You and Me and P. B. Shelley

Just the other day Hedwig mentioned Ogden Nash and her delight in reading him. I keep his "Verses from 1929 On" on a table in the guest restroom, along with "I Saw Esaw" and a volume of Frances Bacon. She's right. Nash is a delight.

I had lunch with Hedwig yesterday and lent her this volume. And today she's had a burst of creative energy. My Pash for O. Nash. Great fun.

And here's the old man himself, reading one of my favorites. You and Me and P. B. Shelley

A clear statement on the war

Here is a remarkably clear statement on what needs to be done about the Iraq war:

The Forward Newspaper Online: Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War: "For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins."

I highly recommend the entire short article for your reading.

Would it be alright if we spied on you just a little?

You've got to admit, this is some hutzpah.


I got this email today from Progressive (auto insurance).

"Get $50 for participating in a research study.
As a valued Progressive Direct customer, we're inviting you to participate in an innovative research study. The purpose of this study is to help us reduce the cost of car insurance. And you’ll earn $50 just for participating.

How it works:
Let us know you'll participate by visiting us online.
We’ll send you a TripSensor –- a matchbook-sized device that easily plugs in near your vehicle’s steering column. Just plug it in, drive as you normally do, and forget about it. In six months, we’ll ask you to unplug the TripSensor and send it back to us, and we'll send you $50. It's that easy.
The data you provide are for research purposes only, and will not,
under any circumstances, have an effect on your current or future
car insurance rate.
Participate today and earn $50. Just visit us online today."

No, they'd never just this information to effect my current rate. I'm sure they're just interested in my gas milage. Or how fast I'm driving. Or how much. Or how hard I step on the breaks. Or if my seat-belt is fastened (it always is, by-the-way - that one they can have for free).

No thanks. I don't need fifty bucks that bad.

More Proud Papa

Although I knew this was coming, I had forgotten it was today, and when I turned the page in my morning Columbus Dispatch, I was pleased to see a photo of my daughter, Kathleen, and this glowing article.

High-school student using her bass as ticket to travel

There are fewer pure pleasures as seeing your children succeed. She's chosen, for now, the path of the artist. It's a noble and difficult calling, but I couldn't be happier at her choice.

An Office Cargo Cult?

Something strange is happening at my office building.

Last Thursday I noticed an odd little collection of items in the parking lot. There, in that white-striped corner, next to the handicap parking, I saw a black Swingline stapler, a large binder clip, and a paper clip, all arranged carefully in line. A single thumb tack was placed near them, but not in line.

Nearby, I saw scattered on the other side of the walk, an offering of rubber bands and a black, dry erase marker.

I told Sean about it Friday and we went back down to the parking lot to look at it. As far as I can figure, either a tribe of feral office workers hiding in our building was trying to attract cargo from the office supply gods, or we were witnessing the evolution of paper binding tools. I am thinking seriously of changing my title to "Office Anthropologist."

On Monday, as I pulled into the parking lot, there it was. A large truck from Continental Office Supply, its rear door open, the engine running, but no one in sight. Apparently, the display had attracted the cargo.

But yesterday, the stapler was missing. I suspect the gods will be displeased. If I can find a stapler to "borrow" from someone's desk, I'll try an appease them. I'm also thinking of starting another display to attract different types of cargo. Maybe a collection of MatchBox cars. Or perhaps I can put out some calculators and old Palm Pilots and my first generation iPod.

cargo cult, religion, humor

Penn Jillette is a Smart and Brave Man

I saw this today over on Metafilter

NPR : There is No God

Excellent. Much better than Kathy Dahlen where she claims that "Gazing at that mass of gray nerve tissue, I was unable to reconcile the evidences I had known of self-sacrifice and forgiveness, or even this suicide, with the notion that a human life consists only of one's biology."

I heard Dahlen's essay a few weeks back and it struck me instantly as incredible mushy thinking, but typical of religious thinkers and believers.

It's a tough pill for some to swallow, but as Jillette points out "So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. "

Good man, that Jillette.

religion, NPR

Big surpise: Dvorak Doesn't get it

John Dvorak's Second Opinion: Backlash against Sony shows a bigger problem for media - Computer Hardware - Computer Software - Software - Opinion "Writers like myself and my editors make 1/10 the money people can make in the movie or music business for doing about the same amount of work (content generation). Our value is lessened by the fact that we cannot protect the written word from rampant copying. It started with the printing press, bootleg publishing, plagiarism, Xerox machines, email, online pilfering, cut-and-paste, etc., etc. We simply got used to it and live with it.
Sony and all the other big media companies are simply going to have to live with what writers and editors have lived with for some time: a big cut in pay."

It's simply amazing to me that "content producers" can't get over the idea that they'll be losing money. What they're really afraid of is is missing out on potentially making more money. They have the idea that someone, somewhere might not be paying them. What the can't see is that everyone, everywhere, would pay them for access to content (movies, music, radio shows, books) long unavailable. It's the long tail.

I'm sorry, Mr. Dvorak, that you don't make as much money as you think you should, but I hardly think you're only making a 10th of what your worth. From my perspective, what you produce isn't worth paying for as is.

But what about "wanted" pornography?

Leading Catholic cardinal warns parents about buying iPods for Christmas due to porn: "''The technology itself is not dangerous, in fact technology in itself is good,' Keeler said. 'The danger lies in the fact that there are not safeguards or regulations in place to protect children or teens from being exposed to unwanted pornography.' "

Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. The iPod is simply a listening or viewing device. You have to put what you want to see or listen to on their yourself. It ain't gonna just pop up, unasked for (although if you put porn on your iPod, it might show up in embarrassing times.

If iPod pornography is outlawed, then only pornographers will have iPods. Or teenagers. Or guys. Pretty much everyone, just like now.

I drink my coffee black

It's required, being a Murray. The rule is "you can start drinking coffee at any age, as long as it's black." My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would return from the grave and lecture me sternly if I started putting milk in my morning coffee.

I do, however, enjoy "coffee drinks", which I consider treats, not really coffee. And I've learned to ask, without embarrassment for a "grande soy chai latte, no water, extra hot." I just imagine myself Captain Picard ordering a drink from a replicator, "Tea. Earl Gray. Hot."

But alas, some never get over the fear and embarrassment.Lexington Herald-Leader | 11/10/2005 | I drink the coffee but don't speak the language: "We all will drink vending-machine coffee before I speak Starbuck again."

starbucks, Star Trek

Leave Your Brain Alone

I just finished reading the excellent On the Sea of Memory : A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering by Jonathan Cott. It is a touching and thought provoking review of memory and loss. Mr. Cott had 36 electroshock treatments and lost fifteen years of memory.

And then last night, on the way home, I heard this on NPR, 'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey. It is simply the most stunning thing I've ever heard on the radio.

I can barely speak of it. Both the lobotomy and electroshock are such crude and cruel treatments. How primitive. How misused.

The mind is something the brain does. Please, don't equate the brain with Heath Kit radios and Christmas chemistry sets. We have such a short time as conscience, thinking beings. Could stirring the brain with an ice pick ever be thought of as a good idea?

npr, memory, brain, mind

Moving up the Singularity Date

Google side-steps AI rumours - ZDNet UK News: "''We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,' explained one of my hosts after my talk. 'We are scanning them to be read by an AI,'' Dyson wrote in a posting on Edge.org following a visit to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of John von Neumann's proposal for a digital computer."

Upon reading this my insightful comment was "Fuck".

Useful term, that.

Well, we've all been wondering what Google's been up to. So, either they have a pet infant AI or they're planning for one. I hope their policy of "Don't be evil" is holding up.

Paging Dr. Asimov. Paging Dr. Asimov. Dr. Asmiov to the AI delivery room STAT!

AI, singularity, Asimov

DRM - More on the creeping evil

A friend and college, Adam Engst, vents his frustration on a seemingly simple and perfectly legal task, made agonizing by "Digital Rights Management" TidBITS: iPods Defeating Insomnia.

And it's more than annoyance if you've been following the news. This very week, Sony is in extremely hot water by installing what amounts to a Trojan horse and causing lots of problems.

DRM is simply this: the entertainment industry's attempt to remove well established consumer rights. I won't go out on a limb, yet, and claim that I won't buy anything with DRM, but I do urge you to contact your congressman and representatives and urge them not to support any legislation that removes or reduces your right to legally view, copy, time and place shift any media you purchase.

Amen

Betraying Jesus
The author of “God’s Politics” explains how American Christianity has distorted the gospel and become spiritually bankrupt.

"Tragically, and not without some painful awkwardness, today’s evangelicals are walking a precarious tightrope between these two conflicting views of Jesus. By training, Jesus is Lord; his teaching must carry absolute authority in our lives. Yet by experience, evangelicals have accepted the ethical conclusions of theologies that have a low view of Jesus’ authority. This conflict is at the heart of the problem of present-day evangelism."

Brilliant and insightful.

I'm no longer a believer, but this is exactly the reasoning that brought me to the point of painful questioning. Frankly, it is not reconcilable. True Christians give it all up and walk away from the trappings of life. The are pacifists unto death. Don't know many of those.

Richard Nixon Back Again

My daughter knows all the words to "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel - and she's interested in what all the names and events mean.

Sometimes, history has a way of repeating itself that's simply not funny at all.

Capitol Hill Blue: White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies'

So, how do I get on the list?

Oh, for the breakdown of the lyrics, if you didn't live through most of it like the rest of us old farts, click here.

politics, Billy Joel

That reminds me, I need to do some shopping

This would never work here. "Sir! Please stop fondling the wall!"

Designer creates wall of breasts

Hmmm, wall boobies.

Boing Boing

boobies

The "Code" is why you don't know much about history.

Hedwig pointed me to this SFgate.com article Balboa film festival offers rare peek into naughty past.

Many of you, I bet, never even heard of this and know nothing about the code. But it's important. Here's why: it totally screwed up most peoples' understanding of history, life, and pretty much everything.

I love movies, god help me, I do. But very rarely do we find a movie that really gives us a real piece of truth. If you shape your view of what it means to be an American largely from movies and TV, what do you think and believe? You probably believe that Americans are virtuous, hard working, and largely moral people. Mostly white, too. And never the bad guys. The great American West was a golden age of good over evil and the struggle over savagery. Our heros are strong, tall, strong, and silent. Bad guys are easy to spot. And our leaders are good and enlightened men.

But then the viewer is confronted with something like HBO's "Deadwood" or "Rome". I've seen the arguments. "They swear too much. There's too much sex. They weren't that violent."

It's hard to take. The Hays Office and the administration of the code forced movies into a complete alternate universe. And you know what's really a shame? It was self inflicted. The studios felt that if they didn't crack down hard on themselves, then the government would.

Want another thought to give you pause? The Hays Office, the code - everything that attempted to sanitize life and make movies and TV acceptable to the powers that be - they're still around. You betcha. It's now called the Motion Picture Association of America. That's right, the MPAA. The folks that want to keep you from recording TV. The folks that want every single electronic device manufactured under their control. They no longer care about your morals. Frankly, they never did. They're businessmen, not artists. They could just as well be selling soap. Or cigarettes. They put the code in place to protect their industry, but the effect was what Washington wanted: a gullible, easy to control public. And now what do they want? They want to control and charge and remove long held rights. They hated the VCR and are livid about TiVO. And computers make them foam at the mouth. They don't want you to record, time or place shift anything you watch. They don't want you to make a backup copy of a DVD your purchase, or copy it to your laptop to watch on the road. And most of all, they want more money.

And here's the gag: they totally miss the point. If they would embrace the technology the could collect untold billions. That's right, billions. Starting today. Here's how: put everything online. Everything. Do exactly the opposite of what they're doing. Take the over 100 years worth of commercial movies, put them in full high-definition glory, and let anyone download and view them for a buck. Sure, charge a bit more for things just released, but let's be generous and say anything over five years old is a buck. Recent experience with "the long tail" tells us that every single movie would be downloaded and paid for every month. That means movies that haven't made a cent for decades (and for some, a century or more) would suddenly be making money for the movie industry. Billions and billions.

Idiots. And they don't care what damage they do as long as they get richer.

long tail, mpaa, censorship

Have you seen this man?

This is fun: Online Police Identikit

I suppose that the real police have better tools, but I suspect that an image like that is close enough for identification purposes. It's not like I'm out looking for criminals, but I'm continually frustrated by local news casts that report violent crimes and yet refuse to give a description beyond "two males, approximately 19 years of age." Useless. Someone has probably told them that identifying someone's skin color could be racially charged. It is not. It's simply a description.

Anyhoo. Try this yourself - it's surprisingly difficult to remember exactly what you look like. I did mine from memory, then took this snapshot with my web-cam to compare. I'm not happy with the nose, but they didn't have anything quite the right size or big enough.

Now I need a vodka and tonic, too

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: "Do people fear the wheels are coming off the trolley? Is this fear widespread? A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford's lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular family, the Kennedys, circa roughly 1950-2000. It's called 'Symptoms of Withdrawal.' At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few family members had gathered one night and were having a drink in Mr. Lawford's mother's apartment in Manhattan. Teddy was expansive. If he hadn't gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. 'Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta.' Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy 'took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.

Mr. Lawford continued, 'The statement hung there, suspended in the realm of 'maybe we shouldn't go there.' Nobody wanted to touch it. After a few moments of heavy silence, my uncle moved on.'
Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family--that it might 'fall apart.' But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.

And--forgive me--I thought: If even Teddy knows. . ."

Man, the wheels have been off the trolley for 50 years. We're still just flying along, over the side of the cliff, waiting for gravity to remember that it applies to us, too.

Teddy, pour me another drink. Make this one a double.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

This message was composed with the new Flock browser.

I'm always looking for the easiest, most natural blogging experience. I've tried stand alone composition and management, but I hate launching another app. I've tried doing it through email, but that's not reliable. And I've had web interfaces fail on me too many times.

So, what of Flock? (or what the flock?) Too early to tell. we shall see.

My Kingdom For A Floppy!

My, how times change!

My daughter has a project at school. She'd like to work on the project there and also at home.

"Fine," I say. "Email it to yourself."

"I can't email from the lab computers. I can put it on a floppy."

But we use Macs at home and Macs haven't had disc or floppy drives for YEARS. So today I went out, grumbling, and bought a "flash" drive, which is nothing more than a hunk o'memory on a USB dongle. 512 meg. Cost me $42, but I'll get $10 back after rebate. So now Jennifer can transport files between home and school.

And yes, I'm still grumbling. I carry 60 freak'n GIGABYTES in my pocket with over 10,000 songs, 6,000 digital pictures, all of my personal files, and still have over 3 gig left.

What do I want? I want a 100 terabyte drive in my watch with everywhere high speed access to the net. No more grumbling then, no sir. Oh, and my Virtual Light sunglasses, please?

"Virtual Light" (William Gibson)

computers, William Gibson