Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert to host Rally in Washington DC

Ok, so this is really cool. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have just announced that they will be organizing a rally on the Washington DC Mall near the Washington Monument on October 30th. Check out their websites:

Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity
Stephen Colbert's Keep Fear Alive

Jon Stewart's site gives me some hope. And Colbert has cleverly claimed the role of Stewart's foil and will continue to outplay Fox news in this role. I'm stoked. But, this is the coolest part, the whole thing started on the internet on this website called Reddit. Anyone can post there and if someone likes what you post they can "upvote" it and then more people see it and upvote it or downvote it and reply to it and form it. Over time some rise to the top of the pile, the "front page". One such post filtered to the front page a few days ago, not long after the Glen Beck "rally to restore honor", someone posted on Reddit that they had had a vision that Colbert would lead a rally on Washington. People joked about it a bit, a "sub-reddit" dedicated to the subject was created, and soon there were over 5000 members. Within a day or two they had gotten serious. They decided that if they really wanted to make this happen they had to get Stephen's attention. They zeroed in on one of his charities: Donor's Choose which donates school supplies to classrooms throughout the US.

They organized and donated over $233,000 to Donor's Choose in THREE DAYS, and at the end of those three days we have these announcements from Colbert and Stewart. This is a lightening fast response to an incredible ground swelling of this internet-based network of honestly generous people. If I lived near DC I would be there. What a great thing.

A LONG time ago

Haven't posted in like, forever. Just happened to have Blogger and a bunch of interesting websites all open at the same time.

Here ya go:

This guy built a steel house from scratch over 28 years and it's amazing.

This guy writes a great article about the importance and effectiveness of social media.
Specifically it's relevance to LOLcats, Political Activism, and Pornography.

Mission Motors: Mission One, electric motorcycle
This company is on the brink of producing the most kick-ass electric vehicle on the market. It's a brand new company run by some former Velocity11 and Ducati employees along with a bunch of Stanford and Dartmouth engineers. I hope the company takes off!

Ok, that's all for now. It's better than nothing.

Really silly ego

So, this is really silly, but I just got super excited when I googled myself. Ewww!! No, it's not that gross. Just type your name into Google and see what happens. If you don't have a common name you might find yourself right away. If you're a John Smith, goodluck finding yourself. Now, my name "Benton Miller" is not really that common. There are lots of Miller's and Benton can be a first or last name, and is also the name of several towns in the US. But, in the grand scheme of things it's not that common. When I first googled myself a couple years ago, I didn't show up until about page 4 of the search results. I barely registered.  Well, guess who's in the number one spot now?  Hurray for me!  That's right, if you google me, you will find me.  Unless you don't know how to put search phrases in quotes.  Then you'll find a bunch of lame product reviews that I did on Amazon.  Still me.  Just lamer.  Now if only that website had a purpose.

Check it out:  Google "Benton Miller"

Tis the season

This has been the season of friends and family and it's been wonderful. Learning to ski with Marc, Art, Kate, Susie, Bret, Anthony, Mike and Cheryl. Getting tips on skiing from Sam and Lorissa. Attempting to squeeze a 12 mike hike and half hour hot tub soak into less than 4 hours on New Years (it was a wonderful attempt and we'll make it next time). Sam and Lorissa also turned me on to Architecture in Helsinki, which is a great band. While I was home I read this webcomic in its entirety. Not very funny, but for some reason really engaging. I also just stumbled across this video on how to make a match shooter. Which is part of this website Instructables dot com. Which I recently discovered and love. It inspired me to make a 4 foot by 8 foot whiteboard from tile-board with a steel core so that I can attach magnets to it. It didn't come out that great, but it is big and it does work. It just looks sloppy. Oh well.

Today it's snowing and blowing like crazy. I've got a ski pass for the day, but the mountain, and the road to it, are both closed. Maybe the road will open in an hour or two. Maybe.

Tidbits 2

Hey Folks, Just a quick update:

If you've spent time on message boards and the internet you might find this video from College Humor hilarious: Internet Commentator Business Meeting.

I also came across this amazing 9-10 minute BMX video. Unreal. This is the most ridiculous stuff I've seen done on a bike. Movie on PinkBike.

Enjoy!

More Creation

As a junior in college I needed to loft my bed a little bit so that I'd have room for storage underneath. I didn't want to use the typical cinder blocks, they're heavy, unstable, and unsightly. I also didn't want to spend much money. I came up with the idea to use tree branches as legs for the bed. They were free, lighter than cinder blocks, and they branched out naturally helping to stabilize the legs. I scrounged through the woods near my house in NH for already downed wood that was still solid, branched nicely, and big enough. I screwed these onto two cross pieces and then laid slats over the cross pieces. This was version 1.0 of the Tree Bed. It lasted for 7 years and many relationships. It moved 3 times in NH, then to California, and finally to Salt Lake City. In fact, I slept in it last night.

This morning though I started to dismantle it. I'd been wanting to really remake the frame of the bed for a while. 1.0 was stable enough and sturdy enough, but I'd had to retrofit a few braces to keep it running, and a couple of the mattress slats had cracked. Tonight I'll sleep on version 2.0. I've reused 3 of the 4 legs from version 1.0. Khola and I found a nice new fourth leg when we were at the dog park this morning. The new upper frame has been completely redesigned around a queen size mattress, and the desire to make the bed more easily transported. I plan to cut the bed in half width-wise so that it can be removed from the room. I'll then re-assemble it using two metal plates (which I'll have to make at some point) and some beefy bolts. One of the big problems with version 1.0 is that there were almost no braces or diagonal members in the design. This allowed the frame to twist and deform easily and didn't allow me to support the mattress slats in the middle. Version 2.0 uses two diagonal struts from running between opposing corners of the frame. Since these members are primarily in tension I decided to use cables. They're lighter, and they can be unhooked and reattached once the bed is cut in half. Plus, I can use cable tensioners to adjust the tension, something that would be impossible with wood cross members. I'm also using the cables, in combination with small support blocks, to provide support to the mattress slats. In this regard wood cross pieces would be better, but wouldn't look as cool.

I've also added a pretty neat little feature. There's a small halogen lamp hidden under the bed which points at the back wall, under the bed. The lamp switch is mounted to the back leg and you can easily switch it on and off from bed. This makes for a really subtle and slightly surreal night-light. It also provides incentive to clean under the bed.

Overall I'm really happy with how this is turning out. I need to go and buy a queen mattress for it, and there are still some decorative things I want to do to give it a more finished look, but right now the structure is really solid, relatively light, and will be sort of easily transported. I think this version ought to last me another 7 years at least. Hopefully more.

You can check out more pictures on my Flickr account: My new bed

New Website and Domain!

So, I'm now the proud owner of my own domain name: bentonmiller.com. Wheee!!

In celebration of the new domain name I revamped my website. I think it's a little better than "Medium Rare" was. It's a lot easier to read and navigate, I think it has more style, and there's a little more sophisticated HTML and Javascript under the hood. The next thing I'd like to do is start adding in some Flash stuff.
BentonMiller.com

Awesome

Great Argument

This YouTube Video lays out a very compelling argument for action against climate change. It's 9 minutes long, complete worth watching. I'm not really sure why it gets the title that it does. Seems like a somewhat hopeful video to me.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See.

Awesome news

From Business Wire:

"SANTA CLARA, Calif. & MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) and Velocity11 today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Agilent to acquire Velocity11. Velocity11, privately held, is a leader in automated liquid handling and laboratory robotics for the life science market. Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be final in 30 to 60 days, subject to certain closing conditions."

This is pretty great news!! I worked really hard for the last 4 years at Velocity11, and exercised all of the options that I could before I left. This news means that I get a nice extra Christmas present this year. As the article says, the financial details won't be worked out for another 30-60 days so I won't know exactly what it means for me, but I have a rough guess, and it definitely won't be enough for me to retire on. Still, it's certainly better than having to pay taxes on options that have no real value!

See, this is the thing that sucks about stock options: Let's say you start working for Acme and their shares are trading on the stock market for $10 a share at the time. Perhaps you're a valuable employee and they give you some stock options. They say "You have the option to buy 100 shares of our stock at $10 per share, but you can only do that after you've worked here for a year." This is an incentive for you to increase the value of the stock. After a year if the stock is worth $20 you can buy 100 shares of it at $10 a share instantly making $10 per share, or $1,000. Isn't that nice! Of course, you have to pay taxes on that $1000. So you really only get to take home maybe $800. Still, you've made $800! Great!

Now, let's say you work for a privately held company like Velocity11. It's not traded on the stock market and so it's share values are harder to calculate, but the company makes an estimate and says they're worth $0.1. [Please note that I am pulling numbers out of thin air here. These are not real values. I'm making them nice and round so they're easy to work with.] Again, you get the option to purchase 100 shares after 1 year. So, at the end of one year you buy your options for $10 and you get, drum roll please...

nothing.

Velocity11 is a private company. You can't sell those shares that you bought because they're not on the market. Well, technically, you could sell them back to the company, and if Velocity11 doesn't want the shares (they have first right of refusal) you could sell them to another Velocity11 employee. This is only theoretically possible though. There really is no market for your options. During the year since you started, the company has grown and now the company estimates that the shares are worth $1. So, theoretically, on paper, you've spent $10 to make $100. A profit of $90. Of course, since you can't really sell those shares you haven't really made the money yet. You're still out $10, but wait it get's worse.

The IRS doesn't care. They don't care that you can't sell your shares. They don't care that you have -$10 in your pocket. In their mind, you've got $90 in your pocket and they want you to pay taxes on that, just the same as it were real. So, not only are you down $10 for the shares, you're down another $18 in taxes. How much does that suck? You haven't made any money on the shares you bought, but you have to pay taxes as if you had made money. But wait, it get's worse.

There's no guarantee that you will ever be able to sell your options. Velocity11 could go belly up and then you'd have spent $10 on options and paid $18 in taxes and have nothing to show for it at all! If that happens you can write it off on your taxes for the next several years until you eventually get the $18 back, but still you've lost $10 and given the government an $18 interest free loan. Awesome.

That's the boat that I was in until this morning. I'd exercised my options and had nothing to show for it. Would the options ever have value? Would I have any savings left after I paid my taxes? It was basically a crappy old row boat that I was in. I'd spent my $10, I was going to have to spend another $18 this spring at tax time, and I'd have nothing to show for it except some hope that someday I'd be able to sell the shares for more than I paid for them. Today though, I'm in an entirely different, much nicer boat. This boat has a motor, and a cooler full of beer. As I've said, I don't know the details, but I do know that I'll at least get my $10 back, and will have the money to pay the $18 in taxes. And, that's great news for today: The options aren't worth nothing! In the next 30-60 days I should know what their real value is and have a better idea of what that means for me. For today I'm just glad to know that I made a good decision to exercise.

This is good news for me, my friends at V11, and in my opinion, good news for Velocity11 as a company too. Agilent seems like a really good fit for V11. They offer complimentary products and services, without really any overlap. I'm excited to see the company continue to grow and to feel like I played a small part in brining it to where it is now.