A couple thoughts about the race

HuffPost: If You Really Want to Understand What This Race is About, Look at the Two Candidates’ Fathers

How dare that elitist Obama have a poor and troubled upbringing, and lord it over the humble and not-at-all psychologically damaged McCain?

Slate: If Obama Loses… Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him.

What’s it take to swing a close election; two, three percent?  There’s way more than that who wouldn’t vote for Obama (or any other black man) if he were Jesus Christ carrying the cure for the common cold in a suitcase full of diamonds. 

Posted by George on 08/27/08 at 08:30 PM
Politics • (1) Comments • Link

Sound familiar?

Gov. Schwarzenegger
by burghnews

Link if embedded video doesn’t work

Posted by George on 08/26/08 at 12:01 PM
Politics • (2) Comments • Link

Man, that was weird

I just tried to log into a secured system, and my keyboard suddenly took an unscheduled vacation.  Only an occasional keystroke would ‘take’ and then it would produce the wrong character.  I restarted several times, with different keyboards, and couldn’t even enter my system login, or even get into BIOS setup on POST.  Then, it started working again.

Takeaway lesson: I have way too many keyboards lying around.  I still don’t know what the hell happened with the keyboard.

On an unrelated note (several thousand notes, actually) the awesome big-band jazz number that accompanies the extended credits sequence on the DVD Incredibles makes great cardio workout music.  Or, music to get speeding tickets by, if you prefer.

Posted by George on 08/25/08 at 09:43 PM
Geeky • hardware • (6) Comments • Link

I guess it figures

At the grocery store today (the first day of clases), I noticed one category of item that was completely sold out: generic dish soap.  It makes sense if you think about it.

Posted by Lucas on 08/25/08 at 06:45 PM
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Charcoal and topsoil loss

When I read stories like ”Where Food Begins” I want to add National Geographic to the president’s reading list. Because, his one-page “intelligence briefings” just aren’t doing the job.  Here’s a real, tangible threat to national and global security - one we can do something about for very little money (but which the free market won’t fix) - so you’d think that “conservatives” would want to do something about it.

Turns out, the ancient Amazonians knew how to do something about it.  They systematically buried pottery and charcoal in their fields over a two thousand year period.  Weird, but get this - the result was rich soil six feet deep instead of 8 inches like the rest of the Amazon basin.  And if we did something similar in our mechanized fields, we could lock up enough carbon in the soil to offset a huge chunk of our carbon dioxide output in the bargain. 

See also:

Posted by George on 08/24/08 at 09:15 AM
Science & Technology • Environment • (6) Comments • Link

Let’s keep an eye on this come election day

Big surprise, Diebold admits their election machines might drop votes.  But the flaw “probably didn’t ruin any elections”.  (Does anyone else remember the former CEO of Diebold, also chairman of the Indiana Republican Party, vowing to “do whatever it takes to make sure George W. Bush wins Indiana”?  Or that Diebold, now “Premier Election Solutions”, is a major Republican donor?)

Election: it isn’t rocket surgery.  You mark your vote on a piece of paper.  Keep them safe, with people from both sides watching.  Then they’re counted, with people from both sides watching.  Tally the results.  Winner drinks champagne from a glass, loser from bottle.

Posted by George on 08/23/08 at 09:25 PM
Politics • (4) Comments • Link

First look: Ubuntu 8.04

Previously I’d been using Xubuntu because Ubuntu didn’t seem to work very well for me.  But though it was amazingly fast, Xubuntu had problems.  Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu 8.04 and installed it on my home machine.  After switching off the fancy gingerbread and trying it, I have a few observations below the fold.

Short version:  this one is a keeper.  If Microsoft could keep up steady improvement like this, they would be a celebrated global treasure instead of the icon of junk software that they are.  But they can’t, so here we are using Ubuntu.  And so far very favorably impressed.

Continued...

Posted by George on 08/23/08 at 11:48 AM
Geeky • Software • (3) Comments • Link

Looking for the mouse: the revolution of interactivity

If you are involved in moving ideas from one head to another head, or to several heads, watch the remarkable video; Looking for the mouse posted by Coturnix at Blog Around The Clock. 

What is a cognitive surplus?  Where does time come from?  What is the ‘architecture of participation’?  And what’s the One Big Thing that people in the media (and I would add, in education) just don’t understand, the thing that blindsides them?…

Posted by George on 08/23/08 at 11:09 AM
observations • (1) Comments • Link

Political funnies for Saturday

An oldie but goodie comedy routine from ‘down under’ - the front of the ship fell off!  But rest assured that’s very unusual. 

Certainly would bear on the question of drilling in fragile ecosystems. Hat-tip to Revere.

Regular-guy John McCain spends every year more on gardeners and servants than your house is worth, if you are an ‘average American’.  So who does the word “we” refer to when he says; “Celebrities don’t have to worry about family budgets. But we sure do.”?  Maybe that elitist Obama can explain it to us. 

By the way, Obama picked Biden.  I’m OK with that.

The right-windbag blogosphere is buzzing over Obama’s comment the other day praising China’s infrastructure improvements.  But the quote they use sort of cuts off in mid-thought. (Big surprise, right?  But that’s GOPSOP).  Anybody know where I can find a transcript of the whole speech, or even a longer video clip? 

Posted by George on 08/23/08 at 10:49 AM
Politics • (1) Comments • Link

Make this important adjustment to your Gmail account

Les at Stupid Evil Bastard explains why If you use Gmail you should enable the SSL feature right now.

SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and it makes your Gmail account much more secure.  This has suddenly become important because a new Gmail hacking tool will be released in about a week and enabling SSL is the antidote.

Here’s what to do: Just open Gmail, click on “Settings”, scroll down to the bottom of the “General” tab and click “Always use https”.  Then click Save Changes.  That’s it.  Your Gmail now works the same way it did before, only more securely.

(Thanks Les.  We appreciate you watching out for us.  It’s easy for this kind of thing to slip off the radar.)

Posted by George on 08/22/08 at 09:37 PM
Geeky • Security • (4) Comments • Link

Mixed feelings about the crazy preacher guy

Out on the Quad today my friend Pete and I saw a tumult of students and walked over for a closer look.  There on a high perch was The Crazy Preacher Guy, in his bright blue shirt and red suspenders and bow tie, handsome gray hair and rugged features, waving a bible and preaching against sin, I guess.  He reminded me of Robert Duvall in The Apostle.

From what I could make out he was energetically preaching the usual guff about The Second Coming and about how God would send sinners to hell - homosexuals, fornicators, abortioners, drunkards and whatnot.  Pretty much nonsense and certainly worthy of the mockery he was receiving from the crowd. And yet…

And yet I felt bad for him.  Somebody sprayed water on him and he paused for a moment, and kept going.  Even the crazy have a right to be secure from assault.  He was delivering a message of crucial importance, by his lights, but in a totally ineffective way. 

The whole unseemly spectacle just seemed kind of… sad.  From the time I lived in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, I knew quite a few guys like him.  And they lay awake nights worrying about lost souls.  Disagree with them, think they’re nuts, but they really did care. 

Posted by George on 08/18/08 at 10:03 PM
Religion • (8) Comments • Link

Next Generation Energy

This cartoon makes delightful fun of a fundamental misconception about “alternative energy.” Before carbon energy came along and rocketed our species through the industrial revolution, (and apart from cookfires), “alternative” energy was the only kind available.  We built windmills and water wheels and harnessed solar energy in various clever ways.  And we’re doing those same things now, in more advanced ways.  But it seems like we have boxed ourselves in.  We want a single, amazing energy source that can step in and give us clean, dependable energy without expending too much of our own energy.

But it’s easy to forget that weaving carbon energy into our culture was not exactly the work of an afternoon.  The infrastructure we take for granted today not only took more than a century to create, it hides complexities most people never suspect.  Whatever we do next is going to have to ‘dovetail’ rather neatly with existing energy delivery technologies if it could be expected to do us much good at all.

I’ve been meaning to draw attention to the new ScienceBlog, Next Generation Energy for a while now.  But the Shell sponsorship has been a ‘caution’ sign to me.  Experience has taught me to be suspicious when carbon energy companies talk about green initiatives.  All too often it just ends up being a way of stalling and obfuscating.

But no worries; the blog seems to be pretty independent.  So far they’ve talked about various permutations of concentrated and PV solar, and about biomass research using cyanobacteria.

Yeah… those cyanobacteria.  Found almost everywhere, but with some tweaking they can make diesel fuel out of whatever.  You put ‘em in the right place and give ‘em a job to do, and they’ll do good work.  Thing is, for the reasons I mentioned above, we need liquid biofuels, and it’s important it be made from stuff other than food.  So this is a good thing - even if an oil company is doing it. 

Posted by George on 08/18/08 at 05:31 PM
(7) Comments • Link

No, greed is not good

There’s a damn good reason greed is one of the seven deadly sins.

Posted by George on 08/18/08 at 06:52 AM
observations • (5) Comments • Link

Stone soup and gas prices

Saving money on gas is a combination of faith and works:

BBC News: Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April. Since then, the average price of what the US calls gasoline has fallen from more than $4 a gallon to $3.80.

“We don’t have anybody else to turn to but God,” Mr Twyman told the BBC. “We have to turn these problems over to God and not to man.”

A few percent savings seems like a weak effect from the God who parted the Red Sea.  But the Twyman and friends aren’t just relying on God either:

“We believe not just in prayer - because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we’ve encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it’s a combination of faith with these other factors.”

Excellent stone soup!  It would be even better with some carrots.  Maybe a little potato.  Beef broth, onions…

Posted by George on 08/18/08 at 06:20 AM
Religion • (4) Comments • Link

2 new Decrepit features

I’ve added a couple new features.  In the ‘Sidebar Spotlight’ there’s now a link to my Google Shared Items page so you can see stuff I’m currently reading from the InterWebs’ deluge.  Also in the sidebar I’ve compiled a list of old posts called ’Decrepitude‘.  Thing is, I chose the posts from the small set of ones I could actually remember writing.  So if you have nominations, feel free to weigh in. 

Posted by George on 08/17/08 at 11:11 AM
Geeky • Blogging • (1) Comments • Link
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