And we are off again...

OK, I'm back and this time, damn it, it is going to be different.  I am going to update this regularly and share my incredible wealth of knowledge with the world (or something like that.)

There is a saying I heard once that "any life worth living is worth recording."  The flip side to that, I suppose, if one were feeling rather melancholy, would be that if you don't have anything to write about then what does that say about your current straights?  Enough of that however... I surely have enough going on, general opinions, market and news observations and miscellaneous stuff to fill up a page everyday...right :)

We are quickly streaking through Autumn which means that 1) the holidays are right around the corner and 2) I have yet again transformed our backyard pool into something akin to a swap/pond.  So the conflux of these two events means that if anyone out there would like to, in a blind state of holiday well wishidness, provide me with free pool service for the off season I would be forever in your debt.  As that is not likely, I guess I really need to take a shot at getting all of the leaves from every tree in the surrounding square mile out of the water.  I am full convinced that there has not been enough focused nation attention on developing a tool that is well suited to this exercise.  For god's sake it is not rocket science.  How hard can it be to develop some tool that will;

• remove the leaves from the pool
• not require pumping half the water out with them
• will not become instantly clogged
• not require emptying every time 14 leaves have been collected

I have searched high and low for such a tool but am convinced that it has not yet been dreamed up in the DARPA labs or "Seen on TV" development center.  I am sensing that there is an opportunity here to make copious amounts of money off of shleps, like myself, who really (if we are being honest) have little right in owning a pool in the first place let alone one completely surrounded by large mature trees that have the poor manners to lose their leaves (and lest me not forget "needles") every year into my shimmering haven of blue.  So come on, we can put a man on the moon (if you believe in that sort of thing,) surely we can develop something like this and I will be sure to purchase it (as long as it does not involve me having to fork over body parts or children as payment.)

Hmmm...

Has a discussion with a friend the other day on the growing sophistication of the plans available for printing a gun on a 3D printer.  Now while I think that is is a bit scary there were a couple other stories in the 3D printing realm that more caught my interest.  The first was that NASA was going to sending a 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS for those in Geekdom.)  The second was a story I saw on the new availability of a 3D scanner for home use that would allow the user to place an object on a turntable and then the scanner would create a scan that could then be used on a 3D printer to recreate the object.  The scans were not exceptionally detailed but the machine was less than $2000 so one have to assume if you spend more than that the detailed ones are available.  These two items (along with the gun story) make me convinced that this could well be one of the most important inventions of our time.  The technology is evolving at ridiculous speed (in another gun story a commercial grade machine using powdered metals was used to print all the parts that went into a real gun.)  With the materials getting better and more innovative and the scanning technology catching up, the implications to manufacturing, innovations, copyright laws, security just to name a few are simply unfathomable.  I still think there is money to made in here somewhere for those smart enough to really think it out.

Perhaps they could print out a pool tool....