I am absolutely dumbstruck by the amount of people who blindly go to these town hall meetings simply to cause trouble, than to listen and learn. Stop making all the noise, and instead of raising hell, why don't you do some research and contribute to the greater good and help to create a better health care solution! And stop spreading rumors! No matter what, you will always have a choice. That's what America is about. And you, as a citizen, have a responsibility to yourself, your children, and the rest of the country to learn and not just flap your gums because some political action committee said you should.

Stop putting up roadblocks and instead ask meaningful questions that your representative can then use to make an informed decision.

As you know, from time to time I comment on what Mark Cuban has stated on his blog, blogmaverick.com. Today is one of those days.

In his post, The Irony of the Video Business, Mr. Cuban comments on how surprising it is Redbox, a company that rents DVDs through kiosks, is "the most disruptive force in the video business."

The true irony here is that about four years ago, when I was CEO of Immediatek, the company I founded in 2001 and which Mr. Cuban eventually bought majority ownership in, Mr. Cuban apparently fell in with the "conventional wisdom" which he has quoted in the referenced blog post. In other words, he was adamantly against kiosks when Immediatek, a company known to be ahead of the curve, was actively engaged in working towards disruptive kiosk solutions. To keep the long story short, our company had tremendous opportunities implementing our designs through third parties, not having to pay a dime for equipment, and Mr. Cuban shot it all down. In an email to me, and I quote:

"and so we are clear. We wont [sic] host a kiosk. We wont sell kiosks. We wont even take delivery..."

And in another instance:

"...there are dozens of companies trying to sell kiosks. None have made it. we are not stupid enough to think we could do something they cant [sic]..."

Mr. Cuban was adamant that we were not in the "kiosk" business. That we were in the "content" business. Since when? Immediatek had a history of introducing products such as NetBurn Secure, which was a software product that allowed artists to sell and distribute music in a secure format. Our kiosk designs were an extension of this model, and the music labels were interested. Our first artist that used NetBurn was JC Chasez of NSync. But... our kiosks were summarily dismissed, after months, if not longer, of work, to sew it into our overall offering.

So, where was this disruptive thought four years ago? I guess folks should be open to other technologies and ideas, even when they are not yours.

I've been reading lately about all of the issues regarding airlines. Planes stuck on the tarmac for hours; lost luggage; bitchy crew; long lines, yada yada.

From someone who has actually worked in that industry for a time, I can tell you first-hand that people simply don't realize what a technological and logistical marvel - miracle in fact - modern air travel really is. To keep planes flying, more-or-less on schedule for the most part, is an incredible undertaking, and despite improvements in technology, communications, flight instruments, navigational systems and such, the simple fact is that it still has to be run by people, and those people for the most part, I believe, do an outstanding job of getting people to and from their destinations safely.

Do they make mistakes? I'm sure they do. I wouldn't want to sit on a plane for seven hours. But ya know, it's going to happen. That's just the way it is.

And for you idiots who want to sue the airline for such issues, you are complete morons because all you are doing is a)creating a needless cost center which takes money away from improving airline operations and instead focuses airline resources on defending frivolous lawsuits, and b) causing the airlines to become more conservative in everything they do - including estimating flight schedules - thus creating even more havoc by a plane actually being on-time and waiting at the gate because so much padding was built in to the schedule.

So my recommendation to you is to take a chill pill, and just try to be understanding when these types of things happen. Put yourself in the shoes of all the different people that work hard to get you where you are going. For the most part, it's a thankless job. I wouldn't ever want to be a flight attendant, making ridiculously low pay just to hear your bitching and moaning because you don't like your seat. Get over it, and instead focus your negative energy elsewhere. And be thankful that we actually have an amazing system that works (most of the time), that continues to evolve to address various challenges that are constantly introduced. Have a nice flight!