Jenga and the game crashing was my third sign, and it also explained what the sign was pointing to.

Earlier that week, I had been offered another contract position for a local company, and I was seriously considering taking their offer and balancing the work between them, and the company I am currently doing web work for. The prospect of doing both of those contracts would be great for our current financial abilities, but it would have also beeen a lot of work. Seeing as my Wife's current employer has adjusted her hours to allow her more work durring the week, this whole thing would have possibly come toppling down, just like a Jenga game.

The lesson here is that it doesnt matter how well i can do something, or how much money i can make doing so, because if I try to build my tower too high, using the same pieces I use as a foundation, things are likely to come crashing down with the slightest disruption. Do I really want to put myself in that position? Not really. I think I'll stick with my current pace, and when this job is done, I will take another offer.

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Family Picnic

So today, we did our normal Sunday morning thing, but when it came to lunch time, we changed things up a bit and went to Meijers for non perishable groceries and Lunchables. Then we set out to find a park we haven't been to yet. We ended up going to a ball field by Lamoreaux Park, and had a picnic there. Then the kids also got to play a bit in the field. They all had fun, and it was a nice break from the norm of rushing home, doing the dishes, and then finally making lunch.

It was a nice little break from the norm, and it got me to thinking a little bit about how we usually spend time with our families. Typically, I count being in the same room with my kids as spending time with them, but I have been missing the clue. The interaction is what our kids need, not us just being there with them. In the long run, it doesn't really matter what we are doing with them, as long as it is something.  

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