Bookshelf

07/22/09 @ 2:00 pm | no comments »

These are the next four books that I hope to read this year, assuming a normal and steady reading schedule (that is, daily commute by train)…

• The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson;
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond;
• 1776 by David McCullough; and
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.

I’m not sure in what order they will be read. I will leave that decision for the pagan gods that I’ve entrusted the sanctity of my life, home and family (and the order in which I read books), the sun and moon and shit. And the Eucalyptus trees, the non-native species being forced from their homes rooted all across California because they are not deemed good enough, an argument I fail to embrace.

Domains for the hell of it

07/22/09 @ 11:45 am | no comments »

Back in the hey-day of the Web 1.0 bubble, a silly company NameZero gave users free domain names. So I went on a roll, and acidtrain.com, anti-gop.com, liberalactivist.com, radical-side.com and re-election.com were all mine, along with several others (including any derivation of my name, with dot-net and dot-org alternates, anything that I could think of really).¹ It was the worst business plan in the history of the internet’s worst business plans, except for maybe the free shipping of textbooks idea by BigWords,² but both are still in business apparently.

In all, I may have “owned” ten or fifteen domains. (“Owned” is in quotes because I never actually owned them, NameZero did, but I was able to use the domains as if they were mine. I set up redirects to existing subdomains.) I don’t use or own any of the domains that I had registered with the service anymore (they were obviously not as important as I once thought they were). Some of them have probably been picked up since. I lost track. Why am I telling you this? I have no idea.

Notes

1. I also owned engineeringdogs.com, and used it for a class project. ↩
2. I had a classmate that had a substanitial credit with BigWords when they went bankrupt in 2001. ↩

Fixing Health Care

07/22/09 @ 9:22 am | 3 comments »

Quick and dirty…

Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and every other federal health coverage program (and states would follow), and any associated taxes. Levy a five percent income tax on every American, with no income limit, to pay for universal single-payer coverage, the best the world has seen.

Problem solved.

The Future of the Web

07/21/09 @ 1:53 pm | no comments »

There are two aspects to the web that need to be tackled… the design and media (specifically video). One of them has been solved with the latest version of Firefox, the other only partially, but a sandbox for development has been built.

Web designers have long desired to control the look of their sites,¹ and to be different, unique, special. But that has always been difficult to do. For one, every browser renders web-pages differently (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.). This has been getting better as more and more browsers accept web standards of how to interpret HTML code. Except for Microsoft’s veritable Internet Explorer, that is, which has long tormented even hobbyists of web design (including myself).²

One way to control the look and feel of a site is by using Flash as a site within a site, however the portability of Flash is limited, if non-existent, and overall, text, images and video is what makes the majority of web content, and Flash doesn’t provide any of those in a reasonable way, at a reasonable speed, with any reasonable sense of reliability.³ And that is why embeddable fonts will be huge.

Why limit yourself to what your end-user has installed on his computer — or what you assume your web user has installed on his computer? We have been strictly limited to a very few, yet ultimately serviceable, web-friendly fonts. A pox on all that. If I want fancy header text — why force myself to use an image which may be unreadable on portable devices, or scaled incorrectly, or rendered incompletely? Rather, embed the font in the CSS, call the font as-needed, wherever and whenever (allowing the end-user to download it temporarily, most likely without notice⁴), and the end-user will see how the designer wishes to present the text (not how his or her browser decides, not how his or her native font choices decide). Very simple. This is a huge step. Flash, and graphics to a lesser extent, will not be used as widely simply as a way to maintain control over text fonts. It will be unnecessary.⁵

The future of web is video. This is clear. (In maybe a more broad, far-reaching sense, the future of the web is 3d holograms and scratch-and-sniff, but let’s be realistic.) Therefore, control over video is essential. The new video tag/element in HTML5 is mostly amiss however. First off, no one uses Ogg format. No one; and likely, no one ever will. A video format cannot simply be forced upon people. (Recall the Real audio format. Where has that gone?) That being said, this will hopefully allow developers to fool around with the video tag and take us mere followers where we need to be in the future. That is, to simplify the video embedding process and optimize the code. (Video embeds are needlessly long and overtly redundant.) I have to admit, the idea of controlling video parameters from CSS gets me excited. Probably too excited to be considered healthy.

I’ll ask my doctor, but in the meantime, the web is changing towards a multimedia-focused experience, with more control for the developers to convey their design on computer screens, regardless of browser or operating system, and that makes me happy.

Notes

1. Duh. This will never change. ↩
2. This is my favorite IE bug (which still exists): “The easiest way for you to fix the problem is to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. This problem no longer occurs in Internet Explorer 8.” Why did it exist in the first place? Why don’t you patch the existing software that the majority of web users in the world use in the meantime? ↩
3. Plus it is a bitch to add to, subtract from, or interact with in a meaningful way for the majority of web users and designers. Flash is an end-product only. It is never a work in progress, which is how most people would view their creations, or blogs or websites. ↩
4. This may be considered a security concern, however just like every other embeddable image or video, security will always be a concern. Adding a downloadable/embeddable font is not changing the game. ↩
5. Rendering times of web pages will be reduced (i.e., sped up), less material overall will be forcibly downloaded by users, the tubes of the internet will open up (until they are clogged again). ↩

Pre-Columbia

07/20/09 @ 6:59 pm | 2 comments »

Charles Mann’s 1491 is certainly engrossing. I am more than three-fourths done, but I may not have the time to appropriately digest the whole thing and spew my thoughts on this blog.¹ The book can easily be considered required reading for, say, college courses on American history or even high school AP history courses, but the book does not necessarily lend itself as a form of textbook. There are no tried-and-true questions and answers that can be derived, e.g, What happened in 1306 AD?²

The book’s thesis– which is driven home through and through — is conveyed by presenting the ever-growing wealth of information and understanding that we have on what took place in America before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, information that continues to come to light as archaeologists continue to dig up newly discovered ancient sites. And it isn’t presented in an ultra-literal linear fashion — in 2000 BC, in 1000 BC, etc. — but in a more wild or ungroomed fashion, throwing facts upon facts on the reader, burying him in details of grand cities that rivaled Paris and Constantinople, powerful kings and deities that rivaled the throne of England, and empires and cultures that rivaled Rome and Greece.

Mann envelops the readers in all this “new” information and forces the reader to come away with one major point, that what I had learned about America before Columbus arrived was all wrong: the idea that America was largely untouched by man, and the sign of humans were small nomadic tribes of Native Americans, or Indians. It was exactly the opposite.

Notes

1. And this quick post will not replace such a digestion and discharge. And a longer, more profound, most likely never read post wouldn’t quench your thirst for knowledge anyway. Read the book. ↩
2. Essays and long-form test-taking would be another matter. ↩

Tony Soprano Is Dead

07/16/09 @ 3:15 pm | 6 comments »

When I first started this post on St. Patrick’s Day, it was titled, The Irrelevance of the Pope (and the Catholic Faith). I started the post as a result of the (unsurprising) news that the Pope would continue to decry the teaching of safe sex, which is effective, including in AIDS-ravaged Africa, and continue to support the sole reliance on the teaching of abstinence, which is not. Needless to say, I changed my mind on the direction of this here post.

Tony Soprano is dead. For those fans who are hoping for a reunion movie or HBO miniseries, if it were to come (and it won’t), it will be without Tony Soprano, because he was murdered in the final scene in the final episode of the final season.¹ The screen went to black — and stayed there — precisely because we (the viewer) were Tony, and we had just been shot.² You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right? That is what Bobby Bacala says to Tony on Lake Oscawana at the close of the first episode of the final season.³ A flashback to this scene is shown in the second-to-last episode. David Chase (the show’s creator) was telling us something.

A few months after the final episode aired, Chase was asked what actually had happened in the final scene. His answers were, in a word, telling…

This wasn’t really about “leaving the door open.” [...] Everything that pertains to that episode was in that episode. And it was in the episode before that and the one before that and seasons before this one and so on. There had been indications of what the end is like. Remember when Jerry Toricano was killed? Silvio was not aware that the gun had been fired until after Jerry was on his way down to the floor. That’s the way things happen: It’s already going on by the time you even notice it. [...] As I recall, it was just that Tony and his family would be in a diner having dinner and a guy would come in. Pretty much what you saw. [...] Originally, I didn’t want any credits at all. I just wanted the black screen to go the length of the credits. [...] I think The Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience credit for having some intelligence and attention span. [...] It’s all there.

We were Tony Soprano. In a sense, that is. It was a Pavlovian response. Every time the bell rang hanging over the diner door, we saw Tony look up, and then we became Tony; we were viewing the show’s events from his point-of-view. And when lovely Meadow Soprano finally parked her car, and made her way to the diner entrance, and the bell rang, we expected to see Meadow. But we didn’t. The screen went black, and it stayed that way (for what seemed like forever). There was no sound. The bell rang, and we became Tony. But Tony was just shot; he didn’t even hear it happen, and therefore we — the viewers — from Tony’s point-of-view, didn’t hear anything either.⁴

Tony Soprano was shot and killed in the final scene of the Sopranos. You don’t believe me? Watch it again.

Notes

1. Of course, Tony could appear in flashbacks, or new dream sequences, or as a ghost, or whatever. I think an episode or two with the fallout of his death — and his family’s handling of it — would have been terrific television. ↩
2. I have to take a little credit with my prediction post (which was incredibly off): “I just thought of something. Wouldn’t it be awful if David Chase decided to leave us empty, meaning Tony was in the hospital with Carmela in tears, Meadow crying and AJ confused, looking through a window at a collapsed Tony, and the screen goes black, the end?” As I blogged after the season finale (a post which was also incredibly wrong; this post is incredibly revisionist), “I may not have had the particulars right, but I nailed the spirit right on the head.” I have to take a little credit; I’m just saying. ↩
3. Actually, the first episode of the second-half of the last season. The second-half of the sixth season is — for all intents and purposes — the seventh season, and I will always refer to it that way. ↩
4. The man sitting at the counter — simply credited as the man in Member’s Only jacket — walked to the bathroom, passing Tony on his way in; on his way out (in an action reminiscent of the Godfather, like so many other facets of the show), he shot Tony Soprano from the side. That is what happened. It’s all there. ↩

Resurgent Draft: California Fiction

07/15/09 @ 10:05 am | no comments »

This was a post that started in earnest in November 2005, just when I started to realize that California was not as liberal as many people suggest, and is much more anti-tax than advertised. This post is truly one of those unfinished masterpieces.

Unpublished Draft

Many people state that California is part of the “left coast,” the purely liberal section of the United States. I had believed that as well; until I moved here. What I have noticed, in my three-plus years (and counting), in California is that the majority of the state is, in fact, conservative (when looking at area). And even in the Bay Area, which is strongly blue (even deep blue) [...]

Rome

07/14/09 @ 9:04 pm | no comments »

When John Lennon was asked why he moved to New York City (from England) in 1971, he famously said, “If I’d lived in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome.” If it were me, I’d have lived in Corsica.

Antennae

07/13/09 @ 11:27 am | no comments »

This bad boy is sitting on my roof, and has been since last fall…¹

It’s called the Clearstream 4² and has a range of “up to 65 miles.” With this thing on my roof, I can pick up 5 channels. Two of them are the same. Three of them are PBS. The last comes in rarely. None are the major channels I need. Although my house is 20 miles from Sutro Tower — the radiowave emitting tower in San Francisco — I cannot pick up any of those signals. All my signals come from the North Bay, either Napa or Cotati. This upsets me.

This is how Google Earth renders Sutro Tower (with the City in the background; looking northeast)…

All of the major signals in the bay area (including radio) are emitted from Sutro Tower, except for NBC, which is inconveniently based out of San Jose.

I have convinced myself that all I need to really do is get the antenna higher, over my neighbor’s roofline, but honestly, I am not all that sure. A ridge or two may also be blocking my view, and based on my research, I need a clear view — direct line of sight — of the emitting tower, and I just don’t know if that is possible. I could realign my antenna and face it due eastward, and look to capture the Sacramento stations, but that is likely too far.

In order for my master plan to work — to eliminate my cable tv bill³ — I need only the locals, the alphabet soup: PBS, CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC (although NBC may be impossible). The signal will be better. The cost will be better. And our lives will be better.

I am heading back up to my roof to figure this thing out. If I need an antenna pole, so be it. If I’m the only house in the neighborhood with an antenna, so be it. (As long as I do not have one of the window A/C units, my elite status, or strive for elite status, will not be shattered). I want my free MTV. But not MTV, because that won’t be available. But ABC and NBC will be. But not NBC, because that is based out of San Jose, which is a little too far.

Notes

1. I put it together myself. ↩
2. The instructions for this antenna include the following warnings: Do not attempt to install if drunk, pregnant or both. Do not eat antenna. Do not throw antenna at spouse. ↩
3. I currently have the basic of the basic plans for cable tv, something like 30 channels or so, but a bunch are Spanish, Chinese, shopping, religious and local access, so in reality, I have 10 or 15 good channels, but these are actually the only channels I want, and most of them are available over the air. My basic bill is $22. ↩

A Polish Scene

07/10/09 @ 9:00 pm | no comments »

I wrote this while sitting in a Polish sidewalk café in a failed search for a free wifi connection…

2009/05/25 12:44pm Pol

I am sitting in a café/bar in Pisz, a small city in rural northern Poland, maybe a couple hours from Gdańsk, formerly known as Danzig. Damn the Germans. I am on my second beer. My second half-liter of Żywiec, pronounced zhivy-itz. The waiter asked me if I’d like the German menu. I asked for the English menu. (I wasn’t going to order anything besides the beer anyway, which I know how to do, but nonetheless.) He said there was no English menu. Mind you, this entire conversation was in English. He brought me a beer. He’s earning a good tip.