Born Weird

With this year’s editions of the BCS bowls nearly upon us, it’s time for me to release my annual proposed playoff bracket. As always, the goal is to preserve as much of the existing BCS and bowl system as possible, but scrap the idiocy of the actual BCS title game and money-grabbing at-large selection process in favor of a 12-team playoff that determines the nation championship matchup.

Teams are seeded according to their BCS rankings; the four BCS bowls host the four quarterfinal matchups (preserving regional tie-ins where possible), and the first-round match ups are hosted by the next four biggest bowls (as measured by $ payout). The six “Automatic Qualifiers” are preserved, which is why Clemson and West Virginia get the nod over Virginia Tech and Baylor.

For a historical perspective, check out my brackets from 2010 and 2009.

Note: if you detest the BCS and would like to see it meet its demise, check out Playoff PAC.

As 2011 closes, we’re excited to be taking up leadership of Webuquerque. However, there have been some recent statements made about the Webuquerque leadership transition that we feel merit a response.

While all parties involved worked hard at the transition process, some things were not as smooth as they could have been. That being said, the hiccups in the transition process have not negatively impacted the presentations or events in any way.

We have nothing but the utmost respect for Emily Lewis and Jason Nakai, the Webuquerque founders. They have created an absolutely amazing community that we are all incredibly honored to be a part of, and proud to help move forward and grow. Our sincere thanks goes out to Emily and Jason for their hard work and the wonderful wealth of information they passed onto us to keep things going strong. We look forward to the continued involvement of Jason and Emily in the Webuquerque community.

We all love and are committed to this community. It has become something very unique and special to all who are involved, helping us improve our craft and our professional relationships. We hope that as Webuquerque moves into 2012 and beyond, the community will continue to be supportive and help Webuquerque grow in size and influence. Thank you!

Signed,
Brian Arnold, Ben Byrne, Zerek Welz

“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” — Warren Buffett, 2006

TO: Middle America
FROM: Me
RE: Your future

You just don’t get it, do you?

The middle class has long played a central role in the health of America’s economy. As the middle class grew, America’s economic weight grew. The rich capitalists atop the income scale may have always taken the most, to be sure, but a healthy consumer class was always a prerequisite to fill the rich’s coffers. You were needed for two reasons: to design, make, distribute and sell goods; and to purchase those goods en masse. It’s what kept our economy churning, and kept you reasonably prosperous. You powered the economy for everyone.

But something’s changed over the last 30-odd years. The middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power it once did: the middle class’ share of wealth has gone down since 1979. Of course, the economy has continued to grow since then, but as the current crisis shows (wonderfully explained by Robert Reich), a large part of the success of the middle class as America’s driving economic engine has of late come via the smoke and mirrors of deficit spending (credit cards) and housing values. You just don’t have the purchasing power you once did (even Wal-Mart is noticing), and you’re losing the ability to fake it.

In the past, this might have been a genuine crisis for America’s elites, as a flailing middle class would provide fewer opportunities for money-making at the top. But now, how the rich fare and how the middle class fare are no longer so intertwined. Read the entire post »

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that AT&T recently announced it plans to buy T-Mobile for about $39 billion, the largest corporate merger/purchase in a few years.

As a T-Mobile customer, I’m not happy about this. I’m with T-Mobile for four reasons:

1. Cheaper plans
2. Better customer service
3. Great network performance
4. Smaller lobbying operation than AT&T or Verizon (sorry no link)

None of those reasons are all that likely to be the case after the acquisition.

Pundits across the spectrum have panned the deal, worrying and/or warning that the consolidation of the second and fourth largest mobile providers will lead to general shittyness for everyone from consumers (who may have to pay more) to handset manufacturers to app developers. But are those worries legit?

The answer is simple: After the merger was announced, Verizon’s stock went up. You read that right: Verizon’s. There’s only one reason why Verizon’s investors would like the idea of this merger: Verizon will face less competitive pressure. And that, my friends, is all you need to know about how customer-friendly this merger is.

At first I held off on doing this update because I wanted to be able to link to live sites, but sometimes projects can take unexpected turns so I’ve decided to stop waiting for all the pieces to fall into place.

Late summer/early fall was a busy time for web design and I cranked out a lot of new stuff — mockups below. But the bigger professional development is that in October I left my position as Design and Development Lead at Firefly Partners to take a new position (Senior Front-End Developer) with the Washington, DC-based New Signature. It wasn’t an easy decision as I respect the people and work of Firefly, but New Signature presented an opportunity I couldn’t refuse. Read the entire post »

Just finished watching Obama deliver the State of the Union speech (it’s “strong,” what a surprise!) and the response from, uh, the guy from Wisconsin. (I’m refusing acknowledge Bachmann). Spent some time digesting their remarks while doing dinner dishes. Here’s what I think:

We’re Fucked
The parties are really, really philosophically distant from one another right now. Both parties are also unwilling to seriously acknowledge and address many of the deepest crises (e.g. Medicare, Social Security, education’s root failings). I’m pessimistic much of genuine help will get passed these next two years.

Obama Gets Globalization
He understands that our historical position atop the world’s economic food chain is over, and our ability to even keep near the top is threatened by our failings of education, infrastructure, and the like. From a standpoint of global economic competitiveness he was right to focus on the issues he did — though simply praising teachers and continuing the Race to the Top are not the fundamental change we need.

Obama Doesn’t Get the Budget Crisis
Sure, he talked about earmarks, malpractice reform, discretionary freezes and a few other belt-tightening measures, but many of the real issues with our debt in the long run remain pitifully unaddressed and/or lack concrete proposals for real fixes. I’m looking at you, tax loopholes, Medicare spending, and foreign troop placements.

Republicans Are More Willing to Talk About Fiscal Responsibility…
I get the sense the GOP has a much more frank and honest assessment regarding the budget deficit and long-term prospects for debt increases.

But Will Continue to Use It to Push Ideology Rather Than Real Solutions
I think the reason Republicans are more willing than the Democrats to raise the spectre of looming debt crises is not so much that they’re more genuinely concerned about it, as that it provides a wonderful excuse for attacking all sorts of programs under the guise of “limited government” that really have little to do with long-term fiscal viability. You don’t have to be a genius to read between the lines: repeated references to “liberty,” “entitlements” and ObamaCare suggest the GOP is still more interested in things like tax cuts for the rich and unencumbered Big Business at the expense of the poor — that is, propagating plutocracy — than they are in genuine fiscal responsibility.

Just my off-the-cuff thoughts.

So my plan for restructuring college football has been completely blown up by the most recent wave of conference reorganization, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming of a playoff. On the eve of the so-called “National Championship” game, I thought I’d unveil how my bracket would look this year (here’s last year’s). Read the entire post »

What with the big kerfuffle over the Bush tax cut extension and the end of the year, I’ve been thinking a lot about taxes lately. I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there, alongside a tremendous amount of just lazy thinking. So I’d like to share my perspectives on three taxes that are recurring hot topics in Washington: the income tax, capital gains tax and estate tax – all of which continue to be hot-button issues because our government itself is largely run by the wealthy. Read the entire post »

I’m writing this post on my brand-new 11″ Macbook Air. While it’s not exactly the laptop I’ve been hoping Apple would make for years now (basically since they dropped the 12″ iBook), it’s damn close. I find it positively mind-boggling that a functioning computer can weigh so little and be so small.

Of course, that portability brings with it some drawbacks, most notably limited drive space (my 11″ only has 64 gb of storage). That creates a situation where certain tools and techniques become valuable, particularly those that save space or increase connectivity. Specifically, the applications I’ve thus far found very useful in conjunction with the Macbook Air are: Read the entire post »

Football season is once again in full swing, and that means it’s time to announce my annual NFL All-Name Team!

As stated in announcing last year’s squad, to make the team a player must possess one thing: a name that I like the sound of. No other criteria exist, though preference is given to starters and those who see significant time over those who ride the pine.

There have been several changes from last year’s squad. First, the defense this year is a 4-3: it may be falling out of style with NFL coaches, but too many linemen have good names to play a 3-4. Second, I’ve added four special teams spots, for punter, place kicker, kick returner and punt returner. There’s also a nickel corner, which pushes the number of defensive players up to 12 but whatever.

Here are your 2010 honorees (asterisks denote returning players): Read the entire post »