Really? We needed a second video?

So, the big news today, domestically (ignoring all the strife in the Middle East and Africa), is that the NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens are dumping Ray Rice after TMZ released a second video from the night that Ray Rice knocked out his (now) wife, Janay Palmer, in an elevator and proceeded to unceremoniously drag her limp body out.

You can check out one of the many reports on it here at USA Today.  The TMZ link has ... adult advertisements, and I'm running a family friendly blog here.

There's much to be said about the whole incident, some are defending Ray Rice, most are defending Janay Palmer .  I don't know much of anything about domestic violence, and don't have much to say about the morality of the "altercation" - other than saying to the Ray Rice defenders, "her slapping him is somehow equivalent to him knocking her out?  He's in the NFL and repeatedly gets hit by guys weighing over 300 pounds!  No person who isn't a trained fighter, let alone someone as small as his wife, is going to make a dent in him with one little slap."

But, what I want to add to this discussion is my disbelief that this new video somehow changes things.

Because, really?

What the ... bejesus did everyone think happened in that elevator in February when this was first made public?  Did people think he hugged her out of love so hard she passed out?  That he bent over to pick up something she dropped and accidentally head-butted her and knocked her out (oopsie)?  That she lapsed into a diabetic coma?  That she tripped and hit her head?

No.  Nobody thought any of that.  He obviously didn't give a damn about her as he dragged her out of the elevator, and dumped her on the ground.  Then he proceeded to push her legs out of the way with his foot!  That was not a concerned boyfriend, that was someone who didn't give a rat's rear what happened to her.

Everybody assumed (which he later confirmed) that he punched her and knocked her out.  End. Of. Story.

This video, as far as I'm concerned, shows about the best possible behavior on his part in this situation.  Really.  He only punched her twice.  He didn't keep pummeling her, he didn't kick her, he didn't do any of a whole host of things he could have done (I don't even want to start to imagine).  Instead, he took about the minimum actions required to knock her out (two punches, instead of one).  And, let me be clear, that is HORRIBLE, INEXCUSABLE behavior.  But what did you THINK he had done?  Exactly what was on the video.  The video shows he's a horrible person, but not Hannibal Lecter.  Pretty much any other behavior leading to her being passed out would have been worse.

If he had done more, then we should be (more) outraged.

Yes, the new footage is uncomfortable to watch.  Yes, it shows they were arguing.  But this video reveals nothing new - we already knew he punched her.  We should have already been this outraged.

I'm annoyed/frustrated that the NFL and all sorts of others are now taking the whole thing more seriously.  They don't give a damn about Janay Palmer, they only care about the image of the NFL/Ravens.

Political Snapshot

So.... We had an election. I voted for Rocky Anderson, a guy whose ideas I liked and I knew he wouldn't get even one percent of the vote. I think Obama is marginally better than Romney would have been, but I'm still incredibly frustrated with all of the abuses of executive power, the war mongering, violations of the fourth amendment, indefinite detention, assassinations of US citizens, drone attacks, lack of transparency, and the list goes on and on.

The fiscal cliff is upon us, and I think we should fire all the senators and representatives. While I don't really want to pay more in taxes personally, the whole situation is ridiculous. Tax rates are at the lowest since the 1920's and income inequality is at similar historic highs. Something needs be done. The solution certainly isn't lower taxes nor is it cutting entitlements.

Social security is not on the brink of collapse, the politicians just need to stop using those funds to fund the tax cuts they've been making over the past 20 years.

The media is continuing its commercial slant, providing nearly zero information but tons of hype about tabloid-like stories to fill the air waves.

Medicare is a problem, but nobody is talking about a real solution. The root problem isn't the high cost of medical care, but is the fact we're such a sick nation. Too much bad food (over processed), too much environmental pollution, too many prescription drugs which don't solve problems but instead mask symptoms. We need to overhaul our food system to heal ourselves from the inside out. Just cutting Medicare will only move the cost from one place to another.

I'm hoping the next year is better, but I have little hope the system is going to change. Not quite sure what the next step is.

New Car (buh-bye Luna (the Mazda))

We haven't gotten rid of Luna just yet - need to call OPB to donate it.  But, we did get a new car.

Yup, a Prius.  A Prius V in fact - which is the larger of the 3 Prius models.

I had been thinking of just getting a car to replace the commute vehicle (the Mazda), but Mary wisely pointed out it might be nice to have a fuel efficient car for all around family use.  With that in mind, there really wasn't much choice other than the Prius V.  It's just bigger enough than the Prius to make quite a bit of difference: I can sit upright in the back seat, it's wide enough to comfortably (relatively) sit 3 people, and the trunk/cargo area is twice the size of the standard Prius (i.e. it's a usable size now).

Mary and I both liked the hybrid Civic, but its trunk was tiny.  I really liked the console of the Civic - and don't like the Prius' at all, but that's not really a sticking point for me.

Once we'd decided upon the car, the question was, how do we go about buying it?

I'd read a couple accounts of people calling around for quotes and doing all the "wheeling and dealing" over the phone, and I was excited to give that a try.  Mary just didn't want to spend a bunch of time at the dealer bartering over a price, so she let me go ahead with the plan.  We were also going to try the Costco deal (a no-haggle thing where the dealer offers $X over dealer invoice) - but we didn't have an account.  I also put a request out through USAA's auto purchase program and got a couple bids that way.  But the real leg work was done by getting a listing of all the dealers within 100 miles of Corvallis and calling them.

I ended up calling 12 dealers, giving them all the same spiel (have financing, no trade-in, 2012 Prius V model Two, dark interior, any exterior but Red or White).  Half called back with quotes, and half called back asking me to call them to get the quotes (arrrg!).  Two of the sales guys I talked two were not at all interested and just quoted me the MSRP.

The dealer in Springfield (winning dealer) told me of their standard offer of $2500 off MSRP, and I was pretty much sold at that point.  The Corvallis sales guy told me they really wanted to keep our business (stay local and all), and then proceeded to give me the highest non-MSRP quote.  I told him it was way high, and he asked to be given the last chance.  A few minutes later we got a call from the Eugene dealer with the best quote (by $100) - but they didn't have any of the cars in stock, it'd be subject to a dealer trade.  The local dealer called me back and said he'd match the lowest offer if I could give him proof so he could show his GM.

Mary and I talked about the choices, and decided to go with Springfield.

I didn't call the Corvallis dealer back, but instead sent him (and the sales manager) an email describing my experience - I felt very awkward thinking about asking for proof from the Springfield guy and then taking that offer to a different dealer.  I figured I gave everyone the same chance, and I even told the Corvallis guy what my best offer was (nobody else had that information), and as opposed to just giving me a straight-up offer, I would have to use a different dealer against himself.  It just felt weird.

So, we drove down to Springfield, did the paperwork (1.5 hours, sigh... still took long), and due to a mix-up of one hand not knowing what the other was doing, we didn't get the car that night.  We got an identical one delivered to our door the next day.  Other than that little SNAFU (which did seem like an honest mistake), the experience with Springfield (Lithia) was good.

The guy who delivered the car got lost trying to get to our house, and was a little late.  But Simone was getting over a cold, so we were just hanging around anyway.

Hopefully the new car will last as long as the Mazda: 20 years and 260000 miles.

FBI and Bombs

It was just May Day, and five guys were arrested by the FBI for attempting to blow up a bridge in Ohio.

The first thing that occurred to me was that they weren't charged with terrorism - whereas the guy in Oregon who tried to detonate a bomb at a Christmas celebration (same thing, no?) was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.  What's the difference in these cases???  My bet is white guys versus non-white.

The other thought I had was that this is yet another case where the FBI works for months to set up a string to get people to try to blow up bombs.  It just seems that they're putting a lot of effort into convince people to buy bombs and then (attempt to) blow them up, as opposed to actually catching people who are making/detonating bombs on their own.  The FBI claims it's preventing countless terrorist attacks ... but it just seems like entrapment for the sake of good publicity.  Let's see them actually catch someone who has a bomb that they didn't get from the FBI in the first place.  That would be saving us from terrorist attacks.

Studying Obesity

(From the archives, a post started in January 2011 but never finished)

Today I saw two articles. The first was in our Friday paper: "OSU wins $5 million grant for rural childhood obesity research", and the second was a blog post "The American Fast Food Syndrome". Oh, and I heard a story on the radio last night, "Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No To Junk."

It got me to thinking about obesity again, and wondering how much money will we throw at studying this problem and how much time (lives) will we waste?

The OSU research has a goal of "improv[ing] the fitness level and reduce the body mass index of rural children, ages 5 to 8." That's a great goal, and you do need specific goals in order to win research money. Which are you more likely to give money to, a study with the goal, "make people happier" or one whose goal is "decrease incidence of days of depression in 20-25 year olds"?

We, in the U.S., seem to like to research the hell out of things and not do anything about it. How many diet/lifestyle studies do we need to do?

It's clear that if we feed ourselves too much food, and crummy food at that, we're going to get fat.  The government heavily subsidizes corn/soy/wheat/sugar and that gets turned into cheap junk food.

For Fox Sake

I've been debating with a guy about a variety of things, he's arguing from the standard GOP talking points.

I've come to the conclusion (broad generalization coming) people like him live in a constant state of fear: fear of Marxists/communists trying to subvert the government, and fear of the global Muslim jihad. It's not a grip of fear that controls every aspect of life, but a constant fear nonetheless.

Another theme also seems to be that the liberal media is just not giving their viewpoint the time it deserves. If the rest of us (non-Republicans) just knew what they (Republicans) know...

While I don't think Comedy Central is necessarily the place to look for objective reporting. I do think this recent Daily Show segment sums up how I felt during the debate very nicely:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oh, for Fox Sake
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Plus, there's the classic Stephen Colbert quote, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Arguing...

So, I've been debating/arguing with a guy on facebook. He's someone I knew at Intel, and also works at Mentor too.

He initially commented on my status about Osama Bin Laden:

Note: Obama said "justice has been done" - and that pretty much sums it up. U.S.A. where we either hold you indefinitely without charge, ore we kill you without trial. You're either with us, or you're against us. And you'd better hope you fall on the right side of that line b/c there's no recourse if you don't.

And we began a discussion. It turns out he's more of a GOP/Tea Party/Fox News kind of guy, and I'm obviously not.

I've been hoping to learn something about the way folks with his view point think. I figured, he's a highly paid engineer, he must have somewhat an analytical mind, maybe he can shed some light on the views I clearly don't understand.

Clearly I was wrong. It's almost as though we were speaking two different languages. I'm certain he's making absolutely no credible arguments, and he's probably thinking the same of me. At one point I mentioned that he was throwing around wild accusations without any proof, kind of like Glenn Beck. And this guy said that he loves Glenn Beck.

I've found some value in the discussion - I've certainly looked into some of the things I believe in a little closer, and found them to hold up pretty well. I've also read most of the links he's sent my way, and I feel comfortable saying that (for the most part), they are a series of diatribes about people with barely any connection to reality.

One of the threads is about George Soros - it started with a post of his pointing to an article showing how Soros has given a bunch of money to journalist schools and organizations. I had heard the name Soros a couple times but didn't know anything about him. I posted that the Koch brothers spend lots of money and asked what the difference was. Turns out, Soros is evidently a Marxist (whatever he wants that to mean), along with Obama, and he's undermining the country. It took an untold number of posts for him to actually point out something that Soros has done that could be interpreted as undermining the country. And, of course, the two things that were "undermining" seemed either very loosely connected (friend of a friend kind of relationship), or weren't very malevolent.

Long story short, my foray into arguing with someone from the right hasn't given me much of a basis to understand their side. So far, it just seems to be a bunch of fear mongering, vague accusations w/little to no evidence, conspiracy theories and name calling.

Oooh, some more responses. Back to the battle.

Gee... thanks Senate

If you read the headlines, "Senators Grill Phone Execs On Mobile Privacy", you might think they care about the privacy of the citizens.

Yet my first thought is, where were the investigations into AT&T's illegal behavior of handing over personal data to the NSA? (phone calls, emails, web browsing, etc.) Oh, right, all the companies involved in tapping our phones were granted immunity.

Way to look out for the citizenry.

OBL is dead...

So we killed Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts. I recall exactly my position about invading Iraq (against), but don't remember where I stood with Afghanistan (would like to think I was against, but that could just be wishful thinking).

I saw the news that OBL was dead when I came out of Simone's bedroom. The images were on the TV and the closed caption said he'd been killed. My first feeling was a little stronger than "meh", but not a lot - it was probably a combination of "meh" and relief.

I did see that President Obama said that "justice has been done". That struck me as odd. I would have expected that "justice" would have meant bringing him back to the U.S. and trying him for crimes, or heck, trying him for crimes in any of a dozen countries where he was wanted on terrorism. Instead, our form of justice was to just out-and-out kill him, old west style.

I'm not sorry he's dead, I'll certainly lose no sleep over it. My problem with what Obama said was that it continues the "us versus them" and the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that the U.S. has in its foreign policy.

Since 9/11/2001 we have invaded 2 Muslim countries and bombed another 3 (Pakistan, Libya, Yemen), and that just seems wrong.

We continue to pursue an aggressive military "solution" to the "war on terror" when both DARPA and the former head of the CIA's task force to find Osama Bin Laden (Michael Scheuer) agree that:

1. "The threat to the U.S. arises from Muslims plausible perception that the things they most love andvalue - God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands - are beign attacked by America." (Michael Scheuer)

2. "policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase 'war on terrorism' since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida." How Terrorist Groups End

So, the Department of Defence and the CIA both recognize that our current approach is the wrong one, yet we continue ahead full-steam.

I'm frustrated at the Obama administration for not closing Gitmo (where only 40 of the original 700+ people have enough evidence against them to even go to court), I'm frustrated at our abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles (starting with W), Obama doing a 180 on signing statements/declaring war, militarizing the CIA, attacking government whistle blowers more fervently than W, and attempting to assassinate a U.S. citizen! I'm frustrated.

The latest "battles" between Democrats and Republicans have all gone to the Republicans. Take the latest budget battle, which had Republicans starting with "$35 Billion" in cuts, Dems with "$10 Billion" in cuts, and the final budget being $38 Billion. eh? Ok, that's off topic. OBL...

But it's related, because what used to be GOP talking points have been completely adopted by the Democrats.

Gah!!!!!

And the "liberal media" just continues to repeat, without any hesitation, the talking points of the GOP and the government. I mean, we send in Seal Team 6 to get Osama, they kill him. Why did the White House have to lie? They changed their story 4 times in 4 days, OBL was using his wife as a human shield, there was a firefight, he was fighting back, he drew his weapon. Lies, all of them. Very few in the U.S. would raise much of a stink if we killed him in "cold blood", yet the government put forward this story of how he resisted. The Seals would have taken Osama alive had that been their task, they're the best in the world - and especially if OBL wasn't armed, it would have been a piece of cake. Now the government is leaking photos of OBL watching himself on TV, of his stash of porn. And the media is continuing to just regurgitate it. I don't know if it was true. I don't much care.

One post I read basically points out the the U.S. isn't ready to face the truth. With the lies and the retractions, we, as a people, can console ourselves over questioning what the facts are and completely avoid what the facts show about us as a country. I think they show that our government is continuing to pursue an aggressive, military occupation of most of the world, we care naught for human rights if they're not in our "best interests", the government represents and defends corporate interests over personal interests, and our population (for the most part) is happy to sit back, watch Glee, and remain ignorant about what our government does.

One piece, Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating, did shine a light on Obama's positions that changed my perception of his stance. The main point is that Obama hasn't "failed" at pushing the "liberal" agenda, he's been very calculated and chosen to side with GOP ideals because it's all about getting re-elected. It's worth a read.

TV Critic at Large

So... I was working out at the gym the other day. I wasn't very inspired, so I avoided my weight lifting and decided to alternate jogging and walking, work up a good sweat.

There are three TVs at the gym, two were set to their customary shows at 8am, SportsCenter and Charmed. My brother-in-law turned me onto Charmed years ago and I watch it at the gym. The third channel was showing something called GMA, which took me 5 minutes to figure out it was "Good Morning America."

First things first, I like Charmed. Magic, demons, beautiful people, fairy tales, etc. - it's my kind of escapism. My gripe about the show is that everyone has such incredibly slow reflexes. It's not hard to figure out that when someone evil looking apparates in front of you, chances are they're gonna try to kill you with some magic, or steal something, or mess up your day. This happens every show, several times a show. The Charmed 3 just don't seem to get it, they stand, dumb-founded, and then get whooped, then later in the show they do the same to the bad people (winning in the end). Tightening up the action just a little bit would really help.

SportsCenter - the Dallas Mavericks happened to sweep the LA Lakers the night before, and the first 4 "stories" on SC were all about that - from the point of view of LA. "LA Swept" "What Will Happen To Phil Knight" etc. All the stories were about the losers, the Lakers. It was pathetic, the bias was disgusting. Fine, do a story on Phil Knight leaving, that makes sense, but give the Mavericks their due and show them *winning*, not LA losing.

Lastly, GMA. I have no idea why people watch this show. My comment on it is that they had a 10-15 minute segment on how good or bad frozen food tasted, having different groups of people doing a "blind" taste test of each. Some were regular Jills and some were foodies. The frozen food lines were things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. It was a blatant commercial for these foods, and if GMA had any desire to help educate people about how they might lose weight, perhaps they should show how to cook real food. It was disgusting.

F#@&! U.S. Cellular Companies

A friend gave me his old iPhone, which was great. I'd been thinking about a smart phone for a while, the big thing holding me back was the forced data plan for the 2 year contract. You see, 99% of the time I live in a wi-fi enabled area (either work or home, or most places in Corvallis have free wi-fi) - so why pay $30/month for something I'm not going to use?!

Here was my chance, a free phone (many thanks) that works on my carrier (AT&T), I'm good to go.

I start asking friends for their must-have apps and a couple of them mention that I might want to check with AT&T because they think I might get a data plan added because I'm using a smart phone. So I call up and get a service person who says all the wrong things to me (like, "you need one to use a smart phone" "you can't use a smart phone w/out a data plan" etc. (which are all technically wrong)). I get very frustrated quickly, but have a work meeting in 5 minutes, so I don't have time to go postal on the guy.

I wait a few days and finally call up AT&T again today and I get this calm-voiced woman who says more or less the same thing, but she's a lot smoother about it. The kicker for me (in terms of whether I wanted to try to argue up the management chain or not) was when she said, "I can transfer you to the technical department, but they'll say the same thing. And, you can quote me on this, you will be charged for a data plan on any cellular provider if you're using a smart phone."

Hm.... that kinda took the wind out of my sails. I stay on the phone for a minute or two longer, but the fight is gone. I sit down and google things, and yup, everyone is charging data plans for smart phone users. Some forums have people saying that if your phone is unlocked, somehow, magically you won't be charged, but they don't seem to be able to back it up.

AT&T's own site says they'll charge you: Answer Center | AT&T - Is there still a minimum data plan requirement for smartphones? ...

Sigh... looks like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Is it worth it to me to get the minimum plan ($15/month) to only carry around one device? Or do I carry around two?

And I kinda really want/need two pieces of functionality the phone can provide. The first is a calorie tracker that enables me to keep track of food w/out having to dash off to the computer every time I look at a snack. The second is access to my work calendar. For a few years I've been able to get by without running MS Outlook, but work just switched to the latest Outlook, which means the meeting notices are no longer in a reasonable format for my scripts to add to my calendar, and I've gotten several meet times mixed up. The iPhone seamlessly integrates my work calendar and my personal one.

So, I'm kinda hooked (after a whole 5 days).

I'm still pissed off at the situation in the U.S. where the customers have very little power (as opposed to Japan/Europe), but I've come to accept there are some battles that really aren't worth the effort, and I think this is one of them.

The other thing that ticks me off are the rates.

We pay about $80 for 1400 minutes. Ignoring the free weekend and evening calls, that works out to about 12.5 cents per MB of data (assuming skype-like data usage, 60kpbs).

The two data plans offered are $15 for 200MB, which is 7 cents/MB, almost half the cost of the regular phone service. And the $25 for 2GB, which is just over 1 cent/MB. And you know they're making money on the $25 plan...

It just further convinces me that they're charging way more than it costs for the regular phone service, and the data plans charge way too much, but progressively less.

Just think, if they're making money on the $25/2GB plan, then they'd be making money charging me $9/month for the phone plan (that's the same rate).

For years we've had certain aspects of life get cheaper and cheaper. Moore's law has made it possible for us to have hand-held computers storing 100's of gigabytes of data, touch screen displays, etc. etc. Yet the phone service we get still costs the same as always, cable TV still costs the same.

Yay, The U.S. Bombs Yet Another Islamic Country! (Libya)

Not only are we not out of Iraq or Afghanistan yet, we're now bombing Libya. Sure, it's "sanctioned" by the U.N. Security Council, but since when have we let the U.N. say when we can (or cannot) use our military? I thought acts of war (i.e. bombing another country) needed to be approved by Congress.

Oh, no, that's not the case says the Obama administration. From NPR's story, Libya Overshadows Obama's Latin America Trip:

Now, over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the administration would certainly welcome a congressional seal of approval for this action but that the president is acting within his existing authority.

In his letter, Mr. Obama pointed to the Security Council resolution and his authority to conduct foreign relations and as commander in chief.

Glad to hear it.

Two more eloquent analyses of the attacks on Libya, one by Scott Adams, and one by Glenn Greenwald.

And it should be remembered, the two wars (now 3, including Libya) is completely ignoring the unmanned drones bombing Pakistan (and the incursions across the border from Afghanistan), but who's counting.

Oh, NPR today did have a story that makes a little more sense: If This Is Not 'War' Against Libya, What Is It? That's more like it NPR.

Life is good ... so let's complain

Not big complaints, just little complaints. Things that have been rubbing me the wrong way.

I'm hoping to release them into the ... um... universe (web?) and move on with my life, with the goal of not fretting over them (as much) from now on.

1. Messages notifying you of messages that take as much space as the message itself. For example, my cell phone informs me that I missed a call with a little popup window that says "1 missed call" and a bunch of whitespace. They could have just as easily displayed the phone number.
2. Daylight savings time: This has totally thrown Simone's sleep schedule for a loop, and it's not cool.
3. People who don't push their chair in after getting up from a table. This seems to be common to most engineers at both places I've worked.
4. People who don't close their locker after using it in the locker room.
5. People who don't wash their hands after going potty. If you ever go to Intel, be sure to wash your hands after shaking hands with any men, because I never saw more than half the men wash their hands before leaving the restroom. At Mentor, half the people use the paper towel to open the door, and the other half just used the paper towel to dry their hands (almost everyone washes their hands).
6. TV/Radio folks who say "backslash" at the end of their URL. It's not a backslash, it's a forward slash, commonly referred to as just slash.
7. Programmers who can't touch type. Seriously, if you were a professional newspaper boy and needed training wheels, you'd be laughed at. What about a professional baseball player who has to use a tee? A competitive bowler who uses lane bumpers? A dancer who can't walk to a beat? An architect who can't use a straight edge? A singer who uses Auto-Tune? (oh, they're doing that).
8. That anyone gives James O'Keefe a second of their time.
9. Externalized costs (the environment is constantly picking up the tab).
10. Oregon's law preventing you from pumping your own gas.

Those all seem pretty petty, eh? That's because life is good, I really can't complain. A list of things I'm grateful for is much longer, perhaps another time...

School Buses And Seat Belts

I just came across this article which had some good information about seat belts in buses.
Why your child's school bus has no seat belts.

The most telling excerpts from the article were:

Numerous federal and academic studies have concluded that school buses are the safest form of ground transportation of all, in fact. The National Safety Council says they're about 40 times safer than the family car.
...

"Lap/shoulder belts can be misused and NHTSA's testing showed that serious neck injury and perhaps abdominal injury could result when lap/shoulder belts are misused," - NHTSA

I can't imagine a bus driver trying to ensure kids are wearing seat belts, and wearing them properly. Think about the last time you flew on a plane and the flight attendants had to remind a couple people repeatedly to use their seat belts. And, the fact that there are only 6 deaths per year in school bus accidents - that's carrying 24 million kids 4.3 BILLION miles.

I do feel sorry for parents who have lost their kids in a bus accident, but our money and effort are better spent elsewhere.

Terrorism

Recently I read this article: Schneier on Security: Close the Washington Monument, which (more or less) leads off with:

I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

The actions we've taken to make ourselves more "secure" just feel like theater, or at best, crude political overtures in order to get funding/be re-elected.

I've found these articles to be somewhat sobering, and I hope that people in power start to read this kind of thing and take a few steps back toward thinking rationally.

• "Don't Be an Ass About Airport Security" - Christopher Hitchens
• "Full Body Scanners: What's Next?" - Bruce Schneier
• "The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother" - Cathal Kelly

A little thinking can go a long way...

Two Minor Gripes

Often when I work out at work I watch the TVs. At 7am, SportsCenter is always on, and I can sometimes tune a second TV to something interesting (this morning it was a Mountain Dew BMX competition).

SportsCenter tends to only focus on basketball, football, baseball and hockey - which is a bit of a drag - but it's entertaining enough to watch while I listen to tunes or podcasts. However, they occasionally do this bit where some dude stands up in front of a HUGE flatscreen (seriously 6 feet wide) to do some detailed analysis of (generally) a football play. He taps on a "button" on the side (it's just a part of the screen), and then taps on some players, dragging arrows around and the such. It's sort of a higher-tech version of Dave Madden's telestrator. That's all well and good, but what annoys me is that SportsCenter is showing the guy doing all the clicking, and the screen is at an angle to the camera. I don't need to see the dude pressing buttons, I don't really care that they've got a 6' wide flatscreen, what I do know is that I'm watching a HD TV and they're showing me a picture of a picture - which totally ruins the experience. Why?

One of the commercials during the BMX show (oddly) was for a motor oil. If you've ever worked with motor oil (and, no, I've not changed the oil in a car, however I've driven two cars that need regular oil infusions) you know that the shape of the bottle is such that the spout is not in the center of the bottle, but is lined up on one of the sides. Why is this? It is so that when you pour, you can pour with the spout on the top and avoid the dreaded glug.

Ok, it's long lead up to a little gripe - I did some googling, and perhaps people don't know how to properly pour motor oil. If you don't - take a look at the shape of the bottle. Note that the spout is commonly on one of the sides. When you pour the oil, you pour

slowly

with the spout on the top and the "belly" of the bottle down. This allows air to enter at the same time as oil is leaving. This technique enables you to pour the oil smoothly - no glugs.

So, what's the gripe? The commercials always show the people pouring oil the wrong way. This usually comes in the form of some animation showing the bottle being poured the wrong way - but glug free - which is physically impossible. Today's commercial showed actual video of a guy pouring the oil (the wrong way), which he was doing super slowly and it was still glugging. I don't know who makes the directing decisions and why they constantly make the wrong choice, but it's more than a little irritating. I've yet to see a commercial that does it right. Perhaps all the hand models are right-handed (because the label is usually on the side such that if you pour it right-handed with the label showing the bottle is the wrong way. If they just switched to left-handed actors it'd work (or you could even flip the video if you want the look of a right-hander).

A Little Bit Of Ranting

It boggles the mind that Wall Street has the gall to complain about new regulations while making BILLIONS the last two years (with billions in bonuses). They would have brought down the country (world?) if it were not for the bail out, and now complain that they're being stifled - while making bank when the rest of the country is poorer than ever. Income inequality hasn't been this great since just before the great depression.

Rechargeable batteries. I went to buy some more rechargeable batteries and only one of the 5 or 6 brands available had any mention of how much power they could store. That's really the only useful metric. Yet the packaging told me the batteries would last 12 times longer than regular batteries and the charge would hold up 3 times as long.... all useless, give me the milliamp hours.

I love how the Iraq war was announced to be over on Sept 1st, but we'd already had two major offensives in the two weeks following. Yet the media proudly thumped the drum of "combat operations are over."

I'm not crazy about (poorly designed) digital controls, which most seem to be. What do I mean? Well, digital (versus analog) controls only allow you to change the temperature, volume, flow by pre-determined increments. And those increments are generally too large. Think of taking a shower, you can turn the hot and cold by the tiniest amounts to control the temperature exactly how you want. Imagine if the water controls only had 6 positions, the water would always be too hot or too cold. Well, the digital controls in my life that are currently annoying me the most: the gas burners on my stove, the volume on the car radio, and the volume on my computer. The burners are really the most annoying - it's very difficult to simmer.

Daylight Savings

Horrible, horrible idea. Forget the fact that it doesn't save any money or electricity.

Just think of how tough it is to explain to a 3.5 year old that it's time to go to bed, and yes it was dark last night when we went to bed, but tonight it is light. Why? Um...

You don't have to be an Olympic athlete...

... to eat like one.

At least that's what McDonald's current advertisement says.

What's most disturbing about this ad is that you know it (will) work. People may know that world class athletes don't train on a diet of McD's, but will likely be encouraged by the phrase.

It's just sad.

And disturbing.

We pay for our bad health twice: once when we heavily subsidize the food industry by providing the agribusinesses with incredibly cheap corn, and then we pay higher health care costs on the other end when we eat our way to death (diabetes, heart disease, etc.)

Winter Olympics

It's the first night of the Olympics (opening ceremonies don't count).

My impression: way way way too many commercials. I'm pretty sure there is more time spent on commercials than actually showing competition.

The short-track skating was pretty exciting with Ohno getting silver only because the two Koreans took each other out on the last turn.

What I don't get is why the commentators are so bad. I'm watching the women's moguls - and some gal started down the hill. The commentators commented that she was skiing with a torn ACL. Then we're treated to this, "She's skiing with a torn ACL. Imagine... what it'd be like to ski 3 football fields with a torn ACL."

Thanks genius. I have no idea what it'd be like. Imagine, the most beautiful sunset in the world, it's like the most beautiful sunset in the world.

That, and all the women "really excel in the middle section [of the moguls]". They all excel doing moguls? That's not helping me understand the sport or what to look for while watching the event.

And then there was the short track. Lots of bumping and passing going on. One of the commentators asked, "is that [bump] legal?" The other jumped in and really helped out with, "I wouldn't want to have to make that call at this level." Thanks a lot for your help. What about this gem? "She's skiing for a medal here." Really? In the Olympics? She wants a medal? I thought she was skiing for fourth, or maybe for the commemorative dessert plates.

And earlier there was the ski jumping, and again they'd say the same thing about all the jumpers. "Look how he explodes... immediately gets over the skiis... really loking for the air...". So... not... useful.

The commentators are really helping no more than if they were saying, "ooh, ahh. very pretty."

Some of the best athletes, some of the worst commentators.

Makes me wish I were watching the Canadian coverage (just ask my dad about the XC skiing event he watched 10 years ago when a skier broke a pole...)