Home

Advertisement

Customize
About this Journal
Current Month
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930
Sep. 26th, 2009 @ 01:26 am Kirk: the wrong choice for the Senate
Massachusetts got around to choosing an interim Senator to serve until a special election is held in January. One available choice was a politician with a distinguished career in elected office, including two terms as governor. Instead we get a political insider who has never served in any elected office, evidently because he was the choice of the Kennedy family.

Sorry, Governor Patrick, this was just wrong. Ted Kennedy was a great Senator, but he's dead now. This appointment is about best serving the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America, not the Kennedy family. It's about the future, not the past. Mike Dukakis would have been an able Senator, and a strong advocate for both health care (Kennedy's cause) and transportation alternatives (his own cause). Instead we get Kirk, whose greatest political qualification is raising money.
About this Entry
Sep. 17th, 2009 @ 08:04 pm What about my own life?
After a slow summer, I'm working for the Census Bureau again as a crew leader for Group Quarters. In other words, we're visiting all the places that were identified as some sort of group or institutional housing situation last time and finding out more about them. It will be reunion time with a few people I worked with last spring.

WFNX continues to be good to me; while I was on the way home from bringing Marian to the hospital on Monday, I won an all-access pass to the Disorientation series of concerts on October 5-9. I don't expect to get to all five of them, but I'll attend SOME of them.

Red Herring will be dancing out on the weekend of October 3-4; with the Ha'Penny tour on Saturday and on a tour that the team is supposed to be assembling on Sunday. I've been out of that loop because of being busy with Marian, but I do hope to do some dancing that weekend.
About this Entry
Sep. 17th, 2009 @ 08:00 pm Marian: the good and the bad
The good news: the surgery on Monday was successful. As one might expect she was very weak that day, but she improved significantly on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The bad news: on Wednesday they shifted her to a liquid diet (rather than IVs) and that hasn't gone well so far. She is not currently expected to leave the hospital on Friday as originally planned. I'll post again when I know more.
About this Entry
Aug. 1st, 2009 @ 06:06 pm Best Music Poll Concert 2009
I'm sitting in City Hall Plaza right now while it happens around me! Two bands have played so far: Ra Ra Riot and Passion Pit, each of which played for about half an hour. I forget who the next one is (update: it's Metric), but I know after that it's Gaslight Anthem, Airborne Toxic Event, and The Bravery, each of which will play longer sets. I got here half an hour before the music started and it was already crowded; the stairs/amhpitheater of City Hall Plaza were already packed with people.

I enjoyed Ra Ra Riot's set. There were six of them including two women (one on violin and one on a weird electric cello that was just the OUTLINE of a cello with no solid body). Passion Pit didn't do a lot for me. So far the crowd is big but low-key; the three big-name bands are being saved for the end, so I expect the energy level to build as the evening goes on.

(later that day...)

The headliners, The Bravery, are playing now. As one would expect, they are playing a strong, high-energy set and the crowd is enjoying it; as I write this they are covering Any Way You Want It.

For me, the group just before them, Airborne Toxic Event, was the highlight of the show; their set was total awesomeness. They're a five member group: a lead singer/guilar player/keyboardist, a woman who plays fiddle, keyboards, and tambourine (and briefly went crowd surfing during the set!), another guitarist, a bass player/keyboardist, and a drunmer. Everyone but the drummer helped out on background vocals. Their hit, Some Time Around Midnight, was the highlight of the set, but the rest was strong as well.

Gaslight Anthem was a bit of a disappointment; aside from their hit, '59 Sound, their songs didn't grab me and their live sound was muddy. Metric is a duo, one man and one woman, who did an acoustic set here; she played electric piano, he was on guitar, and she sung all but one of the songs. I enjoyed their low-key set; it was a pleasant change of pace from the rest of the show.
About this Entry
Feb. 23rd, 2009 @ 01:09 am Musings on the Academy Awards
The Oscar ceremony was tonight, and that led me to think about Best Picture winners and non-winners past and present. First, I'm happy with Slumdog Millionaire as the winner this year, though I would have also been happy with Milk; both are fine films.

Once again, animated films were snubbed for nomination, so WALL-E didn't even have a chance to win. Only one animated film has even been nominated for Best Picture -- Beauty and the Beast in 1991. (It didn't win.) Now that the Academy has created the Best Animated Picture ghetto it's unlikely that we'll ever see another animated Best Picture nominee. No, not even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nominated for Best Picture, though it did win a special Oscar.

I had a look at the list of historical winners on Wikipedia. There are some clear cases where the best picture didn't win (even leaving aside the ones that weren't even nominated), and some Best Pictures that haven't stood the test of time. There are also some cases where the Academy had a hard choice, this year being one such. Let's look through the history; I'm offering no opinion on pre-1939 films because I don't know enough about them.

1939: Many people feel Gone With The Wind was a bad choice, but I don't agree. It's a bit melodramatic and a bit long, but it's a beautiful film, the interplay between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh is often sharp, and it is still arguably the most successful movie of all time. (It has fallen off the top box office list due to inflation, but still holds a huge lead if measured by number of paid admissions.) That said, The Wizard of Oz is also deserving.

1940: The nearly forgotten Rebecca beat The Grapes of Wrath and Chaplin's The Great Dictator. This one looks pretty bad in hindsight.

1941: How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon? Puh-leeze.

1942: The Magnificent Ambersons is widely regarded as one of the truly great partially lost films, and Yankee Doodle Dandy is a fine example of its kind. But Mrs Miniver won.

1943: The Academy got it right this time with Casablanca, one of the great films of all time.

1944: A war-weakened year with no films that I am familiar with.

1945: Anchors Aweigh and The Bells of St Mary's are fondly remembered musicals, but the winner was The Lost Weekend, a film I have not seen and which seems to be largely forgotten.

1946: Olivier's Henry V and It's A Wonderful Life were both snubbed in favor of The Best Years of Our Lives; another one that looks bad in hindsight.

1947: Miracle on 34th Street is a holiday classic. But the winner was Gentleman's Agreement.

1948: This time Olivier got a statue for Hamlet. But he didn't deserve it this time, with the superior The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Red Shoes on the ballot.

1949: No opinion.

1950: All About Eve is a fine choice.

1951: An American In Paris is solid, but A Streetcar Named Desire would have been even better. Brando had to wait a few more years for his turn.

1952: The Greatest Show On Earth was hugely popular in its day but hasn't stood up over the years. High Noon and The Quiet Man both look better from here.

1953: From Here To Eternity deserved its statue.

1954: On The Waterfront is another clear winner. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is a wonderful example of the classic musical and would have been a good choice most years, but in 1954 it was outclassed.

1955: Hard though it can be for those of us who grew up watching McHale's Navy to imagine, Ernest Borgnine was a fine dramatic actor in his day, and Marty was his best film. Mr Roberts would have been a reasonable alternate choice.

1956: Around The World In Eighty Days was the winner over two other decent and very different films: Giant and The Ten Commandments. The latter looks hopelessly bombastic to modern eyes but is a good example of epic film making of its day.

1957: It's hard to argue with The Bridge Over The River Kwai. 12 Angry Men was another good film.

1958: Gigi is fun, but The Defiant Ones and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof look stronger in hindsight.

1959: Ben-Hur is a classic epic film that has withstood the test of time.

1960: No argument with The Apartment. The only plausible contender, Spartacus, wasn't on the ballot, one of the biggest Oscar slights over the years.

1961: West Side Story. Enough said.

1962: Lots of good films that year; The Longest Day, The Music Man, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Mutiny on the Bounty were all on the ballot. But Lawrence of Arabia is one of the all-time great films.

1963: Tom Jones was the best that a weak year had to offer. Not a bad film, but most of the 1962 or 1964 nominees would have beaten it.

1964: A year of tough choices. My Fair Lady was the winner, and hardly a bad film. But one could make a case for any of the other four films being better: Becket, Dr Strangelove, Mary Poppins, and Zorba the Greek. Dr Strangelove is my personal favorite, but I love all five.

1965: The Sound of Music was a cultural phenomenon then and now. Dr Zhivago was a good film but lacks the cultural impact.

1966: A Man For All Seasons is a classic.

1967: In The Heat Of The Night won in another year of hard choices, with The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner on the ballot. Bonnie and Clyde and Dr Dolittle aren't bad films but weren't contenders for best that year.

1968: One of Oscar's biggest missteps; Oliver! The Lion In Winter was a much better film.

1969: Midnight Cowboy hasn't stood up to time all that well, but deserves its statue based on its cultural impact at the time. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the best of the rest.

1970: Patton was OK, but I'd have gone for M*A*S*H. Love Story fully deserved not to win.

1971: The French Connection wasn't a bad film, but many of the year's nominees look better in hindsight: A Clockwork Orange (my vote), Fiddler On The Roof, and The Last Picture Show.

1972: The Godfather made the Academy an offer it couldn't refuse. Cabaret and Deliverance might have been winners in other years.

1973: The Sting was a lot of fun, but in hindsight American Graffiti looks like the more influential film.

1974: The Godfather Part II continues the Coppola love. Chinatown was the leading alternative.

1975: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest deserved its win. Robert Altman loses again with Nashville (after M*A*S*H in 1970).

1976: Rocky is one of the few Oscar winners I actively dislike. Network or Taxi Driver would have been better picks.

1977: The Academy finally gave Woody Allen some love for Annie Hall. But Star Wars was a far more important film culturally and should have won.

1978: The Deer Hunter was the clear winner.

1979: Kramer vs Kramer won but hasn't stood up well. Apocalypse Now was widely regarded as a disaster when it was released; it took years for filmgoers and critics to fully understand it. Breaking Away was one of the first Little Indies That Could to get a nomination.

1980: Ordinary People seemed impressive when it came out but is largely forgotten today. Raging Bull has held up better.

1981: Another miscue, with Chariots of Fire winning; Raiders of the Lost Ark should have.

1982: Gandhi won. Two very different films had a good case: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Tootsie. The Academy likes serious biopics so this wasn't really a contest, but it should have been. Blade Runner wasn't on the ballot; the originally released version as butchered by the studio wasn't a Best Picture but the later Director's Cut and still later Final Cut would have deserved a statue.

1983: Terms of Endearment is a winner that I actively dislike; to my mind it's horribly overmanipulative. The Big Chill or The Right Stuff, both fine films in their day and fine period pieces now, would have been better choices.

1984: Amadeus.

1985: Out Of Africa was a bad pick. Witness is my favorite of the other nominees. Back to the Future and The Purple Rose of Cairo should have been on the ballot but weren't.

1986: Platoon won in a weak year. Children of a Lesser God and Hannah and Her Sisters (to my mind not nearly as good as some other Woody Allen films that didn't even get nominations) were alternatives.

1987: The Last Emperor wins another weak ballot. Moonstruck and Broadcast News were the best of the rest.

1988: Rain Man is a good film. I personally enjoyed The Accidental Tourist a lot more.

1989: Driving Miss Daisy tugged the Oscar heartstrings. Field of Dreams tried to tug them in a different direction but failed to win the statue. Dead Poets Society was also there. Branagh's Henry V was the notable omission from the Best Picture ballot, though Branagh was nominated for Best Actor.

1990: Lots of people criticize the winner, Dances With Wolves. I'm not among them; I found it a beautiful and lyrical film. Ghost was another good film.

1991: Beauty and the Beast, one of my favorite films ever and the only animated Best Picture nominee ever, was robbed. But at least it was robbed by Silence of the Lambs, a fine film though a difficult one to watch because of its emotional impact.

1992: Unforgiven was a sentimental favorite, but I think that the classical Western was past its expiration date. But it was also a weak year; The Crying Game and Scent of a Woman were memorable but flawed. Robert Altman should have finally gotten his Best Picture turn for The Player but wasn't on the ballot.

1993: Schindler's List deserved its win. I'm glad I saw it, and I never want to watch it again.

1994: Forrest Gump was the winner, and I have mixed feelings about that; I go back and forth between believing it was charming and feeling it was manipulative. It's certainly stunning as a technical accomplishment; the insertion of Gump into archival footage was brilliantly done. The hindsight winner is Pulp Fiction, a hugely influential film.

1995: My choice for Worst Best Picture Ever, Braveheart; it should have gotten a Razzie nomination for Worst Picture. I think that the 1995 Worst Picture, Showgirls, was a better movie than Braveheart, though I'm not sure about some of the other Worst Picture nominees. Any of the other nominees would have been better. So would Don Juan de Marco, a film that should have been on the ballot but was not.

1996: The English Patient isn't a bad movie, but it was hardly the best one on the ballot. My vote would have been for Fargo, but I'd have also taken Jerry Maguire or Shine ahead of the winner.

1997: Titanic was an unstoppable cultural phenomenon. The Full Monty was more fun, but sometimes you just can't stop the juggernaut.

1998: Shakespeare In Love is a film that some people like to cite as a bad choice. I disagree; it succeeded in being both a playful romp and an interesting (if slightly twisted) look at history.

1999: American Beauty was the class of a weak field.

2000: Gladiator is another contender for Worst Best Picture, though not a contender for a Razzie because there were some REALLY bad films in 2000. (Battlefield Earth got the Worst Picture award.) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Erin Brockovich, please.

2001: A Beautiful Mind is OK, but there were better films available. If you're not going to vote for LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (the Academy probably didn't want to give the series THREE Best Picture awards like the Hugos did) my choice would be the visually groundbreaking Moulin Rouge!

2002: If you're ignoring LOTR again until the final installment, Chicago is a good pick.

2003: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King finally wins.

2004: Million Dollar Baby is a solid winner. Finding Neverland is the best of the rest.

2005: Another mistake with Crash. Brokeback Mountain had a huge cultural impact and probably should have won but was too daring a pick for the Academy. Good Night, and Good Luck was another good choice.

2006: The year that Little Miss Sunshine, another Little (semi)Indie That Could, should have won. But the Oscar inexplicably went to The Departed.

2007: No Country For Old Men got the statue. Another plausible year for the indies, with Juno on the ballot.
About this Entry
Sep. 14th, 2008 @ 09:23 am WFNX Disorientation
Earlier this week I got an email from WFNX -- I won a pair of tickets to their Disorientation concert! I couldn't find anyone to go with me (I thought I had a taker but she backed out on Saturday) so one went to waste, but I went anyway and enjoyed the show a lot. I haven't seen any non-SCA live music in quite a while, so it was a treat.

It was a lovely warm evening at the Bank of America Pavilion (the current name of the waterfront concert venue in Boston); I had brought along a jacket in case the breeze from the water came in, but it never did. (I've seen a few shows there, and it can get quite chilly even on warm evenings. I especially remember freezing through Erasure in early June.) The Silver Line makes it a lot easier to get there; the T even showed a bit of clue and had a couple of Silver Line buses waiting at Silver Line Way, the station near the pavilion, to pick up the expected crowd at the end of the concert. (They didn't charge for the ride either, which made boarding quicker. I wonder if it was a special deal with the concert organizers.) I arrived a bit later than I expected to because the Red Line wasn't running to Ashmont this weekend (had to take the shuttle bus); I got to the pavilion at about 4:45, but the gates hadn't opened yet. (Scheduled opening was 4:30.) Everything ran about 15 minutes behind schedule, but the bands kept to their scheduled set lengths so things moved along well. Each act was introduced by a different person (or pair of people) from WFNX; by the end of the night, all of their weekday DJs had taken a turn on stage.

The outdoor area of the pavilion had booths for a bunch of places. I picked up a water bottle and a 50% off coupon from the New Balance table, a $5 coupon from the EMS table, and made a phone call to Marian courtesy of AT&T. I also bought a dish of Chocolate Therapy ice cream from the Ben & Jerry's pushcart -- yummy and intensely chocolate.

My take on the bands:

Does It Offend You, Yeah? -- the opening act. They played their one US semi-hit, Dawn of the Dead, in the middle of the set; the rest of their songs were less US-radio friendly with electronically processed vocals; think Daft Punk with more guitar and drum and you'll have the idea. I really like these guys, and their set was one a part of the show I really wanted to catch, but I'm not sure how big a success they'll be here in the US, because so much of their music doesn't fit into any of the usual niches. They've posted a bunch of their music videos and some podcasts on YouTube. Sadly, they didn't have much of an audience; I'd guess that the arena was less than a quarter full while they were on. They played a short set, only about half an hour; they released their debut album recently, so they probably have less material to work with than the other acts.

Next up was Anberlin, a short-notice replacement for Rogue Wave, who were unable to appear (their lead singer hurt his back earlier in the week). They are a five-member band that does straight-up guitar rock: two electric guitars, one bass, a drummer, and a lead singer who jumped around a lot in leather pants. For me they were the one disappointment of the show; their music failed to grab me at all. They weren't helped by the fact that their music hadn't been in heavy rotation on WFNX for the past month like the other bands. A few more people trickled into the pavilion, but mostly they seemed to be in the outdoor area; if anything, fewer people were actually in their seats (or standing near them) and listening. They played a slightly longer set, about 45 minutes.

The middle act was Alkaline Trio, and they were the first to really energize the crowd, which had grown substantially in time for their appearance. (In addition, it had gotten dark, so fewer people were at the outdoor booths, some of which had closed.) I found that I recognized more of their music than I knew; guess I had heard it over the years on FNX and had never made any special notice of the group. Not surprisingly, there were just three members: guitar, bass, and drums. The guitar and bass players took turns doing lead vocals, and the drummer added backup; despite there being only three of them, they had the best harmonies of the night. Of course they have a MySpace page and plenty of YouTube videos. They played a 45-minute set.

The penultimate act was The Kooks, the second UK act of the night. They're a huge success across the pond but only a modest one here; they're well known to alternative rock listeners but haven't crossed over to the mainstream. The FNX people encouraged the audience to crowd into the front section of the pavilion; I resisted, choosing to leave standing through two hours of the show for the teens and twenty-somethings. (Presumably they wanted to generate a bit more crowd energy, as well as allowing them to take better publicity shots.) By now the place was filled to somewhere around 80-90% of capacity; not a bad showing for a group of bands that would normally have played smaller venues, though the fact that the radio station gave away hundreds of seats didn't hurt. The Kooks did a good job of mixing song moods and tempos, including a pair of acoustic songs (the first was a solo by the lead singer on acoustic guitar; he was joined by a second guitar on the next) about 3/4 of the way through. Oddly enough, their biggest crowd pleaser, Do You Wanna, isn't one of the videos on their official YouTube site, but fans have posted it. The Kooks played for an hour.

Flogging Molly was the headline act, and they were clearly the group the crowd had come to see. Until their set, only a few people were dancing, but the crowd just wasn't able to keep still when they took the stage. They have seven members: the lead singer/acoustic guitar, two electric guitars, bass, drums, a woman who mostly played fiddle but did a couple of songs on pennywhistle (and the only woman to appear in any of the acts), and a guy who switched between banjo and mandolin. The lead also did all the talking between songs, and he was an expert at working the crowd, throwing in a lot of references to Boston and Massachusetts; at one point he thanked some of the band's inspirations and named two local favorites, Dropkick Murphys and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. They've got an official website and a MySpace page; they don't seem to officially posted any YouTube videos, but their fans have. They played an hour set plus a two-song encore; the first 90% of the first song in the encore was an acoustic solo, with the rest of the band coming back on stage for the final chorus.
About this Entry
Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 12:24 am (no subject)
Last week I spent three days doing computer deinstalls and installs out in Framingham. The hours were a pain; I had to leave the house at 6:30am to get there on time. I could have left a LITTLE later but didn't have the traffic calibrated to know how much later (I ran into delays on the stretch of the Expressway leading to the Mass Pike, and they get worse as you move toward the peak of rush hour), so I didn't experiment for a three day contract. The work was OK but unexciting; basically it consisted of disconnecting a lot of cables and stuffing all the accessories into a plastic bag at one end, and unpacking the bag and reconnecting everything at the other. I got to make a little money, which is always a good thing.

I couldn't take a job like that permanently if it required commuting by car; it would be a tedious way to go broke. The cost of buying, insuring, and operating another car would be far too high; I'd have to get paid more. I can borrow Marian's car for three days, and the fixed costs on that one are already paid, but not for months at a time.

On the job, there was the manager, Don, two other techs (one 30-something, the other 60ish), and me. Don has somewhat long hair (though not as long as mine), and it was tied up in a tiny ponytail at the back. One of the other techs commented on it, which lead to a conversation about hair. Don said that he had grown it out to annoy his kids. Younger tech said that he hated having hair; he wished he'd go bald, but it doesn't run in his family.

I was asked whether I found my hair annoying. The quick answer they got: no. (It didn't seem the time or place for a philosophical discussion, especially not one where I would have been so far from the attitudes of the other three people.) But the total conversation told me that the attitude of Younger Tech toward his body is very different from mine. No, I don't find my hair annoying; I actively enjoy it. I like the fact that I feel it when I move, and that it makes me more aware of my body and its movement; when I wear dangly earrings at parties or dances or events or conventions, I enjoy those for the same reason. The impression I got is that YT finds being aware of his body annoying; he would rather move through the world unconsciously.

Maybe it's related to why I love to dance. Most forms of dance are, at some level, about being aware either of your own body, or of somebody else's body, or perhaps both. (One exception I can think of: some Balkan folk dances that have very repetitive movements and droning music. Those are designed to put the dancer into a trance state.) Body awareness isn't the only thing that dance is about, especially performance dance, but it's certainly a part of the joy of it.
About this Entry
May. 23rd, 2008 @ 09:53 am Ted Kennedy, and what comes next
My heart goes out to Ted Kennedy. A brain tumor has to rank pretty high on the list of Horrible Ways To Go. He has had a long career in the Senate and accomplished a lot; despite his reputation as an ultra-liberal, he has worked effectively with both parties to get things done.

Still we have to ask, what now? Recent Massachusetts law (passed in 2004, when the thought of Mitt Romney getting to appoint a replacement for John Kerry horrified the state legislature) requires that a Senator must be replaced by special election, not appointment by the governor, and that the special election must happen between 145 and 160 days of the vacancy. The best day to hold the election would be November 4, the regular election day, both because it would ensure a large turnout and because it would save the state a bunch of money. For that to happen, Kennedy would have to step down between May 28 and June 12. Not a lot of time for him to figure out whether he is able to continue in office.
About this Entry
May. 23rd, 2008 @ 07:58 am Basic civics....
Over on Salon Magazine, Glenn Greenwald explains why the recent California court decision on gay marriage is a prime example of how government is supposed to work, not a failure of government to work properly. I've made the same argument, but Greenwald explains it far more eloquently than I ever have.
About this Entry
Mar. 16th, 2008 @ 12:45 pm My experiences with digital TV
A LONG time ago, I bought a digital TV board for my computer -- the Telemann HiPix DTV200. The software was shaky and the user interface so-so, and you really needed two monitors to use it effectively. And getting reception was fiddly. But when it worked, the picture was gorgeous, though there wasn't much to watch in those early days.

Now that the digital television mandate is coming (analog broadcasts will stop in less than a year), DTV is mainstream. Getting a new HDTV isn't in the budget this year, but buying one of the inexpensive converters is, especially with the $40 coupons that you can get from the government. ([info]patrissimo can tune out now :) I applied for our coupons shortly after New Year's, and they showed up last week. So I did a bit of internet research on the few models that are available locally so far, and concluded that the one I wanted was the Zenith DTT900, which is supposed to be available at Radio Shack and Circuit City.

First I visited the neighborhood Radio Shack. No sign of converters. But it's not a very well stocked store, so no surprise there. I had some shopping to do at South Bay anyway (Shop and Shop and Home Depot), so off to Circuit City. First I looked around for a while; nothing found on the floor. Then I talked to an employee, who thought they didn't sell them. He looked on their web site and didn't find anything. So I looked on their site with different search terms (disclosure; I had already looked them up online before going to the store, so I KNEW what would work) and found the converter; he then looked it up in the store database and discovered that they actually DID have 8 of them, and managed to find them (on the floor, but in a dark corner) after a few minutes. Obviously they're not trying very hard to sell the things; I'm sure they would much rather sell a shiny new HDTV set.

But the good news; the converter works really well. No, it won't magically turn your old TV set into a high-definition set, but it will give you clear, ghost-free reception and access to multicast content. (That is, some stations broadcast more than one program at the same time on their digital channels. Channel 44 has four: Kids, Create, World, plus whatever is on analog channel 44 at the time. Channel 68 also has four, but they're all terrible. Channel 7 has full-time news and weather on a second channel.) As a bonus, it also gives access to closed captions; our bedroom television is JUST old enough to lack a caption decoder.

The DTT900 just does the basics. No S-video output (fancier options like component or VGA outputs aren't allowed in coupon-eligible converters), no smart antenna support, and only a basic electronic program guide (some other converters have a more complete EPG). But it makes up for that with excellent tuner performance; it receives the digital signals with much less antenna fuss than my old computer board needs, and successfully pulls in WUTF-DT (Telefutura) which the computer board never could manage. The UI is simple, including dedicated buttons on the remote for zoom (to deal with programming in different aspect ratios), secondary audio, and closed captions. Channel changes are fast; a major problem with some digital tuners. A lot of aspects of our A/V setup fail the Marian test (that is, it's too much button pushing for her to want to deal with -- maybe I'll fix that some day with a properly programmed Harmony Remote), but this one passes with flying colors.

For a mere $20 after the coupon, this is a cheap way to keep your old TV going a little longer. Thumbs up from me.

(Edited to add that you don't need one of these if you get your TV from cable, satellite, or FIOS; it's for over-the-air reception. And yes, that fine reception is with a simple pair of amplified rabbit ears, though it helps that it is currently winter - no leaves. We'll probably put up a modest outdoor antenna once the weather cooperates.)
About this Entry
Feb. 27th, 2008 @ 12:27 am (no subject)
Yesterday, I went to Harvard to try to attend the FCC hearing on net neutrality. I arrived half an hour before the start time, but all the seats were already full so I had to leave. (Standing room was still available, though a few minutes later even that wasn't and they stopped letting people enter the hall. In any case, I wasn't prepared to stand all day.) At the time, I at least felt gratified that the issue was important enough to enough people to fill the hall early. Then I read that Comcast paid people to pack the room. One more reason I'll never do business with them.

Net neutrality is important. It comes down to a basic question about the internet: do you want a future with YouTube, or one that only offers ThemTube? Do you believe that content creation should be widespread and democratic, or controlled by a handful of large media companies? We are at a historic moment where we can decide the future of an important medium.
About this Entry
Feb. 19th, 2008 @ 02:04 am More political thoughts
It appears that the Republican race is over, John McCain has won. Romney's withdrawal sealed it, especially as some of his delegates have gone for McCain. Huckabee hasn't officially withdrawn yet, but it's hard to imagine a path to victory for him.

The Democratic rate isn't decided yet, but Barack Obama seems to have all the momentum now. I suspect that it is in part because of McCain's victory; Obama is a stronger candidate against McCain, whereas Hillary Clinton might have been a better opponent for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

The big difference is the experience issue. With McCain as the candidate, any Democrat loses on that one. But there is the counter-issue, youthful enthusiasm, which Obama can use against McCain; Clinton could not have made as strong a case there. On the other hand, had the Republican nominee been Romney or Huckabee, neither of whom has any national political experience, Clinton would have been able to use the experience issue against the Republicans; Obama, because of his youth, would have had more difficulty capitalizing on that, and his youth counter-issue wouldn't be as strong against either of them as against McCain.

Clinton would have had a further advantage against Romney or Huckabee; male chauvinism could have become a major campaign issue. Both of them are associated with religions that are not very friendly to womens' rights. McCain still has some weakness on womens' issues, notably his staunch anti-choice position, but won't face the same charges of personal chauvinism.

Finally, there is the war in Iraq. With McCain as the candidate, it becomes more important, because he has made national defense a major campaign issue. Clinton's positions on Iraq have the problem of seeming less than solid (she voted to authorize war powers while in the Senate, and has expressed some support for the war); against McCain's solidity, she might successfully be portrayed as soft on defense. Obama's position against the Iraq war is more clear; sure, it wipes out any hope of picking up the hawk vote, but they weren't voting for the Democrats anyway. And his firmer position on Iraq will make the voters who like their Presidents to be decisive happier with him than they would be with Clinton.

One observer also pointed out a peculiar dynamic that might happen in a McCain-Clinton race. Usually, female candidates get painted as overly emotional. But in that matchup, Clinton is the cold technocrat and McCain is the emotional one; sadly, the voter's reaction would probably not be that "McCain is too emotional to be president" but "Clinton is too cold". Romney, in particular, would have been a better opponent for Clinton, as both are rather cool emotionally.

There are many differences between the two parties on issues I didn't mention. But there is very little difference between the two major Democratic candidates on any of them, and I don't see a lot of difference in the dynamic between the two parties either.

I think the important thing is to elect a Democrat -- either of them -- in November, rather than any Republican. For the record, I find McCain the least odious of the major Republicans who were running, but the choice for a Democrat is still clear. Above all, the war in Iraq must end; we had no business starting it, and we have no business there now. The Republicans won't end it; the Democrats probably will.
About this Entry
Feb. 19th, 2008 @ 01:01 am Cyberpunk: just what is it anyway?
I recently picked up a new book, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. (Just started, and haven't even finished the introduction, so no review yet.) The introduction talks about the history of the genre and the definition of the term, which made me think about my own definition of cyberpunk. The most concise one I can think of: "Cyberpunk is the genre of speculative literature that attempts to answer the question of what it is to be posthuman, and in so doing examines the question of what it is to be human."

Of course, that begs the question of what "posthuman" is. A central tenet of cyberpunk is that technology will continue to grow both more pervasive and invasive, and will therefore change the basic nature of humanity; things such as computer-brain interfaces and radical genetic modification (sometimes including substantial changes to the human form) are cyberpunk staples. But they aren't necessities; Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, a book that I place in the genre, manages without either of those, though it does make passing reference to yet another cyberpunk staple, nanotechnology.

In turn, that brings me around to talking about a book I read last fall but never got around to mentioning here, Accelerando by Charles Stross. To say that I liked it is an understatement; I think it was easily the best novel of 2006, even if the Hugo voters didn't agree (they preferred Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, a more conventional science fiction work), and perhaps one of the most important novels of the past ten years.

One way of looking at Accelerando is as the novelization of The Singularity Is Near, a non-fiction work by Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil's book tries to extrapolate recent trends of the rate of scientific advancement into the premise that we will reach a point he calls the singularity; a point beyond which prediction of the future is impossible because the rate of change will become too high. Stross takes the premise of the singularity, and looks at the question of how it will affect the people who live through and after it.

Another way of looking at Accelerando is as a 21st century post-singularity version of Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling's seminal cyberpunk novel. Like Schismatrix, Accelerando traces the progress of humanity into posthumanity by looking at a small number of related characters at various points in time; the structures of the two novels are strikingly similar, although the futures they postulate are very different. (Sidebar on Schismatrix; near the end of the book, Sterling spends quite a bit of time talking about Prigogenic levels of complexity as a way of examining his future society. At the time I originally read the book, I thought it was just a handwaving concept that Sterling had invented; years later, I found out that there a real scientist, Ilya Prigogine, who had developed that theory.)
About this Entry
Feb. 14th, 2008 @ 01:14 pm Being sick, and loving the Internet
I've been sick with flu-like symptoms for the past few days. (I qualify it as "flu-like" symptoms because I haven't bothered to get an official diagnosis. A bug of this sort has been going around recently, so I have every reason to believe that I got the usual thing rather than some unusual thing that doctors could actually do something about.) As is often the case, such things affect me strongly, and I thought of it as "being hit by a ton of bricks".

But now that we have Wikipedia, I had an idle thought -- just how big IS a ton of bricks? How many bricks are in it? The answers were, of course, at hand. "The density of solid clay bricks is around 2,000 kg/m³." "In the United States, modern bricks are usually about 8 × 4 × 2.25 inches (203 × 102 × 57 mm)." With those two pieces of data, we can calculate how large a ton of bricks is (a little less than half a cubic meter -- half a cubic meter would be a metric ton, or 1000 kg). In rough terms, we can estimate based on a 40x40x18 collection of bricks: 40 = 5x8, 40 = 10x4, and 18 = 8x2.25. (40 inches is a bit over a meter, which is 39.37 inches, and 18 is somewhat under half a meter, but we want a bit less than a metric ton anyway so that's OK, and this is just a thought experiment anyway.) So, in rough terms, our ton of bricks is 400 bricks, and each brick weighs about 5 pounds. That seems to be in the correct ballpark, based on my personal experience with bricks.

Isn't science wonderful?
About this Entry
Feb. 7th, 2008 @ 11:46 am Thoughts on this and that
First, my recent reading. I picked up Scott Westerfeld's trilogy of teen novels, Uglies, Pretties, and Specials, and devoured them over a few days. The basic setting: a future Earth where everybody gets surgery at 16 to make them pretty, in a mostly uniform sort of way. Highly recommended, whether you are a teen or not.

The nomination process remains a muddle, especially for the Democrats. They're down to two candidates now, but the delegates are split almost evenly. If this trend continues, neither of them will have a majority of the elected delegates at convention time, and the superdelegates (party officials and so forth) will decide the outcome. Over on the Republican side, McCain looks strong, but there is enough anti-McCain sentiment to possibly derail a coronation. It would be easier for the anti-McCain forces to succeed if one of the other two candidates were to withdraw, but it doesn't appear that either Romney or Huckabee will leave quietly.

The Super Bowl was a great game, contested until the final seconds. But the outcome was disappointing; it would have been fun to see football history made, rather than just watching a footnote. The Patriots missed a number of opportunities to win the game, though the Giants also missed chances to score more points. I think the injury to Tom Brady's ankle two weeks earlier was a factor; I base that on the poor accuracy of Brady's attempts at long passes. Pressure from the Giants was a factor, but I don't think it's the entire story; I have seen Brady play often enough to know that he is normally more on-target on those long passes than he was on Sunday.
About this Entry
Jan. 4th, 2008 @ 01:26 am Election 2008 now officially under way...
The Iowa caucuses happened tonight. On the Democratic side, Obama was the big winner, with Edwards and Clinton in a near-tie for second. Great news for Obama, bad for Clinton, probably somewhat good for Edwards (not a win, but better than had been expected). All the other candidates had 2% or less; Dodd has already withdrawn and Biden is expected to. Kucinich will probably see it through all the way to the end, as his candidacy has never been about winning the nomination anyway, but about getting his ideas into the political discourse. The other news is that the turnout in the Democratic caucuses was HUGE -- almost double the number in 2004.

The Republican picture is muddier. Huckabee was the winner in Iowa, but his support seems to have mostly come from evangelical Christians, and he's not going to play well in New Hampshire. Romney was second; a big disappointment given the amount of money he spent there. Thompson and McCain were in a near-tie with 13% each, but New Hampshire is a McCain stronghold, so their candidacies are headed in opposite directions. Paul got 10% of the vote; I still think he doesn't have a chance of being nominated, but that's a surprisingly strong showing for a fringe candidate, and he's likely to duplicate it in New Hampshire, a state with a strong libertarian streak. Guiliani finished behind Paul with 7%; he didn't campaign in Iowa at all, but that's still bad for an ostensibly major candidate.

So... what does it all mean? The Democrats are more united, with only three significant candidates; furthermore, most Democratic voters would probably happily vote for any of them in November. One interesting question; if Clinton fades, where will her voters go, to Obama or Edwards? The Republicans are a lot more divided, and the winner in Iowa ran in part by showing opposition to the incumbent Republican president, an unusual tactic.

I think that Romney is the big loser of the evening; if he doesn't manage to turn things around with a good result in New Hampshire, and current polls suggest that he won't, it may be the end for him. Clinton is also a loser, but she's not in as much trouble as Romney; even if she also loses in New Hampshire, she can hope to turn things around in the larger states that vote on Super Tuesday, whereas Romney is likely to do WORSE in those states. Guiliani's strategy of ignoring the small early states and counting on a big Super Tuesday is looking risky right now, but it could still work if the media don't proclaim him dead before the voters have their say.

I suppose we'll know a lot more about where this thing is going after the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
About this Entry
Jan. 2nd, 2008 @ 10:17 pm (no subject)
The New Year's party was a success. Not the biggest crowd we've ever had; the fact that New Year's was in the middle of the week this year was probably a factor. The people who were here seemed to be having a good time. [info]herooftheage is looking a LOT better; he also recently got the good news that he appears to be free of cancer now. I had a couple of long nights; after the party ended, it was trash night, so I had to deal with that. Mostly the house is back to normal now; we haven't taken down the Christmas tree yet, but we've got a few days because the next trash night isn't until Monday.

The next challenge: returning to normality, or what passes for it in my life. And finding a new job.
About this Entry
Dec. 16th, 2007 @ 01:21 pm Game Sunday is still on
Despite the weather, it's happening. But we recommend taking the T if you can. The streets are reasonably clear (the streets have been plowed, and it's raining here rather than snowing), but parking will be difficult, and getting home might be as well. Right now it's a bit above freezing, but temperatures are expected to drop after sunset.
About this Entry
Dec. 16th, 2007 @ 01:18 pm It was fun while it lasted...
"Hello,
First of all, let me personally thank you for your interest in Apple Retail and for your participation in our Mac Genius Seminar for the Boylston Street Apple Retail Store. It was truly our pleasure to meet you.

At this time we have chosen to move ahead with candidates who better meet the business needs today.

Thank you again for your time and interest in Apple. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Best regards,
Apple Retail Staffing"
About this Entry
Dec. 12th, 2007 @ 02:34 am Game Sunday
It's that time of month again; the third Sunday. So we're having another gaming day here at The Buttery, starting at 3pm and going until we get tired of it, which is usually somewhere between 10pm and midnight. We break somewhere in the middle to order dinner.

If you want to know more, send me an email and I'll fill you in.
About this Entry