TwoSpy

Today is my last day to work for ORIX.  I am taking off to join a startup as employee #1 (hopefully there are more to come).  Until now, I have enjoyed the company of an entire IT team around me to bounce ideas off of and learn from.  Although I’ll continue to do so via IM and email with some of the developers I was working with, I doubt it will be nearly the same not working from the same location.  So you may notice this blog start to turn more technical as I begin to use it to bounce ideas off you – my new virtual IT team.

Random poll for anybody reading this:
On your last day, did you have 4 meetings on your calendar?  What the heck!

Although the alarmist media loves Al Gore, those that know me know I don’t buy into his propaganda.  I drive a fuel-efficient diesel Jetta for the economics of it, not for the environment.  But if you are one of those Al Gore lovers, why aren’t you driving one too?  Todays diesels are …

… quieter, more powerful and fuel efficient. With no throttle restriction, higher energy content in the fuel and extreme combustion pressures, diesels typically garner 30 percent greater fuel economy than comparable gasoline engines. And less fuel burned means less greenhouse gas CO₂. After a century with a dirty reputation, diesel is suddenly looking green.

Read the full article here.

If you are leaning toward buying a hybrid for your next car, I would strongly consider a diesel engine.  Compared to a similar gasoline car, diesels have only about a $1000 premium, versus a $5000 premium or more for a hybrid.  Additionally, you can get 300,000+ miles out of a diesel versus 100,000 if you are lucky with a hybrid.  Your thoughts?

Well I guess you could say I reached a turning point in my life last night. I gave to Sarah the most expensive gift I’ve ever given, and who would of thought it to be an allotrope of carbon dug out of the earth. You’ll have to ask her for the details of how the whole thing went down.

View the rest of the pics here.

We have known about human nature, but maybe this should extend to animals?

Mint.com launched at TechCrunch40 on Tuesday. The site claims that it:

… connects nightly to the credit card providers, banks, and/or credit unions you choose to keep your transactions and account balances automatically up-to-date. Mint even auto-balances your checkbook and auto-categorizes your transactions.

I have been looking forward to seeing what the site offers, and though it has launched, I am still looking forward to see what it offers. I signed up immediately after the launch, and I guess I wasn’t the only one. The site got hammered. It was down in a matter of hours. Just today I was finally able to get my Chase checking account linked, but I still have had no luck with my Chase credit card account or my Wells Fargo account.

Has anybody else had any luck? I’ll keep you posted on any further progress I have.

On another note, does anyone know of any security risks that I should worry about by using this site? From the surface, everything is using SSL, but I sure hope my account info is being gaurded safely on their backend. I tend to be overly trustworthy, so please stop me if I am making a mistake here.