$100 laptop and Amazon digital books

The rise of Amazon's new digital book, combined with the "$100" laptop ($188 is current cost of manufacturing) has big implications in world education if we can get past the cost. I find it interesting that schools in third world countries are buying laptops when they can't afford chalk, pencils, or anything else. However, with internet access, computers are far more important than any of that other stuff. Especially if you can download books on line, especially text books. Now there just needs to be someone with the courage to offer free downloads of old textbooks. I noticed in Mali, they just don't have any way to learn, since there aren't enough books for everyone. I think the combination of the $100 laptop, a few generous professors who say screw it, I'm open sourcing my textbook could revolutionize the bottom of the pyramid's education system. This will never happen, since professors make huge profits off of textbooks, hence the "revisions" of editions every few years. I would love to write some simple textbooks, like basic math, basic science, etc, and not copyright them and make them available for download. There would be no profit, but if you could get a bunch of people working on it, it wouldn't be too big of a deal. The problem is, with higher level of courses that are changing, it would be difficult since not having any financial incentive to advance the field could hinder development. But basic k-8 science and math aren't really changing as far as I know. Anyway, just a quick thought for the day.

Thoughts from Week 10

The Packers are the real deal. They seem to have found a running back in Ryan Grant. Donald Lee looks like a fine replacement for Bubba Franks. Brett Favre still has something left. His wide receivers look pretty good and spreading the ball around makes it tough for the defense to defend the pass.

The Vikings are terrible. Brooks Bollinger is not a NFL quarterback. He looks tentative in the backfield, can't complete a pass when necessary. They'd be better off lining up two left tackles and Peterson in the backfield. I understand now why Peterson doesn't get the ball as many times as he should. Minnesota can not convert third downs and their offense can't stay on the field. On the flip side, it looks like the way to keep AD from dropping 300 on you is to keep him off the field. The Packers have been running the ball, converting third downs, chewing the clock.

Fox just switched to a different game! We're now watching the Eagles play the Redskins. Washington missed a PAT: bad. They then chased the points after their second TD and missed the two point conversion: worse. Philly just scored, and what do they do? Chase the points. Of course they missed it. This wasn't as bad of a call as the Redskins, but I'd take the free point in the third quarter.

After ups (win vs. Colts) and downs (2 losses vs. Texans) last year, Jacksonville seems to have figured it out this year. Garrard seems comfortable with his position as starting QB, Gray has played well with Garrard hurt. The RB tandem of Taylor and Jones-Drew seems to keep both fresh and effective. Maybe most of all, the mood on the sidelines seems to be positive. Garrard congratulating Taylor on a TD run, Taylor congratulating Jones-Drew on a big run. Playing as a team is what it will take to win in the AFC.

The Vikings got the ball 1st and 10 inside the redzone. Sounds like AD time, right? I guess not. 1st down: B. Bollinger pass to TE, 7 yards. 2nd and 3rd: AD? nope, B. Bollinger pass to C. Woodson. Charles Woodson plays for the Packers. Who is calling these plays!?! You have three yards to gain and three plays to gain them. Perhaps you should give it to the NFL leading rusher / offensive ROY / best rookie RB of all time. Just a thought. (Editors note: Editor just read that Peterson was hurt in the third quarter and didn't return to the game. Editor still thinks Vikings should have run the ball instead of letting Bollinger pass.)

Eagles just missed another 2 point try. They now lead by 1 point, instead of three, with a little over 3 minutes left. The Redskins let Philadelphia score after giving them the ball back. The Redskins get the ball back with a little over 2 minutes to play and it's still a one possession game. If Philly kicks in the third, they could have kicked in the fourth to go up three and now they'd be up 10 with two minutes left. Take the free points early in the game!

Brian Westbrook accounted for 183 of the Eagles 379 total yards (48%) and 18 of the Eagles 33 points (54%). My guess is that he accounts for more total offense than any RB in the NFL. Andy Reid is probably overrated as a coach, but one thing he knows: giving his best player, Westbrook, the ball a whole bunch gives him the best chance to win the game. Coming into today's game, Westbrook had 1036 of the team's 2950 total yards (35%) and 36 of the team's 156 points (23%). That's a pretty sizable chunk of the offense.

A quick look showed that Adrian Peterson had 44% of the Vikings total yards and 32% of their points. Brad Childress should attend the Andy Reid school of coaching.

This just in ... Childress was the offensive coordinator for the Eagles before taking the Minnesota job! 2003 through 2005, while Childress was the offensive coordinator, Westbrook averaged 15.5 touches per game. The last season and a half? 22.3. Maybe it isn't so surprising that Peterson is only averaging 18 touches a game.

Does anyone suck the life out of a telecast quite like Joe Buck? He's got an uncanny way of making even the most exciting games nearly unwatchable.

I just noticed that every article on espn.com has a comment section except for Bill Simmons. Here's the comment I just submitted to Page 2.

Why is there a comments section on every other article on espn.com except for Bill Simmons'? Jemele Hill gets constant harassment, TMQ gets railed for his articles but Simmons gets a free pass? I think readers would appreciate the chance to let other espn.com readers know how they feel about The Sports Guy.

We'll see what they have to say.

21 Tags! A very productive Sunday.

Sage Wins!

This post is about a week late, but with the Texans on a bye, I get one too.



Sage looked pretty good in his first start with the Texans. The Raiders aren't much of a team, but there are not gimme wins for the Texans. Rosenfels did some work with his feet, including a 14 yard scramble on the Texans' first offensive play of the game and a fourth down QB sneak. Kubiak has confidence in Sage and his ability to run the offense, going for it on fourth down from the Oakland 5. That decision was rewarded with a TD, only the second touchdown on an opening drive all season.

The one issue that Rosenfels has is under throwing deep balls. He also has a tendency to lead the receiver into the middle of the field, allowing DBs to make a play on the ball. The second play of the second quarter was a deep pass that was intercepted. Walters, the WR, was uncovered and had a lot of ground. If Sage throws the pass so Walters straightens his route out and puts the pass 5 yards deep in the endzone, it goes for a TD, or at the worst, an incompletion, because the DB doesn't have a chance to make a play on it. This quote, about his 4th quarter TD pass, pretty well sums up his hesitancy to air it out.

"Andre' ran a great route," Rosenfels said. "I saw that he had 3 yards on him
and threw it. I thought I overthrew him, but he ran that sucker down."

Overall, Sage had an effective day. The Raiders had been allowing about 175 yards passing, and had allowed 6 TD passes through 7 games. Sage's numbers were 180 yds and 1 TD, which is pretty good for a backup QB making his third career start.

Look for Matt Schaub to start next week against the resurgent Saints.

The Texans' Record Setting Season
Best record through 9 games: 4-5 (.444) 2007, 2004

Coal - the first step in energy independence

A coworker brought up an interesting point. Oil is valued in US dollars. As the dollar continues to decrease in value, oil becomes cheaper for other countries. This increases the demand worldwide and increases the price for the US. Specifically, the Canadian dollar has increased in value 26% against the US dollar since the beginning of the year. That means more and more US dollars are needed to purchase a barrel of oil. The same would be true for natural gas, a source of energy that is increasing in favor in the US.

Burning coal is a major source of pollution, yes, however, coal is cheap and plentiful within the United States. A major part of any energy policy should be the continued work toward energy independence. This, as shown above, would be good for the economy, as well as international relations.

That's a long introduction to what I found in the Houston Chronicle on Friday. Thad Hill, president of NRG Texas had this to say,

"Coal is our most abundant energy resource, and there's no way for the U.S. to get anywhere near energy independence without finding an acceptable way to use coal."

That's an expected statement from a company that operates a coal power plant, but it makes it no less true. Coal is a national resource and we should be looking for ways to use coal in a cleaner manner. Check out how NRG is working toward that in Friday's Chronicle article.

Sustainability

I recently looked in this magazine called Dwell. Its an architecture magazine, and the thing I found interesting was that a lot of the "trendy" products in there were popular because they were sustainable. This has a major implication that "green" things will become a very profitable future (Therefore many people will start working that area) and also will help the environment significantly. People in the developed world love trendy things and if going green is the new thing, we could make significant strides reducing our carbon footprint. It seems like architects are on the fast track to become green builders, while engineers seem to not care. Obviously this is a generalization, but seems to be true on the whole. However, engineers are the key to developing environmentally friendly buildings, cars, and whatever else. See this article for something about using fly-ash from power plants to create bricks. I think its pretty interesting and hope engineers get fully on board.