Us or Them Dogma

“I know what side of the line in the sand I drew I’m on; what side are you on?”

Posted in Misc | No Comments »
Ann Coulter’s humor re: John Edwards

At the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference:

Obviously she’s being funny, and it might seem worse out of context, but man, the bar has gotten so low in politics it’s shameful.

The Edwards campaign responded:

John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power. Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter’s resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion. And the Republican attack dogs will keep playing this despicable trick as long as they think it works.

Then they ask for “Coulter Cash” contributions to send a message that using tactics like that will only make your opponent stronger. I think that’s a pretty good response, and am glad (but not surprised) that Edwards has too much integrity to get sucked down to this childishness.

The entire text of the email response doesn’t appear to be up on the John Edwards site, but it and some commentary is available here. As a conservative, Lopez might know better than Edwards’ campaign manager regarding details of that evening, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Apparently this hysterical joke was a reference to Grey’s Anatomy. I didn’t get it (as I don’t watch that show) and wonder how many of the cheering audience members did. I hope they did, but they could have been just cheering the bash, because even if it didn’t make sense, the subtext was loud and clear. The response is more interesting than the joke: a small acknowledgement of just how low it was, then an opening up of applause, including whistling. That, to me, gives credence to the point (above) that they feel threatened by him and can only revel in the cheap jabs.

Tangential thought: this reminds me of O’Reilly & friends “analyzing” the Colbert Report after their exchange program speculating about how the (overly liberal) media wouldn’t favor a hip conservative comedian the way they favor Stewart and Colbert. Well, if this is conservative comedy anyone with a conscious would probably not particularly favor it.

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »
Jobs’ Request for DRM-free Downloads: Genuine?

As an advocate of legal DRM free music downloads, my initial response to Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music was excitement that change might be coming along with some potential re-assessment of my opinion of Apple which is design-wise rosy, but politically not so, as I don’t want to support their market-leading DRM dissemination.

Not much later, I read the Defective by Design blog post which points out flaws in Jobs’ position (in the context of Pixar) and of course pushes for real action on the subject. But then it occurred to me, if he really thinks that music downloads would be better without DRM, then why does all of the non big four music that already sells their music without DRM (on eMusic, Audio Lunchbox, etc) come from iTunes music sore with DRM? Nobody’s making Apple cripple those files!

Given that his “I only put the DRM on because they make me” argument falls apart for a non-trivial portion of the music Apple sells, I have to wonder why he made this announcement. Taking the DRM off of the music you buy on iTunes would be by some wisdom financially irresponsible (not locking people in to iPods may lose them money), but could also gain them money, as more people might download music and need some place to play it. The latter is suggested by analyst Gene Munster who also predicts that the big four going DRM free is highly unlikely.

Looking at the profitability for Apple to go DRM-free: In some ways I can see Munster’s point about people buying iPods to play all of they’re music they bought because they could get it DRM-free, but with the DRM, Apple has a long-term, self-perpetuating lockup on that marketplace, that I don’t really see him being that giddy to lose. He says in his letter that people aren’t locked up because only 3% of people’s music has the DRM, but this has problems: people don’t like to throw away money, even if it’s only $20 and I, and most people I know, have 0% DRM files on our iPods, meaning that there are probably plenty (toward 1%, perhaps) of iPods with a decent amount to lose by switching players.

This leaves the question at: is Jobs doing this because he actually wants the big four to go for no DRM or does he just want to look less like the bad guy, knowing they probably won’t and being fine with that. Does he mean it, or is he just acting cool? The guy has a tremendous sense for good design, but that doesn’t preclude Apple from possibly being evil. I’d buy his argument a heck of a lot more if he sold me Spank Rock, Aphex or Moby DRM-free.

Posted in Gripes | 2 Comments »
R.I.P. Floyd Standifer

Man, what hard news to hear that Floyd died. Even now, over a decade since he was my high school jazz band teacher, he frequently comes up in my mind so fondly: the essence of chill. His grace and calm in earnestly dealing with a bunch of goofy teenagers has emerged in my heart countless times as an inspiring model of good natured patience.

One student, a pianist, seemed to have some sort of defect that prevented him from exerting the necessary self-restraint to not snatch the sticks and play on the drums while Floyd was talking. It wouldn’t take long for this to interfere with class at which point Floyd would stop, look at the pianist (who would be now be looking up at Floyd, absently persisting with the drumming), shake his head and say, “be cool, man, be cool”. And this worked, the pianist, realizing that he was being uncool, would stop playing and listen. “This is a jazz class, not a social skills class, you’re supposed to have learned those somewhere else.” Funny, to the point, and good natured. I will miss you, Floyd Standifer.

Floyd Standifer: 1929-2007: ‘Personification of a jazz musician’ (Seattle P.I.)

(photo taken by cathycracks and used with permission)

Posted in Events | 1 Comment »
Windows Taskbar Speech Bubble Pop-ups

On this tiny UMPC I’ve been using, when windows has decided it’s time to let me know that it isn’t connected to a wireless network (I haven’t turned on the wifi card, but still, I should know it isn’t connected), the message often covers part of what I’m working on, interrupting what I’m doing until I close it or wait for it to go away.

I liken it to, say, if you’re rushing to get out of the house to go to a meeting, working to get your jacket on while getting the door open, and a wall in front of the door suddenly blocks your way to tell you that the dishwasher is done.

Posted in Gripes | 1 Comment »
Old-fangled paradigm

New-fangled: Get thing. Take thing out of box. Turn thing on. Use thing until broken. Throw thing out. Repeat.

Old-fangled: Get thing. Learn about thing. Assemble / adjust thing. Become proficient in thing maintenance. Use thing. Twiddle thing to optimize it. Repair thing / replace parts as necessary.

I care about the environment and find the disposable mindset more than a bit distasteful. Right after reduce, reuse is the priority. Then recycle. But that’s not the way consumption is done by default and those priorities can be difficult to abide by. I figure that this change has occurred from changes in economy and technology that has shifted the relative value of stuff and labor (local labor, at least). I personally hope we shift our use of material and fabrication optimizations from “more crap” to “better designed crap” and account for reuse (and reduce) in design.

Now I have a ridiculous story. I have this nice burr grinder that I got for Christmas a few years ago, but it stopped working. You know, the thing that was supposed to make it start going wasn’t making it go - but the non-electric timer mechanism was working, so I thought maybe it was just a loose wire and I might fix it. Later. A kind of half-assed nod to an old-fangled paradigm. So I stashed it away and was actually grinding my coffee with a mortar and pestle. It felt wholesome to do it that way (but I did go out for morning coffee more and eventually ground a bunch up at the parent’s place).

Wife-girl picked up on this and was very proud to get me a nice Christmas gift that she knew I needed but hadn’t asked for: a big fancy computer controlled gravity optimized mega-grinder. She put a bunch of effort into finding the most fancy-danciest one (under a kajillion bucks) and placed an order. However, not long after that I, inspired by the aforementioned wholesomeness (but un-enthused about the inconvenience), put a nice old-timey looking hand grinder on my wishlist. This was my peculiar approach to being more old-fangled without actually looking at the old grinder to fix it. Anyway, the fancy one came and after much deliberation I decided I still wanted the hand grinder (fortunately the fancy one made an excellent gift for someone else - ah, Christmas). Wife-girl managed to find it for me and I was quite happy.

So now I’m feeling good about this rustic approach to coffee grinding, which somehow makes me feel a little better on the old-fangled machine relationship front (the hand grinder is a very simple device that surely I can maintain and all that). I feel good, that is, until I try to use it for the first time. I stick some beans in it, crank away for a few seconds and just get a dusting of beans. Ok, it takes a bit longer than that, fine. I grind for a couple minutes and check to see two small piles, reflecting the curve of the burr. Wha??! I grind for ten minutes or so and make very little headway - not nearly enough to brew even a single cup.

This will not work. I’m not going to labor for nearly an hour every morning before coffee. What was I thinking with this rustic, wholesome, little house on the prairie stuff? This is miserable, how could people live like this? Before giving up all hope, I went online and found a third party manual for the machine (there wasn’t one included) and it said I should be able to grind coffee for six people in one or two minutes. That should be fine, so I read through more and it describes how I should turn this little knob to get the right grind. I follow the directions precisely. One full rotation counter clockwise, then clockwise to taste (I do about a quarter turn back). Try again, same results. Ok, it didn’t work out of the box and the internet failed me.

It is in these times of crisis that sometimes a miracle will occur - and one did this time. I actually finally engaged my brain. By looking at and listening to the burr, I adjusted the knob to a point where the grind would come out decently course for stovetop espresso. I put more beans in and plenty ground up in about a minute. Ugh, this whole time it was set so fine beans could barely make it through because it was tightened all the way up for shipping. I didn’t even check because I expected “factory settings” to be optimal. Ugh. Well, after all that stupidity (and hopefully a lesson learned) I have a nice hand grinder, and am pleased with my urban house on the prairie.

After the hand grinder idiocy, it’s time to put away the old grinder. There are no screws on it so I don’t go any further on an attempt to fix it. It’s been in use for several years and never cleaned, so I set to do that by figuring out how to take it apart. I do so and after re-assembling it I figure, heck, let’s just plug it in and try it again, eh? Why not? It works fine. The grind setting had twisted beyond it’s settings toward the position from which you take it apart, which disables it. All that fuss over wanting to be old fangled and I failed to simply twist the only adjustment on the device. Miserable. But at least I made a tiny movement forward from my way-way-way behind position in wholesome old-fangledness having gotten it working (even though it was never broken and now I have two grinders). Now I’m using the hand grinder unless I need a lot or really finely ground coffee.

Posted in Dorkus | 1 Comment »
One reason to read this blog

You can gamble with your friends about whether or not it will load. Fun stuff - I’ll give you two to one that the page loads, but none of the CSS!

Wait, no, not any more. That is to say, server difficulties seem to be sorted out for the time being.
Now, if only I could think of something interesting to write…

Posted in Misc | No Comments »
Why not to read this blog

First off, let me just say that I am not a blogger. I only blog occasionally, and when I do, I do it recreationally. No, no, that came out wrong, I mean, when I do blog (which isn’t often - its well under control) I do it socially. Yeah, that or for self-discovery.

That said, welcome to the inaugural post, which I am dedicating to discouraging people from reading this. As a techno- (logist | phile | rati | geek | phobe | monkey), there is some level of compulsion or even obligation to do this… you know, all the cool kids are doing it.

But while I may be more extraverted when I’m blogging, there is no reason to think that my thoughts are any more valid or worthwhile. When I get this way, I am prone to inconsistently spewing various ramblings that, if they seem interesting at all, are only interesting on a very surface level. Also, expect it to be unfocused and full of opinion and conjecture.

Posted in Misc | 2 Comments »

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