Hitting the "A Flat"

Last night I did my part as a modern-day hunter-gatherer and drove out to the local Chipotle fast food emporium to shoot us some salads for dinner. After waiting about four days (well, that's what it felt like) in the traditional Chipotle Line from Hell I finally got our food and returned to the car, where I found the left rear tire flatter than Twiggy's ... well ... it was pretty flat. Nothing like changing a tire in a parking lot while wedged into the space between your car and the one parked too close to you on the other side.

Grrr, as Andrea would say.

Once I got the old tire off, I discovered a very large, very sharp chunk of metal embedded in it. Now, where the #%@! did that come from? I'm used to getting a flat every time someone in the neighborhood gets a new roof, because roofers relieve their boredom by spreading nails all over the place, but this looked like a big piece of Baghdad-quality shrapnel. AARRGGHH!! I manage to avoid all the monster potholes that threaten to eat my car, and now this.

Double grrr.

So today I get to enjoy the matchless excitement of spending a few hours buying a new tire (or two). This is not an experience that matches the usual weekend delight of playing with the local grandchildren, although it is easier on my back. I think I'll need that supersized gin and tonic by the time evening rolls around.

So...

No deep thoughts for today. Just a wish for some not-too-drastic misfortune to befall whoever left that chunk of metal for me to drive over. Let's see...how about a new Biblical plague suitable for the 21st Century? If Moses could call down frogs, locusts, darkness, and rivers of blood on the Egyptians, perhaps I could call down a plague of door-to-door preachers, or perhaps tie the miscreant to a chair and force him to listen to a few hours of Sarah Palin speeches.

No, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

Have a good day. Watch out for sharp things on the road.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - Now that summer is here and a young man's thoughts turn to ... well ... those things a young man's thoughts turn to when it's warm and the young ladies aren't wearing eighty-seven layers of clothes like they do in February ... here is a useful visual aid to help you distinguish the real from the not-so-real:

Don't thank me. It's all part of the service.

B.

Cartoon Saturday

A huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could end up costing more than $3 billion in containment and environmental cleanup costs; it's not a good time to be violating immigration laws in Arizona; the unemployment rate in Spain has topped 20%; Greece teeters on the brink of bankruptcy as its citizens balk at having to give up cherished benefits the country can no longer afford and foreign donors are unwilling to pay for; and reality star Kim Kardashian denies that the gastric effects of the giant burrito she allegedly ate on a recent airline flight caused the ... um ... foul stench noted by other passengers.

Yep, it's definitely time for Cartoon Saturday.

When you think of "cell," what's the first thing that comes to your mind - a phone, or a ... well ... cell?

And just in case you ever wondered about the biochemical basis for mitosis...

As we become increasingly aware of environmental issues, more and more people are looking to sources of renewable energy to power their homes. Members of Congress and political commentators, for instance, are able to use wind power, while many other people rely on the sun to generate power. Of course, solar power isn't for everyone...

Sometimes, you just have to go for the more expensive option...

Many scientists and theologians are concerned about modern science's ability to distort the natural balance of the sexes by allowing parents to select the gender of their children ...

And finally for this first Cartoon Saturday of May, we know that unemployment is a real problem here in the US (although not, happily, as bad as it is in Spain, which we noted in today's introduction). Many people rely on temporary jobs to get by, although some temporary positions are clearly better than others...

Last night's dance party was lots of fun, and this weekend features a retirement party for an old friend, quality time with the grandchildren, and the First Sunday Dance at the Candy Factory. How much better does it get? Hope yours is as good.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Why a Slide Rule is Better than a PC

First of all, do you even know what I'm talking about? If you went to school when dinosaurs like Mike and I did, you are probably familiar with the good old trusty, frustrating, guaranteed-to-make-you-look-like-a-geek Slide Rule.

This is a traditional Slide Rule:

This is a fancy circular Slide Rule:


You can go here to read everything you ever wanted to know about Slide Rules.

If you are of a certain age, you learned how to use a Slide Rule, rather than a calculator, to do your scientific and mathematical calculations. It was accurate enough for your routine needs, required no power, was lightweight and easy to carry, and was relatively cheap. It didn't have a memory, but if you needed to record your data, you used the only required peripheral device, the Paper Pad.

Today, few people use a Slide Rule because we have expensive graphing calculators and PCs. These are far more accurate than the good old slide rule and Paper Pad, but have their own problems. Here are a few of the many reasons Slide Rules are better than PCs...

1. A Slide Rule doesn't shut down abruptly when it gets too hot.

2. One hundred people all using Slide Rules and Paper Pads do not start wailing and screaming due to a single-point failure.

3. A Slide Rule doesn't smoke whenever the power supply hiccups.

4. A Slide Rule doesn't care if you eat or drink while using it.

5. You can spill coffee or a soft drink on a Slide Rule and keep on computing.

6. A Slide Rule never sends you snarky system messages about upgrades, reboots, and damaged files.

7. A Slide Rule and Paper Pad fit in a briefcase with space left over for lunch or a change of underwear.

8. You don't get junk mail offering pricey upgrades for your Slide Rule that fix current old errors while introducing new ones.

9. A Slide Rule doesn't need scheduled hardware maintenance, an IT staff, and a 24/7 help desk outsourced to a team of geeks in Carjackistan who barely speak English.

10. A Paper Pad supports text and graphics images easily, and can be easily upgraded from monochrome to color.

11. Slide Rules are designed to a standardized, open architecture.

12. You can use a Slide Rule to hit the obnoxious person in the next cubicle.

13. Nobody can steal your identity by hacking your Slide Rule.

14. You can upgrade your memory without limits by simply adding additional Paper Pads. No need to reconfigure anything, change any settings, or do any backups. "Backing up your data" consists of putting the old Paper Pad away in a drawer.

15. Nobody will make you feel bad by introducing a smaller, faster, cheaper Slide Rule next month.

Slide Rules. Don't leave home without them.

Have a good, low-tech day. More thoughts tomorrow, on Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

Remembering to Forget

Depending on how long you've been with me on this blogging journey, you may remember a post I wrote back on December 17th of 2006 on the subject of forgetting...or, more accurately, not forgetting. That post was based on an interesting observation by Lance Morrow in his book Evil: An Investigation - in discussing the mutual, visceral hatreds of all sides in the wreckage of what was once Yugoslavia, he asked a simple, but profound question: what happens if no one ever forgets?

He was addressing the issue of lingering hatreds ... the endless nursing of deadly grudges and animosities that prevents people from making peace and moving on to a better future. Israelis and Palestinians in the Levant, Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, Armenians and Turks, blacks and whites, North Koreans and everyone else - what happens when we never forget past ills, real or imagined?

Yesterday I found a new take on this idea in this article by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger - "Remembering the Importance of Forgetting."

In this article, Mr Mayer-Schonberger discusses what he calls "the permanancy of the past in the present," the fact that nothing digitally saved ever really goes away. Every e-mail you ever wrote, every document you ever saved, every digital photo you ever took tends to last forever, because storage is so cheap and easy that the default option today is save rather than delete.

I know it's true. When I bought my first computer in 1988, it had the biggest hard drive you could get at the time: a staggering 20 MB. I remember saying to Agnes, "Wow...20 megabytes...we'll never fill it up!" Today, of course, it's not unusual to have a single photo or document that's 20 MB or larger. When the 250 gigabtyte hard drive on my Mac failed a few months ago, I replaced it with a 1 terabyte drive...and the local stores are selling 1.5 and 2 terabyte drives.

It's now easier just to save everything than to go to the trouble of figuring out what to delete. At the office, we get periodic stern messages from our IT managers warning us to archive or delete files because our shared storage drives are nearing capacity. For a project I'm now working on, I have at least seven different versions of the document stored...and there will no doubt be several others by the time all the coordination comments are adjudicated. Oh, and there are also many versions of the comment adjudication documents that I also have to save to show how we accommodated everyone's concerns.

It's worse at home. In the days of film cameras, we filled up a 12- or 24- or 36-shot roll of film, had it developed, threw away the bad pictures, and saved the best ones in photo albums and scrapbooks. Today's digital cameras allow us to take hundreds of pictures and only print the ones we decide we like...but there's no need to delete the others, because storage is cheap and easy. The picture file on my Mac is 17.83 gigabytes in size...and doesn't include all the pictures I've archived on CDs and DVDs, or the ones I haven't yet transferred over from my laptop to the new 1 terabyte drive on the Mac.

When Agnes and I vacationed in Alaska, I took over 1200 pictures in seven days. When we went to Mexico, I took thousands more. I have no idea how many pictures of the five grandchildren I have.

The default option is save ... up to the point where you no longer have any idea what you have, and what's really important. As Mr Mayer-Schonberg writes,

"...it is worth remembering that there is a lot of value in forgetting. Forgetting permits us to transcend details and generalize, to see the forest and not just the trees."

What if nobody ever forgets? What if we continually are able to dredge up information we'd forgotten was out there, that may no longer be valid but can be reinterpreted and taken out of context to create from the past a false image of the present? Mr Mayer-Schonberg writes that,

"...we are increasingly confronted with outdated information taken out of context, from anachronistic news stories to emotional e-mails and compromising pictures that we had long ago forgotten. For example, more and more employers are researching job applicants through Google and social-networking Web sites. There are already many cases of people being denied jobs or promotions because of what is unearthed. But these are reflections of a person’s past; they rarely provide accurate information about the present."

Can we put the digital toothpaste back in the tube (or, more accurately, squeeze more of it out)? Can we learn the need to delete the unnecessary as well as the need to save that which is truly important? Can we even tell the difference any more? What digital time bombs are waiting in our blogs and our Facebook pages, waiting to blow up in our faces?

It's worth thinking about.

We all know the old adage about digital documents: save early, save often. Perhaps now we need its companion adage: delete regularly, delete ruthlessly.

Because what if nobody ever forgets?

Have a good day. Delete something. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

As If You Needed Something Else to Worry About...

Earthquakes, mudslides, out-of-control Toyotas, hurricanes, drug gangs, tornadoes, gun nuts, rap "music," extreme left-wing Democrats, murderously fanatical Islamists, environmental pollution, grand opera ... it's all enough to make you want to go back to bed and pull the covers over your head. How could things get worse?

How about invading space aliens? Not cute, gentle ETs ...

But really nasty ones ...

Yes, there are illegal aliens and there are illegal aliens. Some you can legislate against (not that anyone will pay attention to the law), and some you have to just scream and run from ...

You may wish to read this cheerfully optimistic article on CNN online: Should We Fear Space Aliens?

The answer is a resounding maybe.

It's entirely possible that aliens who stumble upon us could be friendly, benign, and willing to help us reach a higher level of technological and social evolution.

It's also possible that they might be afraid of our propensity for violence and intolerance, and unleash a can o' cosmic whoop-ass on us like we'd use Raid on a nest of cockroaches.

Should we look for life elsewhere in the vastness of the universe? Sure. I'm convinced it's out there, and it would be wonderful to know that we're not alone in the endless void. Should we advertise our presence by beaming signals out randomly? Uh, probably not. No sense in letting potentially hostile life forms know that we're capable of things like street gangs, "reality" TV shows, and cage fighting. I'm not ready to be the catch of the day at some tentacled alien's corner diner.

Give me good old earthbound illegal aliens any day. They may be scofflaws, an economic drain, and a general pain in the neck, but at least they don't eat you.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

From the "Why Bother?" Department...

Need a bemused shake of the head this morning? Consider this interesting article from CNN online: Muslim Swimsuits Bare Little on Turkish Catwalks.

The article describes, with pictures (of course) a fashion show highlighting swim fashions for Islamic women. These fashions are characterized by outfits which employ the maximum amount of material to show as little of the actual woman as humanly possible. Modesty is the chief characteristic of these fashions, which completely cover the arms, legs, and hair, leaving only hands and face exposed...here's an example:

In enlightened garden spots like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, only the eyes are exposed (if that)...

Of course, the point is not to swim or be comfortable, but to ensure that men are not distracted from godly pursuits by the ogling of ungodly women.

Me, I have no problem with swimsuits, regardless of the number of pieces (i.e., one or two). The only problem I have with swimsuits comes when they are not appropriate for the lady's body type. An observation I made in Europe long ago was that most ladies who go to topless beaches...shouldn't.

And before you ladies jump on me for that comment, I have the same problem with inappropriate swimsuits for men...there's nothing that spoils a perfectly good beach like a fellow with an enormous, hairy beer gut hanging down over the tight Speedo he thinks will attract the attention of desirable ladies to the outline of his manly hydraulics. The word "yuck" comes to mind.

In my case, of course, I'm always reluctant to be seen in public in swimming trunks. It's so annoying to be followed by crowds of beautiful women ... who probably just think I know the way to the public restrooms.

And let us remember the words of famous model Cindy Crawford: "They were doing a full back shot of me in a swimsuit and I thought, Oh my God, I have to be so brave. See, every woman hates herself from behind."

And lest I get behind in my schedule for the day, I think I'll leave it right here.

Have a good day. Wear the right swimsuit.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

"Lawyering Up"

One of the more interesting new expressions of the last few years is "lawyer up," defined by the Urban Dictionary this way:

"Lawyer Up (intransitive verb): to stop answering questions during a police interrogation and request a lawyer."

I think this is an elegant term, and very useful. Not for me personally, of course, not yet having been caught at never having done anything nefarious, but for politicians, priests, aging Nazis, and - yes - lawyers everywhere. One wonders how the concept of lawyering up for advice on matters of personal misconduct might have been employed by various historical figures...like a young George Washington accused of chopping down his father's cherry tree...

"George, did YOU chop down the cherry tree?"

"No, Dad."

"I think you are lying, son. I saw you out here with your axe. Your punishment will be much worse for you if you lie. Now, tell me the truth!"

"Dad, I answered your question truthfully. Still, I must take complete responsibility for all my actions. While my answer was legally accurate, I did not volunteer information.

"Indeed, Dad, I did cause the cherry tree to be lying on the ground. To do this was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.

"I know my answer to you gave a false impression. I misled you, my own father. I deeply regret that.

"I can only tell you I was motivated by many factors. First, by a desire to protect myself from the embarrassment of my own conduct.

"I was also very concerned about protecting Mom from this shock.

"What I did, Dad, was use a saw to cause the cherry tree to fall. Only after the tree was already down did I go get my axe to chop off individual branches. So, I chopped off branches, but sawed down the tree. Look at the saw cut on the stump and the axe cuts on the branches. Therefore, legally, I told the truth.

"I ask you to turn away from the spectacle of this fallen tree and to return our attention to a solid family relationship."

Lawyering Up ... a great American tradition that allows you to be in the company of such stellar figures as OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton, and Tiger Woods.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Downside of 3-D

The tremendous success of films like Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, and How to Train Your Dragon which were filmed and shown using three-dimensional technology, has led to a rush of movies and television shows trying to capitalize on the 3-D craze. Television sets that are "3-D ready" are already being marketed, and more movies that appear to leap off the screen at you are in the works. The technology of entertainment is racing ahead.

Look at the historical record:

First we had "moving pictures;"

Then "talkies" were the technology of the day;

Monaural sound gave way to stereo;

CinemaScope and widescreen came next;

"Smell-o-vision" had its (mercifully brief) time;

Dolby digital technology gave us amazingly lifelike surround sound;

IMAX gave us gigantic, mind-blowing images to go with the Dolby sound;

Now we have the latest technical evolution of 3-D.

And on and on and on. The technology of television and movie entertainment is incredible.

Too bad the content isn't keeping up.

Television still offers us things like My Mother the Car and Enos, while the history of movies contains gems like Heaven's Gate, Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy, and Gigli.

Technology can take you only so far before there has to be a story worth telling and actors worth watching.

Which brings us to this interesting article from CNN online: Can 3-D Movies, Television Make You Sick? (Hint: the answer is yes, for more than one reason)

Read it and think about some of the real dogs you've seen on TV and in the movies before you run out and plunk down $3000 or more on that 3-D capable big-screen TV.

Oh, I apologize to dogs everywhere for the characterization in the previous paragraph.

Have a good day. Leave the 3-D to the everyday world, where you don't need funky glasses to enjoy it.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Eleven people are missing after a huge oil rig exploded and burned in the Gulf of Mexico; a man in Rochester, New York, allegedly tried to sell his children on Craigslist; during a visit to Iran, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda called for a "nuclear-weapons-free world," while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinenjad remained unimpressed; doctors in Spain claim to have performed the world's first full-face transplant; and eleven suspected pirates have arrived in the United States to face criminal prosecution for attempting to attack U.S. Navy ships near Somalia.

Just like the cavalry in an old Western, Cartoon Saturday rides over the horizon to your rescue!

First, a clever commentary on the state of political affairs...

So far, I haven't had any takers on my latest offer to send a real, handwritten, ink-on-paper letter to the first five people who ask. Last time, I had five takers in no time (Amanda, Fiona, Mike, Andrea, John, and my daughter). Closest I've come is Mike's suggestion that I could write to him five times, ha, ha. Do you suppose people still know what a letter actually is?

There's a strong push in many quarters to make broadband internet service available to everyone. It's so much faster than dial-up service. Or earlier levels of download speeds...

Two more looks at modern technology...first, a 21st century reimagining of Shakespeare...

And a tech factor that contributes to the problem of obese children in America...

Finally, yet another great crash test dummy cartoon...

It looks like it's going to be a nice day here in Northern Virginia, if a bit cloudy...could be another good time to pull weeds in the garden. Or sit on the deck and drink gin and tonics. Hmmm...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The All-New $100 Bill

One of the major crimes that is resolutely fought by police and federal authorities in this country is counterfeiting, defined as "the illegal reproduction of money with intent to deceive." That means that the person who prints the money wants to trick you into believing that it is actually worth something. We call this individual and his accomplices the Department of the Treasury.

But seriously, folks...

Counterfeiting is a serious problem. People must have confidence in the value of the cash they pull out of their wallets to pay for food, new cars, lottery tickets, baggy jeans, and double venti vanilla cappuccino frappes at Starbucks. Iraqis and Afghans need to be confident that the huge pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills we ship to their countries are worth enough to pay them to stop acting stupid for a while.

One of the ways your government fights counterfeiters is by redesigning the currency every few years. This year it's the turn of the beloved $100 bill, also known as the "C-note" or the "Benjamin" (in honor of the American historical figure whose grumpy visage is on the front). The Treasury Department this past Wednesday unveiled the redesigned $100 bill, which includes an embedded security thread, a new watermark, and a holographic image of Benjamin Franklin that wags its finger in disapproval when the bill is placed on a copy machine.

I personally don't care about the redesigned $100 bill. The chances that I'll ever see an actual $100 bill, real or counterfeit, is vanishingly small. The truth is that the $100 bill exists for the convenience of lobbyists, who find it a convenient denomination for stuffing envelopes to be presented to the legislators they are renting. After all, a $10,000 payoff paid in one-dollar bills would require a small steamer trunk, whereas the same bribe paid in Benjamins could be conveyed in a fairly small envelope able to be conveniently carried in an inside pocket or hidden in a freezer. C-notes are also popular with rappers, as they make an impressive wad with which to impress ladies who would otherwise recognize them as talentless low-lifes, and to compensate for the small size of their ... uh ... never mind.

So, friends, be confident that the Department of the Treasury is taking every technical measure to ensure the security of the hundreds that you shell out to your congressman, corner drug dealer, or the IRS. And the rest of the Federal Government and the financial mismanagement industry are working together to ensure that those hundreds aren't worth enough to make them worth counterfeiting.

Now, that's security.

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo