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I just got done watching the Presidential address to Congress and immediately followed this up with a quick view of the online major networks new sites. Overall I thought the speech was very good and showed the President Obama that was lacking from his press room speech a few weeks back. The one part I cringed at was when President Obama gave credit to the United States for creation of the automobile. This was no major cringe, however, because really we were the first inventors of the automobile. But then again we weren't.

I figured I would let it all slide until I saw the Fox News website article "Obama Errs in Saying Americans Invented Automobiles". Being a Republican I hate being represented by a news outlet like Fox News. Their views and misinformation not only tend to make Republicans look bad, but make me ashamed. Anyway, that is another story.

The real story is that Fox News was quick to point out, "...his grasp of automotive history suggests he could use a refresher course...The problem: The credit for internal combustion engines generally is given to German engineer, Karl Benz, who designed and built the world's first practical automobile in 1885." Frankly, that is inaccurate. Apparently, the Fox News people, Gary Gastelu and Mike Majchrowitz in particular, need a refresher on automotive history. So here ya go Mike and Gary...

As the article did point out, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot invented the steam powered automobile in 1769. Unfortunately, that is up for debate as Ferdinand Verbiest reportedly built a steam powered automobile in 1672, almost 100 years prior to Cugnot. So maybe Cugnot didn't invent it. For sake of argument, we will stick with speaking about internal combustion engine automobiles; otherwise we wind up going back even further.

The first internal combustion engine automobile was invented by George Selden in 1877 (a resident of Rochester, NY; which if I am not mistaken is in the United States. Or maybe I need a geography refresher). Several years prior to Karl Benz' four stroke combustion engine. The problem was that George Selden's automobile was never put into production and he eventually lost his patent rights. If I am not mistaken, that would make the United States the "nation that invented the automobile." That is the actual quote from President Obama, incase you were wondering. Not built; "invented."

And now to correct Fox's quote. The internal combustion engine was invented by François Isaac de Rivaz in 1806. If you cannot do the math that is 38 years prior to the birth of Karl Benz. Not only was Benz an inventor, but according to Gary Gastelu, Mike Majchrowitz and the Fox News network, he was also a time traveler.

So was President Obama right or wrong? Well, both. It is easy to assume he was referring to internal combustion engine automobiles. Thus, he was correct. This nation did invent them. But the automobile in general, well there he would be wrong. No matter which way you assume for that particular section of the President's speech; Fox News, Mike Majchrowitz and Gary Gastelu were wrong. And I can live with that.

It is a beautiful Saturday morning and your friend Stacy has invited you to stop by and check out her new shop at the Space Book Bazaar. As it is such a beautiful day you decide to walk the few blocks, take in the sights and get a little exercise. You head out on your way, but figure you should probably stop off at the bank and deposit your tips from bartending the night before.

Being such a gorgeous day you get a little caught up in day dreaming and wind up taking a right towards the Tenth National Bank instead of a left. You catch yourself and think that this might not be the correct street, but up ahead you see a building with a big sign that reads "Tenf Nationel Bank". Do you go in and hand them your money?

You move on down a side street when a man wearing a mask runs up to you, hands you a box and runs off. You think to yourself, "That kind of looked like my friend Bob." Do you open the package?

You continue down the side street and come out at the entrance to the Space Book Bazaar. Not entirely certain where Stacy's shop is, you start meandering around the other stalls. Just then a man jumps in front of you screaming, "You have cancer! For $19.95 I will cure you." Do you believe him? Do you pay him?

Deeper into the bazaar you wander. The sights and sounds and smells are overwhelming. Some pleasant, others disturbing. The shops are as varied as the products they offer; ranging from neatly laid out fresh fruits in proper wooden stalls, to Genuine Rolex watches for sale in tents, to who-knows-what being sold from inside a van with dark-tinted windows. Do you stop at any of the stores and go in? Which ones?

Out of nowhere a crowd of people pass around you screaming and hawking their wares; a hand reaches out towards you from the crowd and you feel the sharp sting of a hypodermic entering your arm. Then the crowd is gone. Was that a pinch or a needle prick? You can't be sure now. Do you look for a police officer? Do you seek medical attention?

Welcome to the Internet.

I am fairly certain that most people would apply a little common sense to each of the above scenarios (I would hope at least). You would turn around and go to the correct bank, you wouldn't open the package, you would pass right by the lunatic shouting about you having cancer (and certainly wouldn't pay him), you would pick and choose which shops, if any, that you would browse through, and, hopefully, you would be a might bit concerned about possibly being injected with some foreign substance and would report it. Yet on the Internet, you don't. Well, maybe not you, but most of you.

For years people have used the excuse of computers being intimidating as a rationale for not applying common sense. Instead they say, "I didn't know," and are strangely happy with that. When the Internet was new that was an excuse. Now? Well now you shop, bank, date, and look at nude people performing all sorts of strange acts on the Internet. You are no longer intimidated by it. That excuse is gone.

Common sense applies everywhere. Not just on the streets. Not just at work. But on the Internet as well. That is what makes it "common", instead of street-smarts or business savvy. You do not need to be a technical genius to apply common sense to computers and the Internet. All you need is... Drum roll please... Common Sense.

This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogcast.

For some strange and unknown reason, the world did not stop with my lack of posting for the past however-long-it-was (huge blow to my ego there), likewise my life continued on even without posting about it in a blog entry. I figured I should take the time to dump out a quick entry to cover some of what I know has to be on everyone's minds.

First, and most importantly, my daughter was accepted to Johnson and Wales University (N. Miami Campus) in the Food Management (Culinary) program. I can not express enough how proud I am of her, not only for getting into a top university for culinary arts, but for following her dreams of becoming a chef. There have been a few hurdles here and there since she was initially accepted, but she has continued on despite these obstacles. So everyone join me in saying, "Yea Phaide!"

As to the subject of my own higher education, that has been a waiting game and will continue to be such until sometime after Feb 21, 2009. Despite having submitted my application and all required paperwork back in November, I am a distance learner candidate, which puts me into the part-time student pool. Apparently CMU Heinz College has been up to their eyeballs with applications and has been following their admissions policies that go: fulltime early admissions candidates (those who apply before Dec 1), fulltime regular admissions (application deadline of Feb 1) and finally part-time candidates. Therefore, I must wait and be patient for all of the fulltime applications to be processed before I find out if I have been accepted or not.

On the robotics front, I have started my robotics evolution project, but that will be covered in a separate entry. The "You Design It" project is still being worked on, slowly but surely. Currently, there is a small lack of funds to progress too far on either of the robots. Rest assured, they will continue at some point once income goes up; most likely between the "I no longer have to live on oatmeal" and "I can buy that new plasma TV" financial phases. The evolution project is still at a very inexpensive phase (basically left over parts that are floating around) and as such, will keep me active in robotics.

In the mean time, I thought I might share a few of the pictures from the "You Design It" VTOL robot (the hoverbot is not cosmetically ready for a photo-op). Enjoy.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of India and the friends and family members abroad who were affected by the brutal atrocities that took place this day. Just as I can find no words that would be a strong enough condemnation against those who would commit such acts, I can find no words that might ease the pain and loss you all have suffered. You have my deepest condolences.

The housing and lending industries have really screwed things up for the economy. In all actuality, people's greed has screwed things up. The new American dream, as it were. It is not just the businesses and big corporations, it is the average American who took out loans and bought property they can't afford. And it will be the average American who is going to continue to make things worse, at least for a time.

Let me back up a moment and just say I believe the United States is the greatest country in the world. Not so much on paper any more, but in theory. In my heart I know it to be true. I think the American people have the potential to outshine any nation in the world. Granted, our education levels, and even literacy levels are below many developed nations (actually most). The country has become a nation of consumers. We are the world’s largest consumer market. It wasn't always that way, and I firmly believe we have it in us to rise up once again to that level where the world will admire and respect the American "know-how".

Currently, there is debate in the US government regarding a proposed $700+ billion bailout to "fix" the problem caused by the greed I mentioned above. The debate is not only taking place in Washington, but among everyday citizens. People discussing, stating their opinions, and even calling and writing their government representatives to voice their opinion about the proposed bailout. It has sparked people's interest in government once again, at least to a small degree, and that is a wonderful thing.

Talking with people myself and following the news stories, it seems that around 2/3 of the population are not in favor of the proposed bailout. Unfortunately, I do not think the majority of that 2/3 understand the probable ramifications of the government "letting the cards fall where they may." And a good chunk of those who do understand, do not fully perceive just how bad things might get. So I am going to present the doom and gloom for a moment, just so you might grasp the severity of the situation, because apparently Washington is afraid to say all this.

In the not too distant past the housing market hit a huge boom. A good part of this was as a result of low federal interest rates, subprime loans, stated income loans and, to a lesser degree, fraud. Basically, the mortgage and banking industry made a bunch of bad loans. Now that in itself would be fine. They made the loans; they take the heat for the loans when they go bad. All well and good, except the loans were sold on the securities market. It is this last part that is going to make things (has made things) really bad for the economy.

Assuming you are not in the mortgage, banking or financial industry, I will give a very simplified run down on how all that works:

John Doe wants to buy a house, but he has crappy credit.

Jane Smith is a mortgage broker who works for Loans-R-Us mortgage broker firm and offers John Doe the chance of a lifetime to own that dream home, either through a subprime loan at a high interest rate, an ARM (adjustable rate mortgage, that starts with low payments and in five years when the interest rate increases "John can refinance using the equity in the home", only that equity never appeared), an interest only loan (again with the promise of equity to refinance later), or, using a loophole in FHA, John can do a stated income loan (read: fraud in many cases).

John Doe takes the loan with Loans-R-Us, and Jane Smith gets a nice big commission check, as does Loans-R-Us, who sells the loan at a discount to Super-Lenders-R-Us.

Super-Lenders-R-Us then takes the loan and sells it (at a discount) to a securities firm, WallStreet-Money-Inc, and makes a nice chunk of change.

WallStreet-Money-Inc then takes that loan from John Doe and bundles it together with 29 other loans and sells off multiple percentages of this bundled package out to the securities firms. In turn, the securities firms sell out pieces of it to consumers and companies.

With me so far? In a nutshell, the loan got sold off. Now, each of these sales has clauses that state that if John Doe does not make good on his payments then the next level has to buy it back. So when John's loan goes bad, WallStreet-Money-Inc goes back to Super-Lenders-R-Us for the money. Super-Lenders-R-Us goes back to Loans-R-Us and demands the money. Pretty fair right? Well, there is a problem here.

Loans-R-Us does not have the money to pay back all the loans that have defaulted. So they file chapter 7 bankruptcy. That leaves Super-Lenders-R-Us holding the bag. All is still good, right? Nope, they got stuck with so many bad loans that could not be dumped back off on the original brokers that they in turn file for bankruptcy. So WallStreet-Money-Inc gets stuck holding the bag.

If you have been following the news, you now know that the WallStreet-Money-Inc companies could not handle the bag they got stuck holding, so they have gone under (or are in the process there of). So who gets stuck with this proverbial hot-potato? The final investors. Consumers and companies that invested in the securities market.

Many companies have a lot of assets tied up in what they were promised to be high return investments. They have no assets, because that is where their money is. In order to continue to be prosperous (and in some cases even make payroll) these companies borrow against the equity from their securities market accounts. Only those accounts are worthless now, so no one will lend them the money (Can you say "A-I-G"?). And they go belly-up.

On top of that, consumers (read: average American citizens) invested their retirement plans in what was promised as a guaranteed high rate of return. So those retirement plans: GONE. Other people got hood-winked by investment companies not disclosing the type of investment properly (*cough* F.T. *cough*), and so unwitting consumers are losing their pants as well. Now, if you are not one of those people (and a good majority of American's are not), you are probably saying no big deal, "My money is not in securities." Or even "I don't have a retirement plan like that; I keep everything in the bank." Right? Well as you guessed, there is more to this story.

If you have money invested in stocks or bonds for retirement here's the question you should ask yourself: Do you know whether the companies you have stocks or bonds with have money in the securities market? Your stock might suddenly become worthless because that safe company, which has been doing so well, invested its liquid capital in securities, and now it is going belly up. And because 90% of people involved in stock trades, investments or retirement accounts could not tell you whether a given company is going to run into this problem, the stock market (and entire financial industry) is screwed.

To be safe you pull all your money out (aka "the run on Wall Street"). Well, now that company, which was good and safe, who never invested in any of the bad markets, just had their stock value plummet. Their credit goes down the drain; they lose capital and can not get the Net Terms they once had in order to make their products. So they go belly-up. And it spirals from there.

On top of that, your home value will continue to drop. Before too long, if it has not happened already, your house will be worth less than you paid for it 10 years ago. And less than you will be able to sell it for 10 years from now. You are stuck in a mortgage that is more than the value of the home.

Unemployment rates will rise as many companies go under. The good solid companies will have to tighten their belts, and do massive lay-offs, further increasing unemployment. Consumer spending will drop because people just lost their retirements and possibly their job. To compensate for that, inflation will rise. Meaning you get less for more. Mom and dad, who have been living on their 401K, are flat broke and are coming to live with you. Your sister (whose Birthday was yesterday and you never called), lost her job and is coming to live with you as well. 19% unemployment rates or more. That means one out of every five adult family members (and their kids) will be coming to live with you. And your money is buying less, but you need to support more people.

It does not end there. The global economy depends on the United States; we are the world’s largest consumers. But now we aren't spending. So the global economy starts it spiral. And down, and down, and down it goes. To compensate for this, there will likely be a country or two that decides to go to war, and thus we have World War III. The good news is that war of that level is good for the economy; the bad news is that it is a war and people die (maybe all of us this time).

The scale of this thing has the potential to be huge. If you were not alive during the Great Depression, a historian, or can follow chaos theory, you probably can not comprehend just how bad things could get. It is not a recession. Just because you saw the "DOTCOM Bust" does not mean you understand how horrible things will get. It is similar to the people I hear in my area of Florida saying that a Category 3 hurricane would not be so bad because "we had that no name storm and things were fine." Well that no name storm you "lived through" was like a company laying you off during a booming market, where you can find a job in under a week. The Great Depression was a Category 4 hurricane, and tell it to the Katrina victims that are still recovering years later that it is "no big deal".

This is what the politicians in Washington understand, and why they are thinking about the $700+ billion bailout for the industry. Do you get it now?

That being said, I am still against the bailout. Following the Great Depression, the United States entered a period of unsurpassed innovation and overall greatness. Companies and people had no choice. To survive, people had to suck up a little humility and take what jobs they could. Families moved together, grew closer and became stronger. Companies had to be the best in order to continue on, which meant new ways of thinking, hiring the best people possible, and finally getting off their butts and doing what they had meant to do.

Take Ford Motor Company for example. For years they have wanted to be competitive with Japanese and Korean auto makers. But, with the economy at a decent level, they still had enough car sales to keep Senior Management in a nice lifestyle. Why bother spending the money to make a car that was better than Honda or Toyota at a price that was less? Necessity is the mother of invention, and there has been no necessity. In a depression, there is necessity and Ford (like many companies) will either sink or learn to swim faster than everyone else out there.

Through that necessity, this country could once again be the greatest nation on Earth. And I honestly believe we have the guts, drive and know-how to see it through. Unfortunately, it also means letting the country (and world) hit rock bottom and enter into another Great Depression. Down to go up; seems irrational, but sometimes it takes a little lunacy to make things better.

It has been nearly four months since I was last able to get an entry into this blog. Most of that has accounted for class work time, which, I am happy to say, I have finished. At least for the time being. Over the next week and a half I have two major items on my plate that will be determining the path my life takes for the following year or three.

The first of these items is the GRE General Exam that is scheduled for September 18, 2008 at 12:00PM EDT. Yes, despite everything else I might wish to accomplish and the time schooling has taken from my free time, it is my hope to go onto graduate school. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment, but I have always enjoyed learning new things and have consistently strived to increase my understanding of as many different fields as possible. The moment I stop learning it will because I am dead, so I figure I should kill (no pun intended) two birds with one stone: Continue to learn, and hopefully learn from the best and the brightest, while improving my professional and academic value. Thus, Graduate School.

The second item on my list to accomplish in the next few weeks is the completion of a joint patent application with Harold Bright. We had filed a provisional patent approximately one year ago to allow time for proof of concept testing, and now it is time to file for full patent status. Unfortunately, while we are in the patent pending stages it is mums the word on our invention. But I will give a hint in that it involves robotics, and once we have the pseudo-prototype finished I will post a few video clips of the invention in action.

In the meantime, there are a few hundred blog entries that I have been storing up in my head over the past four months, and will be trying to trickle each and every one out through my finger tips as time permits. Eventually I will be back up to my self-set level of three entries per week, but for the next couple weeks I will have to be content with working within my time constraints. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I hear no train, only the sounds of my own footsteps as I return from hiatus.

I've been working off and on again with the You Design It hoverbot project, well, actually projects. As a result of some private feedback I had received from a few people, I decided to create two separate hovering style robots for the project. The original design I had come up with will be the one used to detail most steps of the tutorial. It is a basic hovercraft, only more sci-fi in design. The second robot tutorial will be released completely separately upon completion (instead of in stages), but if you happen to see images in any tutorials not related to the initial hoverbot, this is where they are from.

Speaking of tutorials, I started one on mold building for plastic/rubber custom pieces. I have also added a link in the title bar (pssst, up there^) leading directly into the tutorials section. As I write up more I will continue to categorize each and add it to its section. I am currently waiting for my member page account for the Society of Robots website. Once I have my account information I will be duplicating any tutorials over there in an effort to help create an as complete as possible repository on all things robotic.

In other unrelated news, I am still working on my final term paper on Six Sigma for my Operations Management course. I have finished reading all my reference sources and pieced together note cards full of information I am hoping to use for the paper. One way or another, I imagine I will be completing the paper within the week. Depending on how happy I am with the finished product, I will likely ask my instructor for permission to post the paper here for all to read and enjoy. Alright, it is Six Sigma, so there will likely not be much to enjoy, but it should still be an interesting read given the oddity that is my mind.

Some years ago a friend had explained an observation of his on a person’s wealth and the car they drive. I had heard different points of view from people through out my life on cars and what they say about the people who drive them, ranging from a persons love for a classic car, to the status symbol a car can hold. While all the differing viewpoints people held over what another person drove, or didn't drive, never really concerned me much; what this particular friend shared I found to be both insightful and to hold quite true for most things, not just automobiles.

Persons of middle class, in the realm of economics, will generally drive a mid-priced car because it is what they can afford while providing some measure of reliability. In today's market that would equate to a Honda or Toyota I imagine. People who are new to money, or have had it "given to them", opt for higher end luxury cars or sports cars and the like. It is a status symbol, a means of showing what they have. The truly wealthy, the top 1 or 2%, those who have money and to who it is just a fact of life, tend to drive a mid-priced car; because they understand that a car just needs to be reliable and get them from point A to point B. Of course there are always exceptions to the rules.

In the years since that conversation I have begun seeing many aspects of people with the same underlying principle. What I like to term "Engineer or Artist". I do not use either title in their typical sense, but rather as a level of something, whether it is ability, intelligence, knowledge, strength, or anything else. Mathematics is a good example of these levels. Solve 17 = X^2 + 1. The average person (average in the arena of algebra) might take a few moments and spout out X=4 as the answer, using formulas and specifications remembered from years past. The engineer would write out the complete proof to show how the equation becomes X=4. The artist would answer, just as the average person, that X=4, because the answer has no need to be proven, they just know it is correct beyond any doubt.

When it comes to people as an example of this, I can think of no better measure than the difference between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Edison was an engineer. Everything he did could be reproduced from his writings and drawing because he was very precise in his work. Tesla was an artist, decades later and we are still having a hard time understanding the work he did and the ideas he came up with. Even though we can not understand all that he did, there is no denying his brilliance in the field of electricity and wave forms.

Another example would be to go back to cars. If you asked an average person with no training or skill on the subject to draw you a car, you would likely get exactly what you expected. Perhaps a side view of the typical sedan car shape showing two wheels and a few side windows. Maybe a dog hanging its head out the window if the drawer was feeling overly ambitious. Ask an engineer in the field of auto-design to draw you a car and they will immediately sit at the drafting table with mechanical pencil, ruler, compass and spare sheet of paper for figuring out calculations on. After many hours they will return to you a meticulously crafted image of an automobile to exact scale, meeting whatever design specifications they had in their head, completely aerodynamic in nature, and likely easily reproducible from the ground up. Now ask an automobile artist, that person on the level of the Carroll Shelbys of the world, and on a napkin using a felt tip pen they will sketch out the future of automobiles. And it will take an army of engineers to figure out how to build it without that artist's help, but it will astound the world.

The difference between the three levels can be seen in all aspects of human ability and endeavor, and has a pattern of simple, complex, simple: the average person has only a normal understanding or ability in a given task and sees the easy solution, the engineer has received training or education on the subject and will find you the solution and the reason why, the artist has progressed beyond what training and education could supply either through natural ability or some other means and just knows the solution. For an artist something just clicks. It just is the way it is and they understand it all without having to rationalize it, or do the measurements, or even think about it.

Aside from providing a little insight into how I see things (and an excuse to break away from attempting to write a term paper on Six Sigma), my point is that for all things in life there are those who are average, those who are engineers, and those who are artists. The thing that makes each of us one or the other is deciding where our path lies; for in each person there is a field, a topic, a job, a dream that will just click with us. Something that we can see so clearly that it defies explanation. It is up to each of us to choose whether to ignore a field and stay average, train and be educated in a field to become an engineer, or to instead select the field that has selected us and in turn become an artist.