Today's deep, dark secret...I may like caturday. I saw a few of the 'very funny cats' videos on Youtube. Most of the individual spots within each video were 'meh,' but there were some that made me laugh.
Katamari Wikipedia (Kwiki?*)
The idea is to start with 1 article on Wikipedia an follow whatever links to other Wikipedia articles interest me. I started with the Sea Shadow because it looked neat. I originally intended to follow this clump of articles until I reached a buffer of topics that didn't interest me. It didn't turn out that way though. It's kept going and going, with no sign of a boundary at any reasonable point. I know Wikipedia has a finite number of articles (around 2.28 million), but it's functionally infinite for this project. So i'll probably stick with the Sea Shadow clump.
How do I choose which topics to list, which path to follow? I think what i'll do is go through the entire starting topic and list all of the 1st's that interest me even remotely, then go back and follow individual chains in whatever order I feel like at the time. I'm curious as to how long it will take me to tire of a particular session, or if i'll just keep following the first session for weeks, months, years. I'm also curious to see how wide the connecting topic will range. How quickly (let's say, either with trying or without trying) can I get from, say, the Sea Shadow to Strawberry Shortcake? Ah, the Kevin Bacon game. I wonder if i'm imagining it or if someone actually wrote a program that will play the Kevin Bacon game, but with Wikipedia articles instead of actors? The 'what links here' feature makes this a great deal easier to keep track of.
I kept adding to the list, keeping track of how many degrees each topic was removed from the Sea Shadow. It quickly became apparent that keeping track of the changing degrees would be too hard. I started out just noting the degree next to a link of each topic in Frontpage. The problem was that I would occasionally encounter a topic (at a much earlier point in the tree) that would link to a topic much further down. It's easy enough to change the degree for a single topic, but when that happens all of the topics near (both above and below) the later topic have a chance of moving to a higher point (fewer degrees) in the tree. I needed a way to easily assign, remove, and re-assign parent / child connections.
Parent / child >> genealogy >> Family Tree Maker (FTM). I use FTM to work on my family tree from time to time. It's easy to attach and detach children. I started a new 'family' and entered 292 of the 293 topics I had up to that point. I had a topic called 'Scientist Joke' on my list, but when I went to check Wikipedia I found no article. My best guess is that either I copied a link that pointed to a non-existent topic or the topic was deleted some time between starting the list and entering data in FTM. I also found that, while I had noted how many degrees each topic was from the Sea Shadow, I had not kept track of which topic linked to which other topic. As I entered data in FTM, I connected the topics as best I could, but I was unable to connect everything without adding additional topics. I don't know whether I made mistakes in noting the original 292 topics or the articles changed, leaving topics that had been connected, unconnected. I ended up adding a total of 42 new topics.
Here's the original 292 topics:
Here's the 42 additional topics:
Original Topics (292) Only:
| Total Degrees Without Refinement** | 3,551 |
| Average Degrees Without Refinement | 12.16 |
| Topics At 10 Degrees Or More | 201 |
| Total Degrees With Refinement | 1,634 |
| Average Degrees With Refinement | 5.60 |
| Topics At 10 Degrees Or More | 4 |
| Topics With Fewer Degrees | 233 |
| Topics With More Degrees | 44 |
| Topics With Same Degrees | 10 |
New Topics (42) Only:
| Total Degrees | 211 |
| Average Degrees | 5.02 |
| Topics At 10 Degrees Or More | 0 |
All Topics (334) Together:
| Total Degrees | 1,845 |
| Average Degrees | 5.52 |
| Topics At 10 Degrees Or More | 4 |
** Without refinement: The original 292 topics, with the degrees as noted when I bookmarked each topic. With refinement: The original 292 topics, with the degrees updated to reflect the connections to the new topics.
Yes, it is possible to go from the Sea Shadow to Strawberry Shortcake, 15 steps in the path I found. Sea Shadow >> Lockheed >> Lockheed Martin >> F-22 Raptor >> 4th Generation Jet Fighter >> YF-23 >> Edwards Air Force Base >> Murphys Law >> Finagles Law >> Larry Niven >> Man Kzin Wars >> Relativistic Kill Vehicle >> Schlock Mercenary >> Webcomic >> Penny Arcade >> Strawberry Shortcake. That seemed a bit unwieldy, so I looked for a shorter route. Got it down to 6 steps: Sea Shadow >> F-117 >> Candice Bergen >> Muppet Show >> Muppet Babies >> Star Comics >> Strawberry Shortcake.
I want to export the chart from FTM, but FTM's export function (to PDF) doesn't seem to work in Vista. When I start FTM, Vista gives me a message about 'known compatibility issues' and offers to check for a solution online. I let Vista do so, and it tells me to update FTM. I went to FTM's web site and looked for a patch for my version (2006) of FTM. There is no patch to download, only a page that says to start FTM, then Help >> Check For Update. I did that. FTM says there's an update and would I like to download it? Yes, I would. FTM then tells me the update will be applied the next time I start FTM. I close FTM, then start FTM, and...no change. No 'your update has been applied,' no 'applying update,' and when I do Help >> Check For Update again, the process repeats. We still have a computer running XP, but I don't know if i've installed FTM on that one. Yes, I realize that, to be legal, I would have to buy a 2nd copy of FTM to run it on the other computer at the same time. I don't know whether or not it would be legal to install the one copy of FTM I do own on the other computer, provided I had only one instance of FTM running at any one time. Anyway, it frustrates me- both FTM and Vista. I know there's probably a way to get this to work on my Vista system, but I don't like it being this difficult. This is the kind of thing that makes me think about Linux (for an OS) and Legacy (for genealogy).
What I want to end up with is a PDF, either a 'fan tree' or an 'all in one tree,' generated by FTM, with links to each topic in each topic's box.
What's the point of all this? Who knows? Since when does a nerd need a reason to count stuff?
* With you, never a quickie. Always a longie.
The material below appears to identify me as a Christian. Without saying I am or am not a Christian, the logic of the material below flows better if we assume that I am a Christian.
I was reading about the Danish cartoons about Mohammed and the violent protests that followed. I realized something that bothers me- maybe about Christians, Muslims, and how they (as a whole) seem to react to offensive material. For example, on the one hand we have the Danish cartoons about Mohammed and the violent protests. I understand the Koran forbids images of Mohammed and I understand that the particular content of the cartoons could be seen as offensive. On the other hand, I see Jesus portrayed in ways that could be seen as offensive (sometimes on Southpark, for example) and I see stuff like the news group 'f- the skull of Jesus,' but I don't see riots and protests in the streets over this material. The part that bugs me so much is seeing the Muslim world get so angry over anything that they find offensive, but here in the United States we have to accept pretty much any offensive, anti-Christian material that anyone puts out. They say things like 'death to the unbelievers' and we're stuck with things like 'that's nice, everyone's entitled to their opinion.' Why is that? Why is it apparently ok for everyone in the Muslim world to get so excited over offensive material, but I have to put up with all this anti-Christian stuff? Is it a result of the fundamental nature of the United States- free speech and all that? Is it because folks in the Muslim world get ticked off a lot easier? Maybe i'm proceeding under a false assumption- that there's more reaction to offensive material in the Muslim world than in the Christian. I suppose it could be that there is a vocal minority in the Muslim world (their angry people are louder), compared to the angry Christians who are drowned out by the much larger population of not-angry Christians.
One perception that I find myself leaning strongly towards is that the fundamental difference is how much power the angry people have in each world. Is it that the Christians are the good guys and the Muslims are the bad guys? No, I don't think so. From a religious standpoint, I would think that God would be happy with whatever path people take, so long as they end up being closer to him. So it's not 'we're good and they're bad.' I think it's an issue of tolerance. Could it be a matter of strength vs weakness for our respective societies? Is a society that is more tightly bound to a particular set of beliefs weaker because it is less able to cope with new or different ideas? Is it insecurity? Is a more tightly bound society afraid of new or different ideas?
I think what defines the good guys vs the bad guys for me is which group lets people live their lives the way they want to the greatest extent. It is not ok to hang someone just because they disagree with you. It is probably ok to hang someone who has, without some sort of reasonable justification (ex: self defense), killed someone else. In the United States we let people live the way they want to live, so long as they don't infringe on other people exercising those same rights. That, I think, is what makes us the good guys. Christians, let's say in the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which no one expected), were quite capable of being the bad guys. Muslims are equally capable of being the good guys. What matters ends up being less about one's choice of religion and more about one's society. Then things like freedom of speech come into play, affecting how much or little one can effect change in society.
Enough with the big ideas. I want something that doesn't give me headaches.
I've heard the radio commercials for Lifelock, a service that's supposed to protect you from identity theft. It sounds good, provided their service lives up to its claims. From what i've read online, they file a continual stream of credit alerts in your name with the 3 major credit bureaus. If you have reason to believe you might be the victim of identity theft, you can file this kind of alert yourself, for free. Lifelock file such an alert, then files another alert before the first one expires. From the credit bureau's perspective you're in a continual state of emergency. This creates an enormous amount of extra work for the credit bureaus. It's extra work they don't want to do. The way I see it, there's a certain amount of 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' here. If the credit bureaus are inundated with hundreds or thousands of time as many alerts, they might be less likely to take individual alerts seriously. I like the idea that Lifelock is protecting its customers from risk, but I don't like the idea that i'm having to lie (through Lifelock) in order to get that protection. Morally, I suppose the right thing to do is not do business with Lifelock. On the practical side of things, if it's going to prevent people from screwing with my credit rating, maybe I do want to do business with Lifelock.
I really should write an epistle to Walmart at some point. I've got quite a lot to say to them, both good and bad (mostly good). Today it's good stuff.
Carol and I do most of our grocery shopping at Walmart. The Crystal Light and Vita Splash stuff below is in the 'drink mix' section. As i've done several times in the past, I stopped drinking caffeine (mainly Diet Coke). I like having something to drink that's low enough in calories that, for the most part, I don't have to worry about gaining weight from it. Carol's been drinking bottled water with these little Crystal Light flavor packets added. It's sort of like single serving, sugar free cool aid. I tried a few, and they're pretty decent as far as taste. I tried them and continued to enjoy them long enough to decide on water (tap, in my case) plus flavor packets as a replacement for soda. I tried several different flavors and brands (not just Crystal Light). The one i've ended up liking best is Vita Splash Multi Vitamin Tangerine Strawberry. The flavor's good. It's not that I have a thing for tangerines or strawberries. This particular version (Multi Vitamin) of Vita Splash gives me 50% of my daily requirements on a total of 16 vitamins. I typically drink 2 or more of these per day, so I get a minimum of 100% of 16 vitamins without having to do anything extra (remember to take a pill, remember to eat something I wouldn't normally eat, etc.). There's another variety of Vita Splash that has 100% of a few vitamins, but Multi Vitamin has a greater number of vitamins at 50% or more than the other varieties of Vita Splash.
And now for something completely different. I finally got around to watching John Cleese in the 1968 show How To Irritate People. He makes some good points, especially about building tension but not to the point of allowing it to boil over. The point being to allow the tension to fester inside of the person without it boiling over, which releases much of the tension. It reminds me of the mocking game.
The Mocking Game. I've only played this a couple of times, and never with complete strangers, as i'd like to avoid having my hinder kicked, or trying this with people who are exercising their 2nd Amendment rights. The mocking game is played in a room with at least 2 other people. There isn't really an upper limit on the number of people in the room, but these 2 people are essential to the game. These 2 people must be talking to each other. You stand within the field of vision of one person (A), but as near to directly behind the other person (B) as possible. As you watch them converse you'll see the person facing you gesture in some manner or other. If they're not using any kind of physical gesture at all you might want to find a different mark. Even if they're just making normal little waving gestures with their hands this works. As A gestures, you mimic A's gestures. That's it. If you keep doing this, A will eventually notice you. This is when the game really begins. You want to try to avoid looking directly at A. It works better and it gives A a better chance to do a slow burn. If you make eye contact, you're giving them a direct line to you, giving them a chance to release their anger. If A notices you and stops gesturing, you stop gesturing too. If A directs B's attention toward you, stop mimicking A and do something else, something you can transition to quickly and plausibly. If A stops talking to B and approaches you, you're in a tight spot. If A is going to kick your A, then running is an option, but you look guilty. If A approaches you to 'have words' with you and B is observing, then deny everything. The key here is keeping a straight face. If you can manage this, responding with things like 'is something wrong,' 'are you ok,' or (directed to B) 'is your friend here ok,' then you place A in the position of acting increasingly strangely in front of B. If you make A mad enough to fight, to boil over, then you're allowing A to release his/her anger. If, on the other hand, you can get A good and worked up, but not quite into rage territory, then A will still have some sense of the increasing strangeness of his/her own actions in front of B. A will not want to look crazy in front of B and so will have tension from the 2 competing forces of releasing his/her anger at you and maintaining some appearance of sanity in the presence of B. It simply can not be overstated- know your mark. The more you know about A and the less B knows about you, the better.
I wrote to someone about the 2nd Amendment (keep and bear arms) the other day:
It all started with a nice, simple question that I know many, many people have asked before. I really didn't set out to write more than a paragraph or two. Here's what I ended up with:
The 2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I've heard 2 general interpretations of the 2nd Amendment. One is that this grants a well regulated militia (state guards or private militias, I wonder?) the right to bear arms. The other is that this grants the people the right to bear arms in order to be able to form a well regulated militia. Gun control folks would argue the former, because that gives them a way to keep guns out of the hands of individuals. Gun advocates would argue the latter, because that gives them a way to put guns in the hands of individuals. What i'd like to know is whether or not my understanding of the amendment makes sense and is correct?
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That says the people have the right to have guns. The part about a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state appears to give us the reason for having the right to keep and bear arms, but it doesn't appear to modify who the right applies to. Therefore I have the right to keep and bear arms, period.
The amendment doesn't mention, in any way, what sort of arms (say, hand gun vs M16) and it doesn't mention where those arms can be born (at home, walking down the street, in a store, etc.). Saying I can have only certain kinds of guns is an infringement. Saying I can only have guns in certain places is an infringement. This would appear to give me the right, barring another amendment, to own and carry around a fully automatic M16 in my daily life. While I realize this would not be a popular idea, it appears to be so obvious that I don't see how there could be any reasonable question of the founders' intent in the matter.
So, what's the deal?
One argument I could see is that we already have a well regulated and well equipped militia. The people don't need guns because a well regulated militia exists and it has plenty of guns already. But the amendment doesn't say 'unless a well regulated militia has already been established' and it doesn't say 'unless there's no need for it.'
Pause...Reading (at guncite.com/gc2ndsup.html) about Supreme Court cases involving the 2nd Amendment...And...Resume.
US v Cruikshank (1876). This case appears to be frequently misunderstood in that it says, specifically, that the right to bear arms for a lawful purpose is not a right granted by the Constitution. The misunderstanding appears to be that this doesn't mean that the right doesn't exist; rather, that it existed prior to the Constitution. However, the case also says that '...no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress' and 'has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government.' Does that mean the supreme court's opinion in US v Cruikshank (1876) is that the 2nd amendment says the federal government can not restrict the bearing of arms, but that the amendment does not apply to state governments? Does that mean the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to state governments? So the federal government has to let me have my guns, but the state government is bound by that same requirement?
Presser v People of Illinois (1886). This case appears to say that states do have the right to control and regulate military bodies, and it re-affirms that the 2nd Amendment applies only as a limitation to the federal government. However, in a side opinion (doesn't count as precedent...?) the court ruled that 'the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question [the Second Amendment] out of view prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms.' But it's a side opinion, so i don't know how much (if any) meaning or importance it has.
Miller v Texas (1894). The supreme court refused to consider whether or not Miller's 2nd Amendment rights had been violated because this charge was added to Miller's case on appeal, but wasn't part of the original case.
US v Miller (1939). In this case the supreme court indicated that there needed to be evidence that a shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length 'has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.' An easily concealable weapon would seem to have any number of obvious uses in a time of war. The 2nd Amendment doesn't make any statement about such a (potential) use needing to be proved, just that the people have this (keep and bear arms) particular right. The court also talked about a shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length not being part of ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. I don't understand why this isn't also very obvious: If it's not part of ordinary military equipment, then that means the opponent isn't expecting it, which means it (the shotgun) is unexpected, more of a surprise, and therefore useful. The court said 'the Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with a view to its purpose of rendering effective the Militia.' The 2nd Amendment says, in effect, 'for <this reason>, people have <this right>.' The 2nd Amendment does not say 'people have <this right>, but only if they use it for <this reason>.'
Lewis v US (1980). This case talks about the rights of convicted felons. It also re-asserts the argument in US v Miller (1939) that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to arms that do not have 'some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.' I understand that i'm just an average citizen and that I don't have decades of experience in constitutional law, but the text of the 2nd Amendment just doesn't speak, at all, about particular kinds of arms. It speaks of arms, period. I guess what I disagree with court about is the question of what makes a 'reasonable relationship,' and who gets to decide what makes up such a relationship? I thought one of the fundamental tenants of our society- one of the basic republican ideals- was that the best decisions for an individual are made by that individual. In other words, if I myself can think of a use for a particular kind of arm, then there's a use.
Burton v Sills (1985). In this case the court expressed fears of political assassinations, killings of law enforcement officers, and sniping during riots. The 2nd Amendment says 'the people have <this right>,' not 'the people have <this right>, provided no one could misuse it.'
US v Verdugo-Urquidez (1990). The main issue in this case was whether or not 'the people' include individuals who are not citizens of the United States and do not reside in the United States. The court's opinion was that 'the people' 'refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.' The interpretation of the 2nd Amendment I end up with is this: There needs to be a well regulated militia. The individual has the right to keep and bear arms. There are no requirements- either as to the type of arms or what actions the individual must take in order for this right to apply to that individual- only that the individual has the right to keep and bear arms. There is no requirement that an individual who does keep and bear arms belong to a militia. The limitation of any particular kind of arm would be an infringement, therefore this amendment applies to all arms. Therefore the individual has the right to keep and bear any arm, whether or not the subject is a member of a militia. Bad things may happen as a result of an individual's exercise of this right, but this in no way affects another individual's exercise of that same right. If the Supreme Court were to rule that individuals do, in fact, have the right to keep and bear arms, such a ruling might be unpopular or might result in an increase in shootings- people who, though lawfully exercising their right to keep and bear arms, unlawfully discharge those arms. The popularity of such a ruling and the results of such a ruling are irrelevant. The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution according to what the court understands to have been the intention of the founders. If the people don't like the ruling, or the results of the ruling, it is the job of the people to ratify an amendment to the Constitution.
Israel. They have a problem there with suicide bombers. I understand that, many years ago, they used to have a problem with the same variety of bad guys (from their point of view), but instead of suicide bombers, the bad guys were gunmen who would walk into a crowded area and start shooting as many Israelis as possible, before the police / security / military arrived and stopped them. A concerted effort was launched to arm all Israeli citizens. After this, when a bad guy would start shooting, pretty much everyone around would draw their own weapons and make short work of the gunman. The bad guys then transitioned from using lone gunmen to suicide bombers. Does that mean that bad guys here would switch from guns to suicide bombing? I don't think so. I just don't see a guy robbing a convenience store with the threat of blowing himself up. Yes, I know some crazy people would try it and I might be making the mistake of attributing intelligence to people who rob convenience stores, but the expected payoff just doesn't work. Bad guy: 'Give me your money or i'll blow us both up.' Store clerk: 'If you blow us both up, you'll be dead, so you won't have the money anyway.' I think what would happen more often is that people who want to rob stores will find other ways of robbing stores. A decrease in armed robberies traded for an increase in shoplifting? I can live with that.
What is the purpose of having the right to keep and bear arms? Why did the founders want to guarantee that right? Side question- the Bill of Rights was written by whom and roughly when? Is it correct to say that it was written by the founders? I want to say it was written in the late 1700's, but i'm not sure. So, why the right to keep and bear arms? Why the need to be able to form an organized militia? I know one of the main reasons is to be able to defend ourselves in the invent of civil insurrection- a breakdown in the government. We might say that our current government is strong and that such a thing could not happen in this day and age, but I remember the LA riots in the 1990s, so it could happen. Another reason someone reminded me of- a reason people do not like to talk about for the most part- is a limitation on the government's power. Our government is based in part on checks and balances. Each branch of the government exists to prevent the other branches from becoming too powerful. The right to keep and bear arms exists, in part, to give the people a way of preventing the government from becoming too powerful or oppressive. Essentially it's a self-destruct mechanism in case we turn into the bad guys. We're a long way from that point and I don't think we're ever going to reach that point, but that's part of the system in case we do. Other checks and balances should kick in long beforehand.
What is the purpose of having the right to keep and bear arms? Why did the founders want to guarantee that right? Side question- the Bill of Rights was written by whom and roughly when? Is it correct to say that it was written by the founders? I want to say it was written in the late 1700's, but i'm not sure. So, why the right to keep and bear arms? Why the need to be able to form an organized militia? I know one of the main reasons is to be able to defend ourselves in the invent of civil insurrection- a breakdown in the government. We might say that our current government is strong and that such a thing could not happen in this day and age, but I remember the LA riots in the 1990s, so it could happen. Another reason someone reminded me of- a reason people do not like to talk about for the most part- is a limitation on the government's power. Our government is based in part on checks and balances. Each branch of the government exists to prevent the other branches from becoming too powerful. The right to keep and bear arms exists, in part, to give the people a way of preventing the government from becoming too powerful or oppressive. Essentially it's a self-destruct mechanism in case we turn into the bad guys. We're a long way from that point and I don't think we're ever going to reach that point, but that's part of the system in case we do. Other checks and balances should kick in long beforehand.
Hitting the history refresher button and...Bill of Rights, first 10 amendments to the Constitution, introduced 1789 by James Madison, ratified 1791. Late 1700s, still the founders. Hah.
I think i'll look forward to some lighter topics tomorrow.
It's been a while since the last entry. My computer died in September, so I had to get a replacement. Someone thought I should see the I Robot movie (which I had avoided) and they bought me the DVD, so I finally saw the movie. Updated my data archive. Put Corrine on the family's phone plan. Played through Postal 2 a few times. Played through Puzzle Quest. A couple of things at Walmart (mismarked product and new cat litter boxes). More fun with Best Buy and the receipt thing. Got a Wii. Still playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with the guys. Learned about provisional voting. Signed up with XM. Finally followed through with my threat to buy Karaoke Revolution Country. Signed up with Where's George. Thunder died, but her daughter survived. Polar Express. Watched the new Knight Rider last night.
My old computer was a Pentium 4 at 2.4 gHz. One day, on boot, it started giving a certain number / pattern of beeps and wouldn't boot. I looked online for the sequence of beeps and the answer was that it was either a dead mother board or graphics card. I had just bought a new graphics card, so I exchanged the card for another of the same type. Same beep sequence on boot. So everything indicated a dead mother board. I stopped at Fry's Electronics in Anaheim, CA to get a replacement computer. The old computer was a bit older than I thought, because the replacement computer (Core 2 Duo, 1.8 gHz) was somewhere in the $350 to $450 range. Much faster CPU (dual core), bus, and a SATA hard drive. Vista for the OS. I saved a bit by taking their demo computer- the one out on the shelf for customers to look at.
Part of the receipt thing (refusing to show a receipt on exiting a store) are the circumstances when I will show my receipt. If I make the security sensors at the door beep, then i'll show my receipt. I don't if now showing the receipt in that setting gives the store or the police probable cause or changes the situation in some other way. I try to avoid adding confounding variables to the game- ala Mr Rigghi challenging Circuit City's receipt policy and whether or not he had to provide the police with identification on demand. So, if I go beep at the door, I show my receipt. Because I bought the demo computer from Fry's, the salesman just unplugged the computer and put it, along with a keyboard, mouse, and envelope of manuals in my cart. No box. I paid for the computer at the front of the store and, because I had a loose, unpackaged computer in my basket, showed my receipt at the door. I don't suppose there's any difference for a shoplifter- what would they care that they made off with a product inside or outside of its packaging? It didn't feel right though- leaving the store with a loose computer in my cart. I felt that I looked suspicious enough, that what I had in my cart was unusual enough, that I would have introduced a new, confounding variable.
The reactions I get when I refuse to show my receipt change depending on which store i'm at and the time of year. Stores in higher crime areas seem to be a bit more aggressive about asking for the receipt. Walmart and Kmart have asked me for the receipt occasionally, but they haven't done so (to me at least) within the last year or two. Best Buy is a bit more interesting in this regard. It would be an interesting to project to study the different characters (management, customer relations, store policies, etc.) of different stores, especially different Best Buy stores. The Best Buys in San Bernardino, Mira Loma, and Palm Desert don't typically ask me for my receipt. It would not be correct for me to say that none of those stores has ever asked me for a receipt, but it would be correct to say that I don't recall them ever having done so. The Best Buy in Moreno Valley is another story. Sometimes they ask for the receipt and sometimes they don't, but they always have when i've shopped there on black friday (the friday after Thanksgiving). The Moreno Valley Best Buy is, by far in my experience, the most aggressive Best Buy with regard to receipt-at-the-door policies.
On Black Friday of 2005 (I think), at the Moreno Valley Best Buy, they asked me for my receipt at the door. I refused. The yellow shirt (management) guy at the door said he was calling the police and, while he carefully danced around actually saying so, made it clear that the two blue shirts at the outer door would detain me if I attempted to leave. While I talked with the yellow shirt, another blue shirt had gone back to the register I checked out at and verified with the cashier that I had paid for my items. Yellow shirt basically said to have a nice day and off I went. So that was that. Looking back on it, given what I didn't know at the time, things probably played out ok.
Black Friday 2006 was spent out of town with relatives. I did not shop at Best Buy that year.
Black Friday 2007, also at the Moreno Valley Best Buy, was fun. Yellow shirt at the door (different guy) asked to see my receipt, I declined, and I kept walking. By the time I was a few yards away from the door, yellow shirt and Blade caught up with me. Blade was a security guard, a black guy, with a black leather outfit and dark glasses. I don't know that he actually looked like Wesley Snipes, but with the outfit and the glasses, that was the first thing that came to mind. I had the same conversation with yellow shirt and Blade that I have every time someone challenges my refusal to show my receipt- I explained how I saw it as a privacy issue and that, once money has changed hands, the items are mine and I no longer have to prove it, and yellow shirt explained that it was a matter of security for the store. I continued to refuse. Yellow shirt said he was calling the police and went back in the store. I told Blade that he was welcome to follow me to my car and get my license plate number, but that I didn't feel like waiting at the store. Blade and I walked to my car and Blade took down my license plate. I asked Blade how long the police would take to respond. He said about 5 minutes. We waited for 10 to 15 minutes or so, but no police showed up. During this time several other yellow shirts walked out to my car and tried the 'you're the only person today who has refused to comply' bit. One of them even told me that I was an idiot. I indicated to Blade that this was taking too long and that I was thinking of leaving. Blade indicated that he would consider the products I had (which he had seen me place in my trunk) to be stolen and that he would report it as such to the police if I left. On the one hand I wanted to leave because I figured yellow shirt and Blade were either bluffing or just wrong, but on the other hand I didn't want to get arrested. I called the Moreno Valley Police Department on my cell phone, but whoever answered the phone said the Riverside Police Department would be responsible for that location. I called Riverside Police Department and spoke to a dispatcher. I explained the situation to the dispatcher and that, if RPD was looking for me, I wanted to make sure they could find me (cell phone, current address, etc.). The dispatcher verified that, yes, RPD was responsible for that location (Moreno Valley Best Buy, just west of Day St). I asked if they had received any calls or were looking for me. The dispatcher said no, RPD had received no calls in the last hour from the Moreno Valley Best Buy. I asked the dispatcher if there was any criminal code that I could be charged under as a result of not showing my receipt at the door. The dispatcher said there was no such code and that it was a civil matter, not a criminal one. The dispatcher and I ended our conversation. I told Blade that I had called RPD and that they (RPD) had said there's no law that says I have to show my receipt. I got in my car and left.
A few days before Black Friday 2007 I had emailed Best Buy (through their web site) explaining my previous (2005) experience and why I felt that I didn't have to show my receipt at the door. I didn't hear back from Best Buy until after Black Friday 2007. A few days later I received an email from customer relations indicating that, while Best Buy does ask to see receipts when customers leave the store, Best Buy's policy is that customers are not required to show their receipts at the door. The day after I received the email, I printed a copy of the email and went to drop it off at the Moreno Valley Best Buy. Lo and behold, the yellow shirt (a male) working the door was the same yellow shirt working the door on Black Friday 2007. I was wearing my suit (normal attire for me on weekdays) and, as I presented the printout of the email, another yellow shirt (this one was female) indicated that she would field this. She read the email, said something to the effect of 'oh, okay,' and that was that. She took the printout, which I had indicated was for the store, and walked away. Took the wind right out of my sails. I didn't say anything to the male yellow shirt. I proceeded into the store, browsed, then left without buying anything that day.
The current status of the receipt thing (at Best Buy), as I understand it, is this: There is nothing in the California criminal code that requires me to show my receipt at the door. Best Buy's written policy is that I do not have to show my receipt at the door. I am, to say the least, looking forward to Black Friday 2008.
To Best Buy's credit, they did eventually provide me with a check to cover the repair of my odometer's illuminator. So we're cool on that.
A footnote to the receipt thing, specifically at the Anaheim Fry's. Pop knows how highly motivated I am about this and he can tell i'm looking forward to a challenge on exiting a store. The last 3 or 4 times we've been to the Anaheim Fry's, the employees at the door have not asked for my receipt, with Pop getting a great deal of entertainment- almost doubling over in a fit of laughter on one occasion- they haven't asked to see my receipt. I was alone when I bought the new computer. Pop (joking) speculated that Fry's might have a picture of me in the back of the store with a caption saying to not ask me for my receipt.
The new computer runs Vista (Home Premium) for its OS. I turned off Aero because, while Aero is pretty and all, it does slow the system down. The main problem I had with Vista, until 2.1.08, was connecting to the net. There's no DSL, no FIOS, no cable where I live. Satellite internet service is out because they have a bandwidth cap of 500 mb per month. The only way I can reasonably get anything faster than dialup is through Verizon's wireless broadband (EVDO) service. To access this system, Verizon requires the use of VZ Access Manager, which monitors your connection time and bandwidth usage. From the time I got the new computer (September) until 2.1.08, there was no version of VZ Access Manager for Vista, so I couldn't connect to the net with the new computer. When a Vista version did finally come out, I found just over 100 mb of updates waiting for me. Woof. Part of the downside of buying the demo computer from Fry's was that I didn't get a Vista disk. However, there's a restore partition on the hard drive and there appears to be a restore option built into the bios to make use of that partition. As long as I don't screw around with the partitions, I should have a pretty decent reset button there. I've thought about writing to Microsoft and seeing if, with me reading off whatever product keys or serial numbers they need from my system, they might send me a free or very cheap Vista disk. Anyway, the new computer's pretty good so far.
The I Robot movie, starring Will Smith. I avoided this movie because the previews showed a an action movie with explosions, car chases, and so on. Not the way I remember Asimov's stories. It's been a while since i've read the robot novels. I've read the Foundation series more recently and more often. I remember the 4 laws of robotics, that Asimov's robots have positronic brains, and so on. I've seen movies that were done right (The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, the Lord Of The Rings movies, etc.) and movies that were done wrong (the Rankenbass animated Lord Of The Rings movies, the Star Trek I, etc.). The previews for I Robot looked like it would fall in the latter category. Pop saw I Robot and, while he said there were a number of differences from Asimov's stories, he did like the movie. After talking about it one day, he decided I should see it and had Amazon send me the DVD. I watched it and...i'm not too sure how I feel about it. I have a real problem with the 'robots as a threat' theme. Yes, Asimov did write a few stories where the robots were the bad guys in some way, but the overarching theme of Asimov's stories was the (near) absolute certainty of the 3 (or 4, post-Giskard) laws. The moment, for me, that best exemplified this in the I Robot movie was Will Smith's boss dressing him down about how many robots had ever stolen a purse. The central problem, at least on the first viewing of the movie, is that a software update can override the 3 laws. My reaction to such an easy change of the laws was that no way, no how can the laws just be overwritten like that. I thought the law were hard-coded into the robots' positronic brains, and unchangeable aspect of the positronic pathways in each brain. When I talked to Pop after watching the movie, he suggested that Asimov wouldn't have understood hardware vs software, software updates, etc. when he started writing the robot novels. That...is a possibility I have to acknowledge. The founders of our Constitution couldn't have foreseen the internet, nuclear weapons, and so on. So Asimov (along with most everyone else at the time) might not have thought of software vs hardware. If Asimov didn't mean the 3 laws to be coded in hardware and not software vs that's the way he described it because there was no other way for him to conceive of programming at the time, then what does that tell us? Should the movie have held true to the source material or was it right to adapt parts of Asimov's stories to the way we understand computers to work today? I lean toward being true to the material, but Pop's take on it was that if the movie didn't have a certain amount of popular appeal, the movie wouldn't have been made and future adaptations of Asimov's stories would be less likely to occur. Movies get made because they are expected to make money. Money is made by the movie being popular. I realize that's the way the world works, but I don't like it. The cherished stories of my childhood- Narnia, Superman, the Man Kzin Wars, and Asimov's stories- should never be messed with. Superman is special because he's the pure, unchanging, white-hat-no-matter-what hero. The robots in Asimov's stories are the way they are. They should not be blithely toyed with. So, for I Robot, I don't know that I would relegate it to complete junk, but I wouldn't place it in the done-right category with the Narnia and Lord Of The Rings movies. Pop suggested that I watch I Robot at least one more time. I probably will. We'll see. It might end up being one of those things where the amount of complaining I do is an indicator of how much I like the material. Carol has Bicentennial Man (starring Robin Williams) on DVD, so I have that to watch as well.
The data archive. Back in the days of the Commodore 64 I accumulated about 480 floppy disks of data (around 150 mb I think). Over the lifetime of my first PC, a Tandy Sensation I, I accumulated about 800 floppies (about 1.1 gb) of data. With the advent of CD burners (spanning the lifetimes of several of my PCs) the archive got to about 2,300 CDs (1.5 to 1.6 tb). Currently, with DVD burners, i'm at about 500 disks, or about 2.3 tb. Hard drives eventually got cheap enough ($100 for a 500gb drive) for me to afford putting the entire archive on hard disk. With the elimination of duplicate files and data compression, I got it down to about 1.8 tb, just barely fitting on to four 500 gb drives, which are really 465 gb drives. I still have the DVD archives and 2 or 3 DVD burners, along with the archive on hard disk, so I got rid of the CD archive. Turned out to be an interesting project- how, most efficiently, to destroy 2,000 CDs? I kept about 300 CDs because they were original program disks. I didn't want to just throw 2,000 CDs in the trash. Who knows who might have found them? I didn't want to have to go through each individual disk to figure out which disks I had to pay more or less attention to. I thought about buying a shredder that could shred disks, but I didn't want to have to feed disks one by one. In the shed we had a metal bar, an extra tension bar for one of Carol's dog pens. The bar just barely fit through the hole in a CD. I ended up with a really long spindle (3 spindles by the time all was down) of disks. Wasn't sure how running a circular saw blade along one side of each spindle would work, so I bought a sort of plastic or carbon grinding blade for the saw. With a heavy helping of protective clothing (think younger brother from Christmas Story) and eye protection, I tried the grinding disk. No luck. The grinding disk built up heat quickly enough that, after just a few inches along the spindle, it started melting the disks around it instead of cutting them. The problem was that a region of melted plastic built up ahead of the grinding disk, eventually providing enough resistance to stop the grinding disk from moving forward. I switched the grinding disk out for the regular saw blade. I tried it with the regular saw blade and, while the disks were easy enough to cut through that way, I started getting kickback from the saw and enough deviation in the cutting path that the blade wouldn't proceed more than a few inches into the spindle. So that didn't work either. The disks were tightly packed along the axis of the spindle. I tried a 3 lb hand sledge, moving along the edge of the spindle. It worked. The shock of each hammer strike traveled in the plane of each disk, causing the disk to shatter. Whap, whap, whap, and eventually I had a very large pile of bits of CD, but no whole disks. I suppose it might be possible to sort and match enough pieces to recover a file, but it looked sufficiently difficult, enough so that I could sleep soundly. I've got the complete archive in 2 forms (DVD and hard disk), one magnetic, one non-magnetic. The next step, a few year down the line, is to get the entire archive onto fewer disks (blue ray, about 100 to 200 disks) or onto a single hard drive.
Corrine's on the family phone plan now. She had a pre-paid phone, but it turned out to cost about 2/3 of what she was paying to add her to the plan with Carol and I. Corrine's main interest was unlimited text messaging to anyone (including non-Verizon customers), but Verizon didn't have a plan that would let us add that to her phone but not my phone or Carol's phone. So the whole family now has free unlimited texting. Yippee. Roflmao, even. As I told Corrine, parental texting equals minus a million coolness points for texting. Chinpokomon, yes?
Postal 2. Ooooh. I played through the entire game, twice, attempting to get the 'wannabe Jesus' award at the end of the game for not killing anyone through the whole game. I'm certain I didn't shoot or do anything anti-social. Both times the endgame report showed me as having exactly 1 kill. Grr. The third time I played through the game I was...mean. Throughout the game you are presented with choices about how to deal with anything from normal, every day situations such as waiting in line at the bank or buying some milk at the convenience store, to weird things like escaping from the rednecks while wearing a gimp suit. Many of the people in the game are very mean to you, even if you're playing nice the whole time, so much of the game is spent trying to not die. Playing mean is a different kind of satisfaction. If I play nice, and I manage to survive the bank hold-up without getting shot, then fine. If I play mean, and I have to shoot every last person between me and the bank because every last one of them (on the hardest difficulty setting) will shoot at me if I don't, then fine. I find a sniper rifle and I notice a single speck half way across town and realize that's a terrorist on top of a building, with a rocket launcher. 2 or 3 sniper rounds to drop him, but by the time i've fired the last round, he's fired off 2 or 3 guided rockets. Then I have to either find a place to hide and listen to the rockets bonk-bonk-bonking along the walls, trying to find a way in to get me, or I have to play dodgeball with the rockets until they run out of fuel and detonate. The game was pretty easy on average, playing mean. Once you've played through the game a couple of times, you'll know what to do, where to go, where stuff is hidden, and how people will react. I finished the game on 'they hate me' mode, the hardest difficulty setting, playing mean. It wasn't too much harder; just more and better armed people shooting at me. I suppose I should try going through the game on the hardest setting, playing nice, but I started playing Titan Quest again, so Postal 2 will have to wait. I may have to order the full game (Postal 2) with all of the expansions though.
Bought Corrine a DS for Christmas. Bought her 3 or 4 games, including Puzzle Quest, which is sort of a combat Bejeweled rpg. I picked it up for the PC so I didn't have to wait for Corrine to be around and not playing her DS. I played the druid and spent all of my level up points on air and water mastery. I was heavily focused on healing magic. allowing me to chip away at my opponent until they died most, most of the time. The main strategy I failed to figure out until about 1/3 of the way through the game was mana denial- pick whichever color of mana the opponent requires the most of to cast his/her strongest spell and do everything you can to deny him that color of mana. It slowed most of the bad guys down enough to make all but the bosses a relative breeze. I beat the game, but there was a good 1/3 of the world map that wasn't used. I went online to see a complete world map and, with a few minor exceptions, I did see everything. Room left over for an expansion perhaps? Character levels do cap at 50 though.
Walmart, the first thing: This is what I submitted to Walmart's web site: (submission begins) The Short Version: Sunbeam heated blankets marked at $29.86, regardless of size. Manager refused to sell queen sized blanket at marked price, saying price on shelf was for twin sized blankets only. I think Walmart owes me the sale of one Sunbeam queen sized, heated blanket at the price of $29.86. If I remember right, California law says Walmart has to sell me the item at the shelf price, even if the shelf price is incorrect.
The Long Version: Walmart, I think the one in Palm Desert, CA, had a variety of heated blankets for sale in the week before Christmas (2007). Ok, fine. There were 2 end caps' worth of blankets. The 2 end caps were next to each other. There were no prices on the blankets themselves. On one end cap were larger blankets (including queen size). On the other end cap were smaller blankets (including twin size). There were no shelf prices on either end cap. There was no big price (above the end cap, in large letters) on the end cap with the larger blankets. There was a big price on the end cap with the smaller blankets. There did not appear to be any of the smaller blankets on the end cap with the larger blankets. There were a few of the larger blankets on the end cap with the smaller blankets. I concluded, because there was only one price between the two end caps, that that was the price for any of the blankets, regardless of size. I placed one of the queen sized blankets in my cart and, after doing the rest of my shopping, proceeded to the checkout counter in, I think, gardening. When the cashier scanned the blanket, it rang up at about $80 to $90, not the $29.86 that appeared on the shelf. I had the cashier cancel the transaction. I think what I did at this point was return the blanket to the shelf, then I went through the checkout at the front of the store with whatever else I was buying that day, then to customer service to talk to someone about the blanket. I don't remember the gentleman's name, but I do remember asking him if he was the top of the chain of command on-site. He said he was. We went and looked at the end caps. He refused to sell me the queen sized blanket, indicating that he was not going to price match it because the price difference was too large. His main reasoning was that, because the end caps were separate, the big price on one end cap was not making any sort of pricing statement about the adjacent end cap. I responded that any normal person would think, since there was only one price and they were the same kind of blankets, that the one listed price covered both end caps. At some point in all of this, while I was waiting alone by the end caps, I realized that my cell phone could take video as well as still pictures. I took a video, about 4 seconds in length, a quick pan from one end cap to the other. I hadn't set out to make a video, but I think the tone of the conversation was that the (manager?) employee sounded like he wasn't going to do the price match, but got called away for some reason. I knew Walmart's policy was probably not to allow pictures or video in the store, but I figured that, if I didn't have some sort of record of how the end caps were set up, I would be out of luck once I left the store. A couple of days later I was at another Walmart, I think in Banning, CA, when I noticed the same brand (Sunbeam) of heated blankets, only this time they were on a regular aisle instead of an end cap. I don't think the individual blankets were priced, but there were plenty of shelf prices, with different amounts for different blanket sizes, $29.86 for twins, $80 to $90 or so for queens. I had my cell phone with me, and it occurred to me that I should have some video of the same product, but with correct labeling. I took 3 seconds of video, continued shopping, then left the store as normal. I called Walmart's corporate number either that night or the following day and made a complaint, but I never heard back from anyone, one way or the other. I haven't written until now because I forgot. I remembered when I noticed the videos on my cell phone. I posted the videos at http://www.johnperkins.com/blanket01.3g2 and http://www.johnperkins.com/blanket02.3g2. The 3g2 video format (mainly used by cell phones) is viewable by Quicktime and VLC Media Player. I figured i'd try Walmart's web site then, if I still haven't heard from anyone within a week or two, maybe an actual, paper letter.
Thank you for reading and responding. (submission ends)
Walmart's web site keeps telling me 'we're having temporary difficulties arriving at the destination you requested' after I hit the 'send' button and enter my birth year, so I don't know if it's going through or not. We'll see, we'll see.
Walmart, the second thing: I have cats. Lots of cats. Now that I think of it, that would be a neat scene from the Matrix, but with a rack of cats instead of guns. My cats go through a lot of cat litter. Over about 8 years i've accumulated around 70 to 80 empty Tidy Cats boxes, the plastic 27 pound yellow boxes with red / blue / green hinged lids. That doesn't mean 10 per year because I used to buy the cardboard orange boxed stuff. I use the empty (of cat litter) plastic boxes for storage. They're air tight, water tight, and even if they're packed solid with books, they're still moveable with a convenient built-in handle. The problem is Tidy Cats has started using a slightly different sized box with a different bottom and (now unhinged) lid shape that doesn't stack with the old lids. I wrote to Tidy Cats' web site about liking the old box type, but not the new one. I have this old childhood memory of Pop having a Dave Barry book with weird ads in it, including one for macaroni. I think the deal was 'if you don't like it, we'll send you 2 boxes for free.' Sure enough, Tidy Cats sent me a handful of coupons, including one for a free box of cat litter. Thanks guys (really, thanks), but what I really want is the old box shape to return.
Carol got me a Wii. I don't remember which now, but it was either for my birthday or our anniversary. Carol had been planning to get me a PS3. She took me to the store and said we were getting a PS3 and she was buying. It was one of those rare moments when a Wii was also in stock. With a fixed amount of money to spend, it worked out that we could get a PS3 and 2 games or a Wii and 7 games. I bet wrong when I had to choose between the Sega Genesis and the PS1. The Genesis was good and i'm thankful for getting it as a gift, but there ended up being more varied and just more content for the PS1. I seem to have bet right with the PS2 vs Xbox generation. I bought a PS2 at launch, then picked up an Xbox after several price drops. So, for the current generation, I was looking at a PS3, Xbox 360, or Wii. There didn't smell like there were any must-have games for the PS3 at the time, and 7 games vs 2 seemed like greater odds of fun. There would be less of a chance of 7 stinkers than 2 stinkers. Part of buying a PS2 was for the DVD player and with Toshiba and Microsoft bowing out of the HDDVD format, it looks like i'll want a PS3 at some point. I'll probably wait for one or more price drops though. On a side note, I don't see why anyone would buy a stand alone Bluray player- it sounds like nothing more than a PS3 that can't play games. The best choice at the time (now, too) was a Wii. Got Resident Evil 4, Big Brain Academy, Legend Of Zelda, Metroid Prime 3, Super Monkey Ball, SSX, and Sonic.
I know the graphics on the Wii aren't as good as the PS3 or Xbox 360, but the content is good so far. Big Brain Academy has been fun- actual mental exercise instead of just running around, collecting gold coins. Resident Evil 4's been good too. I can't stand normal controller / game pad based aiming in first person games (say, Halo), but the 2 piece wireless controller with the Wii allows aiming in Resident Evil that's not quite as good as a mouse, but far, far better than a regular controller. I've played a bit of each of the other games, but most of my Wii time has been spent with Big Brain Academy and Resident Evil 4.
I haven't spent as much time with the Wii as I should- as the level of gift would warrant. For example, I got some miniature sharpies in my stocking this Christmas. I was thankful and, when I got home, I put them in with my other office supplies. I don't go out of my way to spend my free time using them- it's the weekend, oh boy, it's sharpie time. The Wii cost a great deal more than the sharpies, so it warrants a great deal more of my time and attention. The difficulty is, especially with my computer in the same room as the Wii, I have a large number of competing games on the computer. Back when I had the Atari 2600, we didn't have a computer, so there wasn't anything to compete with the 2600 for game time. I think what i'm going to do right now is wrap up Titan Quest (with the expansion), then focus on Resident Evil 4 or maybe Zelda.
Dungeons And Dragons! Yeah, yeah, i'm a nerd. Playing D&D didn't get me any dates in high school, but my wife seems to appreciate that my hobby doesn't involve something likely to cause injury or death. That means, when I tell her D&D weekend is coming up, she tells me 'yeah, fine, go have fun.'
Right now i'm playing a druid, having just made 9th level. I picked up my first 5th level spell, which is great because now that I can designate areas as holy, I have to travel for several days back to the lady who's the central part of or current campain and who the vampires have been chewing on. I figure if I designate her home as holy, it might help keep the vampires (or at least, whatever's been biting her neck) at bay. Then it's a treck back to the ruins we're at now. Tree Stride is also a 5th level spell, and with Wild Shape I have a couple of faster options (eagle, cheetah) for travel forms. The other nice thing is, with 9th level, I can Wild Shape 3 times per day with up to 9 hours' duration per time. That exceeds 24 hours, which means I can stay in a non-human (well, non-Asimar) form the whole time. I was going to take Augmented Summoning as my new feat, but I took Natural Spell instead. Augmented Summoning would have buffed my summoned creatures a bit, but Natural Spell gives me a completely new ability- being able to cast spells without having to shift back to my natural form. If the lady is already evil due to the bites (2, last we checked), then 5th level also gives me access to Atonement, which appears to more or less let me give her a quest to intentionally become good again. Hrm... As far as experience grinding, it might be more efficient to just start whacking monsters at the ruins, but roleplaying-wise the right thing to do (in character) would be to go help the lady. Once our DM quits being semi-blind due to his elective eye surgery.
Anyway, D&D is good stuff. It's not evil, it's not anti-christian, it's not anti-anything really. All it is is a complicated version of pretend, with lots of rules. If you want to be good, you can play a good character in D&D just like you can pretend to be a good guy. If you want to be evil, you can play a bad character in D&D, just like you can pretend to be a bad guy. Playing D&D does not define the color (black or white) of the hat you wear.
Provisional voting. When I moved in with my wife, I expected to look up my new polling place on election day, go there, and vote. I did not realize until election day (Super Tuesday here in California) that I now live in a district that votes by absentee ballot only. Oops. I called the state election commission and they told me I could go to any local polling place and ask to vote provisionally. This meant they had to take a bit of extra information from me and that my vote would be counted after everyone who didn't vote provisionally. So I voted at my old polling place.
The voting machine was a touch-screen system and had a terribly frustrating, apparently pointless part that I had never seen before. Inside the machine, where you couldn't get to it, was what appeared to be something like a receipt printer, the kind stores have. When I got to the end of making my choices and chose to cast my vote, the touchscreen system asked if I wanted to see a printed record of my vote. I told it yes. The receipt mechanism rolled, from a sending roll to a receiving roll, printing my votes and scrolling the votes up to where I could see my choices through a clear panel. I then had to click on the touchscreen that I had seen my votes, and the receipt mechanism rolled my votes away, onto the receiving roll. I'm not sure if it was entirely pointless, but it felt no more than a hair's breadth away from it. Having a printed record of my vote is fine, but what's the point if I don't get a print of the receipt for myself? Very frustrating.
I finally signed up with XM radio. I don't like the idea of paying for radio, especially since radio has always been free. I do a large amount of driving (over 1,500 miles per month), much of which takes me through hills where I lose stations. About the only station that continues almost everywhere is KFI 640, but then I can't stand that Rush Limbaugh idiot / demagogue, so I don't listen to KFI 640. With XM I have a large number of choices and rarely lose reception- usually only for tunnels or when I drive near a steep mountain. As with satellite TV, most of what XM brings me is crap. I don't mean that what I think is crap is or should be what another person thinks is crap. It's just that most of it is stuff I don't care for. I stick with CNN or one of the 4 or 5 comedy channels, with an occasional sprinkling of 1940s music, bluegrass, or Cinemagic (the movie soundtrack channel). These channels stick with me wherever I drive, so the reception alone is worth the roughly $13 per month. I suppose that might change if I didn't have to spend so many miles or so much time in the car, but for now it feels like money well spent.
Karaoke Revolution Country. 'A robot would have to be crazy to want to be a folk singer.' Ah confess, ah do sing mahself the occasional Kenny Rogers or Charlie Daniels song. I finally followed through with the threat to buy this game, but the only one I could find didn't have the microphone, so I had to buy a microphone. The microphone by itself at Best Buy was the exact same price as Karaoke Revolution American Idol, so even though I detest the idea of manufactured talent, it seemed a wasted to buy just the microphone instead of the microphone and a game, regardless of how crappy the game might be. The song list for the American Idol version included Stand By Me, so I figured it couldn't be all bad. The trouble is, at this point, I have to wait until both Carol and Corrine are gone to be comfortable playing either Karaoke game. I'm trying to get Corrine to play the American Idol version, so we'll see how that turns out. Weeble, wobble, one of us, one of us.
Where's George? I've seen a few where's George bills over the years, but it wasn't until a few months ago that I finally looked at the web site, wheresgeorge dot com. At this site you can enter the serial number for each bill ($1 to $100) you have. You write the web site on the bill or use a stamp to mark the bill, identifying it as being in the where's George database. If you enter a bill for the first time, you can see where that bill goes and when. If it's already in the system, you can see the bill's past history too. I've entered a bunch of bills. No hits yet, but we'll see over time. One weird thing is there's a reverse copyright on where's George stamps for the web site. Anyone can make and sell where's George stamps, accept the web site itself. While the Secret Service appears to be fairly tollerant of the whole where's George activity, they do have a problem with stamps being sold by the web site because the owners of the web site would be profiting by encouragingbthe defacement of US currency.
On another note, I found out what the story is for the apparent conflict between where it says on bills that 'this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private' vs store that, for example, refuse to accept any bill over $20. Any business can refuse to accept any kind of bill if the product or service has not already been provided, but must accept any bill if the product or service has been provided. What I think this means is this: If I got to a sit-down restaurant, eat, then want to pay my bill with, say, a $100 bill, the restaurant has to accept it because i've already eaten the food. But, if it's a fast food place and i'm at the drive through window, they can refuse to accept my bill because I haven't yet received my food.
Thunder died while I was away for work travel. I never had my parents move and not tell me while I was at summer camp, but having the dog die while I was away for work is almost as much fun. She died in puppybirth, but 1 of her 3 puppies survived and is now a healthy adolescent Belgian Sheepdog...and needs to be separated from our adult male Belgian. Woof.
I was doing blog stuff on my desktop, where I can type much faster than here on my phone (Palm Treo 700), but I started finding occasions when i'd feel bored, but i'd be away from my computer and unable to type. Now as an example, I have about 15 min between bits of work. It's not enough time to go anywhere or do much of anything else. Instead of typing my blog entry directly into Frontpage, I add the entry as a memo on my phone, then add to it whenever I have the time and inclination. I do of course dock myself the time spent not working, while i'm doing this, so I don't cheat my employer.
Polar Express. I thought I had already written about that experience, but I don't see it in any of the entries below. Ah- I might have posted it as an entry on the anime club's board. ...and they changed hosts for the board a couple of times, losing the entire post archive each time. That would explain why I remember writing about my Polar Express experience but can't find what I wrote. I'll see if I can find it, maybe the wayback machine. In the mean time, here it is again:
When Polar Express came out, Pop and I went to see it at a theater in Ontario, California. Stand in line, buy tickets, stand in line again, buy popcorn and soda, stand in line a third time to enter the (theater, room, screening room, what?) room. The line goes down a hall just for the room that's showing Polar Express, then turns left (90 degrees), with the door into the room at the end. As we make the left turn, we see a uniformed security person checking purses and using a wand-type metal detector to scan each customer. We decide we don't like the idea, but I turn out to like the idea a bit less than Pop. When we got to the security guard, I refused to allow her to wand me. She asks, and I explain that I refuse to allow her to perform what I feel is an illegal search. She says she has to, I refuse. She gets a theater employee, with whom I have the same conversation, they explain the theater's position and I explain my position, then they get the theater employee who is the next higher person on the food chain. The process repeats through about 4 theater employees (not counting the guard), ending with the head manager of the theater. That guys offers to refund our money, first without, then with the popcorn and soda cost included. I decline, indicating that, no, I would rather see the movie we paid for, minus the illegal search. The security guard, who was a private guard hired by whoever distributed the movie (Warner Brothers I think), tried to get her supervisor on the guard's cell phone, but it was a saturday and the supervisor was off shift. The guard eventually got another supervisor on the phone. That supervisor instructed the guard that, yes, customers are perfectly free to refuse the search, and to let us proceed in to the movie. After a couple of minutes of debating with the guard, we offered to allow the rest of the people in line to proceed ahead of us into the room, and they did. I think most of the guard/employees we talked to tried the 'everyone else is complying, why can't you?' bit at some point. Pop sort of stood as backup, in case I did manage to get myself arrested. It was a strange experience, where I was challenging the system in a way that had a real chance of ending in my arrest, but that I had a good sense that Pop had my back. He wasn't egging me on by any means, but we were both clear that this was a violation of our (4th?) ammendment rights to avoid an unlawful search. The other thing we overheard the guard's alternate supervisor say was not to worry about it, that the guard had her night vision equipment and would easily see if anyone tried to record the movie. We went in, watched the movie (minus the first 10 min) and that was that. I've never seen that happen anywhere else. I don't know how often that (with the searching and the wanding and the whatsis) happens, but it's wrong and I intend to stand up against it if I ever see it happen again. I could view this on the bad end of things as a giant corporation trying to assert its desires over my rights. On the good end of things I could see it as a breakdown in training / instruction for the private guard company. I guess the final word on the story is that I don't bear the theater chain or Warner Brothers any ill will, but please don't let it happen again.
Knight Rider! I grew up with the original series. I wish someone would do something with the idea of the original KITT somehow being a recovered Cylon, what with the red back-and-forth light. But KITT was a good guy...then there was the bad guy KARR...How about this: Cylon ship crashed, 1 or 2 centurions recovered. Attempted revival of the first centurion fails, or adequate moral codes are not in place, hence the evil KARR. Then either the 2nd centurion or a newly-built centurion AI, but with tweaked code so its a good guy, hence KITT. The new KITT...maybe he's a recovered higher ranked centurion (one of the ones with the lower voices) or completely newly-coded AI, the first a human coded from scratch. Hey...a walk-on by Fred Ward at some point, who thinks thenew KITT sounds like Val from Tremors. KITT denies this, then, when Ward gets out to walk away, as KITT drives away, KITT yells 'stampede, Earl, stampede!,' with a startled look and a wtf expression from Earl as KITT drives off.
Watched the new Knight Rider tv movie / series pilot. Not bad. KITT wasn't to full of himself. I'm not sure if I like KITT being hacked with such relative ease. I would expect, the moment he felt himself to be under attack, he could shut down his connection to the net without shutting his entire AI down. If I remember the dialogue correctly, KITT's AI is supposed to be the same AI as the one used to run, what, all US defense systems? Was the defense AI the prototype for KITT's AI, or was it the other way around? In either case it would seem to be very dangerous to have a version of the entire US defense system running around in a single, mobile package the the bad guys could get ahold of. Hack KITT so his AI shuts down, snipe Michael, take the car, done. The car itself was nice enough. What I definitely didn't like at all was all the Ford commercials using KITT and Michael during the show. The problem was the advertisers kept hitting us ovef the head with it, over and over and over, to the point where I started feeling, during the show itself, that I was watching an extension of the commercials. I felt dirty somehow. It marred, but didn't kill, my enthusiasm for the show. If they keep up this sort of advertising though, the show will go from being something I make sure i'm home to watch to something in the 'meh, if it's on and i'm bored i'll watch it, maybe' range. I do hope the network picks up the series though.
With the receipt thing and the theater thing, I wonder sometimes about why I feel the need to challenge things and the risk I may be placing myself in. It's a matter of relative cost I suppose. What am I risking compared to what do I hope to gain? Let's see...i'm too far away from my math background...expected cost is the total of the probability of each outcome times the effects of that outcome. But the things i'm callenging (receipts, theaters) aren't easily quantifiable. I'm not tilting against these particular windmills because I expect to profit in any fashion. I'm tilting at them because I see a wrong and i'm attempting to right. I certainly get the Don Quixote reference. That analogy raises the question of whether or not the wrongs I see are only wrongs in my perception or wrongs in the perception of other normal people. It also makes me think of the Houghnynyms (sic?)- the horse people from the 4th part of Gulliver's travels. The gist of it was the Houghnynyms had a very strict sense of right and wrong. Gulliver stayed with them for a while, assuming their moral code for himself. When Gulliver finallt went home to his family, he found himself completely unable to function within everyday English society, or even within his own family. Gulliver ended up locking himself in his room for the rest of his life. The message there is to have a bit of perspective when you choose your cause and how (or how much) you're willing to fight for that cause. Let's say I disagree with animal testing used to develop a product. It might be reasonable for me to boycott the product or stores carrying the product, but it would not be reasonable for me to try to shoot employees of any store selling the product. If I did the latter, I would be shot by the police or in jail for the rest of my life. Either way I would be unable to provide for my family, everyone involved would suffer, the animal testing would continue, and not a single animal would have been saved. This would be fighting for the cause to an unreasonable degree. For the particular cause (illegal searches, whether receipts or theaters) I seem to have taken on the question is then whether or not it is reasonable to risk getting arrested. Obviously, if an employee pulled a gun on me and then asked for my receipt, I would show him my receipt. But would it be worth risking an arrest, or being fired from my job due to the arrest? I don't know. At least, the answer is not so clear that I can be certain of it under most conditions. On the one hand, I might be arrested and suffer all of the associated bad stuff from that. On the other hand, when I find myself addressing the idea of someone very clearly violating my (4th?) ammendment rights, I sometimes find myself more concerned with the right vs wrong aspect than with the self preservation aspect.
I've been thinking about black holes and the nature of what lies at their center. First, I should clarify that, while I have a master's degree, I am not a physicist, but a lay person. I understand the idea that quarks, in various combinations, make up things like baryons (protons, neutrons, and other particles), but I don't necessarily understand what quarks actually are. I understand the idea that stars use up their hydrogen fuel, then either collapse or ignite helium fusion. Hydrogen, then helium, etc., to iron, which won't work because fusing iron atoms requires more energy than is liberated and so is not self-sustaining. Gravitational collapse occurs, and a black hole is born. Black holes have been described as having a singularity at their center- gravity wins out and matter collapses to a single point. I'm writing this not because I think i've figured anything out, but because I want to play with it as a though experiment.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tells us that we can't know momentum and position with absolute certainty (the more we know about the one, the less we know about the other), so it doesn't make sense (to me at least) that there should be a point of infinite mass, infinite density (a singularity) at the center of a black hole. As the collapsing matter occupies a smaller and smaller volume we know less and less about the momentum of each bit of matter...or do we? Question: Once an event horizon has formed, does the Uncertainty Principle still apply, given than nothing can observe what's going on inside? Let's say for the moment that it does still apply. As the volume shrinks, uncertainty tells us that the individual particles must be moving faster and faster. Neutron degeneracy pressure fails when the speed at which the neutrons would have to be moving exceeds the speed of light.
Let's suppose there is a singularity, a point, at the center. Now let's drop a single neutron into the black hole. As the neutron fall toward the singularity, the neutron's momentum becomes more and more important if it is to strike and somehow become part of the singularity. Uncertainty tells us we can never know the position of the neutron with infinite position, which would seem to be required to make the neutron hit a infinitely precise point (the singularity). It seems like the neutron ought to buzz around the singularity without ever actually hitting the singularity. Uncertainty should cause the neutron's position to be very close (due to gravity) to the singularity, but sort of buzzing around the singularity in a region of uncertainty. Question: Is this ak