Random Thoughts 6/18/11

• If you're going to bringing 1st and 2nd graders to Day Camp next Saturday, let me know ASAP.  The better we know how many kiddos to expect, the better we can adjust our plans for crafts, meals, and activities.  Thanks!  If you're staying to help let me know too!  
• American Airlines is going to a paperless cockpit using the iPad.  About 35 pounds of paper charts will be replaced with a two pound iPad, running an FAA approved navigation charts app, saving the airline over $1.2 million in fuel costs alone.  Oh, and it's really cool, too.
• There have been some interesting reports that Apple, with its ridiculously huge stockpile of $70 billion in cash, should just buy the rest of the cell phone industry.  Of course this would be illegal, and (as others have pointed out) why on earth would Apple want to sell Nokia phones?  But more attention is being given to the what Apple might do with that money and the cell phone industry isn't the best target.  I'll join in the chorus and say the best place for Apple to leverage it's cash and influence is Hollywood.  Almost everything about the television/movie business is inelegant, awkward, and overpriced.  And when good, affordable ideas (like Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, etc.) do arise, the "Powers That Be" in Hollywood slap them down and limit what content they can provide to you.  Hollywood needs to go the way of the post-iTunes music industry.  Stop selling us the b-side of television (infomercials, b-movies, reality show dreck, etc.) and let us buy the stuff we want at a reasonable price.  Make it easy to find and watch what we want, when we want.  So here's to hoping Apple helps kill the television networks, movie studios, cable providers, etc. as they currently exist.
• KU has added a transfer, 6-8 forward Kevin Young, to the team.  Young is eligible to play immediately as he's already sat out last season.
• Keith Olbermann's new show on Al Gore's television network begins Monday…  I just thought of at least two reasons why I won't be watching.
• Climate scientists were found to be doctoring data on rising sea levels, adding a fraction of a millimeter every year to the actual data.  Of course they claim that it's a necessary adjustment, but it's also no longer a real number.  As usual, we should wary of Al Gore-like claims of flooded coastlines.  
• Interesting money-saving advice: How to eat when you're really broke.  We're so doing a garden next year… and with 5 kids to provide the slave-labor, we'll eat like kings!
• How I learned to stop worrying and love Intel…
• Oh, good news: President Obama says that $10 million per day of drone attacks and military support in places like Libya and Yemen don't constitute "hostilities."  Wow.  Did Democrats think we'd be fighting in four different Muslim countries and keeping Gitmo open three years later when they voted for President Obama?