...more recent posts
Yes, hello, I am still here. Just barely. The Wheel throws a mean party. I'm going to put it in the top 5 on my all time best time list, although I'd be at a loss to pick out the other four. My monitor is still causing me problems, and while it occasionally (like now) does work, I had moved it to the floor, and now my back will not have anything to do with moving it either back up to the desk or out to get repaired. My kingdom for a flat panel display. Maybe I'll just wait for the powerbook g4 announcement later this month and jump to the portable world.
Talked to another old friend from Montana a few days ago. Always makes me feel good, although now there is a certain vertigo associated with thinking back so long in time. I guess I'm still young enough that this is a novelty. Not so long ago there was no such thing as "long ago" or if there was it involved me as a child. Now I'm starting to have a long ago where I was out on my own, ostensibly an adult, although I have to admit that the person I remember as me was pretty lost and clueless. Still am, I guess, but now I'm a little more clever about it. I guess that comes with the "long ago" bit. Anyway, it's nice to hear from the past. Especially from this person. I lived for a few years with her and two other guys in college. All four of us combinded had maybe the motivation of one regular person in terms of thinking or planning for future careers. I guess this was something that drew us together. Sort of like a black hole. Fun fun times though. Now one of us is a big shot money manager type guy, the other male is a high powered computer consultant, and now she is in law school and loving the work. Go figure. I guess everyone gets it together after a while. Maybe there is still some hope for me.
Sitting at our table on New Years Eve, a girl to my right was asking people about new years resolutions. None of us had any, of course, but Alex had the best reply: "I'm low resolution this year." Cheers to that. I'm feeling a bit pixilated myself. When's that Montauk vacation?
Years from now I'll probably still be telling the story of how Mike and MB saved New Years Eve 2000. The last thing I remember was MB poking me in the side and saying "look at the light." I peeled an eyelid open and saw an incredible hazy orange dawn sky out of the window. That was all I could manage. The next thing I know it's a few minutes before nine and I hear Mike and MB come bouncing into the apartment laughing. They are both completely covered in snow. They have the look I don't often see here in New York of people satisfied with having completed a tough physical job. Out the window I can see 6 or 7 inches of snow on the fire escape already, and it's still coming down heavily. Looks like we're in for a big one. And then it all clicks in my mind. There had been some concern about getting the party to the party in such a storm, but I hadn't taken it too seriously. "The wine?" I ask. "It's all set" I am assured. They had moved the whole stash from Mikes to an undisclosed location very close to the party. With people like this on the job we will not be foiled. A tip of the hat to the New Years elves, working hard to insure out intoxication. Cheers.
The New York Times (Friday) has a full page obituary for W.V.O. Quine, an American philosopher, who died Monday at age 92. I wanted to be able to say something more on this occasion, but I just don't have the time today. If you have the NYTimes maybe you should check it out. It's fairly lengthy. He was very important to me, and to the path I took with my college career. I read the essay "Two dogmas of empiricism," which the Times talks about, in my freshman year, and it really set my mind toward philosophy (at least as it was presented in that context.) Not sure how it turned out, but I was surprised to see all the space the Times lavished on his obituary. I guess he was important to some other people as well. I'll have to find that essay and read it again. I think its in my storage space. Yikes. That would be quite an adventure. I haven't been there in years. Anyway, I wonder how I would find it now. Perhaps I'll report back.
MB took the neice and nephew (10 and 11) to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and they didn't like it. It all makes sense to me now, but I wouldn't have expected this (at least from the boy.) His complaint? The flying looked stupid. And indeed, I see what he's saying. I think it's beautiful, but I guess it could seem a little hokey. He thought they should just flat out fly around. Why all this jumping and skipping, and almost flying? For me it was brilliant because I'm not convinced that (some) people can't fly, and if anyone can, I think they probably do in a way similar to what Ang Lee shows us (as opposed to, say, the way superman flies which I doubt any human can do.) Anyway, here's an interview with Mr. Lee.
When I wrote about having monitor troubles I was refering to the fact that mine was refusing to wake up from sleep unless it was unplugged and left to sit for many hours (not too nice when you crash in the middle of the day.) But during my trouble shooting session yesterday I was carrying it up and down the stairs to test it on different machines, and I completely threw out my back. Is this the first shot of middle age? Seems a bit early if you ask me, but I'm hobbling around like an old man, that's for sure. I could barely get out of bed this morning. If I lay flat on my back, or sit or stand straight up, there is no pain.
So I've got that going for me.
How long does it take a back to fix itself? (Maybe I don't want to know the answer to that one.)
I haven't had much time lately for posting, and the spare moments I've had have been plagued by computer monitor problems. Oh well. I took a short trip to see my sister and her husband and my little neice and my mother for Christmas. This is a tradition I am appreciating more and more. Before I left Mike taught me the Penn Station trick to figure out the departing track number of your train before it is announced, and crouched in front of the one key computer terminal - downstairs, all the way in back behind the construction - I entered a secret league of expert New York travelers who have access to this sacred knowledge. This league was confirmed with just the slightest nod from the two other people who knew and were likewise waiting for the display to display. Finally it did, and the three of us were off, and on the train (seated!) before it was announced to the general public. Thanks Mike.
The ride up was on the new Accela train. It made the 4:50 minute trip to route 128 station Boston in 4 hours flat. It didn't feel any faster while riding, but that extra 50 minutes makes a big difference. Returned for a Christmas night meal here, and then was off again for the long ride up to fetch MB's neice and nephew from north of Albany. This was my first bit of driving in quite some time. I had forgotten how fun it is to drive a car. Powerful. It reminded me that I had a short episode of flight in my dream from the night before. This episode of dream flying consisted of me thrusting my finger in a pointing motion at my destination, which would start me flying along that path, as if the momentum of the pointing motion was propelling me toward the goal. I always want to fly in my dreams, but seldom do, or seldom remember, so I consider this a great treat.
Took a quick stop at Rockefeller Center last night with the kids. I hit it off with the security guard who was stationed at the base of the big tree. I guess he overheard me saying something sarcastic about how nice it was that they cut down this beautiful old tree so that we could use it as decoration for a week of so. It was as if he was beginning to suspect he might be crazy for harboring a similar misgiving about this tradition, and I had confirmed his sanity with my remark. Memo to whoever is in charge of these things: it might be better to plant one tree in that spot which could then be enjoyed year round, rather than killing a beautiful old tree every year. Or maybe that is crazy. I'll have to consult my tree expert on the feasability of growing a giant conifer in midtown Manhattan.
Anyway, I'm gearing up for the really big celebration, which is New Years Eve, and to that end I have been compiling some mixed CD's of music in the hopes of controlling the sonic aspects of the evening (which will take a back seat to the gustatory and oenophilic aspects of the evening, but will nevertheless be important.) It is a fun project, but the sheer volume of music needed for the whole night is making it rather slow going. Perhaps I'm over thinking the whole thing, but the order and build of the music seems important, and I'm trying to get it just right. Whether I'll be able to retain control of the stereo for the whole evening cannot be predicted (except maybe in the negative by the people actually having the party,) but I'm going to be ready. So back to my burner I go. Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Ho Ho.
Well, it must really be the Christmas season now. We went to a party last night in Brooklyn that turned out to involve everyone being assigned a part in the play "A Christmas Carol" which we then proceeded to read aloud. One act before dinner and one after. I'll admit to rolling my eyes and feeling slightly trapped when I learned of the evenings entertainment, but like so many things it turned out to be fun once we got going. I was Fezziwig, the second businessman, and the boy at the end to whom the transformed Scrooge gives money to buy a big fat turkey for the Crachets ("The one as big as me, Guv?") I kept thinking of Alex's appraisal of the story as one of the classic conversation tales of our culture. And it really is pretty good. I think Alex also said something about not being able to screw it up too much - due to the strong story line - but I'm not as convinced about that point. Fourteen unreheared rather drunken party-goers can do some dramatic damage. Still, thanks to a very good Scrooge and Marley we managed to hobble through. Certainly we all nailed that last line: "And to all a good night."
Another very bad idea for protecting digital content. Sounds like the big players are onboard (et tu, IBM?) but I'll eat my hat if they can get this through. Full backwards compatibility seems like a must, and I don't think this plan has it. (from HTP)
It's mid-month time, so that means the new crypto-gram is out. This month Bruce Schneier (the encryption and computer security guru) talks about voting and technology (plus a bunch of other stuff.) He points to this site by Rebecca Mercuri, calling it "...*the* web site on electornic voting...." As I thought, the experts are all horrified at the thought of computer (and especially internet based) voting schemes. As Schneier puts it:
"Online voting schemes have even more potential for failure and abuse. We know we can't protect Internet computers from viruses and worms, and that all the operating systems are vulnerable to attack. What recourse is there if the voting system is hacked, or simply gets overloaded and fails? There would be no means of recovery, no way to do a recount. Imagine if someone hacked the vote in Florida; redoing the election would be the only possible solution. A secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."This is a really hard problem to think of a solution for.
Lots of people seem impressed by the new google toolbar which plugs into Internet Explorer 5.x running on Windows. If I ran Windows I would probably check this out. There are some privacy concerns, but Google is very upfront about what it is tracking, and they have such a good reputation that it's hard even for someone usually suspicious (like me) to get too worried about this case. And anyway, you can turn off certain features that work by knowing your surfing history and the toolbar will still be useful without any sort of tracking (even anonymous) going on. Let me know if anyone tries this out.