A look inside George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch

From the LA Times.

Things I Like–Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pros

John Scalzi complained yesterday about earbud headphones because they don’t fit in his ears. Scalzi wonders if his ears are weird, but from the comments, it’s obvious that he isn’t alone. I’m with Scalzi–earbud headphones don’t fit my ears well. I absolutely hate the Apple earbuds, especially because you have to crank the volume to hear anything while ride the metro and I that wasn’t good for my ears. After some searching I have found wonderful headphones for commuting and excersizing–Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pros. They sound great, they keep out extraneous sounds (such as the sound of airplanes, subways, etc.), and they stay in my ears.

If you clicked on the link and went to Amazon, you are probably saying, what in the &$%@ are you doing buying $180 headphones?! The answer is simple–I went through multiple pairs of less expensive headphones and then I decided to upgrade.

When I decided to upgrade my headphones from the cheap headphones that came with my MP3 player, I bought at pair of Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator headphones. I liked them, but after the warranty period expired, the sound went out of one side of the headphones. I was bummed, but I liked them, so I bought another pair. After the warranty period on my second pair of Etymotics expired, however, the same problem occurred. Much to Etymotic’s credit, they replaced the headphones. Even though Etymotics customer service was great, I decided to upgrade my headphones.

To research headphones, I went to the best site for headphone information–Headroom. Headroom has a lot of great information about headphones, including headphone ratings (though it appears they no longer carry the Super.fi 5 Pros). From the information on Headroom, I decided to buy the Super.fi 5Pros. I haven’t regretted it for a moment.

Sure they are pricey, but they sound awesome. Also, I justify the prices because I listen to headphones for about 15 hours a week (on the Metro and while exercising), so I’m happy with paying a bit more for wonderful sounding headphones. It’s a matter of personal preference, but I much prefer the sound of the Super.fi 5’s to the Etymotics. The Super.fi’s sound much richer and less tinny (you would hope they would sound better because the Super.fi 5’s are $100 more expansive than my Etymotics).

If you listen to to headphones a lot, I strongly recommend you check out Super.fi 5 Pros. If you are interested in other options, here’s Headroom’s list of ear canal headphones.

As a side note, if anyone would like to buy me some new headphones, I’d like a pair of Ultimate Ears UE 11 Pros. They only cost $1150, but by all accounts you can’t get better headphones. If $1150 is too steep, I wouldn’t complain about a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s. They are a mere $500. Like the UE 11 Pros, these Sennheisers are as good as it gets.

Any Baseball Is Beautiful

Design Observer says so and has pictures to prove it.

I love a good 419 scam

I’m always amused when I receive a 419 (the international code for Advance Fee Fraud) email, like the one below. It warms my heart that people like 419Eater are out there scamming the scammers. Check out the trophy room section on 419 Eater for some amusing pictures of 419 scammers.

Mr. Howard George
27 Old Gloucester Street,
London WC1N 3AX

Greetings,

Please permit me to introduce my humble self to you. I am Mr. Howard George the Director of International Relation with a prime bank here in London. I got your email address on the Chambers of Commerce address list and my confidence reposed on you to contact you. I hope you read this message carefully and reply me immediately, although we have not met before but I suggest that this transaction will bring us together.

In one of our periodic auditing we discovered a dormant account with holding balance of 26,000,000 (Twenty Six Million British Pounds) which has not been operated for the past Four years. From my investigations and confirmations as the Director of International Relation, the owner of this account, a foreigner by name Mr. Chris Marco died of cancer of the brain in 17 May, 2004 and since then nobody has done anything as regards the claiming of this money because he has no family members who are aware of the existence of neither the account nor the funds.
I have secretly discussed this matter with a top official of Her Majesty Treasury here and we have agreed to find a reliable foreign partner to deal with us, although due to his position he did not want to take active part but as soon as you follow my instructions everything will be successful because we will be working hand in hand with him. We thus propose to do business with you, standing in as the next of kin of these funds from the deceased and after due legal processes have been followed the fund will be released to your account without delay and we will use it for investment and to assist the less privileged in the society because if we left the fund with the government it will be fortified for nothing and will be used to suppress the poor masses in the society.

This transaction is totally free of risk and troubles as the fund is legitimate and does not originate from drug, money laundry, terrorism or any other illegal act. Finally, I will give you 40% for your cooperation while 60% will be for me. On receipt of your response I will furnish you with detailed clarification as it relates to this mutual benefit transaction.
You should send me your account information as states below where you like the money to be transferred so that I can send application for the release of the fund immediately with your account information. Even an empty account is ok.

Bank Name…………..
Bank Address………..
Beneficiary Name….
Account Number………
Swift Code………….
Your Tel/Fax Number….
Routing Number………
State & Country……..

I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible if you are interested.

Regards,
Mr. Howard George.

My Favorite Political Bumper Sticker This year

bumpersticker, originally uploaded by Brian Boyko.

A Photo Moment

Pitons, originally uploaded by theshyster65.

This is a picture of Soufrière town in St. Lucia. The mountain in the background are the Petit and Gros Piton. This is where Laura and I went on our honeymoon last year.

One of my favorite things things about St. Lucia, is that is has mountains, and good snorkeling. We climbed the Petit Piton. It was great. I highly recommend it to anyone who goes to St. Lucia. And the snorkeling was really fun too. If you go to St. Lucia, I highly recommend climbing the Petit Piton and doing a lot of snorkeling.  You won’t be disappointed.

Greenpeace Needs Some Perspective

Today Greenpeace activists evaded security at Heathrow and unveiled a flag on a the tail fin of an airliner to protest plans to build another runway at Heathrow. As noted by Roger Pielke, Jr. these activists really need some perspective. China is building 97 new airports over the next 12 years. Adding another runway to Heathrow will increase air traffic and carbon dioxide emissions, but not nearly as much as 97 brand new airports.

Additional Taxes Will Reduce Taxes

Here’s a great story from Canada. A new study shows that carbon taxes could reduce income taxes:

The report argues that making polluters pay a fee for every tonne of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere could raise between $50-billion and $100-billion in revenue annually by 2020.

The report argues that most of that revenue could be used to greatly reduce personal income taxes.

I think that’s pretty amusing. How often do new taxes reduce old ones? It happens, but not regularly. Second, the “polluters” are regular Canadian citizens–at least the ones that drive cars or use electricity. In regulated industries, like utilities, additional costs will surely be passed on to consumers. And other industries will surely pass on the costs of additional taxes.

The article talks about the possibility of revenue neutral carbon taxes. I’ll believe that when I see it.

Trailer for Inidana Jones 4

Never mind the incredibly lame name, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movies looks pretty good.

Surfing the Cortes Bank

Last month I posted some links to some pictures and a story about guys surfing monster waves off the coast of California. Below is a video of one of them surfing an amazingly large wave: