With all the turmoil in the economy these days, it hardly seems the right time to be starting up a new bank, but that’s exactly the right time according to my brother… and the other founders of the newly formed Golden Pacific Bank. Look at it this way, “we have a clean balance sheet from which to start”, Roy tells me. Ok, makes good sense. And what do I know about banking anyway? The same could be said for launching a startup, I guess, but tell that to the VCs these days. Congrats Roy on the new venture. I look forward to visiting your first branch when it opens.

Up ’til yesterday, I knew very little about the horrible disease TB, and particularly about the details of Extensively Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB) caused by very fast mutation. Nearly 1/3rd of the world’s population are infected with the TB bacterium. It’s an epidemic and a global issue.

Chris Anderson (TED curator) sent an email to all TED newsletter subscribers on Friday to raise awareness of this very big issue. $3.5B annually is the funding available to fight the epidemic. What’s needed is $6.7B annually ($20 total per infected person). Here’s how you can help.

Warning: the following video has disturbing images.

Wow. Scary stuff. Palin interviewed by Katie Couric (a softie) and Palin looks absolutely ignorant on the issuess or simply unable to think spin on her feet. Scary stuff that I hope the mass majority doesn’t have empathy for.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not in love with Obama. But the madness must end this November.

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Posted via Pixelpipe.

So I’ve had the iPhone for just over a week now (yes, I waited for v2) and I can honestly say it may become one of the top 10 products I’ve ever owned. Sure there are issues, like the abismal battery life in 3g mode, and the lack of copy & paste, but those two are minor, since I find I rarely need c/p and most of the time I just keep 3g off and use wifi. Most of the issues tend to be carrier related BS like no tethering. The exchange setup was brilliant, visual voice mail is a godsend, full safari browsing is glorious (flash will come I’m sure). Google maps with GPS saves me hundreds or thousands on a car GPS. Apps are a lifesaver for all kinds is things, but especially games for my boy. And the overall UI and industrial design is lickable. Well done, Steve. Well done.

PS: I’m posting this with my iPhone.

Congratulations to my brother Roy Malone and his team “Team Bones” in their outstanding 3rd place finish in the 500 mile Eco Primal Quest 2008 Montana, perhaps one of the most grueling races on earth. If you haven’t seen or heard of an expedition length adventure race, it is a multi-discipline, co-ed, 4-person, non-stop, brutal 10 day race with navigating over, under, between and through every kind of terrain, water, sky you can imagine. These guys barely stop to rest and eat. Roy is the captain and a long-time racer. I’ll be curios to find out if this was more or less painful than the Utah Primal Quest of 2007, which I believe was one of his hardest.

At about 50 second in, you see Roy putting down some Top Ramen. And that might be his foot getting the ol’ tape job a few seconds before that.

Congratulations Team Bones. A job very well done.

Nothing like impacting a person’s wallet to drive change in the consumption of worlds resources and the degradation of the environment. Not that I don’t care about the wellness of the earth on a moral, or some other ground… but this will certainly help. So, though I would buy a Prius or some other evo-conscious vehicle , I have to think the resources consumed and waste produced by a new car created is greater than sticking with my old F150. It’d be interesting to do the math so I can feel better about my decision when I get that look from Prius drivers. But by some means, reducing my fuel consumption, I will reduce the monthly costs to my family budget, and thereby helping the environment. So, maybe it’s time to ride the bike. I’m feeling better already.

A comparison of the count of visits to each candidate’s website (barackobama.com, hillaryclinton.com, johnmccain.com). Could this be much of a success indicator? At this point, you can pretty much rule out Hillary, so then you’re comparing Barack and McCain. And if Hillary were to become Barack’s VP running mate…

And here’s the compete graph on count of unique people who’ve visited the respective sites.

This is an interesting way to look at our performance… relative to the rest of the online wold (yahoo/google).