Dan Lipka Web Log

Click here to listen to my Superbowl prediction. Somehow this has lead me to ask the question; is reading a book more education than listening to a book on tape? If the technology to transfer text to voice improves that I believe most books and publications will be available through a voice emulator. What about the idea that you can go to your online newspaper of choice, check of a list of all the news stories you are interested in, and a virtual person, with a virtual voice, would read them. I don’t watch the news on TV because most of it is just sensationalism, but what if I could choose what I wanted to hear. Would I really care if the news reporter was a real person or an animation? Maybe I should start a TV station that works with digital cable and you can choose what topics you want to hear from a list or even from a google search. Discus. http://funwavs.com/wavfile.php?quote=1710&sound=27

I wrote a while ago about a book I was reading, Charlie Wilson’s War , which I finished a few weeks ago. This book, highly recommended by my brother, is the true story of how Congressman Charles Wilson and CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos colluded to fund and provide Afghan Mujahideen with arms to fight the Soviets in the 1980s. There are two part two this book, political and personal. Politically, the book shows how one person, on the right Congressional Committees, can exert enormous power. Congressman Wilson was the single driving force that led to hundreds of millions of dollars being funded to arms the Mujahideen. He also coordinated (almost all illegally) matching funds from Saudi Arabia for arms, political support from President Zia of Pakistan, and weapons the Israeli government (yes for Muslims in Afghanistan). Personally, Charlie Wilson was an alcoholic who had a thing for models, socialites, belly dancers, and killing Russians. As I mentioned earlier, the story also focused s

I’m still exhausted. I’ve weird to think that my life has changed in a fundamental way. Everything now seems to have a different slant, a new perspective. I’ve spend the last 20 years looking for the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and now that I have, I feel a new sense of completion and an ironic sense of emptiness. Not the kind of emptiness that feels bad more of a lack of direction. Maybe this is how Inigo felt after he avenged his father’s murder by killing Count Rougin. I have no doubt that this won’t last long, there are so many adventures on the horizon and I’m looking forward to the rest of my life. On Saturday January 15, 2005 I was lucky enough to marry my love, Lindy. The whole wedding process was quite surreal. We planned the whole thing in about four months and decided to do as much ourselves as possible. I still remember hearing things like, “Well for every centerpiece we make, Molly can have a new stroller”. I can’t say that the planning was

150,000 people dead as a result of a tsunami-causing earthquake December 26. The front page of newyorktimes.com links to more than 40 articles, not one of them about the relief efforts. To be honest I am amazed that the press coverage lasted as long as it did. It's just sad that the press treats mad cow disease the same as natural disasters or civil wars (there was yet another article today about a possible "mad cow" in Canada. I'm sure this is important but mad cow killed less than 200 people worldwide, a mere 149,800 less than the Tsunami. Also not in the news is the news out of Iraq that the country will not join OPEC and will price their oil at 20% below market prices (still way above production costs). Before the war, Iraq produced 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, which was good for 10th worldwide, even though UN sanctions limited the selling options. The impact would be tremendous both domestically and internationally. Internationally, other countries

A year from now I will cry once a month, every month for many many years. Not because of marriage or children or work, but it will be the time when I have to pay back my school loans. I have one more semester at Columbia before I get my Masters Degree and that’s another $8,000 I feel is stolen from me. I have spent considerable time and effort in school over the past two years and I have learned almost nothing of practical use. I am not paying over 30K to network, I could do that for free by hanging out in Wall Street bars. I am embarrassed by how little an Ivy League school has to offer someone with so little experience. I feel cheated, I feel the graduate school is a scam. I will get my degree and will use it to my advantage, but it is a lie, it means almost nothing. The only thing it means to me is that I was dedicated to something. I was promised that my program, specifically made for people who are working full-time, would provide practical experience, and instead I fi

In the middle of all the things that need to be done before the wedding, I tried to write my first draft of my wedding vows. I think it is important that what I say in front on my future wife, my family, and friends, be of my own creation. There are thousands of passages in hundreds of books that express all of the emotions that are involved, but someone else wrote them, for somebody else. Over the years, I have written hundreds of pages to my darling fiancée and thought it would be even easier to write my vows to her. All I would have to do it express my love and commitment to her and they rest will take care of itself. Except I am finding this rather difficult. The first thing is that something that may sound great on paper, might not be any good when spoken out loud. So I try to imagine saying it to my audience and than I get nervous (not an feeling I am used to). I want to get this done with enough time that I can memorize it for the wedding day (although I plan to have a b