It's a Living

The only power we have is the power to choose. Most of the "choices" we make in the course of our daily lives, are really little more than habituated responses selected for by some interior emotional state. We "feel like" having a cup of coffee, or a beer. We yell at the TV when some talking head says something we don't like. We get up in the morning and get ready for work. We don't "think" about any of those things, we just do them. We lack the time and the cognitive resources to think about every single "decision" we make in the course of a day. So nature has provided us with a means of going about most of our daily routine in a routine fashion, requiring the least amount of time and energy to accomplish the things we need to do in order to survive.

Sometimes we are confronted with choices that are somewhat outside the bounds of our ordinary experience. These choices usually call for some cognitive effort, though not as much as we might expect. Buying a set of tires is not an emotional decision for most people. We don't have any set "feelings" about a particular brand of tire. So our decision is based on a more exclusively cognitive assessment. If we know nothing about tires, are not especially interested in tires, and have little money, we may just take our vehicle to a chain store, like Sears and tell them to put the least expensive tires on our vehicle that will fit. Here we rely on the authority of the person working in the store to ensure he or she selects the least expensive tire that fits. Alternatively, we may do some research online or at the public library on different brands of tires and how they perform in various driving situations. In this case, we become something of an authority on tires for ourselves, and we tell the person at the tire store which brand of tire to install.

Other times, a decision may be outside the bounds of our ordinary experience, yet we do have a significant emotional commitment to the subject of the decision. In those cases, our choices are usually based on how we "feel" about the issue, and our reasoning is constructed to support the "feeling." In other words, we reason backward from our feelings.

We rely to a very great extent on the emotional apparatus in our minds. Neurologists have studied individuals with brain injuries to those regions of the brain that are partly responsible for our emotional processing, and have found their decision-making abilities to be severely compromised. One of the most famous cases was that of Phineas Gage, a 19th Century railroad builder who had an iron rod driven through his skull in a construction accident, and who lived through the accident. Dr. Antonio Damasio document's Gage's experience in Descartes' Error, a fascinating look at how much of our decision-making is governed by our emotions.

If we consider the advertising messages we encounter every day, I think it's fairly obvious that most of them are designed to create or promote a certain feeling on the part of the individual seeing the message. Emotional processing is the dominant form of "decision-making" in our brains, above the level of habituated behavior.

If we were to create a kind of hierarchy of decision-making in our brains, at the lowest level we would have the autonomic nervous system, the brain stem, spinal cord and associated ganglia that keep us inhaling and exhaling, our hearts beating, and our digestive systems functioning. Above those are various survival-related functions and behaviors related to things like eating, seeking shelter, the fight-or-flight response, and sexual responses. Above those lie learned behaviors, which can be quite complex, yet which require very little in the way of cognitive resources. Riding a bicycle, driving a car, walking and chewing gum at the same time are some examples. Among learned behaviors are habituated behaviors, the repetitive things we do in a sort of "stimulus-response" fashion. Many, if not all, of these habituated behaviors are intimately linked with our interior emotional state. Finally, there are the higher cognitive functions where we have abstract reasoning, logical and mathematical thinking and perhaps inference.

This is, to a great extent, vastly oversimplified and I'm quite likely wrong about much of it. It does reflect my understanding of what we know today about how the brain and the mind work. These various strata in the hierarchy don't operate independently, they all interact with one another to create the very complex experience we have as conscious beings. But by thinking about them in this way, we can begin to tease apart some explanations for how we behave and why we do the things we do. For instance, our survival-related behaviors are perhaps the most powerful influences on our behavior and relationships with others. They influence everything else above them, so while we may have many different processes that seem to drive behavior in different directions, the net vector sum is toward behavior that should promote survival and reproduction. This is the part of the brain that drives us toward awareness of rank and pecking order, and is a huge part of striving for reproductive success, nature's "bottom line."

Another idea to keep in mind when thinking about these things is the concept of homeostasis. Systems experience greater efficiencies when they operate within a narrow band of parameters. You get better gas mileage from your car in highway driving than you do in stop-and-go driving around town. Constantly changing states is costly in terms of energy and wear and tear on system components. Our bodies have elaborate mechanisms for maintaining a state of physiological homeostasis, and our minds have a similar mechanism. What that means is that a given state can, over time, become "normal" and those mechanisms responsible for maintaining a homeostatic condition will drive behavior toward maintaining those conditions; somewhat surprisingly, even when those conditions are not advantageous for the individual in the long term.

Again, a caveat, I'm not a neuro-physiologist, nor a psychologist, I'm just an interested lay person, and it's quite likely that I've got major parts of this wrong. Naturally, I don't think so, or I wouldn't be writing it, but the nature of ignorance is such that I don't know what I don't know!

So, what the hell does all this have to do with anything? Well, everything actually. But it would take quite a long time to write about everything, and you probably wouldn't read it (and I wouldn't blame you either!).

Okay, one last piece of the puzzle and we'll have an incomplete, but "good enough" picture to illuminate an interesting point.

Human beings are social animals. Nobody likes to think that we're like ants, but we have more in common with ants than we do with, say, beetles. We would find it very difficult to survive as individuals. Our success as a species was a result of our ability to work together in groups, and so we've evolved behaviors that work at the level of those survival-related behaviors, that facilitate our ability to be a part of a group. This where pecking order, attention and authority come into play. If we're higher in the pecking order in the group, we're a more desirable mate and we have a greater opportunity to pass along our "high-pecking-order-within-a-group-achieving" genes, maximizing Nature's "bottom line."

Groups require authorities to organize the efforts of the group. Groups are somewhat self-organizing, because most individuals aspire to be some kind of an authority, so there's often little trouble in finding someone who wants to be in charge of something.

(Somewhat lengthy parenthetical aside: Anyone who has had any experience in something like the Boy Scouts or church groups or the PTA will tell you I'm full of baloney. Having been in that situation myself, I know where they're coming from. It's like pulling teeth sometimes to get people to help out and take charge of something. I suspect that groups like the Boy Scouts and PTA and other volunteer organizations are "secondary" groups, and that most of our needs for authority are met in our "primary" groups, like our families or our jobs. With those needs met, other opportunities are just demands on our time that aren't likely to increase our rank in our most significant pecking orders.)

So, to return to the story, dovetailing with the drive to seek authority is the somewhat contrary notion that we're all predisposed to follow authorities. We compete with other authorities where we perceive we have an opportunity to replace them; but we are predisposed to follow authorities we recognize where we have little or no opportunity to replace them.

So, what do authorities do? They help to direct the activities of the group in order to promote the interests of the group, attract new members to the group, and to preserve their own position in the pecking order of the group. Authorities may seek to move from a high rank in one group to a high rank in larger group. ("Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything" Springsteen) Groups are bound by certain sets of shared beliefs, which we can call a "belief system." Individuals may, and indeed do, belong to several groups with different authorities at all times. The family is a group, a church is a group, a school is a group, a social committee is a group, a nation is a group, an employer is a group, etc. Individual beliefs may be a shared part of the belief systems of many different groups. Individual beliefs may also be inconsistent or incompatible across groups, yet individuals may remain part of various groups that have inconsistent beliefs.

So, how do authorities exercise their authority? First, they require attention from those they would exercise their authority over. Parents, say it with me, "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Attention is a finite resource in human beings. So those who would compete for authority and rank in the pecking order, must compete for attention as well; and, usually, first. Once an authority has attention, they work to manipulate beliefs in order to preserve a particular emotional orientation toward the group and the authority. There are different approaches that span the gamut of human emotions. They may also rely on homeostasis and habituated behaviors to keep the members of the group oriented toward activities that promote the interests of the group.

As a result, and as we can most clearly see with advertising, most messages designed to manipulate beliefs are emotional ones; and their principle aim is to preserve the integrity of the group, nothing else. This is not higher-order thinking. There is no reliance on rigorous logic or sound reason. Those activities require significant investments in time and energy and are difficult to access when offered limited time and attention. Emotional appeals are much more efficient, given constrained resources of time and attention.

Sometimes, beliefs can evolve out of higher-order thinking and achieve a certain amount of success within a group and then have an emotional value attached to them. But their further success is largely due to the emotional value attached to them, rather than a clear appreciation of the abstract value of the belief. An example would be the idea of capitalism. I strongly suspect most people have a clearer idea of how they feel about capitalism than they do about any sort of rational basis for its utility or success as a belief. I'm not saying capitalism is good or bad, I'm saying most people operate from a feeling about capitalism as a belief, rather than any sort of clear understanding of what it is. Authorities promote feelings about beliefs more than they explain the rational basis for them.

So, let's take a practical example of a part of these ideas. Let's take soap operas, for instance. A soap opera is a fictional portrayal of the lives of various people in groups somewhat similar to our own. Is there an authority in this case? Not clearly, other than perhaps the writers and producers of the show. We get to observe things we don't normally get to observe in other people's lives. This has a certain appeal of its own, perhaps because we are predisposed to want to gather information about others in order to better compete with them. Whatever the reason, soap operas readily get attention. They're called "soap operas" because the stations that broadcast them sell their viewers' attention to advertisers, and apparently soap manufacturers were large early advertisers. Now, here's the clever thing about soap operas - they're addictive. Mildly so, but still addictive. The characters are placed in various unlikely situations that are designed to evoke a particular emotional response in the viewer. The stories move along at a rapid pace, so there is always a series of sort of "peak" experiences, both highs and lows. Our bodies become accustomed to experiencing this state of agitation or stimulation at a particular time each day, and so we tune in to get our "fix," to preserve this sort of skewed homeostasis.

Here's a better example with a clearer authority figure: Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh portrays himself as an authority, and makes emotional appeals every day that evoke particular feelings in his listeners. Like soap operas, it's mildly addictive. His listeners tune in every day to get their emotional "fix," to preserve an interior state of agitation with respect to certain beliefs that feels "normal" to them.

Is Limbaugh genuinely an authority on anything? No, I don't think so. Mostly, he's a guy with a talent for getting attention and an innate ability to exploit people's feelings in a way that keeps them coming back for more. His approach does not involve any sort of sound rational argumentation; what "analysis" he offers is usually superficial and one-sided or incomplete. Mostly, he is oriented toward promoting certain emotional responses to certain beliefs in order to retain his listeners' attention, which he then sells to advertisers.

And that is where Limbaugh converts attention into authority. Money, or, more generally, wealth, is the most liquid form of authority. "Money talks, bullshit walks," means something. So what guys like Limbaugh do is exploit human nature to make a living. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we shouldn't confuse it with anything else either. I used to listen to Limbaugh back in the mid-90s. I used to be a "ditto-head." I think, at that time, that emotional response was a distraction that helped me cope with some other emotions I didn't want to confront. How many of his listeners may be in a similar situation, I don't know. I suspect more than a few.

Well, if you've read this far, you have my gratitude and admiration. I've taken too much of your time and attention for now, so I'll end here. But there will be... more to follow! (Lame attempt at emotional hook: Noted.)

Someone's in the Kitchen With Shelley

A First: Dave Speaks Up for Dvorak also appears in the IT Kitchen: How to Cook a Weblog. The Kitchen is an effort at community weblogging. It's intended to introduce newcomers to some of the things people who have been at this awhile have learned, and to invite discussion and comments from anyone interested in the subject.

I had mentioned to Shelley Powers of Burningbird, the head chef at The Kitchen, that I would write something for the Kitchen. I offered the Dvorak piece as a contribution, and it appeared in Groundhog Day because I'm more familiar with this writing environment; and as poor a writer as I am, I need all the help I can get.

The IT Kitchen is a novel and interesting example of the potential for networked individuals to work in a collaborative way to explore new subjects. It is by no means the first or the last word on the subject; but I believe it is a new and provocative effort and worthy of your time and attention.

A First: Dave Speaks Up for Dvorak

"After witnessing the latest Presidential election process, it's apparent to me that the Internet is turning into a bad dream. Nobody wants to admit it, but the Web's natural ability to remove normal interpersonal structures that prevent society from falling into chaos is not a benefit to anyone. Information revolution notwithstanding, the Internet will prove to be the undoing of society and civilization as we know it. It may not happen today, but it will happen sooner than we think." John C. Dvorak

In the calm, measured tones that typify most of his online writing and that belie Dvorak's ominous pronouncement, Jeff Jarvis, darling of television and blogosphere, calls Dvorak a "whack-job," and an "utter ass."

I could just conclude with a, "Case closed!" That would probably be most effective, since I suspect most people who don't agree with me won't read past the third paragraph, and those who do agree with me - won't either! But maybe there are one or two people who are intrigued enough, or bored enough, to read a little further.

It all goes back to pecking order, authority and attention. Society, and civilization "as we know it," are both marked by a relatively stable pecking order. One of the great virtues of the United States as a nation was that it was one of the first, and remained one of the few, countries or societies that permitted relatively easy upward mobility. To some extent, that remains the case today, and people will point to the lists of "new millionaires" every year to supposedly "prove" the point. But there is also other information that shows that wealth is being concentrated in an ever-shrinking fraction of the population. Those at the very top of the pecking order are consolidating and fortifying their positions, using the authority their wealth brings them to do so. Presumably, this is something that happens in most nations, cultures or societies before they begin a period of significant decline. See Kevin Phillip's Wealth and Democracy. (The spread of reviews at Amazon about this work is itself indicative of something. You'd be correct if you intuitively felt the book was neither as good nor as bad as the reviewers seem to indicate. The reviews themselves are an aspect of the internet phenomenon, which I'll get into a bit next.)

Enter the internet. The internet "changes everything."

Well, not really.

The internet does not change human nature and, for our purposes, nearly everything that is "everything" has to do with human nature; how we relate to, and behave toward our fellow human beings.

The internet is however, a very disruptive technology to the pecking order. The "Dot Com Bubble" permitted a new "Gold Rush" for pioneers literate in new technologies. The success of internet entrepreneurs, along with those of the famous technology startups like Apple, Microsoft and Dell before them, preserved and reinforced the belief within the culture of the notion of upward mobility. Let's not consider too closely the inconvenient fact that most of that upward mobility that was most visible was propelling people from the upper, say 20th percentile to the upper 10th percentile, or in the case of Bill Gates, from perhaps the 10th percentile to the zeroth percentile, the top of the heap. There are exceptions and there are many other success stories with much more modest increases in pecking order, chiefly among the immigrant population; but their success is limited compared to the amount of wealth and authority that is being accumulated and concentrated at the very top of the pecking order.

After the bubble burst, there was a significant "correction" to the market, where wealth again moved from large numbers of investors into the hands of smaller numbers of very wealthy people. Remember, "the house always wins." But the technology was in place, and we were set for the next stage of challenges to the existing pecking order.

Enter P2P (or, "person to person") disruptive technologies, i.e. Napster. P2P "changes everything."

Well, not really.

It turns out that music seemed to be right in the "sweet spot" of product and technology. There was a large, ready market, that was already filled with technologically literate, network-enabled consumers. And Napster was a disruptive, subversive effort to acquire wealth (increase rank in the pecking order), by exploiting an opportunity, a weakness in the existing pecking order. The price for music, the amount of wealth or authority you must surrender in return for some music, was established and controlled by record companies. They largely had a monopoly on the means of production and distribution of the product, so they could set the price; and nearly everyone agreed the price was too high.

But the advent of powerful personal computers, digital compression technologies and vast numbers of networked consumers changed that whole equation. In order to acquire and exercise authority, one must first receive attention. Napster's initial effort was to garner attention by enabling the "sharing" of music between individuals by means of a P2P network. In this, they were phenomenally successful. I'm certain there must have been some plan to convert this attention to authority at some point, but things didn't go as planned.

Napster also got the attention of the entrenched authorities, the record companies, who were not about to surrender their rank in the pecking order without a fight. Everyone must compete for their place in the pecking order. The record companies had an advantage in that they had vast amounts of conventional authority to rely on, chiefly wealth and the favorable laws that wealth allows one to enact. So the record companies took Napster to court, and conventional authority prevailed over the upstart. This should have come as no surprise to anyone, but it seems as though it did.

P2P networks haven't gone away. In fact, it's almost certainly true that more "digital content" is being traded online today than at the height of Napster's performance. But, for the most part, present P2P technologies don't have groups or individuals behind them that are looking to overtly challenge the record companies' and movie studios' places in the pecking order. They are definitely a problem for them, but the conventional authorities are responding in other ways.

Steve Jobs' iTunes Music Store is a technological response created by a conventional authority for the use of other conventional authorities in order to preserve the pecking order rank of the record companies, while improving the rank of Steve Jobs and Apple Computer. There is a large market for "legitimate" digital content, that continues the flow of wealth to the conventional authorities, such that P2P networks aren't perceived as the threat that they once were. They may still be, in the long run, but for right now conventional authorities are learning to use technology to preserve their rank in the pecking order. They continue to sue people for file sharing from time to time, and there is the inevitable arms race in copy protection or "digital rights management." But conventional authorities are learning organisms and while they may be slower than the disruptive technologies that threaten them, they are not incapable of learning, and they are where they are because they have proven themselves to be able competitors and can defend themselves. Keep this in mind, because not only is it "worse than it appears," it's only going to get worse than that. I hate giving good people bad news.

Enter the weblog. The weblog "changes everything."

Well, not really.

Pecking order, established by authority, authority measured by attention. It's a house of cards, but there it is. People often confuse attention with authority.

Weblogs started out as just sort of a way of sharing the fun of a new technology. People would point to (draw attention to) things that interested them on the web, or they would share their opinions on news and issues of the day, and for the most part, it was fun. But it didn't take long for human nature to begin to manifest itself in weblogs too. Pretty soon we were paying attention to how much attention we got, so we had page counters and referrer logs. Then we started ranking the weblogs to see who got the most attention. Inevitably, some people didn't like the people who got the most attention and squabbles broke out. They still do.

We can measure attention. We can count how many links point to a particular site. We can count how many browsers load a page on a particular day. I don't know of an objective, reliable measure of authority. Human nature tends to accept attention as a first cut approximation of authority. "If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, perhaps you're not looking at the situation properly," is probably an accurate reflection of our default response. It probably goes back to our early evolutionary history when someone had to sound an alarm about a threat; and to a great extent, that remains one of the most common forms of attention-seeking today. So, at the moment, attention seems to be the first-order approximation for authority. I think this is a terrible mistake, but it's human nature.

As long as the competition was between a large group of people who were technologically literate and perhaps socially challenged, weblogging and the competition for rank in the pecking order wasn't a big deal. But that competition has broken out, as it inevitably would, and now involves the largest, most powerful conventional authorities; and things are about to get very interesting.

The early success of the insurgent candidacy of Howard Dean has been credited to webloggers and the success at fund-raising the internet enabled. Remember, the most liquid form of authority is wealth, money, and if you can attract attention, and it can be confused with authority, you can convert that "authority," however bogus, into wealth. That's pretty much the business model for the human race. The success of the Dean campaign drew the attention of all the conventional authorities in politics. Just as music was the product at the "sweet spot" of P2P technology, politics is at the sweet spot of weblogging.

Politics is the means by which we apportion governmental authority. Wealth plays a huge role here as well, but we do have some powerful notions regarding civil rights and the rule of law, as well. These can be subverted by wealth, however, and they will be if the authorities they threaten are wealthy enough and threatened enough. And if they are not now, they will be soon.

Weblogs are challenging the authority of conventional media. This is a complicated problem. First, conventional media does deserve to have its authority challenged, so there is an element of good to this phenomenon. BUT... conventional media is not being challenged strictly to improve the quality of the information we receive by way of the media; it is being challenged to bring more attention to high attention-earners on weblogs, who can then translate that attention into their own authority and wealth. This is nothing more than competition, and that's not necessarily bad - but it isn't unequivocally good either. And, those challenges are being encouraged and exploited by those authorities whose activities to increase their own authority are held in check, to some extent, by the media. In other words, there are people who stand to gain from the uncertainty that ensues if conventional media are discredited and lose authority. We received a taste of what can happen with the performance of the press in the run-up to the Iraq war. We will see other, probably worse, examples going forward.

Conventional media are learning organisms as well, and they will adapt and compete. Some will fail, and others will survive and thrive. But until the pecking order of authorities is sorted out, there will be opportunities to exploit confusion and uncertainty. Today, I think it's reasonable to believe that we find The New York Times more credible, more authoritative, than The National Enquirer. But is the New York Times more credible than the Instapundit? A lot of people would tell you no. I don't know about anyone else, but it troubles me that a libertarian law professor who rides a Second Amendment hobby horse and who is given to brief, glib, snarky commentary in lieu of any sort of thoughtful analysis of an issue, could even considered as being as credible or authoritative as the Times. In reality, I don't believe that's the case, but there are many people who believe otherwise. It seems to me that the chief function of the Instapundit weblog, apart from its nominal purpose to increase Glenn Reynolds' rank in the pecking order, is to draw negative attention to whatever Glenn Reynolds' doesn't agree with, and favorable attention to whatever he does agree with. How much cognitive effort does that take? Not much, yet hundreds of thousands of people seem to enjoy visiting his weblog, and from those numbers, and the number of weblogs that link to him, I think we're safe to conclude he's regarded as something of an authority.

Here's a recent post that is an example of a link to a piece discrediting the media, and offering just a paragraph that is little more than an endorsement of the piece he's pointing to. There's no effort to critique it, just an endorsement. Note the snarky, "they just can't help themselves," remark. Well, it appears Mr. Reynolds is also challenged in that regard.

In another post, he points to a George Will column, and then another piece from a site called Chicago Boyz with which I am unfamiliar. But Mr. Reynolds quotes this passage:

Now the one thing that strikes me about the military efforts to date is just how incredibly successful they've been, and how masterfully planned and executed they turned out to be. Not perfect, of course (You mean there's terrorists setting off explosives? Against Americans and their supporters? In the Middle East, no less? Say it isn't so!). But a lot of the toys that John Kerry voted against turned out to be damned useful in the War on Terror. I don't want to even think about how an Afghanistan operation with Vietnam-era technology and tactics would have gone for us - I think in that case we'd have been wishing for another Vietnam. And if you've ever cracked a history book, you'll realize that only 1200 deaths in a year and a half of invading a dictatorship, overthrowing its dictator, and fighting a chronic insurgency is astoundingly good news, especially when added to the fact that the long-predicted flood of refugees never materialized, the terrorists that Saddam's regime had nothing whatsoever to do with suddenly got extremely interested in the fate of Iraq . . . and Iraqis are still signing up to take on the battle for their country against these thugs and getting set to vote in their first-ever real election in a couple of months.

And offers this comment:

"Or someone. Nothing's perfect, but I think those who expect a mistake-free war haven't paid much attention to history, and warfare. Or they're just posturing."

No criticism, no analysis, just an endorsement. Perhaps he might have noted that whatever success one cares to ascribe to our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq are less the result of any perceived "competence" on the part of our Commander-in-Chief, and more the unsurprising result of the world's only remaining super-power, some term a "hyper-power," going up against two third world nations. In fact, it seems reasonable to me to consider that the difficulties we're facing in Iraq can be clearly ascribed to "mistakes" that would have been avoided had the president not surrounded himself with ideologues, men who "haven't paid much attention to history, and warfare," who only heard what they wanted to hear, and who disregarded the advice of senior military professionals. But you won't hear that from Mr. Reynolds, who has largely endorsed the Iraq war, and for whom any criticism of its conduct would only promote the interests of those he's interested in discrediting.

And this is all about authority and pecking order, and the competition for it. It's not about creating a better society or country. It's about pecking order.

The fact is, we have much more of this sort of thing to look forward to, where opinion, snarkily delivered in trendy technological garb, is given as much weight as reasoned analysis. Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Jarvis and their ilk would argue, could they be bothered to argue and not merely snidely observe, that for too long opinion has been disguised as reasoned analysis, and there may be some validity to that. But it seems to me that embracing "transparency" and making a virtue of promoting unreasoned opinion is going from bad to worse. This is the danger that Dvorak tries to point out. Any pretense toward an enlightened society, governed by reason, is being consumed in a technological revolution where suddenly "empowered" individuals are trying to use their new "power" to advance their rank in the pecking order.

There are rough seas ahead. More, as you know, to follow...

My First Hardware Hack

I know it's not going to significantly boost my geek cred, but I've sorta done my first hardware hack. It's not exactly finished yet, but I've completed the "proof of concept" prototype, as it were.

I have a Kensington TurboBall trackball that I use as my preferred pointing device, as I've mentioned here before. In fact, I'm on my second one after my first one had one of the bearing posts break off, and super-glue wasn't working as a repair. I've always wanted to try this little mod, and since I still had the old trackball handy to experiment with, I figured I'd give it a shot.

The ball itself is a large one, about the size of a billiard ball, and it's a translucent blue. I wondered if it would be possible to illuminate the ball using an LED. (Once I get the thing finished, I'll post some pictures.) I took the old trackball apart and looked around in the well where the ball goes to see if there might be room for an LED. Turns out, there isn't much. But, if you remove the plastic at the bottom of the center of the plastic tab that ejects the ball for cleaning (which you don't really need to use anyway, you can lift the ball right out without it), it creates enough room for an LED to sit precisely at the bottom of the ball.

I went to Radio Shack and I bought two blue LEDs. Wouldn't you know, blue LEDs are the expensive ones. I bought a 5mm, 5 volt, 30mA, 300mcd LED, part #276-311; and a 5mm 3.7 volt, 20mA, 2600mcd LED, part #276-316. I wanted the brighter LED right off the bat, but it's rated at 3.7 volts nominal, 4.5 max; and USB delivers 5 volts, so I wasn't sure if I would burn it out or something. So I figured I'd try the 300mcd LED first, and if it was bright enough, I'd just return the other one. Well, it works, but you have to be in a pretty dark room to have any sort of noticeable effect. So I tried the brighter one, and it works great! It's not too noticeable in a bright room, but you can see the ball glowing. In a dark room, it's really cool! Of course, I still don't know what the long-term ramifications are of using a part that's only rated for 4.5 volts max. My meter shows 5vdc at the connection, so maybe it'll burn out after a while or something.

I need to go back and buy some wire wrapping wire. I bought 22 gauge hookup wire, and that's way too big. It works, but it's overkill and it's hard to marry up with the USB connection. Not sure when I'm going to head back over to Radio Shack, but I go by there on Monday anyway, so I expect I'll drop by then and pick it up.

Once I get everything hooked up properly, I'm just going to remove the guts to the good trackball and mount them on the base of the old one I just modified. The trackball comes with five thin, black rubber pads that are supposed to provide a measure of "grip" on the desktop. They suck, and they just end up sliding off the damn thing anyway. So I use one of those rubber mesh pads you get to keep your coffee cup from sliding off your desk. It's the same stuff you put under throw rugs. I'm not sure why that's important because I'm going to get rid of that too! Instead, I'm going to buy a package of those clear silicone "feet" and stick them to the bottom of the trackball. With the hole cut in the bottom of the base, some illumination will exit the bottom of the trackball and that might be kind of cool too. Then again, it might look like shit, so I'm not throwing away the pad either!

One other thing that was kind of interesting - of the two trackballs, one ball is much more translucent than the other. I don't know now if it is the old one or the new one, but I mention that because the effect obviously works much better with the more translucent ball.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that.

Etcetera

iPod Photo: I'm not sure I get it.

Giga Designs MDD dual-processor upgrade: This is cool. I will definitely think about one of these for my 867MHz DP MDD. I'll also wait until some other brave souls buy and install them, and see what their experiences are like before I do anything.

Driving down A1A in Neptune Beach last evening, the street was lined with dozens of both Bush and Kerry supporters. I'm not sure I recall ever seeing that before. The good news is that they they weren't beating each other over their heads with the signs... Yet.

I still haven't voted. I really don't understand how this early voting works. Do they count the votes each night and keep a running tally somewhere? Or does the vote merely sit in the machine until the election is over? If so, how are the machines secured each night? If not, how are the daily tallies audited and secured? This whole early voting thing kind of creeps me out. I'm going to vote on election day, but the obvious disturbing thing is I have no idea how the mechanics of my local voting process works. Shame on me, yes.

Concerned Now?

I wonder if the President is having any second thoughts on the whole Iraq war yet?

What am I thinking? Of course not.

But here we are, stuck with an insurgency in Iraq and Osama Bin Laden back on the air making statements. Taking out OBL isn't going to take down the whole al Qaeda network, but it's a huge, and essential, symbolic victory. And this is all about symbols, nothing else. Sometimes those symbols are smoking ruins, but they're still symbols.

October Surprise?

This can't be good.

It's Turtles!

I got closer...

Turns out they're Painted Turtles... genuine turtles and not tortoises like the somewhat similar-looking "Box Turtle."

The things you learn...

Anybody Seen The Boss?

I was hoping to catch Springsteen's appearance in Madison on C-SPAN tonight, but it doesn't look as though that's going to happen. I'm hoping that a QuickTime file will appear in my NetNewsWire Lite Feedster feed for QuickTime soon. I find lots of great files that way, but they're usually 24-48 hours after the fact.

The Salon description of the rally and Springsteen's remarks was great, but I'd like to see the actual performance. I want to hear the acoustic performance of The Promised Land, a song that has been a source of...something... to me for the last several years, as many of his other songs have. But this last verse in The Promised Land has been especially meaningful to me:

Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

The Promised Land

We all may be "heading straight into the storm" come this Wednesday. Let's hope we all have the faith to stand our ground.

Turtles

Technically, I believe these are really tortoises, but I'm pretty sure they're what we call "Box Turtles." I could be wrong about that though. These guys are huge. They're over a foot long at the shell. They're both looking at me. I took this picture about 15 yards away using the 10x zoom of the Kodak 6490. Focus could have been better I suppose. I used the automatic settings, and rested my elbows on the fence rail to steady the camera. Using the long zoom means longer exposures, and it was just getting dark so it was a fairly long one. I tried to sneak up behind them, but as soon as I got up to the edge of the bulwark and leaned over, they dove into the water. I hope to see them again.

Conquest of Space

This is a classic of sf cinema, and it's available now on DVD. I received my copy today, and I am so pleased that the transfer to DVD is absolutely wonderful. You can see all the panel lines in the wings of the Mars rocket. It's a fantastic transfer of a very clean copy of the film. It's a George Pal film, so the production values are fairly high by the standards of 1954. The color is excellent.

The script is pretty cheesy, but the models are based on Chesley Bonestell's renderings of Werner Von Braun's ideas about what spacecraft were likely to look like at that early moment in our efforts to reach space. It's also in widescreen format, unlike the earlier release on VHS. I have the VHS release, and there is just no comparison. They did a superb job on the DVD transfer. If you have an interest in science fiction movies, or the first really "modern" ideas about how we might live and travel in space, this movie is worth buying.

Just a Thought

Acceptance is not the same thing as resignation.

Acceptance is the opposite of denial. Resignation, while appearing to be also the opposite of denial, is, in effect, the same thing. Acceptance is embracing and affirming that "this is as it is," while leaving open the possibility of doing something about it. Resignation is "this is as it is," and keeping it at arm's length and doing nothing about it.

I'm not sure about that yet. It's just a thought.

Not that I'd be encouraging anyone to do anything as difficult as, you know, thinking.

I know it usually gives me a headache.

The Will to Resist

[Editor's note: First, there's no editor, it's only me. Second, this is an item from a Tinderbox category I call The Cooler. Items in The Cooler typically don't get published; at least, not without significant rework. I wrote this back on the 1st of October. I think I actually posted it and then removed it to The Cooler, I'm not sure. In any event, looking at it now, I think it's okay to post. I'm not saying it's worth anyone's time to read. Just that I don't think I'll regret posting it. At least, no more than I regret most examples of my prose. Anyway, on with the show...]

Eventually, I will find my way back to exploring Dr. Vornov's thoughts on values and choice. Perhaps this is part of the way back. I have a rather annoying headache at the moment, but maybe letting out a few of these persistent and persistently chaotic thoughts whirling around in my head will help. I'm not sure, but here goes.

As you know, suffering is the difference between the way things are and the way we want them to be. This is simply a restatement of the notion that desire is the source of all suffering. Often, a big part of what we desire is to maintain a certain aspect of the present; our youth, our material wealth, or a cherished illusion. There are others. But as we grow, we learn that all things pass, and that part of the secret of grace, of living in harmony with what life demands of us, is to surrender gracefully those things that must inevitably pass from us. But as we grow more we learn that, as difficult as that may be, it's not that simple. If we were to surrender everything that might pass from us without resistance, without contention, then life itself would pass from us and we would not know life. Which brings us back to something else the Buddha knew, "All life is suffering."

The trick, as always, is finding "the middle way."

We can never know "the good," without knowing "the bad," or what is not good. There must be some contrast, or there is no perception. Information is the difference that makes a difference. It's Heraclitus' "binding harmony of opposites." What others have called the yin and the yang. Sometimes we must be someone else's opposite, or opponent.

There is a Zen story about a thief who came and demanded a monk's property, and the monk surrendered it to him without resistance. Later, the thief was apprehended by the authorities and taken to the monk, who was asked if he was the man who had stolen his property? The monk said no, that the thief had merely asked him for his property, and he had simply given it to him. Forced to conclude no crime had been committed, the authorities released the thief. Converted by the monk's compassion, the thief became a student of his in gratitude, and was never again a thief.

It's a wonderful story, and the lesson it teaches is always appropriate in a certain context. It's similar to Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek; or, in slightly different context, to go the extra mile. But there are other contexts, and no single story can teach all lessons.

The nature of ignorance is such that we can't know all that we don't know. This is simply a caution against being certain of anything. Nevertheless, we are left to do the best we can. As a parent, when a child asks for a cookie ten minutes before supper, we know not to surrender the cookie to the child. We resist the child's demands because the child will learn more, grow more, be healthier, if we deny them their desire, if we resist their demands, in this particular context.

When an adult demands something from us for which there may be no just basis, or no shared perception of a just basis, resistance will entail suffering. The suffering may be so great that surrender may seem like the wisest action. But it is not always so. Sometimes the higher wisdom may be to resist. Sometimes we must be someone else's yin to their yang. How to resist, and for how long, then become difficult questions for which there may be no easy answers, especially given the nature of ignorance. And so our resistance, its manner and duration, must be informed by compassion for both ourselves and our opponent. But that's perhaps a higher wisdom than we may ever achieve.

In the end, it seems we are left with little more than our singular power in this life, which is illustrated in the following exchange from a movie I'm sure you'll recognize. While certainly not an example of "the middle way," it is kind of the yin to the yang of the monk story. Somewhere between these two monks probably lies the middle way.

Agent Smith: "Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you do it? Why? Why get up?"

"Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?"

"Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love?"

"Illusions, Mr. Anderson! Vagaries of perception! Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose! And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although, only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love."

"You must be able to see it Mr. Anderson! You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting!"

"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist!?"

Neo: "Because I choose to."

N.B. I make no claim to authority in offering this. What little insight there may be, if any, in what I've written here is just the product of my own suffering. And please excuse me if it seems I'm being dramatic. I'm really not. I prefer my drama on DVDs. It's just the best I can do to explain my life to myself at this moment. I am an authority on nothing, as life reminds me again and again. I genuinely do just make all this shit up. You are well advised to do your own thinking.

Cast a Giant Shadow

One of these days I'll get a decent camera and learn how to take pictures. Maybe even with a telescope. Until then, this was kind of cool.

More on Who's In Charge Here?

Rumsfeld's War, the Frontline story being offered on PBS tonight is a fascinating, and extremely frustrating, examination of how authorities compete with one another in a complex social organism. Very highly recommended viewing.

Who's In Charge Here?

I fight authority, authority always wins...

Some links that are related to the STARS post:

Too Much Reality: Is There Such a Thing? This post is related to the number of information channels available to individuals seeking to improve their rank in the pecking order. Groups must compete for a finite amount of attention in a growing universe of information channels which places unprecedented demands on individuals who are oriented toward paying attention to authorities.

Q&Q, Jeff Jarvis' take on Jay Rosen's post above. Jeff writes:

"I say it's about control: If you give us, the people, control of our media -- and government and markets -- we will use it (see Jarvis' First Law of Media). If we do not think we have control, then we'll turn into passive spuds. But once we do have control -- whether from the remote control or the TiVo or our blogging tools -- everything changes: We demand to be part of the conversation. We compete with the once-powerful. We question their power. We establish new relationships of trust."

Control = authority? Perhaps. Related, definitely. But what does it mean in this context? What is the "conversation" we wish to be part of? I think this is just buzzword abuse. What are "relationships of trust?" Won't we still be well advised not to believe everything we read, even if it's in a weblog?

But note the "everything changes." You get this a lot from webloggers. I say, very little changes. It's just a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Instead of millions of human beings looking to a few major authorities for their guidance, which will remain the case for the foreseeable future, we'll have somewhat smaller groups of human beings looking at a somewhat larger number of competing authorities for guidance. There is a more significant change that could happen, but probably won't. More on that in another post.

Neurotransmitters for the Global Mind, is a post at Joshua Allen's weblog. It's a short post and it is somewhat resonant with my comments regarding how technology has increased the available information channels for authorities and groups to exploit in manipulating the belief systems of their constituent members and in attracting new members.

Windsor Eames Lambeth Reflections at AKMA's Random Thoughts. An earlier post with comments on the same topic here. AKMA shares with us some of his thoughts as a constituent member of a social organism that is struggling with a challenge to authority within the organism, based on a radical change to the belief system.

Transparency and sponsorship in the blogosphere. Marc Canter's ideas on monetizing the "blogosphere." Unless or until we regress to physical force, money remains the most universal form of authority. It was only a matter of time before people would try to convert their "authority" and "rank" in the blogosphere into a more liquid form of authority in meat-space: money.

I'll Talk Slower, an interesting rant by "Effern" about Doc Searls. I'm not familiar with this weblog or its authors, but this post is an interesting read in the context of my ideas about authority. As luck would have it, it begins thus: "Yes, I drove down here so this post would ring with more authority."

Doc makes a living as an "authority." As such, he must garner and continue to garner attention. Therefore, he must have a conflict, a quest, an agenda. His is "old media" versus "new media." Or something. I'm not sure. He goes to a lot of conferences and he's a big proponent of the "Cluetrain," an attention-attracting "hook" for the hip, the connected and the... whatever. I remain nonplussed. But he's a nice guy, and I like his posts about radio and astronomy and "the kid" more than his proselytizing. Mostly I just ignore the other stuff, unless I find it offensive, as I do from time to time.

Who Squeezed Your Head? Okay, that's not the title to a post. Rather, it's a rather idiotic comment left by someone named "anthony" at Shelley Powers' weblog. It's only noteworthy as an example of how authority defends itself by trying to diminish or dismiss the authority of others. Shelley voiced some legitimate criticism of a rather high-profile tech conference, and "anthony" basically flipped her the bird by suggesting that since she hadn't attended the conference her criticism couldn't possibly be meaningful.

Webloggers as a group seem to be positively enamored with attending conferences where they can ignore the speakers and "chat" (making snarky comments about the presenters like they're all part of some MST3K virtual reality) with each other over IRC channels on the network and blog about it later. They are universally in awe of being in the presence of so many other "smart people," and they love getting schwag. That's about all you need to know whenever a weblogger is about to write about a conference they attended.

I, of course, am merely jealous and bitter because I don't get to attend.

Of course I am.

"anthony" has a weblog. You can read it here, but I don't think you need waste your time.

Some Things Aren't Rocket Science

Human beings exist as members of various groups.

Groups are formed and held together by sets of common beliefs.

A belief is nothing more than information. The "best" beliefs are "true" ones. Presumably, all beliefs are "true."

"Truth" is information that has certain qualities related to utility, reliability and durability. All of those qualities are somewhat related to, and dependent on, the nature of the group that is assessing them. There is no "objectivity" anywhere, because there is no place where one might be "outside" the system. Everything is contingent. But the idea of "objectivity" persists and holds a special place as a belief in many belief systems.

Individual human beings are involved in myriad complex interactions in a highly-connected social environment, and lack the cognitive resources to perceive, analyze and decide on a course of action in every interaction. They rely on a vast array of decision-making shortcuts that might be thought of as scripted responses to situations they frequently encounter. They may also be thought of as habituated behavior. Belief systems are used to provide the filter mechanism for identifying or perceiving "reality" and to guide the selection of the appropriate scripted response. Dr. Antonio Damasio believes that what I call a belief system is actually mapped to the emotional centers of the brain, such that a particular situation is encoded as a particular "dispositional representation" - how it "feels."

When encountering novel situations, human beings as members of groups rely on authorities to guide their response to the situation. Belief systems are used by individuals in groups to orient themselves toward their authorities.

Groups effectively act as separate, autonomous organisms, with authorities representing the central nervous system of the larger organism. Much of the effort of authorities is directed toward preserving and adapting the belief system of the group in order to maintain group cohesiveness and to attract new members to the group.

Groups compete with other groups for constituent members, chiefly by means of attacking belief systems, and offering alternative beliefs that are presumably "superior." Beliefs are information. In order to open a channel in the receiver, individuals seeking to present themselves as authorities must seize attention. Attention is the faculty that identifies the novel, the different, the potential threat or potential reward. As such, it's low-level firmware in the brain, it's shared with all the lower forms of life, though it is mediated by some cognitive ability, and the experience of consciousness. Nevertheless, it is something that most human beings have very little conscious control over, and so it is readily exploited by individuals seeking to exercise authority.

All individuals have some amount of authority. The most common measure of authority is currency or wealth. Authority is what establishes the pecking order within a group, and within groups of groups. Although currency is the most common measure of authority, there are others that are not based on wealth. There is the formal authority granted to officials of the state, from dog catchers and police officers all the way to governors and presidents. Military authority is a form of formal authority. Although, as an aside, military authority is an example of a type of authority that is rigidly bounded by the membership within the group. While a citizen of Cleveland is still subject to the authority of the dog catcher in Chicago, if he happens to be in Chicago with a dog; a civilian is almost never subject to military authority regardless of the circumstances. There is a form of authority that is conferred by certification by a recognized and accepted governing body. These include most professions, law, medicine, engineering, etc; as well as skilled trades like carpentry, plumbing, machinists and electricians. Finally, there is a form of authority related to demonstrated successful competence, or particular gifts or talents. These would include artists, athletes, writers, musicians, and performers. This form of authority is the "loosest," or least formal.

As a part of the social fabric, nearly all forms of formal authority are bound by some system of accountability. Someone who presumes to act as an authority bears some responsibility for those he or she asserts their authority over. Failure to exercise their authority properly usually involves a negative outcome for those who follow it. If a doctor prescribed the wrong medications to a patient, and the patient relied on the doctor's authority for taking those medications and subsequently died; then the system of authority for all doctors is called into question. In order to preserve the tight coupling between authorities and those they govern, there must be a system of accountability for those in authority. In return for meeting certain standards to be formally recognized as authorities, and for accepting certain responsibilities and the accompanying systems of accountability, authorities enjoy high rank within the pecking order.

All human beings are motivated to increase their rank within the pecking order. This is a competitive trait selected for by evolution in order to ensure the "fittest" are given the most opportunities to reproduce. It's a very fundamental, biological motivation.

As indicated earlier, the most common form of authority is currency, and most people are motivated to improve their rank in the pecking order by amassing greater quantities of currency. Even formal authority ultimately translates or transitions into money at some point. But money is, for most people in the short-term, a scarce resource.

Information, however, is free.

Beliefs are information. One way to become an authority, or at least to acquire the appearance of being an authority, which one might dub the "Robert Scoble Approach," is to seek attention and to present information which gives one the appearance of being an authority.

Human beings have been competing for rank within the pecking order by seeking authority for as long as they have had opposable thumbs. For all of that time, the identification of authorities, or the sorting of the pecking order, has relied upon the flow of information. It's probably what drove the development of spoken language, written language and virtually every other technological innovation involving communication since then. It's command and control, or the illusions thereof anyway. And presumably out of all this competition for authority and increased flow of information, the groups with the "fittest" beliefs go on to thrive and survive, while those with less fit beliefs pass away into the dim recollections of history.

It is no surprise that today, when we have the greatest amount of available bandwidth ever in humanity's history, we "observe" an explosion in the effort to seek authority. And while we may have technologies that can deliver ever greater quantities of data to our desktops or our cell phones, we run smack up against the smallest pipe in the system, the human brain. Since human beings have limited resources of time and attention, authorities must compete ever harder to seize attention in order to get their piece of data shoved into a human mind.

Is it a mystery why thousands of "webloggers" are challenging mainstream media as purveyors of information and "truth?" No, it's not. And I'm not defending mainstream media, I'm just saying this isn't about some vast democratization of "truth" or some other uplifting bit of malarkey like that. It's about pecking order. It's about wanting to get laid. It's all just mindless genes working their complex emergent "will" as nature does whatever it is nature "wants" to do. Was 9/11 about terrorists wanting to kill Americans? No, it was about getting our attention. Does George Bush keep invoking 9/11 in order to "protect" us? No. He does it to get our attention.

It's all about what and who you believe.

And everyone who supposedly wants to "change the world," is really wanting to get into that pretty intern down the hall's pants.

You want to change the world? You've got to change yourself. Stop listening to every would-be "authority" out there, and carve a couple hours out of every day and pay attention to yourself and what you think you believe and why you believe it. I'd be willing to bet that reading the phrase "pay attention to yourself" evoked a negative emotional response, if only fleeting. We're conditioned not to pay attention to ourselves. That's selfish, or worse. Besides, what good would you be to authorities if you weren't devoting all of your finite time and attention resources to them?

It's not fun. You won't meet any hot chicks. You won't get millions of hits on your weblog, from links from all the "A-Listers." You won't acquire the illusion of authority. But you might begin to exercise authority over yourself. And your life might open up for you in a way that it probably hasn't for a long time, if ever.

But don't take my word for it. I'm an authority on nothing, and I make all this shit up.

iDisk

As many of you probably know, Apple increased the storage allotment for .Mac subscribers to 250MB, split between the Mail account and iDisk storage. I apportioned 230MB to my iDisk, with the balance to e-mail. Unfortunately, this creates a size discrepancy between the locally cached copy of my iDisk and the online one.

This led to an alert box from Mirror Agent (a process that is normally not visible to the user) that my online iDisk and my locally cached copy didn't match in size. It said my iDisk would not be available until the local copy was updated to match the online one. Clicking on OK would dismiss the alert, but strangely, my local copy was still always available because I export this Tinderbox document to it as html to publish Groundhog Day. So nothing ever changed, and I'd have to dismiss this alert every time the computer woke from sleep.

The local copy on my iMac had somehow automagically matched the size of the online version, but it didn't seem to be happening for my main machine, the G4 MDD 867DP.

Just now, I went into the System Prefs panel and opened the control panel for .Mac. In the iDisk tab, I turned off the option to keep a locally cached copy of my iDisk. I received an alert that a disk image would be created of my cache and placed on the Desktop, and I acknowledged that. Then, for no particular reason that I can name, I relaunched Finder. I could have logged out and logged back in, but I'm lazy. After Finder came back up, I went back into the control panel for .Mac and turned the option for keeping a locally cached copy of my iDisk back on. It's syncing now. Hopefully, by the time it gets through, my local cached copy will now match the size of my online iDisk and I won't have to play with that stupid Mirror Agent alert anymore.

Update: All my machines' local iDisk caches are now in sync.

News of the MunDave

I like it when my mistakes scroll off the page. Perhaps there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere too. Not sure. So, in the interest of scrolling, I'm moving on here.

What's new? Not a lot. Let's see...

Did a board-breaking seminar in taekowndo yesterday. That was a lot fun. We use plastic martial arts boards. I've used wood boards too. Plastic can be harder to break. With the plastic boards, you really have to ensure your strike lands along the seam where the two halves meet. If you don't, it doesn't break no matter how hard you hit or kick it. Much to the dismay of the luckless board-holders.

I had little trouble with any of my board breaks, other than with my side kick. The trick is to never take your eyes off the board. When I bring my leg up for the side kick, my hands are up as they're supposed to be, and as I tilt back on my standing leg, my elbow moves into the line of sight with the board, obscuring it. Fixing this was harder than it sounds, but I've fixed it.

Caitie is with me this weekend. We baked cookies (from store-bought dough - I'm a 21st century male after all) last night and watched the '98 Hollywood remake of Godzilla. Well, I watched it, Caitie played on the computer and pulled her last remaining childhood molar. That was interesting.

When I got Karma back from being a little misplaced in early September, I should have bathed her. During her absence, she managed to acquire a flea infestation. It'd been one of those things I meant to get to "soon." Well, fleas have a way of exploding in population at some point, and these have. So yesterday morning was an exercise in pest control. I took a short cut that I hope will work, I applied Front Line to both Squeaky and Karma without bathing them first. It's just such a pain to bathe Squeaky, and she has all her claws. Karma will tolerate it somewhat, but it's not much fun with her either. One of the most important tools in flea control is your vacuum cleaner. So we did much vacuuming yesterday as well, especially of their cat perch, which they haven't been using - so that was a clue. You know the problem has gotten bad when the cats won't lie on the floor or in their usual spots. Karma's on the floor at my feet right now, she's not trying to find a place on my too-cluttered computer table, so I'm a little optimistic.

My worst infestation was back when I had three cats in the mid-80s; I went away for a week and had a friend looking in on the cats. When I returned, they were so thick they would be jumping on your ankles as you walked around the house. That called for drastic measures. I bought some foggers from the vet that were supposed to be best thing, and bathed all the cats. Then I sprayed all the carpets with some sort of flea life-cycle interrupter. That pretty much solved that problem. I don't think I'll have a problem once I get this one under control because I don't let the cats outside at this apartment. There are too many dogs and the cats would bolt and I'd be days looking for them again. They get to sit outside on my little screened-in deck and watch the world go by. But they don't get to chase anoles (little lizards people mistakenly call chameleons), or nibble on grass, so I feel a little bad for them.

I live in an extremely dense Republican part of Florida. (Read that any way you want to.) Most election years, you see maybe one or two signs supporting a Democrat here and there, and hundreds of signs supporting Republicans. (Which are left to lie around as litter following the election.) I'm not sure exactly what it's a measure of, but this year I'm noticing dozens of Kerry-Edwards signs around town. Mostly in the less affluent areas, to be sure, but it must be a sign of something. Of course, the Bush-Cheney signs seem to be out in greater abundance as well, but the difference is not nearly as great.

Well, that's about it I guess. Cats, cheese sandwich, the usual stuff. The page scolls on...

Apologies

Everybody Complains About the Weather is probably one of the worst-written things I've done in a long time. Sorry about that. I'd take it down and try again, but I'm tired of thinking about it for the moment. Although it isn't written very well, I think it captures the gist of what I was thinking.

Everybody Complains About the Weather

What matters?

Do you know? How do you know?

In fact, you don't know. There are things you believe matter, but what can you say you really know? Not much, I think.

Does it matter who gets elected in November? Well, yes, in a way. But not as much as the level of emotion currently being exhibited might lead you to believe.

Regardless of who wins, approximately half of that portion of the nation's electorate that can be bothered to get off its ass and vote will be convinced it's The End of the World (as We Know It)™. The other half will be busy crowing and gloating and admonishing their erstwhile opponents to "Get over it," or, "Deal with it," or the ever popular, "You lost, so shut the fuck up!"

All of which has little to do with anything. It's that "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" thing. It will be the cashing out of emotional investments made over the past year with some feeling like winners, and others feeling like losers; neither recalling that "the house always wins."

But it won't matter.

We think it matters because we believe we have some control over events. It's as though we perceive the ship of state as an actual vessel and if only one side or the other had their hands on the wheel, we'd avert going aground. But it's not like that. Of course, the actual folks who get to put their hands on the metaphorical wheel don't mind if you believe that; for all I know, they may even believe it too. But it's not true.

Florida got hit by four hurricanes this year. That's something pretty unprecedented for us. It wasn't a happy series of events for anyone. But you never see the level of emotion expressed by large groups of people toward natural phenomena that you do toward things like politics. That's because we don't imagine we have any real control over natural phenomena. This business with the flu vaccine? I point out that people are upset about the vaccine shortage, not the flu. And perhaps they're right to be, I think. We have far more control over things like availability of vaccine than we do over who gets nominated and elected. But we're far more upset about politics than we are about vaccine supplies. And nobody's really angry because the flu exists.

All that emotion, all that energy, what does it serve? Does it serve you? Does a hurricane serve you? No, it serves the process. Sure, there are consequences to both political events and meteorological ones. Maybe your homeowner's insurance goes up, and maybe your taxes do too. Or maybe your taxes go down, I don't really care. It's just a consequence of a larger phenomenon, a process, over which an individual citizen has little control. But that doesn't stop anyone from blaming other people. Because we all want to believe in the fantasy of control.

If the media were just better at their jobs, if we just had enough webloggers, if we just had enough bandwidth, if we just had enough podcasts, then we could persuade the others™ of the correctness of our views, and we wouldn't have all these problems. It would change everything™. Alternatively, I suppose, if we could just harangue, belittle, smear and intimidate everyone who disagreed with us into shutting up, then everything would be great too. At least, that's the way it appears to me sometimes.

The outcome of the presidential election is something many webloggers should absolutely love, it's an emergent property of a complex system. Much like a hurricane. Just because we're more a part of this system than we are of another, like hurricanes, doesn't mean it's something under our control.

Here's the thing, regardless of which asshole gets elected on the second of November, I'm still going to be more than 50 pounds over my ideal weight, and living with a greater risk of diabetes and heart disease than someone who is at their ideal weight. John Kerry and George Bush aren't going to fix that for me.

Regardless of who gets elected in November, I will still be a guy who sometimes struggles to be a good father to two children who are rapidly growing up before my eyes. How I do as a father has nothing to do with who's ass is comfortably placed in the seat of government, lots of social policy and theory to the contrary notwithstanding.

Regardless of who gets elected in November, there will still be stacks of books that I intend to read one day, with the idea that perhaps they might help me learn how to become a better person.

Regardless of who gets elected in November, it will remain my challenge to understand the source of the animosity and hostility I feel toward people I do not really know who happen to hold opinions that differ from mine. And believe me, there's a lot of animosity here. I'm not sure you can appreciate the effort I'm making just now at not expressing it. I'd make Jon Stewart look like a charming house-guest.

Regardless of who gets elected in November, it's far too likely, almost a certainty, that I will die one day, hopefully not soon, either accidently or of natural causes, not having lived my life to its fullest potential, either out of indolence or fear. Far more likely that, in fact, than I will be killed by Islamo-fascists in some futile terrorist attack, something I fear very little.

Regardless of who gets elected in November there will be things that are much more closely under my control than the opinions of thousands of my fellow citizens, so what should I pay more attention to? What should you pay more attention to? As with hurricanes, we are wise to pay attention to the phenomenon and take such action as may be appropriate to see to it we endure the event with as little loss as possible. But it probably isn't wise to go on being angry with people or blaming them. That's like whipping up tornadoes in the wake of the hurricane; and we do have a little, tiny bit of control over that.

"You must become the change you wish to see in the world." That's because you don't have the power to change the world. If I'm lucky, and if I work very hard at it, I just might have the power to change myself. And if everyone did that, who knows? That just might change the world.

Portents

It's probably too much to hope for, and I'm not sure I'm an omen-kind of a guy, but a bunch of guys from Massachusetts beat a bunch of guys from New York. And do it decisively. Now, Massachusetts is pretty Democratic, and New York is pretty Republican.

What would Pat Robertson say?

Dare we hope?

(Update: It has been pointed out to me that New York is heavily Democratic, not Republican. Nevertheless, it was the site of the Republican National Convention this year, and ex-Mayor Giuliani, who performed admirably on 9/11 and the days immediately thereafter, and Governor George Pataki figured prominently in the convention. The fact that Boston was the site of the Democrat National Convention adds to the parallel. If the Astros win the pennant, it's going to an even stronger parallel between the series and the race.

We live in interesting times.)

Shatner Rocks

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, you're gonna die."

I have to admit a certain guilty pleasure in William Shatner's latest album, Has Been, available at the iTunes Music Store.

In Other News

I returned Saturday to find an e-mail in my inbox from Evan Gross, the developer of Spell Catcher. That was a pleasant surprise! He liked my comparison of Spell Catcher and TypeItForMe, though he had lots of nice things to say about TypeIt4Me and its developer Riccardo Ettore as well.

Back Again

Well, that was interesting. I didn't do very well, I'm afraid. I don't think I'll be doing it again though.

I was a little disappointed because the main reason I went was to be able to take some pictures of my daughter, Caitie, as she competed. As it turned out, her ring was short a score-keeper, so I got roped into performing that function and I left the camera with my son, Chris, who surprised me by coming along with his mother and his sister to the tournament. Unfortunately, Chris wasn't familiar with how the camera worked, so almost none of his shots are usable. I was able to get a few of one of our students before Caitie had to compete, and I used the two best ones Chris got of Caitlin and tried out using iPhoto the pictures to a web page. You'll find the result here.

I'm still trying to figure out the ins and outs of using iPhoto to publish to .mac. I think if you just go from iPhoto to .mac, it leaves your existing index page alone. After I published it, I got an e-mail from Apple informing me it had been published and that I could edit it in Home Page, the web app that Apple provides for creating web pages at .mac. So I tried that, but when I published the changes, it created a new index page that pointed to the photo album, so Groundhog Day wouldn't load. I looked at my local copy of the site and tried to sync with .mac, but met with an error code. So I launched Goliath and I was able to log onto my iDisk and I noticed that the Groundhog Day index page had been renamed index.old.html, and Apple had inserted their own index page. So I just renamed my index page back to "index" and deleted Apple's pretender and all's well again.

Anyway, Caitie didn't do as well as she'd hoped either. She started out her form very strong, and she was looking great, but then she had a little mental vapor-lock and hesitated, then looked at the judges and smiled before she remembered what the rest of her form was, and that's all it took. She knew she had messed up, so she kind of lost her snap in the rest of her form. She has a lot more ability than her score reflected, and she was disappointed.

In sparring, the judging left something to be desired. She won her first bout 5-1, but several punches she landed in the second bout weren't counted by the judges and she lost 5-1. It was a much closer match than the score reflected, and it's possible she might have won if any of her punches had been counted.

There are a number of things I'm unhappy about with the tournament, but the biggest one is the quality of the judging. I'm sure the judges are doing their best to do a good job, but I don't think they do it often enough to do it well. Some of the scores on the forms were simply impossible to fathom, and I noted lots and lots of missed points during the girls' sparring. I think one of the issues was simply the fact that adults are taller than children and so their view is obscured somewhat. I was seated as the score-keeper and I saw one young lady repeatedly land round kick after round kick against her opponent's chest protector, none of which was counted as a point. But she was coming up from below her opponent's front arm, and I think from the judges point of view, they thought the arm had blocked the kick, or they couldn't see the foot striking the chest protector. Though I couldn't really understand how they missed it because the chest protector was moving upward with each strike. But whatever... It just seems a bit much to ask these kids to come in and work hard to compete and then not have the results reflect what they actually achieved in the ring.

Of course, the rationale is that you're just competing with the people in your own ring, so everyone has an equal opportunity to have their points missed. Except I think something happens in the ring when one person scores first. I think this creates a kind of an expectation, and so the judges may be cued, or spring-loaded, to detect points from the person who scored first. I think this could be detected if we also recorded who scored first and then looked at the results of all the matches and see how often the person who scored first ended up winning the bout.

In my case, I think I made an error in telling the judges this was my first tournament. Of course, they had asked and I didn't think it would hurt me; but in the end I think it did. I think it kind of skewed how they judged me. Now, I screwed up on two slow side kicks because (Okay, here comes the whining and the excuses...) the mats we were performing on were very soft and spongy. Not bad to perform on, just softer than I'm used to. I came up on one leg to do the kick but the floor was so squishy I couldn't keep my balance without dropping my kicking foot to the floor and coming up again. Okay, points off for that. But I knew my entire form, and two of the guys I was competing against forgot theirs! One guy was just awful! He quit, started to walk out of the ring, got talked back in, started again, quit, started again, started yukking it up, ended up just doing a few techniques in a half-assed way and bowed out. He got the same score as I did from one judge! I was so pissed.

Then in the sparring... I noticed the floor was kind of slick when we were warming up and doing our forms. I also noted a lot of the guys who sparred before me were falling down on their kicks, which I attribute at least partially to the condition of the floor. So I figured I'd stay away from kicks, which aren't my strong suit anyway, and just concentrate on closing and landing punches. Now, I did bring my leg up to do feints, or to block my opponent, but I think I deliberately launched maybe two or three kicks total. Then at one point, when I hadn't kicked but I had my leg up, my opponent closed with a kick and essentially walked into my foot, I got called for a warning for a low kick!

I suspect this is because in the previous bout a guy got kicked in the nuts, so then they were watching for it; and it's my first tournament, so obviously I must be a low-kicker or something. After the bout, my opponent even commented to me that the warning was bullshit. In any event, I was also extremely frustrated because I worked my strategy and closed and punched, and at least three times I beat my opponent to the punch. None of them scored. Again, my opponent scored first in the match, and I think the judges weren't expecting much from me (first tournament!), so they didn't really look too hard to see if I was scoring. I lost my bout 5-1. I might have lost anyway, but it should have been closer to 5-4, or I might have even won.

In any event, the scoring seemed whimsical at best and I'm not sure what the attraction is if you can't get some meaningful assessment of your performance. Caitie wants to go again to prove she can do it. I'm not sure that's possible, given the uneven performance of the judges. I haven't told her that, I'll support her whatever she wants to do. I'd like to think I don't have anything to prove to anyone, so I'm not inclined to ever do this again. If I could be assured of receiving consistently competent judging, it might be worth going to see if I've been improving; but I've seen little reason to believe that's possible. Sounds like sour grapes, I know, and I'm not happy about that either. It just wasn't a great experience overall.

On the Road Again

This afternoon I head down to Orlando for the ATA Fall Nationals where I will be competing in the "geezer division" in forms and sparring tomorrow. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, apart from some curiosity on my part and some encouragement from my instructors. Neither of which seems to be worth the anxiety I am feeling at this moment. Not that this is completely unwelcome. I've learned that there is a lot I can learn about myself by paying attention to what I'm feeling and trying to understand why I feel that way. The problem is, I don't feel very good while I'm doing it. Of course, I often don't feel very good in the middle of a tough class, but I always feel pretty good when it's over. So, "This too shall pass."

I'll be competing with 1st degree black belts between 40 and 49 years of age in my ring. So it's not like I'll be sparring with some guy 20 or more years younger than me, which is pretty much what I do in class. My ring time is 10:00 a.m., so I won't be feeling anxious for very long tomorrow, and that's good. Caitlin will be competing as well, but her ring time is at 2:30 p.m., and I'll be able to watch her compete. Her mother is competing as well, and her ring time is the same as Caitlin's, so it's a good thing I'm going. I'll be there to support Caitie.

Yesterday I managed to get my computer at work infected with some very aggressive malware which is going to require professional help to remove. I was visiting John Robb's weblog, and he later noted his service provider had informed him that their servers had been hacked, but that the problem had been resolved. This is my first experience with this sort of problem and I'm not happy about it. I can't fix the problem myself, so I have to bring in the IT drones and I'm not happy about that.

Anyway, on with the show...

Debate III

It's clear that Bush's coaches have made significant progress at improving their candidate's performance. It's not clear that it is enough.

I thought the second debate was a draw, albeit the president was behaving boorishly throughout it. Although Bush's performance is better in this one than in the previous two, Kerry has improved as well. If anything, I think Kerry did better than Bush in this one in general terms of "presence," and Kerry seemed to articulate a bit of a clearer picture of where we want to go.

Tough call, but I'd call this one for Kerry.

Steve Jobs on Apple

Interesting interview with Apple's CEO on innovation and Apple's approach to business.

Another reason...

...why I have little use for churches, or "organized religion," or whatever you want to call it.

iTunes Synchronicity

After I posted the lyric to Superman's Song, I wanted to listen to it. So I typed "super" in the search field in iTunes and quickly spotted the song in the search results and played it.

I jumped back into Tinderbox to correct the formatting on the lyric, and when the song ended the next song to begin playing was Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero. Kind of spooky, but I checked and it's in the search results because the title of the album is Super Hits. But still, it was an affecting bit of serendipitous synchronicity.

I was never a big fan of Reeve as an actor, but I've long admired him since his accident.

And I've always been a fan of Superman.

Superman's Song

Tarzan wasn't a ladies' man

He'd just come along and scoop 'em up under his arm

Like that, quick as a cat in the jungle

But Clark Kent, now there was a real gent

He would not be caught sittin' around in no

Junglescape, dumb as an ape doing nothing

[Chorus:]

Address Book Tip

I read an entry at Mac OS X Hints today about attaching any information you want to an Address Book entry. You can read the hint yourself, but it requires turning on web sharing and creating a web page to work. That's too much work for me.

Instead, just insert the complete pathname to the file you want to attach in the "Note:" field of whatever Address Book entry you want the file to be attached to, with the prefix - "file://"

An example might look like this:

file:///users/davidrogers/Pictures/100_0040.jpg

Then, when you want to open the attached file, just highlight the text and select "Open URL" from the Services menu. The file will open in whatever application it normally opens in. And you can have as many of these pointers as you want, up to the limit for the amount of text in a "Note:" field.

I'm sure I'm not the first person who's thought of this, but I offered a comment at Hints anyway.

Dead Horse Redux

The other night I was watching The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart was reviewing the VP debate. Dick Cheney recited the administration's talking point about the war in Iraq with the by now familiar, "Knowing everything we now know, I would still do it again..." line. That's not an exact quote, in case you're thinking I was trying to offer one. Rather, it's a paraphrase. In Cheney's case, he was at pains to insert the word "advise" in there, lest he give anyone the (accurate) impression that he's Bush's puppet-master. The whole gay-marriage amendment thing is a very nice fig-leaf.

Anyway, Stewart commented after that clip about the virtues of "20-20 blindsight."

I laughed so hard I cried. No, wait... maybe I was crying.

This administration has relied on the excuse of 9/11 to suggest that, even knowing what we know now, invading Iraq was the right thing to do because at the time, we didn't know that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. This would be a reasonable defense except for two things. We do know, that the consensus intelligence assessment of Iraq's possession of WMD prior to 9/11 was that he had no programs, no nuclear weapons and little to none in the way of chemical or biological stockpiles. We also know that prior to 9/11, effecting regime change in Iraq was a high priority within the neocon wing of his administration. We know that within hours of the attacks on 9/11, members of that neocon wing were exploiting that event to create a rationale for going to war against Iraq; before we knew or had reason to suspect that they might have had anything to do with it. The subsequent drum-beating of "intelligence" that made it a "slam-dunk" that he had WMD, was an effort to selectively choose the most favorable interpretation of any information, however flawed, of whatever provenance, that might be even slightly useful in providing a pretext for going to war.

We also know that there is stronger intelligence information regarding North Korea's efforts at acquiring and stockpiling WMD. We also know that Iran, a known state-sponsor of terror, an Islamist state (as opposed to Hussein's secular totalitarian state), is working to acquire a nuclear weapon capability. Knowing that, there is no argument from the administration that this nation needs to conduct a preemptive war in order to "protect" us. In other words, the argument that supported war in Iraq doesn't support wars in states that represent more of a direct threat than Iraq did, so how compelling an argument is it?

We also know that the administration, while asserting on one hand that Iraq might possess weapons of mass destruction, made no effort in the planning for the invasion of Iraq to secure possible WMD sites or stockpiles, or to secure Iraq's borders to keep any supposed WMD materials, information or people from leaving the country in the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. It is impossible to take the administration's argument that it genuinely believed Iraq possessed WMD when it didn't use sufficient force to secure the country after Hussein's government fell. In other words, the force levels assigned to the invasion were consistent with the pre-9/11 intelligence assessments of Iraq's WMD capability. One can only conclude that the administration was only too aware of the costs, despite its repeated refusals to offer any estimates of the cost of the invasion to Congress, and therefore only allotted sufficient forces to defeat Iraq's armed forces and no more; and that there need be no reason for additional forces to secure Iraq's borders or WMD stockpiles because there were very likely none to secure.

Finally, the other line of reasoning the administration pursues today with respect to justifying its preemptive war against Iraq is that the world is a safer place today, and that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, and that creating democracy in the heart of the Islamic world will do much to reduce the kind of religious, cultural and economic conditions that promote terrorism. Those are all arguments of varying degrees of merit, but they were never part of the debate on why we must go to war. It's all after-the-fact justification. It's all "easier to get forgiveness than permission" reasoning. And it seems to me that any administration that leads this nation to war must meet a higher standard than that.

Now, why is it important to keep flogging this dead horse about how we went to war? We're in Iraq. This is going to get worse before it gets better, regardless of who's in the White House. As someone wrote, that die is case.

It's important because we get a choice next month to decide if we want our leaders to be the kinds of people who cynically manipulate the American people with lies and distortions to promote fear in order to pursue an agenda that very likely the majority of Americans would not support. It's easy to be cynical and say that all politicians lie, all politicians make appeals to unreasonable fears; but few have done it on this scale, involving this much bloodshed, making so many people's lives a living hell. And "knowing what they know now," none has ever been so arrogant. We need to get our own house in order, and we need to begin by repudiating this administration and its actions by throwing them out.

Debate II

Well, I'm sure this one will be spun by both parties as a victory for their respective candidates. I have to say, the president did much better in this one than in the previous encounter. Of course, that's not saying much.

I won't pretend to offer any sort of sober, objective analysis of their respective performances. Bush was "folksy," but he was also arrogant. I'm certain his performance will reassure his base, but I'm not so certain it plays well with people who may be undecided. I can't stand his facial expressions, that sort of smart-ass questioning look he uses to punctuate the end of his remarks just irritates the hell out of me. He wasn't as tongue-tied as he was the first time, and he was actually able to assemble some fairly coherent sentences a couple of times. He recited his talking points well.

Kerry is obviously less comfortable in this environment. He generally did a better job carefully articulating his vacuous and ambiguous answers, but Bush's simplistic sentence construction makes his vacuous and ambiguous answers seem more "direct," so his facility with language didn't really win Kerry any points. Kerry also seemed to stumble a couple of times on the "not when - if" mix-up, and the "OG-BYN" foul-up. I attribute that to a lack of focus because he was uncomfortable in the forum, and an awareness of the president's improved performance. But what do I know? And what was up with that S-Corp forest remark from Kerry? And why doesn't anyone challenge these "culture of life" assholes with their vigorous support of the death penalty? To say nothing of preemptive war.

I did notice that it seems as though Kerry may have picked up the same guy from Clinton's administration that did Clinton's hair. It was less "Kerry-esque" and more "Clintonian."

Who says I don't pick up on the subtle nuances of these confrontations?

Bottom line, the president will probably get an uptick in the polls, but maybe not. Depends on how people liked his body language. I didn't like it, but I'm biased. I think he's an idiot studying to be a moron. I think he's the worst president in my lifetime, perhaps ever. I'm doing my best not to get too emotionally invested (not doing well, am I?) in this election because I'm afraid it's entirely too possible this moron will win another four years.

A Little Closer to Home

For a variety of reasons, mostly amounting to perhaps little more than a personal quirk, I seldom write checks. I'd say "never," but I had to write one last week. It was the first check I'd "written" in several years, and it was fortunate that I still had the pad of starter checks my credit union gave me when I opened a new account last spring.

Anyway, instead of writing checks, I go to my credit union and have them draw cashier's checks for me instead. As you might imagine, or not, I go to my credit union quite frequently. And as a result, I have something of an acquaintance with the people who work the teller windows. They're all very nice, and it's pleasant to make a little small talk with them each week. One of them had a daughter attending the same private school my daughter attended, and we'd share our mutual dissatisfaction with the school and our concerns about public school.

Today I was at the credit union to deposit a check and draw a cashier's check. My teller was a very nice Filipino woman named Daisy, who is always very upbeat and cheerful. As we were taking care of my transactions, one of the people in line behind me put their small child down and he or she began to loudly protest. I wasn't perturbed, but I smiled and said to Daisy, "Somebody doesn't want to be put down!" She smiled and told me that her two children were both grown and in the military, and that her youngest, her "baby" was in the Marines.

I asked her where they were and she told me that her "baby" was in Iraq. She's 19 years old and a radio operator. I asked her if she knew where in Iraq she was serving, and she wasn't certain, but she didn't think it was anyplace safe. The buildings where they are barracked have received mortar fire three times in the two months she's been there. She told me her daughter had written to her and told her not to worry, that she would be fine; and it seems she's acquired the usual soldier's sense of fatalism, that if it was her time to go, it wouldn't matter where she was. She has ten more months in her tour there.

Daisy had gone from being the cheerful, upbeat efficient credit union teller to being a very worried mother. I had asked for $100.00 cash back from the check I was depositing and I noticed Daisy had placed $200.00 in cash on the counter in front of me. I pointed it out to her to make sure she hadn't deducted $200.00 from my account in error and, no, she hadn't. She had simply lost her concentration as she was telling me about her daughter. She seemed embarrassed and thanked me profusely for catching the error. I said that she must have an awful lot on her mind and that it was perfectly understandable. I started to extend my hands to hers through the window, then thought better of it and started to withdraw them. Then she reached out and took both of my hands. I really didn't know what to say, except that I wanted to say something, that would be of some comfort to her. At that moment I realized there was absolutely nothing I could say that would help. I said, "God bless you Daisy," and something else about praying for her daughter, which is pretty damn out of character for me. She smiled and thanked me, and I have no idea if I made anything any better or any worse. But I was glad she took my hands. I would have hugged her if there wasn't a counter between us.

I can't imagine what it must be like for Daisy and all the other mothers and fathers like her. Well, I can imagine, but until this morning, it had never really occupied much of my attention. I've certainly had a glimpse of what it's like today. She's there, day after day, keeping it together, doing her job, and trying not to worry. Perhaps needing someone's hand to hold, and never asking for it. I'm glad I started to offer, and I'm glad she took advantage of it. I wish I could have done more. It's not like it makes me feel good, if anything it's made me feel not good. If anything, I think I feel some of the burden she must feel. In the unlikely event it made her feel a little less burdened, then I'm glad.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I'm not a Michael Moore fan. In fact, I've never seen anything he's ever done. Until today.

I bought Fahrenheit 9/11 the day before yesterday, and I just finished watching it.

It's a much better film than I expected it to be. By no means is it a "fair" or a "balanced" presentation. It's unfair and biased in appropriate measure to the way we were deceived and manipulated into this war. And Moore doesn't spare anyone, documenting how we utterly failed in our responsibilities as citizens, as journalists and as elected representatives, to perform our duty with respect to matters of war and peace.

As a response to how this nation was led to war, it's devastatingly effective.

I hope it will be effective enough.

"Smart" Mobs

Technology changes everything.

Except human nature.

"You must become the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi

Homeland Security - The Sequel

Warming Signs: Thinner glaciers and saltier oceans.

Senators Urge Probe of EPA on Lead

George Bush wakes up every morning trying to think about how to protect America.

It's hard work. It's really hard work. To love us as best he can. But we're makin' progress!

Tinderbox/Palm Integration

In Doug Miller's Tinderbox Whiteboard document (available here) from the recent Tinderbox Weekend in San Francisco, a note indicates that MacNoteTaker is an essential application for transferring data between Tinderbox and a Palm device. Essentially, you export your Tinderbox file as text and MacNoteTaker will sync them to your Palm handheld as notes.

Well, here's a somewhat different idea, and perhaps a little better, for at least getting your notes from your Tinderbox file to your Palm device: Use Plucker. Export your Tinderbox file as HTML and let Plucker sync them to your Palm. You can even include images and links.

Homeland Security

Official: No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq

Flu Shots: More Anguish Than Usual

George Bush wakes up every morning trying to think about how to protect America.

Supposedly, he's a lot smarter than he looks and sounds.

I don't think that's true.

Blivet 2.0

I meant to point to this the other day, but Hal Rager has a new weblog up and you'll find it here.

Hal, or someone playing him, ought to be in a TV series. I mean, think about it: He's an ordained Zen Buddhist - something, (Help me out here, Hal. Monk? Priest?), he's an archeologist (Hello? Indiana Jones?), and a name like Hal Rager! How cool is that?! I mean, a leather jacket, a jeep, some high-tech gps-enabled super-computer-cum-cell-phone, a bull whip and I think we're talking major ratings! Oh, and he'd keep a weblog on the show too! That'd be another major draw, he'd get the blogosphere viewers.

Except they don't watch TV.

All of Ian's friends are going to be so envious that he has such a cool dad!

Best of luck at the new weblog, Hal!

Dangerfield Dead

Bummer. He had a good run.

VEEP Smackdown

I really think this would have been better in a WWF sort of setting. I know Cheney has a heart condition, but maybe his wife could help him out by busting a chair over Edwards or something.

I'd have to say this is a much more even match than the Kerry-Bush debate. Cheney's OPPO research was first rate. But he never really seemed to rattle Edwards with it. Edwards seemed to rattle Cheney with the Halliburton charges. Edwards bobbled the second gay marriage question (the "have it both ways" question), seemingly inexplicably. He became all tongue-tied on that one.

I was waiting for Edwards to counter-punch on Cheney's attacks on their senate attendance records by mentioning how much time the president has been on vacation in his administration. Poor preparation, and not a great endorsement of his ability to think on his feet. For the most part, I think Edwards did a good job defending Kerry against Cheney's attacks. It was pretty obvious that one of Cheney's marching orders was to go out and try to undo the president's dismal performance in the last debate. I think he probably achieved some of that, but I think he did so at the risk of making himself look like an asshole. "Big time," to coin a phrase. But this will probably have the effect of reassuring the president's base.

Substance on the issues? Not much to say there. It's pretty clear that these two guys' attention was on framing their responses as attacks, and then responding to the counter-attacks. The issues were really just something to deviate from. Edwards' discussion of malpractice lawsuit reform was something new I hadn't heard before, but that's about the only new thing I heard.

Spaceship One

Part of me is wondering if the rolls aren't induced from the nature of the burn in the engine. If there is a thrust component within the rocket itself that isn't parallel with the long (thrust) axis of the spacecraft, then absent a resisting aerodynamic force (they're largely outside the atmosphere), the craft would roll. I don't want to call it a radial component, because certainly there are radial components at each point along the circumference of the engine, and they cancel each other out. But if the liquid nitrous oxide "swirls" as it enters the rubber-fuel chamber then I wonder if there isn't a tangential thrust component as combustion occurs?

Ideally, combustion begins simultaneously at all points along the circumference of the fuel (and who knows, they may even be using a star-shaped or cruciform fuel geometry, so I could be all wet). But if combustion starts at one point and then propagates in a spiral fashion along the length of the rocket chamber, then the uneven burn of the rubber-fuel might be enough to impart a small tangential thrust component. It may not even be the kind of thing you could detect in a static test. It may have something to do with the way the liquid nitrous oxide enters the combustion chamber while aloft. Or you might not even think to look for it in a static test.

What do I know? I'm no rocket scientist.

Initial Reaction to Comparison of Spell Catcher vs. TypeIt4Me

If you're really interested in using one of these universal text macro utilities (to be fair, Spell Catcher is much more than that), then I strongly recommend trying out each of them.

I've installed Spell Catcher 10.1.3 and TypeIt4Me 2.0 on my Power Mac G4 867DP MDD box. I'm running OS X 10.3.5 and I've got 1.75 GB of RAM. It's not the fastest kid on the block by any means anymore, but it is generally fast enough for routine tasks like entering text and evaluating text utilities.

I set up an identical list of glossary entries for both Spell Catcher and TypeIt4Me. Most are short, two or three word expansions, one (my address) includes a carriage return. I tested both utilities in Tinderbox, TextEdit, and Microsoft Word X.

Each utility, subjectively, exhibited the same speed in expanding the macro into its full text. But there is one consistent, and very likely critical, difference. In every macro, in every application, if I kept typing after I entered the shortcut (the "name" of the macro - "/tb" for "Tinderbox"), TypeIt4Me dropped the first two characters or so that I had typed after typing the shortcut. It was quite distracting. I can type through the expansion as long as what I see after the expansion is finished makes sense - i.e. includes the text I kept typing as it was expanding. In every case using TypeIt4Me, I had to stop typing to go back and add the dropped characters. That didn't make me more productive. It would probably be a simple matter to train oneself to just pause for a second to allow TypeIt4Me to catch up, but Spell Catcher doesn't exhibit that behavior at all; and so in a long test a Spell Catcher user would probably be more productive than a TypeIt4Me user (assuming the Spell Catcher user wasn't distracted by all the audio alerts regarding one's spelling errors!).

I'll continue to experiment a bit with each utility, but right now Spell Catcher looks like it has a strong advantage.

More Random Technical Bits

Yesterday's black belt class at my taekwondo school was a bit demanding. So much so, that I ended up going to bed at 8:30 last night. So now I'm up, wide awake at 2:30 a.m. Somehow, I think this is going to screw up my sleep schedule for a few nights. Oh well...

I just wanted to mention something in connection with my comments on the utility of programs like TypeIt4Me and Spell Catcher, and that is when you exploit similar functionality on another platform, in this case the Palm platform.

This started back in my System 7/Newton 120 days. The Newton had a "personal word list" feature buried in the onscreen keyboard. This was essentially a glossary or text-macro function. Now, the Newton used handwriting recognition which was pretty good, but it wasn't absolutely perfect. So I created my text macros using characters that were easy to write in combinations that were easy (for me) to remember - and I began all of them with an easy to write character, the forward-slash. (Otherwise, occasionally a text macro would fire when the recognizer mis-identified something I had written. No words really begin with a forward slash, and I seldom use it in my writing.) I then re-created all my text macros in TypeIt4Me to be the same character combinations so that I would recall them more readily regardless of which device I happened to be be using.

This same feature is present on Palm OS devices. You perform a "gesture" on the writing area that resembles kind of an inverse-cursive lower-case "L" followed by the text macro and the result is automatically expanded in whatever field you happen to be working in.

So if you're the kind of person that writes enough and is disciplined enough to use text macros, consider how you might expand that discipline across platforms. I don't do a lot of text entry on my Nokia 3660, a Symbian Series 60 device; but if I did, I'd be looking for a utility that allowed me to leverage those habits on that platform.

I guess I'll spend a few hours before the sun comes up playing with The Missing Sync and cleaning up that MMC card. Then I have to spend some time doing "what-ifs" in Excel. Your life should be so exciting!

I really wish I was at the Tinderbox weekend. Oh well...

Random Technical Bits

At the moment, life sucks just a bit. Which makes for interesting things to write about, but makes it kind of hard to write about them in interesting ways. So, for the moment, I'll just post a few notes about inconsequential things to at least get the urge to make my fingers go tappety-tap on the keyboard go away.

I've been using the Clié PEG-TG50 for a while now. I love the battery life. I love the bright screen. And it's plenty fast enough. But I don't think this will be a long-term tool for me.

I've been noticing how much I use the PDA when I'm on the phone. With a pen-based unit, like my 665c, it just lies on the desk like a pad of paper, and I can navigate to whatever application or record I require with the pen. I can do that with the TG50, but then things get more difficult. With the 665c, if I need to enter some data, it's a simple task to jot down the information using the stylus and Graffiti. With the TG50, I have to put the stylus down, and use one finger to push the little buttons on the tiny keyboard. Alternatively, I can call up a Graffiti window and write on the screen, but that obscures half the screen and feels like a kludge. Typing with one finger while holding the phone is slow and clumsy. The TG50 is really meant to be held in two hands so that both thumbs can push keys to enter data. Unfortunately, I use my PDA more with it sitting on the desk and using one hand to navigate and enter data. When the present chaos in my life settles down, I'll be looking at a different Palm OS device to replace the TG50 and the 665c. The Zire Z72 is looking like a good candidate at the moment.

In the good news department, Mark/Space issued an update to The Missing Sync that resolves the kernel panic bug. I've installed it, but haven't tried it yet. I expect I'll get to it this weekend.

I received the replacement Nokia 3660 in the mail the other day. I shipped my original unit back. I popped my SIM card into the replacement and sync'ed with the G4 and everything is looking good so far. I was also able to reset the 3660 that I bought in Virginia, so the software problem that disabled the first one is no longer present. Today or tomorrow I will put the 128MB MMC card in that phone into a card reader on my G4 and download all the pictures and audio notes before reformatting the card. Then we'll start over again and pay closer attention to try to detect when problems arise and what might be the cause. Of course, you shouldn't have to do anything like that with a device as mundane as a telephone, but it's far more than just a phone and we're still in the early stages of developing these sorts of things. But for the moment I have two working phones, a primary and a backup, and that's probably a good thing.

In news of the ironic, I also bought a case for my phone in Virginia that had a belt clip that actually worked. Up until then, I had tried a couple of cases and neither one worked well on my belt, so I usually kept the phone in my pants pocket. I was training myself to keep my keys in my left pocket and my phone in my right pocket, so as to avoid scratching the screen of the phone. Despite a few times when I mistakenly put both my phone and my keys in the same pocket, I'd managed to avoid scratching the phone. So naturally, now that I have a case that can carry my phone on my belt, I've managed to put a half-centimeter scratch across the middle of the screen of the replacement phone. Go figure. And case design is a mystery to me. I had a Belkin case that covered the screen and the keypad, but left a hole for the navigation button. The Nokia case only covers the keypad and leaves the screen bare and unprotected.

I was pleased to discover that Apple increased the amount of available storage for my .Mac account. I had paid $10.00 for an additional 10MB for my e-mail storage, but that's a non-issue now. Plus my Amazon order for the .Mac retail package came in and I've entered my activation key from the retail package and presumably when my account renews in a few days I won't be billed for anything. Again, at some future, post-turmoil date, I'll probably spring for the $50.00 gigabyte of storage option. Might be fun for posting movies or audioblog entries. We shall see...

Tinderbox 2.3.1 is looking interesting. I had to renew my license to download this latest upgrade. I keep meaning to delve more deeply into the things Tinderbox can do apart from maintaining this weblog. I'm not sure it'll percolate to the top anytime soon, but the impetus is growing with each update. Ted Goranson's Deep Tinderbox is an exhaustive look at the application, and worth your time if you're interested in Tinderbox. I've corresponded with Ted on outliners for the Mac, and the work he's producing for ATPM in the About This Particular Outliner series is really remarkable. It's an enormous asset and valuable resource for Mac users.

Al Hawkins mentioned my endorsement of TypeIt4Me, and I do think it's a great utility. (Parenthetically, Al, you're going to want to look over your archive and permalink structure at some point as c: tWS grows; at least if you remain on the Tinderbox platform. Remind me when you're ready and I'll explain how I solved the issue. There may be better ways.) At the moment however, I'm in a bit of a quandary. I'm looking at Spell Catcher for OS X, which contains similar functionality in a feature it terms the Glossary (Which I think had its origin, at least as a term, as a feature of the venerable word processor AppleWriter on the old Apple II. I don't know if the Glossary feature didn't appear until version 2.0 or if it was in the earlier versions as well, but it was essentially a text macro feature. AppleWriter also featured WPL, or Word Processing Language, for writing extended command and logic-based macros. But don't get me started on the virtues of AppleWriter. It was a work of art.). Spell Catcher offers the same functionality as TypeIt4Me, along with a spell checker and thesaurus, and you can read the web site for all the other virtues. I was a Spell Catcher user back in my Mac OS 7.x days, but I recall having problems with stability and utility across applications. OS X seems like a much better platform to avoid those sorts of issues, and by all accounts everyone seems pretty pleased with it. I'm going to install the test drive this weekend and see how it goes. Either way, TypeIt4Me or Spell Catcher will improve your productivity and save you some keystrokes.

The Debate

The fact that this race is even a contest is nearly incomprehensible to me. I feel as though I'm living in some sort of bad political novel.