jackstraw's Blog

Geek News has been one of my favorite podcasts for over a year and a half now. I personally have never heard Todd say one thing that has offended me in all that time of listening. However, Todd wondered what was up with certain e-mails, etc.. questioning his integrity and I simply offered up the only thing I can think of that may have gotten some folks worked up. Simple as that. This topic seems as if it were started to ponder this and I'm participating in the pondering...NOT...trying to cause disarray.

Thinking back over the past few shows I can only think of one thing that may have offended some people and that would be the "Treehugger" comment when talking about gas prices and drilling for oil, etc.... I personally thought those comments were equivalent to a drive by sound bite and not worthy of your show but hey, that's just me. Either way I wasn't offended and will certainly keep listening.

That's actually a great idea...more states should adopt those standards which would significantly minimize what I talked about above.

I thought the show was fine but then again I'm not opposed to getting it a day later if that's what your schedule requires.

I saw a story on PBS or maybe I heard it on NPR or something awhile back about these systems. They basically suggested that most calls the Police go out on in response to these alarms going off are false alarms. They suggested two negative effects of this. 1. In areas where many people have these alarms Police spend two much time responding to false alarms taking them away from other important duties. 2. This in turn ends up wasting tax money used to pay police. It was suggested that a dog was just as effective at giving petty criminals enough of a scare or even a little false advertising and putting a sign in the window saying this house is protected is enough to scare off would be criminals. They also suggested serious thieves are not necessarily deterred by alarm systems because they either know how to subvert it or they know what the Police response time is.

Just a few things to think about. I have a 20 pound Terrier as an alarm system and I'm pretty sure he's as effective as need be as long as I'm not being robbed by serious pros. However, with all that said, a person certainly needs some peace of mind in these matters.

Nice looking site Todd!