Friday December 19, 2003

Got some holiday shopping done at Borders today. The area around the mall here in town was rather normal — there were some open parking spaces and fairly short lines. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is six days away … I was too busy to pay attention to the fact that it has been December for the last two weeks. In any event, I think that I did fairly well with my assigned tasks. Furthermore, I would like to strongly commend whatever was the first business to provide free gift wrapping. For those who lack the manual dexterity to do it themselves, this is a positively glorious thing.

In the news, this morning marked the unveiling of final plans for reconstruction of the WTC site in Lower Manhattan, due to begin next fall for the 3rd anniversary of 9/11 — but rebuilding the site will take nearly a full decade to complete. I must say that I am pleased with what these architects came up with, especially for the grand centerpiece: Freedom Tower, a 1776-foot skyscraper, tallest in the world, topped by green space and a brilliant spire reaching upward. G’ahead and take a look for yourself.

Update 1: The D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Appeals Court ruled that Verizon does NOT have to turn over the names of identified music-swappers to the RIAA, the music industry group leading the crusade against college students everywhere, who subpoenaed them for that information. There is a long road ahead, though, but at least this lunacy is briefly in check. The ruling on copyright law and file-sharing will come down to some decision by the Supremes at some point in the near future.

Update 2: In an instant message conversation this evening, I was driven to give some thought to my writing, and I have some excellent self-observation: “My best writing comes from that dark netherworld of sex and violence and death, juxtaposed with the everyday world. It must be edgy, even disturbing, to get the whole thing across.”

Sunday December 14, 2003

Freezing rain falling outside, making a crackling sound as it strikes the external air conditioner unit. The fourth exam is now done, a straight-forward exercise, and I’m just relaxing here and trying to let the stress flow out of me after accumulating from this solid month of having the nose up against the grindstone. This has been quite an ugly semester, the most burdensome time of my life. A mild push helps my creativity, but having to write paper after paper nonstop is not helpful. Having a woman sure would help.

The New York Times has picked up on what I’ve been saying for quite some time now: Microsoft PowerPoint is pure evil. Indeed, presentations on those homogeneous slides have recently been pointed out as a contributing factor in the Columbia disaster. NASA had abandoned traditional paper-based reports in favor of electronic presentations in recent years; upon finding that there was damage to the wing, engineers put together a confusing tangle of points and graphs that was completely unintelligible to senior officials, leading to the problem to be misjuged and no action to be taken.

More broadly, the article discusses whether PowerPoint might be making us stupider. As we all know, it’s sickeningly ubiquitous … every professor, executive, or anyone else that’s too stupid to use any other form of technology is ridiculously obsessed with the damn thing. Edward Tufte, an eminent communication theorist, establishes that PowerPoint leads to very little knowledge transfer; charts and bullet points are so very superficial, low-density ways to confer information. The NYT article concludes with this thought: “Microsoft PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of obfuscation — where manipulating facts is as important as presenting them clearly. If you have nothing to say, maybe you need just the right tool to help you not say it.” Indeed.

Saturday December 13, 2003

Tonight I present you with the frightening proposition that I, as well as millions of other young American males, might be unexpectedly getting shot at in two years. The generally inert Selective Service System — the government agency of 156 people that runs the military draft – is hiring en masse; the SSS has also received a sizable budget hike. Here’s some various pieces on what I’m talking about here from the Orlando Weekly, (Barstow) Desert Dispatch, Tallahassee Democrat, and Ames Tribune. The bottom line is that, according to Federal documents, Bush is planning to restart the draft as early as June 2005, presuming his re-election. Despite scant print media coverage, this was talked about on MSNBC’s Countdown program this evening.

While reinstating the draft has been whispered about on the political extremes, it is now gathering mainstream acceptance in Congress as a solution to the problem of having too few military personnel to cover our commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and South Korea … plus wherever else the military plans on invading next. And by the way, were a draft to occur, they would start with twenty-year old folks. Having been born in 1985, some quick arithmetic reveals that I would be at the top of the draft list. Needless to say, I am severely freaked out, as should anyone that would be in the 18-26 age range at the time of such a draft. Anyone that said Iraq wouldn’t ever turn into Vietnam should have just gotten a reality check. If this doesn’t get my generation politically involved, then nothing will. Finally, if you think that being in college will keep you out of the draft, as was the case in the 60s and 70s — no way. You can only defer service until the end of that semester in which you were drafted. I’m now getting severely tempted to vote for Howard Dean next fall …

Tuesday December 9, 2003

So that Medicare prescription drug benefit atrocity was signed by George W. today. Positively joyous. Another $40 billion per year added to the budget, if CBO estimates are miraculously accurate. And while not quite on the same scale, I’ve found an even more sickening way for the Feds to spend your money. Indeed, Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada has earmarked $225,000 to remodel a swimming pool in his old hometown of Sparks. Why, you ask? Because he feels guilty for having put tadpoles in the pool back in his younger days, clogging the pipes, leading to its temporary closure. Regardless of whatever remorse you may have, Jim, the Constitution does not include any mention of the Feds’ need to maintain our nation’s summer cool-off spots. Just a thought.

College football has just hit the point of lunacy this weekend. Only a bunch of fools could concoct a mathematical formula such that the #1 team in the nation is now #3. Has anyone looked at those computer rankings? Look at them. Take a team like the Miami RedHawks. Depending on the computer, their position ranges from 3rd to 22nd. Maryland varies all the way between 11th and 31st. The BCS is goin like a ship without a rudder. As nice as a playoff would be, we wouldn’t even need one if the two teams chosen to play for the national title were picked rationally. This season, as both writers and coaches decided, that matchup would be USC-LSU. I hope that USC beats Michigan in the Rose Bowl; the national title will be split and all apologists for the BCS will finally be forced to shut up. And after all, there would be the benefit of seeing those damn Wolverines suffer.

Just coming across into the mass media: 31 soldiers have been injured in Mosul in a coordinated car bomb attack on barracks of the 101st Airborne. Here we go again, y’all. This latest attack by Baathist remnants comes after news that the tales of 54 dead Iraqi rebels seemingly having been created out of nowhere. Finally, though … on a far more light-hearted note (depending on your point of view), we have this.