Christmas pictures, hot off the presses. Or compact flash card, I suppose. There are actually very few actual "Christmas" pictures (since I spent most of the time with my video camera instead of my Elph), but I did take some shots on my way out of town.

Up early, four hours at my dad's parents for a family gathering, 6 hours on the road and 3 hours of unpacking and doing laundry later . . .

I have pictures, but they're still on the camera. And I have commentary, but it's still in my head. For now you'll have to settle with the video I spent 4 hours making (mostly because I had a setting wrong in Premiere; my fault, and hopefully I'll learn from it). It's about four times longer than the last one (4 minutes culled from about an hour of video) at roughly the same file size, so I at least figured *that* part of Premiere out . . . The video has three basic segments, with Act I at my parents' on Christmas Eve, Act II at my mother's side of the family on Christmas Day and Act III at my father's side of the family on the day after Christmas. Almost everyone in the video is related to me in some fashion, but don't worry, even I can't keep them straight.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. :)

P.S. - Yes, my mom got a new wedding ring for Christmas.

(Yes, I used the dreaded "neutral" phrase. If you prefer "Merry Christmas," more power to you. I'm remarkably uninterested in that entire debate.)

I'm off to visit the family (well, I will be after a modicum of sleep, anyway). Rapacious gluttony and unrestrained edacity will follow, I imagine. They usually do. I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend (travel carefully, enjoy your families and sneak a cookie now and then). :)

Merry Christmas! (Oh, my, I slipped. Whoops.)

Well, moving month, anyway. Most of my floor has already vacated to the new location, leaving Proofing an isolated pocket in a sea of empty offices (I'd move into my own private office for a week except IT might raise an eyebrow when I ask them to move my computer).

Tensions are appropriately high for an undertaking such as moving 11 floors of attorneys and staff out of a building in an orderly fashion, but while on an expedition to recover Dr Pepper from the fifth floor I was amused to see that some people still have a sense of humor. They even matched it to the painting on the wall!

I received a package from Amazon today (well, technically Lisa received it, since I tacked it onto one of her orders so I could get free shipping, but I paid for it) containing my copy of the Limited Edition of Myst V: End of Ages. Excitement abounds as the confining horror obfuscated within the name "packing tape" is fought, and vanquished, and the packing material is removed. Ambiance abounds as the box is brought forth, absorbing all light in the room as it gleams like a star. Hands reach tentatively for the scissors, eager to release the contents . . .

And then I start cursing. See, the official Amazon catalog page, the official page of Ubisoft (the game's distributor) and all of the reviews indicate in nothing short of unambiguity that the Limited Edition is a Mac/Windows hybrid DVD (and is one of the selling points for buying it instead of the "regular" Windows-only version). Amazon's page (whence I ordered) lists the required specs for both systems and gives no options for picking a system. And yet, somehow, the little blue smiley face sits patiently on my desk, its knowing smirk conveying without words the chant "See, you should have switched already." To be honest, I don't know how I even received a Mac-only version; you can't *order* it from Amazon and I'm not sure why a company would go to the trouble of making a single-platform version after they've already made a hybrid version. In fact, the pictures on the back of the box showing the box's contents clearly show a hybrid Mac/Windows DVD, so they even used identical packaging, despite the fact that there isn't a hybrid DVD in the box (as far as I know; I didn't open it, 'cause then I couldn't return it, but the side of the box only lists OSX specs).

Of course, Amazon's site has been overwhelmed for the holidays and their "returns" section was down for about 3 hours, but I eventually navigated the labyrinthine passages (which include options for returning items because they're the wrong size, they were damaged in shipment, *you* ordered the wrong item or you just plain don't want it, but oddly enough has no section for "we shipped you the wrong item"; for that you have to contact their returns department directly, in a text box with a 200-character limit . . .) and printed a return label. The instructions say I should hear back "within 14 days." Go Amazon!

As part of my job, I'm responsible for verifying that pieces of text from other documents or on handwritten pages (called "riders") are correctly placed in the main document (much of legal work is conforming the language in several documents or using previous documents as "templates" and changing the text to reduce the chances of errors). Normally, the attorneys label these as "Rider 1," "Rider A-2," "Rider 32B," etc., with the number or letter corresponding to either the sequential order or the page number (or both). Every so often, though, an attorney is bored . . . (Lisa was kind enough to point it out to me, since somehow I managed *not* to get the one document in the history of the Firm that referenced Obi-Wan Kenobi . . .)

Labels: proofreading

Brandy sent me a version of this, and I edited it a bit.

How To Tell You're Living in 2005:

1. You accidentally enter your PIN number on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You say "yes" when someone asks you if the number you've just given is your home number or your cell number.
7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You read about the aftermath of events online before you read about the events themselves in the daily newspaper.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
13. Every commercial on television has a Web site at the bottom of the screen.
14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go back for it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You just scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list and now you're laughing at yourself.

I know, I'm focusing on this a lot. The little civil liberties voice that's normally tucked comfortably between my "you really need some dark chocolate" voice and my "don't open your heating bill, you really don't want to know" voice has managed to muscle its way to the front.

The administration's spin machine is running at such a high RPM that I'm afraid it's going to explode. In summary, for the past four years the administration (including the President, the Vice President, the Attorney General and various other officials) has insisted that all domestic surveillance has required a warrant from the judicial branch. Then we found out they lied about that and the President has been personally authorizing domestic spying by the NSA the entire time. Then the administration justified it by saying that the President has inherent Constitutional and statutory authority to ignore the prohibition against domestic spying, but was very vague about just where those executive powers appear. Although not entirely giving up that argument, the administration moved to shifting the blame by saying "Congress was briefed and didn't do anything," until the relevant Congressmen pointed out that only a handful of Congressmen have been briefed, they were told only parts of the details, they were prohibited from taking notes or discussing it with advisors or legal counsel and they weren't *asked* permission, merely told it was going on, and even then a number of them protested, in writing (but only to the people running the briefings because it's illegal to disclose classified information; kind of a win-win for the administration, since either the Senators keep their mouths shut or they can be charged with whatever the charge is for revealing classified information).

That brings us to a few days ago and today. This week the administration resorted to "Congress authorized it in their authorization of force against terrorism" ("the authorization to use force . . . constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence" - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales). This, despite the fact that multiple Congressmen are on the official Congressional record stating that the authorization grants no new powers and is narrowly tailored. And if that's not enough, this argument is completely undercut by the Attorney General's admission that the administration discussed asking Congress for authority for the NSA program but intentionally did not because it "would be difficult, if not impossible" to pass. If the administration admits that Congress wouldn't give direct permission to conduct warrantless domestic spying, it certainly can't argue that Congress knowingly gave permission in a bill that doesn't mention spying.

Today they resorted to what is, essentially, the "we were lazy" argument. From Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael V. Hayden: "getting retroactive court approval is inefficient because it 'involves marshaling arguments' and 'looping paperwork around.'" Oh my. Convincing judges and doing paperwork. What a horrible inconvenience. Definitely grounds for ignoring a federal statute.

On top of that, the administration has clung to the defense that only half of each intercept was on American soil, and the other had to be in a foreign country (which hasn't really convinced most legal scholars, but since they made the argument it should be addressed). That was dashed today. The New York Times revealed that the program has indeed intercepted completely domestic calls, and a former NSA scientist expressed doubts that the NSA could accurately determine the origin and ending points of intercepted transmissions given current technology. So much for that argument.

I read that at least one Senator has contacted Constitutional scholars about the legal requirements for impeachment, and although I really, really doubt this will come to that, it's still something that deserves Congressional investigations (which are being organized in the Senate Intelligence and Judicial Committees).

I came across an article today listing all of the times the current administration has insisted that all of its surveillance was being done with court-approved warrants ("everything you hear about requires court order, requires there to be permission from a FISA court" - from a Bush speech in 2004), which are quite obviously lies now that the administration has admitted that it has been authorizing itself without warrants since 2002. Even if you want to argue that the administration's offered "justification" is valid (that the president is authorized to do whatever he deems necessary to combat terrorism, even if it means breaking the law), there's still no way around the fact that it lied about it.

A scarier article on Ars Technica skips the legal, ethical and Constitutional questions and instead focuses on the technical questions. Although it's largely speculation based on previous programs and what little the players involved have said, it suggests that the primary reason the administration ignored the statutory requirements for a warrant is because the NSA isn't conducting individual wiretaps, but rather using massive computer systems to sift through great numbers of phone calls and e-mail using voice recognition and pattern-matching software (so in other words, having computers listen to snippets of thousands of calls and read thousands of e-mails and flagging those in which certain words - like "bomb" or "Allah" - appear for examination by a human intelligence officer). A system like this ("Total Information Awareness") was revealed to be in existence under the auspices of the Defense Department and was killed by Congress in 2002 (just before Bush signed the authorization for the NSA program), not only because of the obvious civil liberties issues but also because there was no way possible for the judicial branch to handle in real-time the massive number of warrants that would be necessary to authorize such activity according to FISA. Does that mean the NSA program is a continuation of it? No. But it does suggest a motive for not allowing the FISA court oversight.

Unless you're Lane. :)

As an addition to the babysitting I did on Saturday, I presented, in carefully packaged parcels, my Christmas presents for the kids. Lane got a 250-million-year-old trilobite pendant set in silver that I stalked methodically for a month on eBay. The twins got a plaque for their room. Lisa prohibited me from buying presents for anyone else in her family. :P

The twins have begun learning the joys of solid food. Kyle is taking to it somewhat better than Alec (who has learned how to block the spoon with her tongue). They pretended to like their Christmas present, though (although maybe they've just figured out I'll pick them up and play with them).

Labels: twins

Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle:

(a) Condi Rice went on television to defend the administration's warrantless surveillance of Americans, insisting that the President has "inherent Constitutional and statutory authority" to conduct the program; when asked to name the relevant Constitutional clauses and federal statues, she repeated, three times, "I'm not a lawyer." Way to be convincing.

(b) At a news conference today, the president again chastised those who questioned and/or revealed the program, saying "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy." Absolute nonsense. In what way does having or not having a warrant in any way affect terrorists? It's legal to conduct surveillance on Americans with a court order; do the suspected American terrorists somehow know when a warrant is issued by a secret FISA court for their specific case? 'Cause if so, we should be looking into security leaks at the court. If not, whether or not there's a warrant is irrelevant to the terrorists, but very important to the American public (and the innocent American citizens being surveilled).

(c) Bush tried to defend the program by saying "it enables us to move faster and quicker. We've got to be fast on our feet." Again, complete nonsense. FISA allows for warrants to be approved within hours. And in cases where even that isn't enough time, the statute authorizes the attorney general to issue an "emergency" warrant immediately, as long as he discloses it to the Federal Intelligence and Surveillance Court within 72 hours (at which time the court either approves the surveillance or orders it to cease immediately). And this is a court that has rejected only *four* requests (out of 19,000) in its 27-year history. It's not like the court is difficult to persuade. The whole "we have to move faster" rationale is complete crap to soothe the people who haven't read the statute. In all cases, the defining point is that an *independent* branch has oversight to ensure that the Americans being investigated are being investigated for valid reasons and not at the whim of the administration. And if Bush really feels the program as it's set up is too slow, his proper course of action is to ask Congress to change the statute, not just decide to ignore it.

(d) The NSA case aside, the Pentagon has admitted (after being called out by NBC News) to keeping files on anti-war protestors (including the vehicles the protestors drive; they even had a file on a Quaker meeting). Now that they've been caught, they've promised to "look into it."

The administration has focused on defending the surveillance itself, but critics (including me) aren't objecting to the surveillance; we're objecting to the surveillance without oversight. It's possible that, as the president has said, the program hasn't been used improperly. It's also possible that the president has used it to keep tabs on his political rivals or people he just doesn't like. Without an independent branch overseeing it there's no way for the people to know. These are the things that got the Nixon administration into trouble, and the things that prompted Congress to pass FISA in the first place. This is scary stuff, but I'm not sure which is scarier: that the administration doesn't understand the reasons for our concern, or that it does understand and doesn't care.

This is pretty cool. It's like a time capsule for e-mail. I was going to sign up for the "last wishes" one (where it e-mails people with a "final" message after you die), but it's $100 to sign up plus a yearly fee. I'm not sure I like you people *quite* that much . . . Still, it would be cool if you got an e-mail from me a year after I died. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to take it seriously, though. "Yeah, so, the afterlife is incredibly boring. They haven't worked out deals with Hollywood yet, so we have to wait for movie releases until they come out on DVD. The monthly Limbo limbo contests are cool, though."

Overheard at the checkout line at the grocery store:

Checkout girl (eyeing what was, literally, an entire shopping cart of different kinds of alcohol): "Wow, um, having a party?"
Woman: "Nope, it's for work."
Girl: "Do you work at a bar?"
Woman: "No, I work in real estate."
Girl: "They let you drink at real estate jobs?"
Woman: "Well, you know, sometimes people are nervous about spending a few hundred thousand dollars, so we offer them drinks to settle their nerves."

Apparently "settle their nerves" is code for "get them to sign the damn check." ;)

Labels: overheard

After denying it for two days, the administration today finally admitted to its secret domestic spying operation, which Bush says he has reauthorized 30 times since 2002, in a stern speech in which Bush chastised Congress for failing to reauthorize the Patriot Act and said that whoever leaked info on the spying operation broke the law. This, despite the fact that multiple Constitutional law authorities have dismissed Bush's vague claim that "constitutional authority vested in me as commander-in-chief" makes his violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (passed by Congress to prohibit domestic spying without a warrant) any less illegal. We're talking big shake up here. I'm expecting Congressional investigation and charges. This is a program that so openly flaunts the law that some of the NSA people refused to participate. More telling to me, though, is that the administration fell back on their "it was properly overseen and no civil liberties were violated, but we won't give you any details" line; apparently they're not understanding the whole "checks and balances" setup. The reason FISA set up an intelligence/surveillance court (overseen by the judicial branch, which is independent of the executive branch) is so someone who doesn't have a vested interest in the administration's goals can verify that the actions taken are appropriate. It makes me wonder why Bush is so keen on the Patriot Act passing, since he seems to have no qualms about ignoring whatever restrictions he doesn't like anyway.

During the course of a 10-minute drive to work today I saw one accident and two near-accidents. I at first thought the sound of screeching tires just a few blocks from my house was part of a radio commercial (I mean, how often do we *really* hear screeching tires?), but the sound eventually synched with the station wagon that merged itself into the back bumper of a Dodge Neon (which was sitting at a stop light, so I'm not sure what the driver of the station wagon was doing). A few minutes later, my heart actually skipped when I saw a woman in an SUV try to make a left-hand turn across traffic *in front of a bus*. The woman panicked when she saw the bus and stopped in the middle of the oncoming traffic lane, and the bus driver had to brake to avoid hitting her. I'm sure that was her adrenaline shot for the day. And mere minutes after that a genius zoomed past all of us who had merged into the proper lane because the right-hand lane was ending, then simply moved over (sans turn signals), trusting that the person in the next lane over would let him in; it was a guy in a Ford F-150, and he actually tried not to, so it came down to a game of chicken, with the Ford guy finally braking at the last moment.

Maybe everyone is still hungover from the U2 concert . . .

The Senate failed to pass extensions to the Patriot Act today, citing lack of protection for civil liberties. The White House criticized the decision, even while refusing to comment on (either to admit or deny) a NY Times article about the President's secret executive order to the National Security Agency, signed in 2002, that has authorized a continuing warrantless operation to spy on the phone calls and e-mails of American citizens (up to 500 at a time, with the total possibly in the thousands). Traditionally, domestic surveillance is conducted by the FBI, under court-issued warrants, while the NSA has been limited to foreign surveillance, so critics of the program are suggesting it violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (passed in 1978 after the spying abuses of the Nixon administration) and, depending on how it was used, the Fourth Amendment. Scarily, the Justice Department has defended the practice ("the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties").

Um, no. The FISA set up a court specifically to authorize warrants for domestic surveillance. The only reason the administration would authorize the NSA to ignore that law is because it fears the court wouldn't authorize the surveillance. And that should be reason enough to doubt the administration's promise that it's not misusing its non-overseen powers.

Excerpts from the stream-of-consciousness:

1. The great mentor and guide known as "experience" has taught me, in no uncertain terms, that the night of one of the biggest concerts of the year is a uniquely inopportune time to attempt to find parking in the Old Market in order to pick up a pizza (leaving one with the unenviable choices of walking 8 blocks or driving in a random pattern for 20 minutes - either way the pizza is going to be cold . . .).

2. At World Market yesterday I encountered my first openly misogynistic candy bar. One would think a company as established as Nestle could find a way to appeal to the male demographic without resorting to a silhouette of a woman with a line through it. Maybe another stereotype that doesn't alienate the majority of its customer base, such as a monster truck or a guy watching soccer (I'd say football, but this is a British offering, after all, so soccer *is* football).

3. I stopped to watch the mall Santa at Crossroads for a few minutes yesterday. Then I repressed a chuckle at the desolate incomprehension on the faces of two 7-year-olds when Santa pointed at two wooden mock-ups of elves and said "That one makes the toy trains. And that one makes the iPods. He's real good at electronics. Small hands, you know."

4. I overheard 30 seconds of a conversation between two employees at Nebraska Furniture Mart wherein a woman at the checkout lane enthusiastically relayed her proximity to "the place where the guards took him down, right over there" to a somewhat less-impressed colleague.

5. A recent Public Pulse submission complained about people who "use terms like 'logic' and 'reason'" and suggested people "should throw aside the civil liberties" and establish a theocracy, "because Christians are the happiest people in the world." Which is remarkably forthright and honest, if somewhat unrealistic in a democratic society.

6. I watched "Black Mask" on SciFi when I got home last night. Gotta love awesome Chinese kung fu films with a poorly dubbed Jet Li.

7. Congratulations to Lane for qualifying for the district spelling bee (by being the only student at her school with perfect scores on both written qualification tests).

8. I have no 8. I just wanted to see if people kept reading.

Labels: overheard

Today's completed itinerary:

Woke up two hours early.
Showered (I'm sure you're all happy to know that).
Dropped off pictures (if one can use the term "dropped off" when relating to uploading pictures from a Compact Flash card) at Target for Lisa.
Deposited my bonus check (the *one* check of the year my company actually gives out by hand; everything else is direct deposited).
Renewed my driver's license (and I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but 2 of the 3 DMV workers were rude to me, so it's not hard to see how their public perception arises . . .; however, they didn't make me take a test, so I'm not going to file a complaint).
Realized Target screwed up the photos. Let Lisa sort it out over the phone. Took Compact Flash card to Wal-Mart and had new prints made (and found a copy of the eternal classic "Blade Runner" for $6).
Picked up sale items at Gap Kids for Lisa (yes, I ran a lot of errands for Lisa, but she doesn't have the opportunity to shop in West O, and she bought me pizza, so it all works out).
Donated blood.
Finished Christmas shopping (with the second half of my mom's gift; Jeff's present arrived in the mail today, so as soon as Linde's and Haley's presents arrive, probably tomorrow, I can wrap and be done).
Found $20 in the parking lot of World Market (bringing the total amount of money I've found abandoned in parking lots in the last month to $30 and leaving me both happy and guilty, but it's not as easy to return a $20 bill as it is a credit card); amusingly, I almost skipped World Market, so even after spending $10 on a present I had a $10 net gain.
Played with an iMac for 15 minutes at Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Realized I didn't really need to take an entire day off to accomplish everything on my list, since I was done at 7 p.m. Goofed around the rest of the day.

I came across this article last week but managed to "lose" it between a nigh-overwhelming fourth-quarter push at work, computer woes, Christmas shopping and a newfound fascination with researching iMacs. I found it in my inbox tonight (sandwiched between the shipping notification for the Christmas presents for my sisters and my Red Cross blood donation appointment reminder). Apparently I e-mailed it to myself from work (feel free to interpret the subtle use of "apparently" as an indication of absent-mindedness, if you wish, but I'm blaming it on gremlins).

I don't remember how I chanced across this article, but it interested me. We're all aware of genetic inheritance and the genetic link in diseases like diabetes and cystic fibrosis, and I've already demonstrated my affinity for the topics surrounding neurobiology and neuroethics (more specifically my belief that brain biology and chemistry can go a long way toward explaining trends in human thinking, such as religiosity being an evolutionary coping mechanism and mental illness being a perfectly rational state, to the mentally ill). This is the first article I've seen, however, that suggests that we're hardwired not only for genetic traits and religious belief, but also political belief. My first inclination was resistance; eye color and genetic disease is extremely easy to understand, and the idea that spirituality is an evolutionary trait, while controversial and far from widely accepted, at least can be defended, but what possible influence could have prompted the evolution of specific political orientations? My second inclination was that I was dismissing it too easily, and perhaps political inclination is a "symptom" of an underlying genetic advantage, or perhaps an "emergent" property (a result of the interaction of unrelated processes). Unfortunately, the article mentions how it came to these conclusions (standard identical/fraternal twin testing), but not why the authors think the hardwiring exists.

According to the authors, people are born with genetic tendencies toward conservative or liberal thought (author's note: bleh with the two-dimensional labels) and only our political party affiliations are determined directly by our parents' and peers' influences. In the vast majority of cases, these align well enough that a person will never change political parties and will always feel his/her beliefs are correct. A very small minority (6%) will be born with genetic predispositions toward an opposing point of view and will eventually gain enough confidence/knowledge (or lose enough oversight) actually to switch to that point of view. According to the authors, this is not directly attributable to being exposed to alternate points of view or peer groups of differing opinions, although these may facilitate it; it's caused by our genes.

This has a couple of important implications. The most jarring one relates back to the "free will/determinism" post, in a way: if people believe as they do for genetic reasons, persuading someone to change his or her position on fundamental beliefs is almost impossible (which doesn't bode well for a decrease in the polarization of society). This isn't to say "the fine arts of compromise" are worthless, but it does mean that the population is never going to reach consensus on issues that can be construed as conservative/liberal conflicts (unless one side simply "outbreeds" the other). That's an unsettling thought for someone with a humanistic outlook. A second implication is that parents have very little input in the way their children believe as adults (a source of conflict in many, many families), which, depending on your viewpoint, can absolve parents of the "guilt" of not "instructing well enough" or frustrate parents with their own lack of concrete influence. I wish they had delved more into how a child of two liberal parents can have genetic predispositions toward being conservative and vice versa; it can't be as simple as a "political gene," so it has to be a more complex interaction, and I'd like to know what it is.

A third implication relates to me directly. I switched political affiliations in college (technically making me one of the 6%, even though I'm a liberal Independent rather than a Democrat); I've tended to think of that transition as a result of exposure to multiple viewpoints and a willingness to be open-minded and self-determining. According to the authors, I was genetically predisposed to be liberal (oh how happy that will make my conservative parents, I'm sure), and that place and time was simply the outlet that facilitated the switch. It's disconcerting to think that I'm locked into my way of thinking even as I perceive myself as being open-minded (again relating to the determinism angle). Of course, this is a very preliminary study and I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over it, but it's interesting to contemplate.

P.S. - Being a liberal arts major with moderate mathematic skills I haven't utilized in a decade, I made the assumption that the authors' statement that "The chance of someone . . . changing parties in their lifetime is about 6 percent" is equivalent to 6% of the population switching. If this is not mathematically sound, I apologize.

P.P.S. - Blogger's spellchecker wanted to change "openminded" to "opinionated." I laughed. But not outloud.

I spent an hour or so reading reviews, comments and criticisms of Apple computers today, or more specifically the process of switching from PC to Apple (which has its own Web site, by the way . . .). Some pros, some cons. From what I've read, Macs are far more stable (a big thing for someone who breaks stuff as often as I do), far more secure (no one writes viruses for an operating system that makes up 4% of users . . .) and far more integrated (built-in wireless and Bluetooth, built in Web camera, the option for portable wireless speakers so you can listen to your iTunes in any room in the house, etc.). And they're very pretty (that's the entire computer, not just the monitor). All good things. They're also less upgradeable, and obviously (since they make up 4% of the market) have fewer software and hardware options. Not such good things. I'm also not entirely certain how sound works on the iMac, since it doesn't have a sound card (something about built-in speakers, and if you want satellite speakers you need an adapter or receiver to split the "optical audio out" - the headphone jack - into the proper cables). And of course they're a little pricey.

My biggest reservation, though, is how little of my current system/software would be transferable. My speakers might transfer (with that adapter thingy). My printer and scanner would. That's about it for hardware. Most of my software is out. My company pays for the complete Office suite for home use for the duration of our employment (not cheap), but only the PC version, and none of my graphics or Web design programs are going to transfer, so in addition to the computer I'd have to shell out for new copies of Photoshop, Premiere and the like. Ouch. Some of my games would transfer (Cyan has always been very Mac friendly and I actually already have all of the Myst games on Mac/PC hybrid DVD) and some wouldn't (I'd miss Arcanum). I've read that some people run Windows software under emulators, but I have no idea how or how well it works. I imagine once I was completely switched over I'd be happy as a clam, but it's not the different platform that leaves me with reservations. It's shelling out between $2,000 and $3,000 to get back up to where I roughly am now. I certainly can't justify it right now (what with a new house and all), so I guess I'll start saving and look again in a year (provided my Dell lasts that long). In the meantime, I guess my strategy is going to be to buy (where possible) dual-compatible hardware/software (like this Firewire/USB Mac/PC Lightscribe drive to replace my current broken one) so that if I do decide to switch I can take some of it with me.

For those curious, here is a "shootout" between the iMac I priced and a comparably priced Dell system. Notice the iMac loses on most of the hardware contests but wins almost all of the software and design contests.

If any passing Mac missionaries want a new convert, I'm open to donations . . . ;)

Yesterday my computer died due to unexplained causes.
Today my Service Engine Soon light came on.
Then Taco Bell screwed up my order. Twice.
Now my fancy Lightscribe drive is completely dead.
I'm almost afraid to get up tomorrow . . .

I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, the Lightscribe drive dying was what caused the computer problem, and then I only need a new DVD burner, not a new DVD burner and a new power supply. I was annoyed enough at my system that I looked at other systems for about an hour, including an iMac. It's pretty slick, and if I had $2,300 laying around I'd probably switch. Unfortunately . . .

Pictures from the lights at the Gene Leahy Mall. Enjoy.

My computer switched itself off while I was sleeping today. The sudden lack of background noise woke me up. It wouldn't power up until I unplugged it and plugged it back in, and it still works, but there was a slight burnt smell coming from the power supply fan. Mull thinks the power supply is dying. So I went online to look at power supplies. Then I find out what a wonderful company Dell is. Turns out (from what I can gather from forums, since Dell hasn't officially published the information anywhere) that *some* Dell computers of my model use proprietary motherboards and power supplies, *but* only the internal wiring is different; the connectors are all still the same, so it's possible to plug a standard power supply into the special motherboard, or a special power supply into a standard motherboard. And if you decide to do this and actually flick on the power switch, it fries the motherboard (what part of "this is a bad, bad idea" did they miss?). The general consensus (if you can call three forums a "consensus") is that it was limited to Dell computers made between 1998 and 2002, which would put my computer in the "okay to use standard power supplies" category, but now I'm nervous about even trying it, since unless you can read wiring schematics the only way to find out is to try it and see if it fries the motherboard.

On top of that, I found out that Dell Dimensions ship with 250-watt power supplies. Most modern video cards want at least 300 watts, and Mull recommended a 400-watt, but if you have one of those special power supplies, your choices are the original Dell 250-watt ones, a custom $150 power supply from a company that makes them specifically for this line or a standard power supply with a special "rewiring adapter" (provided you can get it to fit in the case; apparently that's not standard either - something about having to cut holes in the case to accommodate the power switch that doesn't exist on the Dell power supplies). So I'm not sure how Dell expects people to use current parts. Hell, they'll even put one of the modern cards in the computer for you at the factory, and ship it along with the 250-watt power supply . . .

I tried to find info on Dell's site, which was a waste of time. Then I tried to find out how much a replacement power supply was. Despite their assurances that "finding products to upgrade" is "a breeze," that was a dead end, too.

I need to catch Mike online and get his opinion. If he concurs, I guess I'll try to get a standard ATX power supply to fit. And if something goes wrong, well, I've had this computer for a year-and-a-half. I suppose destroying the motherboard is a good excuse to upgrade to a new one (not a Dell).

In my wanderings (on the Internet, of course, because it's way too damned cold to be wandering outside) I came across a site hosting funny video clips (some commercials from other countries, some funny "real life" clips). I'm not going to link directly to the site because, amdist the humor, the poster decided to add some porn clips (even though they don't seem to go with the theme of the site at all). If you want to figure out the address, be my guest, but be warned that it's definitely not work safe.

My personal favorites so far (these are work safe):

I'd say I'm waiting to meet a woman like this, but unfortunately Omaha doesn't have a subway system . . .

I'm not sure what nationality these soldiers are, but suddenly I feel very unsafe . . .

This looks like something I would do.

Geek post. Be warned.

The new X3 trailer came out yesterday (and if you can get it to work, more power to you; neither Cris nor I could view it, and I eventually snagged it off BitTorrent). It looks fantastic. I may be slightly biased because I grew up an X-Men fan (I had the comics, the posters and the hats, and even chose to make a shirt with the "X" symbol for a Home Ec assignment . . .) and I'm also a big fan of Ian McKellen. But I'm still excited.

The trailer made me laugh again, though, at something that left me somewhat bemused after the first (and then second) movie, and that's the reinterpretation of the characters, particularly their ages. Like any serial media, comics change over time, and the X-Men have gone through various forms and teams since the first issue in 1963, and as in most such situations, the point where a person becomes involved usually becomes the "defining" example. So, for example, I started collecting comics when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and the X-Men that were the main characters at that point are the characters I always think of when I think of the comic (in fact, I didn't even know the comic had 25 years of prior history or that some of the characters were different when the first issue came out - e.g., X3 has "Angel," a character from the 60s with feathered wings, but I remember him as "Archangel," the same character from the 80s/90s with metal wings). The characters in the comics have aged (albeit at a much slower rate than we have) and matured over the last 40 years, with interesting effects; as in the movies, the comics show Magneto being imprisoned during the Holocaust, which should make him at least 70, but in the comics he's usually much younger, and the original X-Men from the 60s should now be in their fifties, but are usually still shown in their thirties. Comics fans just accept this. But because characters are maturing at the same time the readers are maturing (at least, for those of us who were reading comics as we grew up), we tended to identify with certain characters and got used to thinking of specific characters being in "our" generation.

The movie producers shook things up a bit by altering the ages of some of the characters (and it has worked well; I'm not complaining), so that some characters who are older in the comics are younger in the movies and the like. They've essentially compressed several "generations" of X-Men (over successive decades) into two (the older main characters in their late twenties and the school-aged "students" who are often backdrop or cameos). For fans of the comics from their teenage years, though, this creates some interesting juxtapositions. Twice now I've heard that a certain character was going to be in the movie and thought "Cool, she was one of my favorite characters. I wonder who they'll get to play her," expecting someone in my generation (mid- to late-twenties, at least). And in both situations they've come out with 12- and 14-year-old actresses. Which works out well for the movie, but it makes it hard for guys in their twenties to admit to having crushes on the characters 15 years ago . . . (For those who actually read the comics, I'm referring to Shadowcat and Siryn, who along with Blink made up my favorite three. In contrast, the movie Shadowcat and Siryn are . . . younger.) It probably doesn't help that comics (aimed as they are primarily at teenage boys) tend to have very, um, "well-developed" characters (I even have an X-Men swimsuit issue, for crying out loud), so even a 16-year-old character in a comic book doesn't look like a 16-year-old.

Something that amused me when I saw the trailer. You can carry on, now.

At Cris's behest (so blame him if you don't like it), I created a Flickr account and uploaded most of my photos to it. This is going to replace my photo galleries on my site, since it's a much more flexible system (I can add pictures with a right-click instead of having to edit a page and reupload it, viewers can leave comments on individual pictures and search my photos by date or topic, etc.). What this means for you:

If you just want to view the medium-sized pictures, you don't have to do anything. You can browse them as I link them from my Web log.

If you want to leave comments on the pictures (and I know you want to) or see the full-sized versions (I uploaded the original 1600x1200 photos), you need to sign up for a Flickr account (I hate trying to do some company's legwork, but it *is* free and takes a couple of minutes). You don't have to use it for uploading photos (although you can, of course), but you need one in order to comment on other people's photos.

If you want to see the private archives I put up (pictures I don't want strangers to see), you need to sign up for a Flickr account and then have me add you to my permissions list. If you do that, you can leave "tags" (little boxes with your own message) on things in the pictures, too.

It's not for everyone, but if you an odd sense of humor like mine you might give the Perry Bible Fellowship [warning: not work safe] a look (despite the name, it has no religious implications one way or the other; it's just a strange name).

And it's -3. My heating bills are so going to kill me. I think I'm going to hibernate for the next two months . . .

At Cris's suggestion (or rather, in reply to his shocked choke that I had not seen them), I rented "Donnie Darko" and "Garden State" this weekend.

"Donnie Darko" was good. Very good. So good that I pondered it for most of three hours, and spent another hour writing a very long, very geeky, mind-numbingly boring post on determinism and free will (which I've mercifully placed in its own entry, so you can choose to have an aneurysm or not . . . or can you?). I wrote it as much to help me sort out some of the ideas as to share them, so keep that in mind. It took me awhile to actually figure out the ending of the movie (and I don't know that I'm satisfied with their solution to the time-travel paradox), but most of the rest of the movie just flowed for me (in fact, in the scene where Donnie is discussing determinism and time travel with the science teacher, I actually, out loud, started to point out the flaw in the teacher's position about 3 seconds before Donnie did). The demonic bunny was freaky as hell (what a fun movie to watch at 2 a.m. with a dose of Nyquil . . .), but the rest was great.

"Garden State" was very . . . sad. I liked it, don't get me wrong. It was "real" and "human," but not as uplifting as I thought it was going to be. The ending was kind of anticlimactic for me, and the plot element about falling in love with someone in a day-and-a-half was unrealistic for me (granted I've never fallen in love with someone in a day-and-a-half, so maybe I'm just a natural skeptic of "love at first sight").

P.S. - It's 4 degrees out right now. You likely can imagine, if you're at all familiar with me, my opinion on that.

As I was leaving the parking garage tonight, 89.7 (a local college radio station) was just finishing a song. What followed is funnier when heard, but I'll see if I can translate it into print [with my comments in brackets]:

Announcer: That was a new track from [some band - I wasn't paying attention], and you heard it here first. The song was called [and I'm typing it phonetically the way it was pronounced] "SOM-num BUEL-ist," which apparently means "sleepwalker" in some other language, although I have no idea what. They'd probably have been better off just calling it "Sleepwalker" or some other English word. Up next . . ."

At this point I actually burst out laughing in my car. Then I flagged Lisa down at the gate out of the garage and passed it on to her, at which point she burst out laughing, too. Unfortunately for the poor DJ, "somnambulist" (pronounced "som-NAM-bu-list") is an English word . . .

Lest I seem too high-and-mighty, I will point out that until corrected I pronounced "Joaquim" as "Joe-a-kwim" and once used "EP-eh-TOME" instead of "epitome" in a college class. And I think there was one other word I consistently mispronounced for years (because I'd only seen it in print), but I don't remember what it is. But I still thought the "somnambulist" quote was damn funny. :) Maybe it's an English geek thing.

In the print category, Lisa amused the department last week with an instance of "falling on death's ears" (rather than "deaf ears") on a posting board, and in a document today I had both "tropical" (rather than "topical") medication and "rated and urinated" (rather than "unrated") bonds . . .

Under review in the Senate health committee: proposed legislation to create an agency to pursue drug research and production to combat future pandemics, complete with an intentional lack of public oversight (in the form of secret meetings and exemption from Freedom of Information Act requests - the first and only agency to be so exempt) and an incentive to drug companies (who I'm sure are salivating over the concept of immunity from liability to those who use their drugs), not to mention a billion-dollar budget that's not open for review (so if the Secretary decides to buy a new house, we'll just write it off). So, basically, get in line for your mandatory "countermeasure" vaccine (and you'll just have to trust the agency that it's safe, since the research and trials won't be public) and cross your fingers that it's effective and has no side effects (or refuse to take it and go to jail). And if something goes wrong, well, you can't sue the manufacturer (because, as the bill puts it, participating companies "shall not be subject to judicial review"), but you can be content knowing that the drug companies made a profit (are you surprised that the bill's sponsors have accepted more than $3 million from drug companies in the last couple of years?).

Yahoo has an article about some fossilized tracks of a Devonian era "sea scorpion" that measured 5 feet long and 3 feet wide. To sum it up in coarse vernacular, holy crap! I'm pretty sure I don't want to run into a 5-foot-long scorpion, especially if it looks like this . . .

Which has unfolded in all its arctic, snowbound glory. Bleh.

I've been sick for the last several days (I rarely get sick, but apparently bouncing a 5-month-old with the sniffles on my knee all day on Thanksgiving is the proper sequence to entice my immune system to take a 3-day holiday), starting with a sore throat over the weekend and progressing to a sinus headache that put me on my couch all day yesterday (which was the first sick day I've taken since, um, a long time ago). Stupid erratic mutant healing factor.

Being home all day provided me with a rare opportunity to watch actual real television (almost everything I watch is taped), which was interesting (not something I'm going to skip work to do on a regular basis, but amusing). I also caught a 20-minute "CNN special" on Scientology. CNN seems fascinated with some new report about a Scientology "vault" built in the New Mexico desert that supposedly holds all of Hubbard's writings - etched in titanium plates to survive the end of humanity - and of attempts by Scientologists to kill the story (with a combination of bribes and legal threats). I was more amused by the fact that the "secret" vault is designed in the shape of a symbol copyrighted to them and is visible from satellites, 'cause, you know, no one uses satellite photos . . .

The special included a discussion with a Scientology spokesman and a woman from one of the major psychiatric associations about psychiatry that was almost comical. The Scientology spokesman was woefully unprepared, to the point where the host actually chided him about using bumpersticker slogans as responses. Something like:

Host: What about psychiatry does Scientology oppose?
Spokesman: Electroshock therapy is just barbaric.
Host: Okay, but what about just talk-therapy and talking about your problems with a therapist?
Spokesman: They want to give people drugs and strap them into electroshock machines without any evidence of a medical problem.
Host: Okay, but putting aside electroshock therapy and drugs, what about just talk-therapy? Is that harmful?
Spokesman: 100,000 people a year get electroshock therapy.
Host: Yes, and 15 million just talk to a therapist to help them work out problems. Is that bad?
Spokesman: They have no evidence of any medical "disorder," yet they want to ply pills and electroshock therapy as "the answer."
Host: ... You're not answering the question about talk-therapy.
Spokesman: Here are the reports on electroshock therapy. These are positively criminal!

Etc. The spokesman never did talk about anything but electroshock therapy. The host finally cut him off and switched to the other participant, who was not particularly eloquent but at least answered the questions asked.

Eventually I switched to "The Hunt for Red October." It was more interesting.