November 4, 2008

a good day to change the world

file under: thoughts about things

i've been attending Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference for the past two days, and have gotten excited about some things in my industry. it's been awhile since something happened that i thought was really new, something with the potential to drive change and innovation.

two keynote speeches today were particularly inspiring. the first, by Larry Brilliant (head of Google.org), was about 21st century philanthropy and his causes for optimism. the second by Malcolm Gladwell was about the power of human potential, and the things we do to stifle it. fortunately, you can see a webcast of these keynotes (use the pulldown menu in the player to skip to the Brilliant and Gladwell chapters).

Brilliant talked about philanthropy in general, and the human desire to do good for others, despite all the bad things we're clearly capable of. he shared some of the things google.org is working on, and used his past work on the eradication of smallpox as an example of what people can do when united to solve a daunting problem (Obama's refrain "Yes, we can" rings particularly true here). he then made his case for optimism, citing the Dalai Lama's belief that "humans are getting better." he closed with a call-to-action, saying that today was a good day to start changing the world, which led to a standing ovation. very inspiring, this man, in an unassuming and touching way.

Gladwell spoke about the idea of "capitalization" as it relates to human potential (he also gave this speech at Pop!Tech 2008). his basic thesis is that people often fail to achieve their potential due to three limiting factors: economics, stupidity (of societies and organizations that suppress capitalization), and cultural attitudes. a lot of the successful people in the world, he concludes, succeed because they are given opportunity and because they persevere to achieve their goals, because they believe in the notion of meaningful work.

the common theme for me in these presentations was the potential for change, and how we can drive it if we want to badly enough. it's amazing that on the same day i hear these presentations, we elect the first black president of the united states. it makes me believe in a lot of things: the power of individuals, the strength of communities, and the opportunity for positive change and a brighter future.

it makes me want to get off my butt and do something.

Posted by docrpm on 11.04.08 at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 24, 2008

life lessons from Mr. Jobs

file under: thoughts about things

my friend Rita pointed me to a video of Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement speech. she and i had been talking about being older than 40, and potentially having the ability to reflect back on our lives and come up with a few things we had learned. we were also talking about mindfulness. she thought Mr. Jobs was worth listening to...i couldn't agree more.

you should watch the speech...don't allow my synopsis to stop you. it's 15 minutes of your life, which is a small investment to watch one of the great innovators and entrepreneurs of our times. it doesn't matter if you like Apple or even care about the whole tech industry, because the things he shares are pretty universal.

in his mind, it all came down to three things:

• you can't connect the dots looking forward, only backwards. as a result, follow your heart or intuition, even when it leads you off the well-worn path.
• you've got to find what you love, in life and in work, and you'll know it when you find it. do not settle for less.
• your time is limited...don't waste it living someone else's life. have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

one anecdote that i found powerful was something he did every day. he'd wake up in the morning, look himself in the mirror, and ask, "if this was the last day of your life, would you really want to be doing what you're going to do today?" if he answered no too many times in a row, he realized it was time for change. this mindfulness, the ability to step out of the river that can often push us downstream in life, is key.

deceptively simple messages. on the surface, they may seem naively idealistic, but are they? really? follow your heart, realizing that you've got limited time. one chance. no do-overs. this is your one-and-only life. make it count.

thanks, Steve (and Rita).

Posted by docrpm on 03.24.08 at 6:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 19, 2007

envelope-free ATMs

file under: thoughts about things

last friday, i had an interesting experience with a new way of doing something old: a faster, easier way of depositing checks at the ATM.

you know the drill: you've got some checks to deposit, so you head to the nearest bank to take care of business. if you're me (i.e., obsessive compulsive), you prepare in advance for your mission:

1. endorse your checks (for deposit only!)
2. tally up the total and write it on a Post-It
3. put a pen in your pocket (because there's never one at the ATM)
4. go to the ATM
5. pull an envelope out of the machine
6. put the checks inside the envelope and seal it
7. write the deposit total on the envelope
8. insert card, enter PIN
9. do the deal and stick the envelope in the slot

fully expecting to run through this routine, i went to the Safeway near my office. i ponied up to the ATM in search of an envelope and found none. no slot to hold them, inside or outside the ATM. i walked over to the teller area (this Wells Fargo was inside Safeway, for non-California readers), thinking i'd find envelopes there, but nothing. nada. zipperino. no envelopes.

thinking i must be stupid, i went back to the ATM and looked closely. these were new-fangled looking ATMs with a sticker across the front that said (you guessed it): "Envelope-free ATM." huh? what the *&!% is an envelope-free ATM? ATMs always have envelopes. does that mean i can't make deposits? if that's it, why don't they call it a "No-deposit ATM"? (actually, don't they have those and call them exactly that?). at this point, i have descended into complete stupidity, because it took me another 30 seconds spent staring at the machine (with a glisten of drool at my open mouth) before the wires got connected in my brain: "Oh! they must mean i can deposit my checks without an envelope.".

sure enough, you enter PIN and choose deposit, then just stick your entire stack of checks into the open, blinking slot (yes, all at once, not one at a time). it accepts them, closes, tells you that it's reviewing your checks, pulls up little scanned images, then shows you the actual dollar total on the screen and asks you if that's correct. it was, and that was that: envelope-free deposit. with one fell user-experience swoop, Wells Fargo has slain the deposit-hassle beast: no more totaling your checks. no more calculator and Post-It note with the total. no more pen in your pocket. no more envelope. just easy sailing. (Wells Fargo should be paying me for this...)

as amazing as this whole experience was, i walked away from the ATM a little dazed. it was really confusing. it wasn't that it was hard. not at all. it's just that the new experience totally defied my expectation of what i was supposed to be doing. i've been depositing checks using envelopes for about 30 years, and i had to cross the chasm of disbelief to realize that i didn't need to do that this time. they probably could have made the signage better, but short of having someone stand there to tell you what to do, i don't know what else they could do to make it easier. once i realized what was what, it was pretty easy. it was just that initial what-the-!&%$-is-going-on hurdle that was the hard part.

the whole thing just struck me as really odd, because i couldn't remember the last time i had something like this happen, where a very established way of doing something in the real world is summarily replaced, without warning or explanation. i'm sure this happened all the time during the industrial revolution, and throughout the last 30 years of technological advancement...i just can't think of another clear instance of this type of thing in my own life. i'm sure many of you out there have examples to share, so drag them out...let me know the last time you had a completely expectation-defying-yet-wonderful real-world experience like this!! (computers don't count...they defy expectations as a matter of course.)

Posted by docrpm on 10.19.07 at 9:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 25, 2007

the sun still doesn't shine

file under: thoughts about things

we went to see sunshine again last night after the debacle at the metreon last week. as luck would have it, the last night the film screened at the Metreon was thursday. in the words of Homer Simpson, "DOH!"!!!

we saw Ratatouille instead and were amply rewarded for our frustrations with the Metreon. i'll write a review shortly.

Posted by docrpm on 08.25.07 at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 23, 2007

much less than six degrees

file under: thoughts about things

i am continually astonished by the connectedness of human beings. the notion of six degrees of separation is well-documented and popularized, and an explosion of work on the theory of networks has shed more light on the phenomenon. so, it's not so much that's i'm surprised we are all so connected. rather, i find it interesting the connections that exist in my little social world.

just yesterday, i was writing about the new album by Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie. i like to include links in my posts to other interesting reviews or tidbits, and i happened to find robin guthrie's blog. oddly enough, it was hosted on the domain run by my wedding photographer. i contacted him to ask what was going on, and he confirmed that he's good friends with guthrie, having built his first web site back in the day.

so, my wedding photographer is good friends with a famous musician whom i happen to like very much, and i never would have known it, were it not for the internet. you can argue (somewhat ineffectively) about whether or not the internet creates connections, but at the very least, it provides a way to expose the ones already there.

me and robin guthrie: one degree of separation. very odd, indeed. anybody else got any interesting "six degrees" stories related to the internet?

Posted by docrpm on 08.23.07 at 6:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

August 10, 2007

facial hair math

file under: thoughts about things
tags: humor

i was out to dinner with one of my work clients last night, and realized after awhile that his handlebar mustache bore some interesting relationship to mine. more precisely, if you took a circle beard (aka a van dyke) and removed the mustache, you'd get the form of beard i have (which is apparently the sum of a goatee and a soul patch). so, in other words:

   goatee + handlebar mustache + soul patch = van dyke

men play with this mathematics on their faces a lot, or at least i do. i'm constantly trimming here, reconfiguring there, trying out new formulas to see what works. call it a hobby. a weird one, probably, but still a hobby.

anyway. um. yeah. this information probably falls into the category of "interesting little tidbits you wish you didn't know about Ryan, but that explain a lot."

Posted by docrpm on 08.10.07 at 7:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 8, 2007

trapped in the car by NPR

file under: thoughts about things

i get trapped in the car by NPR occasionally. i'll be driving home, and a particularly compelling piece will come on just as i'm pulling into the driveway. the thought of missing even 30 seconds of the 4-minute piece is excruciating, so i'll invariably pull into my garage, close the door, and sit there until it's done, relishing every word.

a few days ago, it was an interview with seth green and matthew sennreich about robot chicken. before that, i think it was david sedaris doing a reading of something on halloween. this american life has gotten me a few times as well.

i can't think of anything else on the radio that has spawned the same inability to leave the car. i'm not sure what statement that makes about NPR (good programs seems too obvious; it's more than that) and/or me (obsessive?), but i've laughed at myself every time i did it.

Posted by docrpm on 08.08.07 at 8:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 21, 2007

drink up. eat up. light up.

file under: thoughts about things
tags: humor

on my way to fort lauderdale this week, i had a layover in Denver. a long layover. one that started out being an hour and ended up being three hours. during the delay, my traveling companion and i explored the eating and drinking options a bit, searching for someplace with that certain airport je ne sais quoi. we found the Mesa Verde bar and grill, whose slogan (slightly obscured in photo, ironically) is "Drink up. Eat up. Light up.". pretty simple tagline, highlighting the fact that other states still allow smoking in bars, among other things.

Toto, i don't think we're in san francisco any more.

Posted by docrpm on 07.21.07 at 8:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 17, 2007

how many items?

file under: thoughts about things

the photo above was taken at my local Safeway. while certainly well-intentioned, i think their desire to streamline the checkout process has gone slightly awry.

when carrying a full hand-held basket, how easy is it to count the number of items you have? can you even see all of them? what if you laid a bag of chips on top of 15 smaller items? if i have a single bag full of 10 oranges, is that 1 item or 10? if i don't put the oranges into a bag, is it 1 item or 10? the seemingly simple Express Checkout process is full of fuzzy logic, in my mind. i doubt that anyone counts items when they go through these stands, and by the same token, i doubt that checkers count things either.

the whole point of line segmentation in markets is to separate the full carts from the people with a few items. why bother putting numbers to things? why not just segment based on the size of your cart (handheld or four-wheeling)? doesn't that make more sense? sure, there's the edge case of the guy who buys 50 packs of gum and puts it into a hand basket, but there aren't many freaks like that....oh wait. sorry. i live in san francisco.

Posted by docrpm on 07.17.07 at 8:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

June 23, 2007

the two-stupid-question IQ test

file under: thoughts about things

a study released a few days ago shows that eldest children have the highest IQs in families, statistically speaking. i'm not interested in writing about that article or the study or IQ as a function of birth order. no, what i want to write about today is an NPR rebuttal to that story in which a reporter went around, found some eldest children, and did an impromptu IQ test.

this was a very tongue-in-cheek interview, but it still bugged me what the reporter did (or rather, how he did it). he asked two questions whose goal was supposedly to determine how smart someone was. the questions?

1. what is the square root of π?
2. what are the six types of quarks?

bueller? anyone?

...

1. π is not a perfect square, hence has no exact square root; it's pretty close to 1.77425. this lack of an exact square root is actually true of most numbers. in fact, the square root of 2 is not even defined (it's actually irrational).
2. the six types of quarks are up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.

better answers to these two questions are of course (1) let me get a calculator, and (2) who cares.

first, of course it's silly to think that you could see how intelligent someone was based on only two questions. it's pretty clear this was part of the tongue in cheek in this interview. second, the study related to IQ, and one could argue that there isn't a perfect correlation between IQ and intelligence (no comment on this from the reporter). third, these questions have little to no bearing on intelligence. the thing i can't figure out is whether or not the interviewer thought this was the case.

neither of these questions is difficult, but they rely on bodies of knowledge not needed in everyday life: number theory and particle physics. an inability to answer these questions accurately would mean you're ignorant of these particular facts, not stupid. this is especially true of the second question, which is based on rote memorization and thus equivalent to asking someone, "who is the author of Portait of the Artist as a Young Man?"

it seems to me that most people, when asked these questions, wouldn't be able to answer them, and might feel stupid because of it. why not pick questions that were either impossible to answer (e.g., can anything move faster than light?) or that were incredibly silly (e.g., how many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?). if you picked ridiculous questions on either end of the spectrum, it seems you'd get a laugh, make your point that two questions don't an IQ test make, and not make anyone wonder whether or not they were being made fun of.

then again, maybe i'm just overthinking things. it just irks me when intelligence is conflated with knowledge, and that's what i felt this NPR interviewer did with his two stupid questions.

Posted by docrpm on 06.23.07 at 2:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

June 9, 2007

year zero

file under: music , thoughts about things
tags: alternate reality game , nine inch nails , review

Nine Inch Nails (aka Trent Reznor) have released their latest album: Year Zero.

the nutshell review? there isn't one. it's a distressing, thought-inspiring, sprawling, frustrating, visionary effort put forth by one of the great innovators in electronic music. it's an attempt to merge art and political statement using digital tools and trickery. it's an alternate reality game. it's a brilliant "concept album," but it's not an album in the LP-sense of the word – it's an aggregate of ideas and media and information whose combination reveals an unsettling and dystopian vision for modern society, all wrapped in an aurally compelling package.

...

i've been a die-hard NIN fan ever since the release or Pretty Hate Machine. my life was consumed in fiery confusion at the time of its release, and it became a place for me to retreat during my struggles to make the transition from child to adult, to navigate my self-indulgent passage through loneliness and anger. it was a great listen, one that helped defined the entire industrial electronica genre of which i was a great fan. he followed with the brilliant Broken, the inspired and seminal Downward Spiral, the bloated and somewhat self-indulgent Fragile, and the half-listenable-but-safe With Teeth, which followed a loooong six-year hiatus containing scattered singles and tour materials.

after Downward Spiral, he sort of lost his way...who knows why? stardom, undiscerning idolatry, drug addiction and self-abuse...the usual litany of pop stardom woes followed by subsequent decay into mediocrity (at least in the minds of some). thankfully, reznor pulled out of his own downward spiral and produced something to rival or surpass the album of the same name. the new album looks out more than in, taking on multiple perspectives and voices, while still holding onto many of the core themes that have woven themselves through all of his work (god, religion, oppression, power, control).

the music

the album has been reviewed in a number of places. the year zero wikipedia entry has a list of fifteen or so critical reviews. as with most of NIN's later efforts, this one evokes a mixed reaction, ranging from brilliant to [shrug] to bollocks. this is to be expected, and despite the fact that i love it and can't stop listening to it, your mileage may vary significantly.

reznor recorded the bulk of the album himself while on tour. he plays almost all instruments, wrote every song. musically, this album pulls from the usual bag of NIN tricks, and to good effect. it's sonically varied as it progresses from beginning to end, wandering from kinetic industrial guitars to pulsing, danceable beats to quiet, earnest melodies and messages buried in whispers and static. standout tracks for me include: Capital G, God Given, Meet Your Master, Another Version of the Truth, In This Twilight, and Zero Sum. the album passes through an arc, one that starts with The Beginning of the End and ends with the affecting and thoughtful Zero Sum. songs represent the perspectives of some of the different personas and organizations in this dystopian vision of society.

zero sum is particularly moving. it's a look back at the (future) wasteland that we've created through our shortsightedness, our selfishness, and we're living in a twilight, one where the coming night may or may not end. a sample:

they're starting to open up the sky
they're starting to reach down through
and it feels like we're living in that split-second
of a car crash
and time is slowing down
and if we only had a little more time
and this time is all there is
do you remember the time we
and all the times we
and should have
and were going to
i know
and i know you remember
how we could justify it all
and we knew better
in our hearts we knew better
and we told ourselves it didn't matter
and we chose to continue
and none of that matters anymore
in the hour of our twilight
and soon it will all be said and done
and we will all be back together as one
if we will continue at all

at the end of it all, reznor doesn't seem to take hope in much, or if he does, he doesn't vocalize it. the future could be very grim indeed if his vision came to pass...but that's probably the point: shake our collective shoulders hard enough so that we invidually do what we can to foment positive political, social and environmental change.

politics and Year Zero

Year Zero was a political concept before it was the title of a NIN album. from the Wikipedia entry above:

The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is largely irrelevant, as it will (as an ideal) be purged and replaced from the ground up.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge originated this term, and followed it with well-documented atrocities and suppression of civil liberties for the good of the state. Year Zero (as appropriated by NIN) imagines a time 15 years in the future where the international calendar has been reset by the US and a Coalition for Peace, where Church and State have merged to fight the onslaught of global terrorism, where drugs are used to control the population, where freedom is a privilege, not a right.

Year Zero – alternate reality game

the music album Year Zero is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle. Reznor and his compatriots have constructed a large-scale alternate reality game (ARG) that houses the story behind Year Zero (YZ). the game has been unfolding through an elaborate series of hints and clues scattered across both the real world and the internet (USB flash drives left at concerts, MP3 files with hidden clues (see below), web sites, hidden urls, unlinked images on the web, album artwork, and telephone recordings). it started with bold letters on a concert t-shirt, which when strung together, led people to the web site iamtryingtobelieve.com. this hinted at the upcoming album, led to more web sites in the fictional universe being created, and started the game.

as an example of the kind of hints that have been scattered around the world and Net, the first album track was "leaked" on a USB flash drive left at a concert. it contained a high-quality version of My Violent Heart. it also contained 8 or 9 seconds of static at the end of the song, which when run through a spectrographic analysis, reveals an unsettling image of a godhead that's a central component of the game: The Presence (compare the image below to the album cover above). A number of other spectral analyses of MP3s have revealed additional clues, some in morse code, some in images as references to the online NIN community, some as phone numbers. (Note that NIN are by no means the first to embed images inside songs. another notable example is Aphex Twin.)

an example of one of the web sites used in the game is anotherversionofthetruth.com. at first glance, the site is a patriotic reflection of NIN's fictional Bureau of Morality, but drag your mouse across the site and it reveals a subversive message and links to an imagined future discussion forum in the game universe, which in turn reveals additional clues.

all told, at present, there are 30 separate web sites that have been linked to the YZ ARG. the storyline is fleshing itself out, complete with characters and a timeline, and it is pushing the buttons of a lot of OCD NIN fans who obsessively write about it and analyze every element of the universe. the best source for all of this information is the unofficial NIN Wiki, which at this point seems to be mostly focused on the YZ ARG. as a side note, several sites exist to help unravel the puzzles within ARGs (see unfiction and lonelygirl15)

open-sourcing art, resistance and music

an organization called Open Source Resistance (OSR) and its sister Art is Resistance (AIR) feature prominently in the YZ ARG, partially because they exist in the present day. by subscribing to the OSR mailing list, people were encouraged to come for a meeting in LA on Melrose place. they were met by people toting OSR rebellion kits, complete with stencils and other paraphernalia, all brandished with the OSR logo:

From the Wikipedia entry on the groups:

Although the group is technically in-game and fictitious, by allowing participants within the game to contribute via their art, "secret meetings," and similarly underground (though staged) activities, AIR could also be considered a real group, comprised of participants of the game and as a manifestation of the political awareness that the Year Zero game promotes.

this is, of course, reminiscent of past viral marketing campaigns. the one it conjures in my mind is Shepard Fairey's Obey Giant campaign, which eventually spread worldwide. no doubt, NIN would love to have their OSR stickers all over the world. free marketing for them, whereas for Fairey it was a social experiment.

but i digress.

the Open Source movement has been thriving for the past decade, with the rise of Linux, PHP, Mozilla, and other technologies based on freely contributing communities and networks, all striving towards a greater good without explicit rewards. reznor clearly believes in these ideas as they apply to intellectual property and digital rights management (DRM) of media. he clearly dislikes record labels and their approach to music sales as well. with the release of Year Zero, he has embraced these principles more firmly than ever. the entire album can be streamed from the NIN MySpace page, and all tracks will eventually be released in GarageBand/logic format for people to remix the songs themselves.

how all of this applies to the notion of rebellion and resistance is a little unclear to me. by its very nature, rebellion and resistance require networks of people, communities of the like-minded, in order to be successful. whether or not they are open or secret depends on the context in which they live. today, with our relatively free society, resistance can be more vocal and visible, provided it lives within the confines of the law. under the rule of a Pol Pot, resistance would have to be secret, since it would be punishable (usually by death). so, a secret resistance network seems a bit antithetical to the true ideals of open source (where everything is open and visible), although that's probably too literal an intepretation of the OSR term in the YZ context. the power of open source comes through the scale of networks it enables, and rebellion can only be successful if enough people join to fight, so maybe this is what NIN is getting at.

marketing, political statement and art

so what's the point of all of this? is it just a new NIN album with Marketing 2.0, or is there something deeper?

a cynic could argue (and many have), that the entire YZ ARG and concept are merely part of a brilliant viral marketing campaign, constructed to tap into NIN's core demographic (if there even is one). based on what i've read online, there wasn't much of a traditional marketing campaign for the album, so the viral marketing argument makes a lot of sense. however, many seem to stop there, as if that suffices to explain the entire effort. an implicit argument here is that the YZ ARG and everything around it has no meaning or value beyond the strict means to an end: sell more albums. i think there's more to it.

Year Zero is a fragmented, non-linear story about a possible future. it contains many voices and ideas that can't easily be contained in the confines of a 16-song album. by creating content outside the context of the album, these voices and ideas can be fleshed out more fully. additionally, they give more power to the narrative, partially because elements of the story don't seem dissimilar from current events. it's not that hard to extrapolate to the grim future Reznor imagines (although i think it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances to get there). YZ has created an unsetling simulacrum; with at least two of the YZ web sites (Free Rebel Art and Open Source Resistance), the line between fiction and reality was blurred pretty heavily, to the point that i wasn't quite sure whether it was a real or fictional call to action. all of this allows reznor (and whoever else is involved) to express a broader set of ideas (while simultaneously creating viral interest).

as a game, it's interesting to see the dynamics of groups coming together to solve the in-game puzzles, to discuss the music, to create an ephemeral network. the game's content is entirely political, so a natural outgrowth is heightened political awareness on the part of some participants, discussing it in the context of the game or otherwise. by writing this blog, i participate in that process, maybe inciting a reader to think differently, act differently (either positively or negatively).

finally, at a higher level, if you buy the argument (mine and trent reznor's as well) that everything surrounding and including the album is part of a coherent whole, then what is that whole? do we have the words to describe it? MetaArt? AggArt? InformationArt? InfoPorn? what do you call something that combines:

• 16 songs, neatly packaged
• 30 web sites with related audio and video content
• telephone recordings (and callbacks)
• the story told by all of the above
• an emergent social network of gamers, fans, and OCD ARG freaks
• the heightened political awareness generated by this collective phenomenon

i don't know what to call it, but i think it's a fascinating reflection of the times in which we live, even if it's all "just marketing."

final thoughts

the digital world that supplants our day-to-day existence is weaving itself into the tapestry of our lives; among other things, we've created freely available tools to support widespread information sharing, political action and resistance where necessary. conversely, governments and others may use these tools for the purposes of surveillance, monitoring and occasionally repression, all with the stated goal of maintaining our safety and security. control of this precious digital resource (in the sense of maintaining neutrality, transparency, standards, and openness) is critical for human rights and a free society, and for maintaining the balance between the right to share information and the ability to monitor it. the internet is not a toy any more; the information flowing through its veins is part of the lifeblood of our society, and it will only grow in importance. there will come a day when many literally cannot live without it; we should be thoughtful as we prepare for that day. Year Zero is only one possible outcome.

YZ taken as a whole is disturbing and scary for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its shadow similarity to our world. with a few negative twists and a well-placed dirty bomb or two, our world could be transformed by fear. the tragic events of 9/11 have shown how fear-mongering can be used as a tool for political ends; it's not hard to imagine more events like this leading us to a place where we give up more and more control to governments, religions, and corporate entities that supposedly represent our best interests. in many cases they do, but we should always remember that these organizations are run by human beings, inherently flawed, hungry for power and control over others, and endlessly thirsty for things that satisfy our far-flung prurient interests.

Posted by docrpm on 06.09.07 at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 21, 2007

microsoft funny money

file under: thoughts about things

microsoft has done an interesting thing with their xbox live marketplace: they made their own kind of money. when you log on to live marketplace and want to purchase anything (e.g., movies, games), the cost is given in "microsoft points." for example, i am downloading the HD version of a scanner darkly; the cost is 480 points.

so how much is one point worth? well, you can do the math and see that 1 point = $0.0125 (1.25 pennies, or 80 points = $1). so my movie download is costing me $6 (ouch).

at first glance, this just seems to be another irritating, proprietary microsoftism (not to mention potential ripoff); it's something you accept, deal with and move on. if you think just a bit harder, you realize a few things (which i didn't at first):

• you need a calculator to determine the actual cost. the conversion factor was chosen carefully so that most won't be able to do the conversion in their heads; the order-of-magnitude shift amplifies this problem.
• if you don't use the system for awhile, you're likely to forget what the conversion factor is, or actual costs you may have calculated in the past.
• most people are probably too lazy to do the calculation in the first place (or if they've forgotten the factor)
• microsoft could, at some point, institute inflation and it probably wouldn't be noticed.

bottom line, in my opinion: "stored-value systems" like that set up by microsoft are very convenient, and are designed to obscure and encourage expenditures. it's pretty smart and pretty shifty at the same time.

Posted by docrpm on 04.21.07 at 3:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 29, 2007

planet earth

file under: thoughts about things

i knew i bought an HDTV for something.

the new Discovery/BBC series Planet Earth is stunning. Elaine and I have only watched one show (Pole to Pole), and we're hooked. the show is an unparalleled visual exploration of our planet, one that exposes things never seen, especially not in the high-definition format in which it's presented.

yeah yeah yeah...HD schmaitch-D. another documentary about the glories of Mother Earth? haven't we been there and done that? about a hundred times?

yes, we have, but that doesn't diminish from the power or the importance of viewing. Elaine and I have yet to see the whole series, but in times when all seems dire and dour in the news, it's nice to take a step back and look at the thing that nurtures and sustains us – our world. other recent documentaries have brought our relationship to the world into a different perspective; an inconvenient truth is an obvious (and probably over-cited) example. with this new (or refocused) perspective, i think our world bears revisiting in the less-gloomy documentary sense.

in the first episode of planet earth, we are taken on a tour of the world, from top to bottom, pole to pole, looking at how the sun affects ecosystems and life on the planet, how it is ultimately the engine that gives everything on this rock strength. in this one episode, they managed to show about 5 different things that i'd never seen before in documentary footage. everything from very-high-altitude time-lapse photography, to aerial explorations of a wild-dog hunt in Africa – it was jaw-dropping for us.

Baraka is the clearest reference point for me, although i think the narrative structure of Baraka leads to different feelings, different conclusions. this is more about the Earth without us, not in relation to us. it is about Nature with a capital N, from bitter cold to scorching heat, from abundance of life to desolate wasteland. it is also about the pure struggle for survival that most of us (in the Western world, at least), conveniently forget.

for me, shows like planet earth try to erase our myopia, our preoccupation with everything human, everything here, everything now. they try to give us a wider view, a way of seeing our tiny tragedies and victories in the mirror of the vast world that surrounds us. we would do well to pay attention.

Posted by docrpm on 03.29.07 at 7:42 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

December 20, 2006

red lobster holiday cookies

file under: thoughts about things

my mother's side of the family saves everything. i mean everything. we take packrat-dom to new levels; rats would take notes. fortunately, the holidays come along once a year, allowing various family members to put some of those unwanted, yet valuable, items to good use.

for example, my mom sent me a bunch of holiday cookies, along with other goodies...what better use for red lobster leftover styrofoam!!

Posted by docrpm on 12.20.06 at 8:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

December 9, 2006

elaine has superpowers

file under: thoughts about things

she's been keeping it from me all these years, but now that we're married, elaine finally came clean: she has super powers. she hasn't told me yet whether she plans to use these gifts for good or evil, although it does look like i can get LASIK for free if i ever need it...

Posted by docrpm on 12.09.06 at 3:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 6, 2006

water on mars

file under: thoughts about things

it appears that more evidence has surfaced for the existence of liquid water on the surface of mars. i will leave it to greater minds to ponder the importance of this discovery. i just think it's pretty cool to find out new things about our nearest planetary neighbor. it shows just how much there is left to discover.

Posted by docrpm on 12.06.06 at 8:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 28, 2006

over the insurance barrel

file under: thoughts about things

i hate the american health insurance system. it is broken in the worst possible way:

• everyone agrees it's broken
• it's really hard and expensive to fix
• any solution would require compromise
• no one is willing to compromise
• everyone accepts it as just the way things are
• most people suffer as a result

it is not a problem of third-world magnitude; i would never compare it with the brutality and suffering visited upon so many in the world. but for a country of 250+ million, there are plenty of people who suffer with this system, and they are mostly poor and underprivileged. i'm not going to whinge about my issues – i just think they reflect a much larger problem, and it makes me furious.

i sprained my ankle amonth ago. it's not healing properly, and i have a history of injuries to this ankle. x-rays showed nothing. i went to see a podiatrist, a doctor of sports medicine, and he wanted to do a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan to see what the heck is going on. my insurance company has to approve such a test, since it's expensive (about $2000, which i can't afford to pay myself). with no other evidence than my doctor's request, their response (after repeated calls from my doctor with no response) was quite simple:

Review of the available clinical information (Man with trauma to left ankle one month ago. Has continued pain and limited range of motion. X-ray normal. No treatment other than ice and elevation.) does not indicate the need for the requested imaging study.

as a helpful afterthought, they provide the following:

The preceding determination was made in accordance with current NIA clinical guidelines for imaging. A copy of the general criteria used for the determination of medical necessity in this case is available free of charge. Please submit or fax your request to the address of fax number listed. A copy of the clinical criteria will be mailed within 30 days of your request.

well, at least it's free....and i'll probably still be in pain in 30 days, so waiting is cool by me.

now i have the option of paying $2000 for the test, or sucking it up and waiting a few months to see if it heals (with physical therapy that i'll probably have to pay for). at least it's not like the situation my father faced, where he had to pony up $26,000 to save his own life from skin cancer (insurance company response in that case was "sorry, pre-existing condition").

is there anything to do in this situation but shake your fist at the sky? it seems like that might actually be more effective. either that, or screaming into the nearest hurricane. do people with life-threatening problems get any more compassion? if i were really, really sick, i hope that the system would be slightly more inclined to help, although if my father's case is any example, i'd probably have more luck trying to jump to the moon.

PS: i realize the insurance companies are businesses that need to make money. it's not just them. it's the whole system (the cost of tests, the cost of care, the cost of practitioner liability insurance). it's all broken. it's one big Gordian knot of brokenness.

Posted by docrpm on 08.28.06 at 8:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 22, 2006

the price of stupidity

file under: thoughts about things

i'm going to take this in the reverse order from the commercials...

• expression on my face when i realized my car had been towed (with my cellphone inside): priceless
• phone call to figure out what to do: $0.50 (i remember when it used to be $0.10)
• taxi to the impound yard: $9
• fee to get my car out of hock: $88.25
• parking ticket for making the mistake in the first place: $60
• cost of a legal parking space: < $5

as an added note, i was at the impound yard within about 30 minutes of when my car had been towed. their storage fees typically run something crazy like $50/hour. it could have been a lot worse...

Posted by docrpm on 08.22.06 at 6:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 14, 2006

docrpm hits the big time

file under: thoughts about things

i never thought it would happen, but somehow, Steven Colbert found out about this blog and decided to put it on the air....the Internet is an amazing thing. ;-)

of course, i would never have made it without the reference from my good friend chookyfuzzbang.

Posted by docrpm on 08.14.06 at 11:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

August 4, 2006

all green, for now

file under: thoughts about things

whenever i drive places in the city, and it's really easy to get there, i get a little suspicious from a karmic standpoint. take today, for instance.

i left work early to run two errands. i gave myself an hour for both, knowing that under the best circumstances, it could take 30 minutes; 45 minutes was more realistic. this doesn't include the time to get home after the errands were done, which could add as much as another 45 minutes.

it took me about 8 minutes to get to my first errand. i drove up and parked right in front of the building (a Kojak, as we call it). hopped out of the car, paid a ridiculous $0.25 for 6 minutes on the meter, walked up the stairs, got my package, walked down the stairs, done. it took about three minutes. the next errand wouldn't be so easy. i had to cross the city, going through some notoriously congested areas.

the path to my next destination was going to be slower, and parking was going to be bad....i knew it.

from SoMA, i swung up Ninth street, crossed Market, turned on Franklin, and then drove all the way up to California without stopping once. all 18 lights were green (ok, maybe there was one 10-second pause). on that particular route, my smooth trip amounts to a planetary alignment of our entire solar system. the rest of the journey was pretty quick, and ended with a parking miracle: i drove up and parked half a block away (a Serpico – he never got to park right in front).

i waltzed into the building in question and walked into an empty elevator with its doors already standing ajar, as if waiting for my timed arrival. seriously creepy. up 8 floors, no stops, pick up my next package, back to the elevator, down 8 floors, no stops, and out. the elevators in this particular building usually involve about 6 stops, most of which involve kind, but slow-moving, elderly people.

total time to complete my two errands: 30 minutes. of course, it took me 30 minutes to get home, but it could have been worse. now, my question is, was the delay getting home the balance on my karmic scales, or is there a smackdown coming sometime soon?

Posted by docrpm on 08.04.06 at 5:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

May 20, 2006

i'm a voter and don't know squat

file under: thoughts about things

today, as i was responding to my friend Chooky's post comparing Nepal and Iran, i realized i don't know much about the world in terms of history, current affairs, and the connection between the two. i was trying to construct a coherent argument and basically couldn't (not without consulting the CIA world factbook in an effort to get at least the basics right). i knew bits and pieces of history and politics associated with each country, but nothing you'd take to the foreign policy bank.

it's pretty startling that i'm so uninformed, even though i make a daily effort (read the New York Times, listen to NPR, talk with friends who know more about current affairs than i do). in the end, it probably only really matters when i vote (and when i try to influence other's opinions).

my hope is that i vote for people whose knowledge of foreign policy is greater than mine [cough]. seems like a bit of a crapshoot when you really think about it, but that's the ultimate price (and gift) of democracy: the belief in the collective wisdom of an imperfectly informed electorate (averaged out over time, of course; even a well-informed electorate can make a mistake once (or, twice)).

this state of imperfection is natural. there's no objective truth when it comes to the past, since the supposed facts of history are always filtered through someone's lens. knowledge of the future based on the past is even more of a fool's errand – the world is a complex, emergent system. so when it comes to current affairs and foreign policy, even the smartest people are just making educated guesses most of the time, and however smart they are, even they can't escape unintended consequences.

as globalization, economic interdependence, and the daily influx of world news increases over time, we face an important challenge - how to make sense of it all. i'm not sure at this point. i can't even read the whole newspaper, not mention the modest 30+ RSS feeds piped to my newsreader every day. with all this information, there's just no way to know what's wheat and what's chaff.

Posted by docrpm on 05.20.06 at 7:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 4, 2006

(un)original sin

file under: thoughts about things

plagiarism seems to be the meme of the month, which brings me back to a theme i've explored before – the notion of originality in the Internet era. after all, what is plagiarism but a pronouned lack of originality?

it's probably not an original idea (i haven't googled it yet), but the Internet is making it easier to spot plagiarism and lack of originality. not only that, but networked communications with topic-centric filters make it easy to disseminate and/or locate the purported sins of the potential offenders. once google indexes everything ever published in the history of mankind, the situation for the aspiring plagiarist is looking rather grim.

the definition of plagiarism is actually a bit slippery. here are a few possible definitions:

the act of taking and passing off as one's own (the ideas, writings, etc. of another).

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

The willful act of presenting another person's work as one's own.

See the Athabasca University glossary

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, whether you mean to or not. ‘Someone else’s work’ means anything that is not your own idea, even if it is presented in your own style. It includes material from books, journals or any other printed source, the work of other students or staff, information from the Internet, software programs and other electronic material, designs and ideas. It also includes the organization or structuring of any such material.

See the Victoria, University of Wellington, NZ student glossary.

there are a few points of variation or distinction here that i'll boil down to ICE:

• intent: was the appropriation of work or ideas intentional or not? if it was unintentional, did it occur because the work had been seen or read before, or was it a completely random coincidence?


• content: what was the nature of the replication? was it literal transcription? paraphrasing? vaguely similar structure? what fraction of an idea constitutes the same idea?


• extent: how much was copied or paraphrased or otherwise pilfered? was it one memorable phrase out of a 1000-page book? what if the phrase was only tangential to the central thrust of the book? what if it were one page?

it all seems totally subjective, which explains to me why there is so much debate lately about relative degrees of guilt and culpability, even if one discovers and communicates the idea that plagiarism has occurred.

but let's forget about the vagaries of meaning in the word, and assume that we can agree on a definition. "is this work plagiarism?" an omniscient, neutral third-party observer (i.e., God), might be able to answer, but only withiin the boundaries of our definition. if everyone had simultaneous access to this omniscient source, we could all know whether or not something was original. of course, no such omniscient source seems to exist (or at least, to make itself available to us), so we're left to a more subjective assessment. in other words, i basically reject the notion of Platonic (objective) assessment of original ideas; it doesn't matter whether or not the same idea has been had before in principle – what matters is whether anyone knows or not.

so, if one agrees that knowing is what counts, we're left with two challenges:

1. discovery: one needs to find the crime, as it were. our source material needs to be compared with all other available work and ideas (i.e., the entire body of recorded human knowledge) to determine whether or not it is wholly original. this is possible in theory, but not (even at present) in practice. some monk in outer mongolia could have had the same idea, but this is irrelevant unless he made it known in some public forum (books, magazines, discussions at the local bazaar passed down by word of mouth, etc.).


2. communication: once something is discovered as plagiarism, the discoverer needs to communicate it to the rest of the world (or some subset thereof).

the challenge of discovery
in the distant past, an ocean (or even a few hundred miles) was enough to mask a lack of originality or cloak the sin of plagiarism. the spread of knowledge was slow, and similar ideas were likely to crop up in many places, either by coincidence or not, and the likelihood of discovering the similarity was slim.

the internet erases geography and the temporal delays associated with transporting physical representation of ideas. it also adds a very crucial feature: search. if i can take passages or statistically improbable phrases or other things, and drop them into a search engine, how much more quickly will i be able to discern similarities between one work and another? how often are these judgments accurate? how much are they apophenia? outright transcription will be very easy to spot, fuzzier borrowing of ideas more difficult, but i'd bet eventually possible to some degree.

the other thing to consider is basic statistics: the number of readers is increasing as the population grows, and as the number of people who have access to books or other forms of knowledge increases.

the challenge of communication
the internet has effectively turned this into a non-issue. the bulk of the world's population has network access, in one form or another, and anyone who doesn't might know someone who does. post something somewhere (on the Web, in an email), and odds are that someone on the network will grab it and run with it like digital wildfire, making it available for broad (global) consumption and analysis – metcalf's law writ large.

so who cares?
as i mentioned, the US media is rife with stories about plagiarism these days. it seems that a lot of people care, based on the level of media coverage. i wonder, is this true in general, or is there something about the current zeitgeist that heightens sensitivity to falsehood and misrepresentation? alternatively, is it just sensational, with the media inflating the relative importance of plagiarism in people's minds?

one could argue that the current US administration's approach to the notion of truth has eroded many people's faith. they don't know what to believe any more. who can really parse the triple-talk coming out of the White House? who believes traditional media outlets completely? whose version of the truth is the closest to the actual one, if there even is such a thing? i don't think anyone knows any more. i certainly don't.

we've reached a point where we seem powerless to hold our leaders responsible for misrepresentation of the truth, for prevarication, for equivocation. when a supposed plagiarist is thrust into the spotlight, we can shift our scorn and anger, showering the accused with righteous indignation.

or maybe it's just good, old-fashioned schadenfreude.

in either case, the Internet is changing the way we look at ideas, and it's going to be progressively harder to have original ones.

Posted by docrpm on 05.04.06 at 7:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

April 13, 2006

one giant leap for mankind

file under: thoughts about things

a video for dayvan cowboy has been released. it's the only video Boards of Canada have ever released, and it's a precursor to their forthcoming EP trans canada highway.

as you may have read here previously, i am a huge fan of Boards of Canada, probably to the point of having a blind spot the size of a (hexagon) sun regarding aspects of their work that don't, well, work. you have been warned.

dayvan cowboy is the best track on their latest album. at work this week, i went so far as to opine that it was their best song ever (ask elaine – i never use superlatives ;-)). watching the video just made me more foamy around the lips. wow.

a friend forwarded it to me, and while watching it, he and i were chatting over IM. he said, "it looks like they sound." that seemed a pretty apt description, yet prior to seeing the video, i would have been hard-pressed to visualize a representation of the BoC sound. now i will be hard-pressed to imagine anything else, or to get the video out of my head.

the song is roughly five minutes long, with a long, slow intro that changes significantly at the 2m06s mark. the second part of the song is linked stylistically with the first, yet different; guitars combine with violins, and then the drums and symbols come crashing in at 3m08s, punctuated all the while by a beautiful synth melody floating in and around the other layers of sound. for me, it evokes an odd combination of happiness and melancholy.

the video follows a similar structure, with two distinct stories, if you will, linked and yet not linked. the first 2m08s of the video are one of the most frightening and awe-inspiring things i have ever seen. they used real footage of Joseph Kittinger performing the highest altitude parachute jump ever recorded.

on august 16, 1960, kittinger used a special balloon to climb to an altitude of 102,800 feet (19.4 miles) and then proceeded to jump out of the gondola wearing 60lbs of gear and a parachute. he was in freefall for 4.5 minutes (85,000 feet), and reached a maximum speed of 614 mph, nearly breaking the speed of sound without an aircraft. this was the third time he had done such jumps, previously bailing out at 76,000 and 74,700 feet on two jumps spaced three weeks apart. he nearly died on the first jump; he lost consciousness after a parachute malfunction caused him to wind up in a 120rpm flat spin (his emergency reserve chute saved his life). i guess he just filed that one under "sh*t happens" and decided to get back on the horse.

he had already been awarded the distinguished flying cross for his initial high-altitude balloon flights. after three heroic and unbelievable freefalls from space, one might imagine Joe would just hang it up and retire to a nice calm life in Florida watching take-offs from Cape Canaveral. nah. he was only 32, after all; he had a whole life ahead of him.

after surviving being the first man in space without the benefit of a spaceship, kittinger went on to serve three tours of duty in vietnam, flying 483 combat missions. he was shot down and spent 11 months as a prisoner of war in the hanoi hilton, and was subsequently released. he retired from the air force in 1978, and spent the next five years setting balloon navigation records left and right. he still tours around the country flying a biplane, taking kids on their first flights.

we need more heroes like joseph kittinger, people who demonstrate courage beyond reason and show that humans are capable of a great deal more than what we limit ourselves to. it also wouldn't be too bad to have more musicians like Boards of Canada who show us transcendence in other ways. ;-)

Posted by docrpm on 04.13.06 at 2:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 6, 2006

what's next?

file under: thoughts about things

What's next?, you ask?

the entire course of human history is about to change. apparently, the end of the world is nigh (again). between earthquakes, tsunamis, and terrorists, it's all going to Hell in a handbasket. God is the only one who can save us.

my agnosticism aside, could someone come up with better marketing materials for these folks? i mean, seriously. if you look at the brochure i got in the mail yesterday, the front cover insert image says "Image courtesy of the HQ, USACE, Office of History." that just screams credibility to me.

here are a few thoughts:

• hire a Web designer who knows that red is an accent color, and make those nice images clickable!
• get a writer who can speak clearly and plainly, without the need for all the fire and brimstone stuff. things like "The Origin of Evil", "Armageddon," and "The Coming of the Messiah" are so 15th century.
• don't bother with fancy DVDs full of "Bible references and exciting special effects." Hollywood has already done it better than you ever can, even with God on your side.
• find real people to offer testimonials, as opposed to quoting entire Western states.
• try for more more positive messages and visual imagery; puppies are always good. people get tired of worrying about death and destruction and stuff; we get that from our President all the time.

heyyyyy...wait a second! Dubya, was it you who sent that?

Posted by docrpm on 04.06.06 at 9:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 28, 2006

hanging thought bubbles

file under: thoughts about things

imagine you're having a nice little chat using your favorite instant messgener program (iChat, for instance). you and your friend du instant are making small talk. you make a rather witty remark with which you're terribly impressed, and think you might get a lol, or maybe even a lmao.

your friend starts typing. you know this (on iChat, at least) because a little thought bubble cloud goes up next to their clever IM icon. you wait anxiously for the response.

nothing.

the thought bubble just hangs there in perpetuity. you start imagining all sorts of scenarios:

• your friend flipped a quarter trying to decide whether or not to laugh at your joke, and it landed on its edge, stopping time (sorta like that episode of Twilight Zone)
• the X-Men just walked into your friend's office, and Professor Xavier decided to slow things down a bit, just for kicks (so to speak)
• early-onset alzheimer's struck hard, and your friend forgot you were even there
• doh...bathroom!
• the joke just wasn't that funny after all, and your friend decided to get some real work done and leave you hanging in the process
• maybe they don't love me any more!!!
• they never even meant to respond...you're just witnessing a random, meaningless keystroke, dummy

so there you have it. one of those little things about life in the digital age that makes things interesting. something that could never happen in the meat world is now an everyday occurrence.

oh look! my friend started typing again! (and yes, fyi, i do have too much time on my hands)

Posted by docrpm on 03.28.06 at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 10, 2006

you know, for fun

file under: thoughts about things

<crotchety old man>
i was coming home on the bus today, as i usually do. it was a little earlier than normal, which meant there were school-age kids on the bus, presumably going home (or not). the mission bus is usually crowded with latinos and the odd indie denizen or bernal heights yuppie (aka me). today there was a group of asian kids behind me, laughing, joking, having a good time. ah, the energy of youth!!

the time came for them to get off the bus, and they piled off in a cloud of high-tops, shouts, and immortality. the last man out reached up and stuck his hand inside a mysterious hole above the door – the loud pssst of hydraulics followed his laugh (ha!) out the door, and they were off down the street.

the doors they left through stayed open, oddly enough.

we waited.

after a minute or two, the bus driver got out of the bus, walked around outside, forcibly closed the doors, then walked back to the front.

again, we waited.

the doors were still screwed up. some sort of interlock mechanism on these buses exists such that if the doors aren't closed properly, or if there is a malfunction, the bus won't move.

another nearby bus driver came to the doors (again on the outside of the bus), and kept trying to push the doors shut.

"hey...there were some kids who pulled this thing and...", i suggested. the bus driver ignored me. the other bus driver came back through the bus this time, and i told him about the kids, the sound, the apparent crime. he looked up, reached through the same hole the kid had violated, and flipped a red hydraulic switch. again the hiss and the doors closed. mystery solved, bus mobile, crowd pleased.

call me weird.. call me old-fashioned. call me prank-illiterate. in what world is it actually funny to make a whole bus of people sit and wait, anxious to get home, or to wherever they're going? it takes no creativity to do what that kid did...no brain cells were harmed in the creation of that prank, if you could even call it that. i like to think i have a sense of humor and can appreciate the things kids do, but i just didn't get the joke.

i hope my kids never do crap like that.
</crotchety old man>

Posted by docrpm on 02.10.06 at 6:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 16, 2005

secret santa hell

file under: thoughts about things

it's bad enough that i have to buy christmas presents for my family. now that i'm back in an office, there's a new hurdle i have to cross during the holiday season: the white elephant gift exchange with co-workers.

i don't even know what to buy people i know. my mother is basically impossible; our brains are wired differently, which pretty much guarantees that everything i buy her, she takes back. actually, she does that with everything from everyone, but that's another story entirely. my father is a bit better, although he never says he wants anything. he likes whatever i give him, but he never uses it. my fiancee? she insists she doesn't want me to buy anything, which of course makes me immediately think there is something i should be giving her, something free, yet special [actually, she's really great about the whole xmas thing, which is one more reason why i love her]. and let's not even talk about the 20 other people that i don't even think about buying presents for...it just makes me sad.

as you can see, panic and abject desperation are my constant companions during christmas. anonymous gifts for coworkers raise things to a whole new level.

do i buy a gag gift? something nice? for a woman? for a man? if i buy something nice, will it make me look like i'm trying too hard? if i buy something cheap, will i wind up looking like a loser? will there be ramifications when it comes time to think about bonuses? if my coworkers find out which present is mine, will it reflect poorly on me? this is not a straightforward situation, people. it is fraught with peril.

let's not even talk about the fact that the holiday party has snuck up on me like a ghoul in a haunted house: silent, terrifying, and ready to suck the flesh from my bones. this means that i went shopping after work, at the last minute on the night before the party. did i find anything? please.

i decided i'm going to give a gift that i bought for someone else. once the deed is done, i'll just go and buy another one, and no one will be the wiser, right? right?

[no ryan...Santa will know]

Posted by docrpm on 12.16.05 at 12:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

November 26, 2005

spam: 844, email: 24

file under: thoughts about things

i just got back from a great week of thanksgiving vacation with my lovely fiancee and her family. after walking in the door, i began the homecoming ritual in short order, so i could maximize my relaxation time prior to going back to the grind on monday. the ritual is pretty well established for me:

1. drop luggage in staging area
2. wander around house making sure everything looks ok
3. check to see if any plants died
4. go to (snail) mailbox and get stack of mail
5. soak in the feeling of being home again (smile in the process)
6. unpack
7. take empty luggage down to garage
8. open refrigerator and look for biology experiments gone terribly wrong; dispose of anything hairy, black or slimy that shouldn't be
9. make shopping list and go to grocery store; come home and unpack groceries
10. wake up computer
11. check email

things went really well until i got to step 11. no plants died. the house didn't burn down. unpacking was easy. the stack of mail wasn't nearly as heinous as it could have been. yes, it was all smashing, right up until the moment when i stepped out of the real world and into my Inbox:

     Inbox: (868 unread messages)

...

suffice it to say that i am not nearly popular enough to warrant this volume of fan mail. here's the breakdown, Harper's style:

• Emails from friends: 3
• Evites: 1
• Mailing list emails: 6
• Headline notifications from the New York Times: 6
• Really, really important emails: 1 (maybe)
• Random crap from companies I've bought stuff from: 7
• Blog comment spams: 10
• Blog comments: 0
• Meaningless, mind-numbing spams: 834

i was gone for six days (144 hours, give or take a few hours). that averages out to about six spams per hour, or one spam every ten minutes. it's also a signal-to-noise ratio of about 1.3% (discounting the NYTimes and companies i've bought crap from). in fact, if i take out the mailing list stuff and just look at emails from friends, we're at an abysmal 0.5%. from where i sit, that's really pathetic (and less a commentary about how popular i am than it is about the sheer volume of spam clogging the internet).

a lot of the spam came from the north pole or from santa. happy holidays! hey kids, santa's not coming to town this year...he's too busy sending spam!! ha ha! ho ho ho! i don't know why this made me sad, but it did, and i don't even like christmas.

if i think about it, one spam every ten minutes seems consistent with what i normally experience; i've already received seven while writing this entry, and i've been writing about 60 minutes. so i guess my 834-spam holiday isn't beyond the pale, but it's still troubling. my friend andrew thinks i shouldn't hate spam, but i'm not entirely convinced. it consumes my time, and in my haste to wade through this mountain of less-than-worthless sh*t, it raises the likelihood that i'll miss a message i actually care about. and keep in mind, if you got 850 pieces of physical mail in one week, would you be pissed off?

i like to think i know what i'm doing when it comes to defeating spam (two layers of spam filters, plus a separate layer on my blog), but my defense measures are about as good as a rebel defense network put together by jar jar binks. if this isn't working for me, i wonder what it's like for everyone else out there. granted, i had my email address publicly visible on my blog for several years, so in some sense, i deserve what i get (man, was that dumb). even so, it still seems a bit much.

if this continues, i'm going to have to decommission yet another email address and go through the arduous process of telling everyone about the new address. if i had to guess, i'd say this process will take me 1-3 days. if it was an hour, i wouldn't really care, but it's not. my email address has become a digital identifier that i use repeatedly and frequently, and changing it might even be harder than changing a physical address.

should i hate spammers or the people who are stupid enough to consume it, people ignorant or dumb enough to pour gasoline on the hellfire of non-information? how about both? does hating both work for you?

happy holidays!! ;-)

ps: apologies if i'm repeating myself. i know i've written about spam on multiple occasions in the past, but i'm too lazy to go back and see what i was frothing at the mouth about back then...

Posted by docrpm on 11.26.05 at 4:56 PM | Comments (2)

November 16, 2005

truth in advertising

file under: thoughts about things

how often do you think this works?

Posted by docrpm on 11.16.05 at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 11, 2005

rockets red glare, bombs bursting

file under: thoughts about things

fleet week came to san francisco this weekend. most years it just comes and goes; i hear the jets roar across the sky for a few days, and i imagine the ships docked in the bay and the crowds, and i stay home and think nothing more of it.

this year was different, not in the sense that i actually went, but in the sense that i thought about it.

elaine and i were at a friend's outdoor birthday BBQ on sunday when the aerial exhibition was taking place. it was a beautiful, clear, Indian Summer day, the warm air a welcome friend, soon to depart for distant shores. as we drank and ate and chatted on the patio by the apartment-complex pool, the blue angels flew overhead.

for the first 30 minutes or so, we just heard the jets. at high altitude, and flying near the speed of sound, they're easy to hear, but hard to see—blue phantoms in a blue sky. at some point, the building we were in (not too far from pacific heights) got buzzed by one jet, then two, then four in formation. it's a spectacular, exciting experience to have those metal birds blast past at 500 mph, in tight formation.

but then i thought, if i were in Iraq or Afghanistan or Tel Aviv, for that matter, how would i feel about those jets? would they fill me with excitement, or would it be fear? would i associate them with security or terror?

fleet week is a modern-day, US-style equivalent of tanks and soldiers parading through Red Square (or even jets flying over it). in the past, when i've seen images of military "celebration" on the news, i've always thought how openly militaristic other nations are, and how we tend to be a bit more dignified about our arsenals, our power, our supposed dominance.

maybe we do show a level of restraint when it comes to the classic large-scale military parade, but it doesn't remove the fact that we are celebrating instruments of destruction. on one level, the flight of the blue angels demonstrates humankind's mastery over the elements—our ability to overcome gravity, to fly even though we weren't born to do so, and to do it with incredible power and grace. it could also been seen to symbolize national achievement, which is nothing at all to be ashamed of.

at the same time, we built these things as weapons of war. in light of all the horrible things happening in the world, it's just so desirable to conveniently forget. it's easier to think of birds in flight, of courage, of leaving the earth behind and flying away into a blue sky, unencumbered by the weight of our weakness.

Posted by docrpm on 10.11.05 at 9:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 2, 2005

wrinkles

file under: thoughts about things

they are the bane of my existence. they are a virus—a plague that has spread through my closet and ravaged my clothes. they have gone so far as to infect my mind, so that i only buy clothes that will nurture them.

yes, i'm talking about wrinkles.

i have a closet full of shirts that i really, really like. most of them are flat-bottom shirts from kweejibo, a local store that makes custom shirts with cool fabrics and unusual patterns. it's the first time in years that i haven't been burdened with shirts i have to tuck in (the only thing i hate more than wrinkles). yet just about every shirt in my closet has a fatal flaw: they wrinkle when you look at them sideways. i put one of these shirts on, and within about 12 seconds, the bottom 8 inches of the shirt are a mess (usually after i sit down on the bus, on the way to work).

and so, what's been happening lately is that i wear the wrinkle-attractors once, get home, hang them up, and then leave them there, infected. because i hate ironing all the time, they just sit there, taunting me. i get up in the morning, open my closet, and pull shirts out, one by one, doing the wrinkle assessment. usually, one or two shirts will pass muster, but the rest are lost causes. and so they sit there, until the next time i feel like ironing (which is usually about once a month).

i've actually started to feel a little OCD about my wrinkly shirts. i've taken to surreptitious visual surveys of the other guys in the office to see if their shirts are wrinkled, too. t-shirts don't count of course, which means that half the dudes provide no data (it's always casual friday at our office). the other half offer a mixed bag. some people seem to pull the wrinkly thing off, looking like they're runway models and the whole wrinkled thing is intentional, you know what i'm sayin'? the other half don't appear to be wrinkled at all.

and so i'm left in a conundrum. do i go with the wrinkles and see if i can pull off the "my shirt is wrinkled and i don't care" thing, or do i start ironing more?

either way you slice it, i still think about wrinkles in my shirts way, way too much.

Posted by docrpm on 10.02.05 at 10:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

August 23, 2005

help is on the way

file under: thoughts about things

i got stuck in an elevator today.

it wasn't a complete surprise. i think it was only yesterday that the elevator lurched violently as i passed the fifth floor on my way to our fabulous office penthouse on six (ahem). well, today, as ryan and i were making our way to lunch, the elevator lurched near the fifth floor again. the lurch was followed by the elevator stopping, the button for "L" going dark, and the sound of silence.

when it stopped, there was a moment of disbelief, followed by avid button pressing, followed rapidly by the sinking realization that yes, in fact, we were stuck. this was in turn followed by the realization that for some reason, neither of us had our mobile phones.

it just so happens that we stopped right near the fifth floor, and there were people waiting outside the elevator. after we stopped, we had an interesting muffled chat with the people outside the elevator:

them: "hey, what are you doing in there?"
us: "the elevator's stuck."
them: "do you want us to get help?"
us: "um, yeah...that would be great."
them: "oh...ok...hang on."

i don't know what i would have said had i been on the other side of that door, but i'm pretty sure it would have involved fewer rhetorical questions.

after 10 minutes of complete silence, we decided that their promises for getting help were somewhat exaggerated, so we decided to use the elevator phone. very exciting. i've always looked at these phones and wondered, "what happens when you make a call on one of those things?" let me tell you, it's a once in a lifetime experience.

i pushed the button to make a call, and within about 15 seconds, a polite woman was on the line. another surreal conversation ensued:

her: "hello, can you tell me the address you're calling from?"
me: "615 battery street"
her: "are you currently stuck in an elevator?"
me: "yes."
her: "are the doors closed all the way?"
me: "yes."
her: "did you try pushing any of the buttons for the other floors?"
me: "(long pause) um...yeah. yeah, we did that. first thing we did, in fact."
her: "how about hitting the Open Doors button?"
me: "yep, we hit that, too. nothing happened."
her: "what floor are you on?"
me: "i think we're pretty close to the fifth floor."
her: "ok, just let me put you on hold for a second, and i'll call a technician to come over and get you out, ok?"
me: " that sounds great."
her: "ok, just one second..."

we then heard a click on the line, followed by some pretty bland hold music. yeah, you know what kind of music i'm talking about: elevator music. after about 3 minutes of this, the music went away and the phone disconnected.

now, just to the right of the phone, there was a small, circular red indicator lamp. during the call, it was lit like rudolph's nose, lighting the way to our freedom. when the phone went dead, it went out. just above this lamp, it said, "WHEN FLASHING, HELP IS ON WAY."

it never flashed.

in fact, nothing happened for about an hour, and then all of a sudden, the elevator started up and went smoothly to the lobby, and there we were, blinking like office moles who've been underground for too long. it was good to breathe fresh air after an hour in that elevator, good to see the sun, and even better to get lunch.

so, a few words of advice based on this experience:

1. always carry your mobile phone, because you never know when you're going to get stuck in an elevator. a clif bar in your pocket might not be a bad idea, either.
2. if someone is stuck in an elevator and you're outside, avoid asking overly rhetorical questions.
3. if you work for an elevator emergency service, please change your hold music to something that's a little less like elevator music so that people like me can't make bad jokes.
4. even if the red light isn't flashing, it doesn't mean that help isn't on the way.

NOTE (08.24.05): I learned at work today that the fact that we got out as quickly as we did had nothing to do with our call for help. the elevator repairman who let us out had apparently stopped by on a whim, since we had been having sporadic elevator problems. so, in fact, help wasn't on the way, and yet we got it anyway. i'm not sure whether i should be troubled or concerned by this revelation.

Posted by docrpm on 08.23.05 at 7:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 25, 2005

googling in the groanosphere

file under: thoughts about things

ok...i think i've reached my limit.

i've been fairly tolerant of all the recently spawned language related to web logs (e.g., blogging, blogosphere, blogger). it seemed a fairly natural set of abbreviations related to writing web logs (with the possible exception of blogosphere).

today, however, the NY Times ran a piece talking about the "vlogosphere," the domain of video blogging. this is the linguistic straw that has broken my back.

other people have been ranting about the menagerie of new terms floating around on the web. i've decided to take a different approach — i'm going to make up my own. maybe i'll start a stupid trend that will make people realize how stupid this is all becoming (i doubt it, but it's worth a try).

...

to make things easy on myself, i've decided to confine my linguistic explorations to variants of the word "blogosphere," which is loosely defined as the collective writings of everyone who is blogging today. this single neologism should be enough to get the ball rolling.

ready...let's go!

bogosphere

blogs whose sole point is to discuss all things related to foul, swampy regions. alternatively, places where dudes can discuss and or ponder that which is bogus.

cogosphere

anyone writing about their meaningless lives caught up as part of the corporate machine is a part of this domain of the blogging kingdom. make sure to vent a lot, because your job certainly isn't going to get any better.

dogosphere

let's talk about our dogs!!

hogosphere

no way! my sow is way cooler than your dog, loser.

frogosphere

this could either refer to the collection of french bloggers or to francophiles spending some bytes talking about their favorite foreigners.

grogosphere

feel like talking about beer? this is where you do it.

jogosphere

for running enthusiasts...actually, jogging isn't quite running, is it?

snogosphere

people looking to either get some action, or to talk about other people getting some action. this is a particularly well–populated region of the blogopshere, although rumor has it that it's just a bunch of dudes (see bogosphere and grogosphere for related categories).

googosphere

for blogs entirely devoted to incessant ranting about google and whatever they manage to squeeze out of their bloated digital sphin*ter this week.

moogosphere

talk about your synthesizer until you are moog in the face...also an occasional discussion of theremins

droogosphere

one of the more peculiar blog collectives. it's bipolar in nature, populated by literate intellectuals who analyze anthony burgess to death, and also by groups of frat boys looking to get some (see snogosphere).

groanosphere

the collection of blogs that groan about the blogopshere, somewhat ironically

Posted by docrpm on 07.25.05 at 10:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 20, 2005

what time is it?

file under: thoughts about things

i was waiting for elaine at the BART station today, and i saw an odd thing.

two people were walking along near the entrance. while they weren't your garden variety homeless, they didn't exactly fit with the financial district crowd. one of the two asked a passerby in a suit, "what time is it?"

the man looked puzzled. perhaps even flummoxed. he really didn't seem to know how to respond to the simple question. he thought about it for about 5 seconds and then, without looking at his watch, said "seven o'clock," and then proceeded down into the underground.

frustration and anger crossed the face of the woman who had asked. "that's not right," she said. and she was right — it was actually about 6:45. she knew he was full of it, that the request for the smallest kindness had been met by bullsh*t.

why did he say that? if he was so disgusted, why not just ignore them or say "i don't know"? that's what most would do. it's the easy route when dealing with people that make you uncomfortable. instead, it seems he chose to lie, or at least to give an answer whose resemblance to truth was unimportant. did he feel like misleading them? was he drunk? insane? what did he possibly stand to gain? a feeling of superiority?

which is the greater sin: to ignore a request for help, or to meet it with a contemptuous lie? i've always felt the greatest punishment the homeless suffer is indifference, but perhaps careless dishonesty is even worse.

Posted by docrpm on 07.20.05 at 8:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 5, 2005

packed with style by chad

file under: thoughts about things

in the drive to personalize e–commerce purchases, they have become even less personal. one can imagine poor chad sitting on the assemply line at Bluefly.com: one after another, he packs bikinis and flip flops and discounted Diesel™ jeans, dutifully signing every wrapping insert to make up for the fact that no human being was involved in the exchange.

i suppose i appreciate the sentiment, but a large part of the reason i buy things online is because i don't want a human being mediating my transaction. if something goes wrong, i want the help of someone who can speak and think, but in the purely mechanical transaction, a machine does just fine, thank you.

bah humbug.

Posted by docrpm on 07.05.05 at 8:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 29, 2005

the half–truths of war

file under: thoughts about things

i didn't watch the president's speech yesterday. didn't even know it was happening. i've grown accustomed to ignoring what he says because he says so little that actually illuminates. if there is truth in the world (and i seriously doubt it), he does nothing to promote it. perhaps the job of any president is not to expose the truth, but rather to create politically expedient half–truths. but that's the cynic in me speaking.

i don't think there's a single american that would doubt that war is hard. as eulsive as truth is these days, this truth seems pretty self–evident. and yet the president reiterated it in his speech yesterday, several times. he also reiterated the need to support our troops, and to recognize the sacrifices of the brave men and women fighting (and dying) in Iraq. also self–evident.

i don't think anyone on either side of the aisle would argue these two points. so why reiterate them?

these statements have become platitudes. their obviousness almost elevates them to the level of tautologies (the color red is red, the sun rises in the east if it rises in the east). but what happens when you mix these statements with other assertions that are more tenuous, with other calls for support and faith?

maybe there's the feeling that by asserting so many things that people hold to be true, then mixing them with things that many consider suspect, you will engender positive feelings towards the latter — a truth halo effect, if you will. either that, or your speechwriters are really running out of gas and can't come up with other good things to say.

if this was the ploy, i don't think it worked. it's hard to believe this president when you just don't know what to believe in general. do you believe the democrats? the republicans? the bloggers? the sunnis? the shia? the kurds? the president? CNN? fox? rush limbaugh? truth, when it comes to the war in Iraq, seems to be caught in the shifting sands of perception, belief, and context.

in any case, the course in Iraq is one that's impossible to chart. i'm not even sure shackleton could get out of this one. i don't envy you, mr. president. you've got a hard, hard job.

Posted by docrpm on 06.29.05 at 9:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 27, 2005

Butane or pork?

file under: thoughts about things

the local asian supermarket that elaine and i patronize has no organizational system, as far as i can tell. when it comes to blue light specials, anything goes, as the picture above demonstrates. pork fu. butane fuel. they're all just specials. who cares if there's any sense to it?

the last time i recall encountering a complete disdain for in–store classification was in hana, hawaii. there's a grocery store there called hasegawa's that has the most random assortment of items that i've ever seen. the only difference there is that they're the country grocery store that has to have everything for everyone, in one tiny establishment. 99 ranch doesn't have the same excuse.

i suspect there's something really deep to be said here about supply chains or the law of supply and demand or some other thing about marketing or sociology, but i just can't think of it. call this entry "the deep thought that wasn't".

Posted by docrpm on 06.27.05 at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 23, 2005

the case of the missing pants

file under: thoughts about things

i lost a pair of pants.

it wasn't a sudden loss, the kind where you smack your forehead with a doh! realizing that you've just left something on the train or in some mystical foreign land. instead, this was the uncertain kind of loss, the loss that creeps up on you. a sneaking suspicion starts brewing in the back of your mind that you've lost something, but you don't have the time to search to confirm or deny your fears. instead it just percolates.

and then, at some point, you reach the breaking point, the point where the brew is beyond ready; in fact, it's stinking up your brain, and you've got to do something about it.

i felt like i hadn't really seen one pair of my jeans in a few weeks. it didn't bother me too much — i figured it was in the laundry or on the drying rack or stuck in some drawer out of place. then i started to miss these particular pants, because i felt like i was paying altogether too much attention to my other levi's. one wouldn't want to convey an impression of sartorial favoritism, so i decided it was time to look for my neglected pants, not knowing whether they were in fact in the land of the lost.

the usual suspects turned up nothing (laundry hamper, drying rack, all clothes drawers, piles of clothes in the guest room waiting to be ironed, unfolded clothes on the guest room bed waiting to be folded). the next step was luggage from recent trips — no dice. hmmm. hanging somewhere on the back of a door? nope. stuck in the hall closet? no...oh oh! laundry chute! no pants (although i did find two wayward black socks and a white tshirt that had been hanging there for god–knows how long).

things were getting desperate. i wracked my brain trying to remember when i might have worn them, but this is precisely the kind of thing i always forget. i started wandering aimlessly through the house and garage at this point, suspecting that my pants weren't the only thing i'd lost.

and then it came to me. i had recently done a pants transfer operation — i moved old pants out of my jeans drawer into the Goodwill stack, so that there would be room for my new pants. had i inadvertently cast aside my new jeans as if there were some ill–fitting throwaways?

i had. i pulled down my stack of Goodwill pants, and right at the bottom were the almost–lost jeans.

there's some sort of deep lesson in here that i wanted to convey, but i'm afraid i lost my train of thought.

Posted by docrpm on 06.23.05 at 8:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 31, 2005

the right books

file under: thoughts about things

i've got two weeks off, so i'm going out of town for a few days, starting tomorrow. vacation, glorious vacation!

it's my uncle's 75th birthday, so i'm going to celebrate with him and the family at his spread in the desert of southern california. aside from the quintessential road trip, this getaway provides the perfect opportunity to catch up on some reading, preferably while sitting near the pool with a margarita (everyone in the desert has a pool, it seems; it's the equivalent of wearing black in san francisco).

ok, so i've got some dedicated reading time; all that remains is to pick the books to fill this temporal gap, and then i'm off to wherever it is the words take me.

if only it were that easy.

...

i'm an inveterate book buyer (independent of whether or not i've finished the ones i already own). this generates no end of frustration for my fiancee, but what can poor pablo do? when that juicy remainder pops up, the one you've been wanting to read (sort of), you simply have to buy it. c'mon — it's a hardback and it's $4.99!!! and let's not forget about the books your bookish friends recommend, which you pick up in a one–click binge at amazon.com, figuring you might as well take advantage of that super–saver shipping.

all of this book buying means two things:

1. lots of books to choose from, at least one in each of my favorite genres, so that whatever mood strikes, i'll have the perfect book at hand
2. so many books to choose from that the tyranny of choice makes it almost impossible to decide which to bring

and let's not forget the issues of the believer that have been sitting on my nightstand for two months, or the issues of Wired magazine that are piling up on the coffee table (Darth Lucas! Spielberg Cruise! hard to choose — bring both).

as you can see, this is not going to have a happy ending.

at first, i start out with eyes too big for my calendar: "hmmmmm....five days? i can read three books, four magazines, and one or two essays on postmodernism and its effect on [insert totally unrelated subject here]." after a moment's reflection, i realize that at my average reading pace, it would take me about 15 days to finish said material, assuming i had an intravenous feeding tube, a catheter, and a bedpan the size of montana (ew).

ok...let's trim it back to two books and two magazines, with no intention of finishing everything. that sounds a little more reasonable. now we just need to decide genre, level of intellectual stimulation and commitment required, current author binges in progress, and the need to "break out" of whatever literary rut i may be in at the moment.

you're starting to get the picture — i'm neurotic when it comes to books.

after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, i finally settled on the following:

1. the player of games (current sci–fi author binge)
2. the innovator's dilemma (already started and need to read to avoid excessive feelings of guilt about absence from work)
3. incompleteness: the proof and paradox of kurt godel (so my mind doesn't turn into slime mold)
4. the two latest issues of Wired magazine (for when i feel like reading for 7.2 minutes before i fall asleep beside the pool)

and so i embark on my adventure, books at the ready, confident that i've made intelligent, balanced choices that should provide the proper mix of entertainment and education during my vacation.

now, if only i could decide which one to read first.

ps: any bets as to what i'll finish? personally, i think i can get through one of the Wired magazines.

Posted by docrpm on 05.31.05 at 6:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

March 14, 2005

pajama-clad windbags

file under: thoughts about things

it's hard to pick up a major newspaper these days without finding at least one article about blogging or bloggers or these mysterious things called 'weblogs.' it's getting irritating, but i guess i'm gonna have to get used to it.

whether or not blogging is another burst of Internet–fueled irrational exuberance remains to be seen. personally, i doubt it. i do think blogging is getting a bit overexposed, though. and so do others.

i was reading the paper recently (which one, i don't recall), and there was an article about news and blogging, specifically about how some bloggers were making waves by breaking news items that other "respectable and trusted" news sources were not. at some point in the aforementioned article, one of the interviewees called bloggers a bunch of pajama–clad windbags (or the pejorative equivalent).

hmmm....pajama–clad windbag.

it's true that a lot of bloggers are clad in sleepwear while writing (case in point: i'm writing in my plaid flannel jammies at the moment). it's also true that a number of bloggers are windbags (not unlike a few journalists out there). however, the combination of the two terms is an unfair distortion; it dimishes the possibility that anything reaching the heights of journalistic integrity can come from the world of blogging.

this is clearly nonsense. after all, it doesn't really matter what you're wearing — anyone can be a windbag. in fact, it might be argued that some people consider expensive attire to be a license to spew hot, pompous gas. there's no correlation between clothing and content — just because someone can write while wearing pajamas doesn't necessarily diminish the quality of their writing, their integrity, or their thoroughness.

in my mind, it just demonstrates how little the people reporting about blogs actually have anything intelligent to say about them.

if people want to attack the substance of what people write, fine. that's the way it should be: criticize ideas, not people. or perhaps i should say, "criticize ideas, not distribution mediums."

Posted by docrpm on 03.14.05 at 10:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 9, 2005

newsflash: intelligent design is not a scientific theory

file under: thoughts about things

i am just about at my wit's end. the intelligent design (ID) 'debate' has reached the point where i can't hold my tongue any more. it seems that every other day, i hear a new story in the news about some court case related to pulling evolution out of public schools. it's not only sad...it's frightening.

...

wired ran an article about intelligent design a few months back. all things considered, i'd say they were pretty fair to the people in the ID community (although the Wired writer was clearly pro–science). while i applaud their tolerance, i think it is undue: the people in the ID community are religious zealots with a clear political agenda. in the ideal scenario, their efforts would be politely ignored. unfortunately, that's not going to happen. it's going to take communication, education, and activism to make these people stop trying to push their agenda in America's educational system.

intelligent design (ID) is defined (see Intelligent Design: The Scientific Alternative to Evolution) as follows:

ID is a scientific theory that intelligent causes may have played a crucial role in the origin of the universe and of life and its diversity. It holds that design is empirically detectable in nature, and particularly in living systems. ID is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins that currently drive science education and research.

i could not possibly deconstruct this "theory" any better than the analysis of intelligent design at the Skeptic's Dictionary.

here's my summary of their basic conclusions:

• ID is not a scientific theory because it does not rely an objectively testable hypothesis. intelligent design is a perfectly valid philosophical (metaphysical) belief system. it can neither be proved nor disproved, and as such, it should not be taught as a scientific theory. it is not a plausible alternative to natural selection, and anyone who pits the two against each other is confusing the argument.
• no matter how much ID proponents call their empirical observations 'science,' it doesn't make them so
• God and religious belief are completely compatible with the theory of Darwinian evolution; ID defenders have created a false dilemma by saying that the two are inconsistent

ID proponents are very careful to avoid the G-word in their arguments. it's not about God, or creationism vs. natural selection, they say. it's about the darwinian materialist paradigm and its shortcomings, and the need for a measure of objectivity and the presentation of alternative scientific theories that "ask the right questions."

nonsense. absolute nonsense. this is about politics; it's about religion in the classroom; it's about indoctrination; it's about misinformation. anyone who pretends otherwise is lying.

and yet people fall for it.

if you don't think it's about religion, let's do a little gedankenexperiment....imagine the situation where the ID proponents win their battle – they win the right for ID to be taught in schools. suppose i were a high school teacher, and i decided that right after talking about darwin and natural selection, i'd shift gears and talk about intelligent design, except i'd take it one step further. the first question out of student's mouths would probably be, 'so who or what was the designer?' i'd say the following:

"that's a great question...evidence actually shows that the Earth was seeded by an advanced alien species. easter island, the great pyramids, crop circles, landing strips for spaceships – they all point to a race of superbeings that set life loose on this planet. the thing we still can't figure out is why our designers would make so many people so dumb."

snarky comments aside, i suspect the ID people, and anyone who would vote for them to be a part of your local school board, would be unhappy were i to make reference to alien creators. after all, everybody knows somebody just made all that stuff up about the pyramids and everything so that leonard nimoy would have something to talk about on 'in search of....'

addendum 1: i would be the first to defend people's right to religious expression (provided it doesn't actively harm another person). as i stated above, creationism and religion are NOT a priori incompatible with darwinism (or science in general). if people want to promote their faith, it can be done in a church or synagogue or mosque. it should not be done in public schools, not in this country.

addendum 2: if people want to teach or discuss intelligent design in school, do it in a class about philosophy (e.g., metaphysics). there's no reason the discussion can't occur, provided it (1) doesn't promote a single religious belief system, or (2) doesn't claim to be a scientific theory that competes with the theory of evolution.

addendum 3: darwinian evolution is a theory (backed by a great body of hard, objective scientific evidence that is not strictly empirical). it's not a perfect theory, but that doesn't mean it's wrong in toto. newtonian mechanics can't explain lots of things that quantum mechanics does, but that doesn't mean it's wrong, either; the two are quite compatible, acutally. by a similar token, general relativity is a theory. quantum mechanics is a theory. the big bang is a theory. all realms of scientific endeavor are composed of theories, hypotheses, and experiments, with one exception: mathematics (the only science that could be said to represent objective truth). even then, gödel's incompleteness theorems showed that there's some fuzzy stuff going on in math.

my point is that no one in intelligent design is going after the big bang, claiming that textbooks should put it forward more clearly that this is "only a theory" and that someone might have actually designed the universe. why is that? why stop at evolution? why not take on every realm of scientific endeavor that could be conceived (however incorrectly) as incompatible with a creation myth?

Posted by docrpm on 02.09.05 at 7:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

the things you find on your car

file under: thoughts about things

i found a small piece of white paper on my car windshield one day.

it's been sitting on my office shelf for months. i kept it for some reason; throwing it away out of hand just didn't seem right. now i'm cleaning and can't bring myself to cast it into the great recycling beyond without sending its echo across the digital ether.

maybe it's nothing. maybe it's profound. i suppose it could be either. or both.

Posted by docrpm on 02.09.05 at 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 26, 2005

geoduckawake?

file under: thoughts about things

i got a piece of spam today with an initially broken image (that loaded only the second time i looked at the email), an unsubscribe link, and the following text:

crucible guernseyconfusion contributor geoduckawake amity documentthesaurus shaggy directorateadditional egan arcturussceptic vegetate appriseclinch effectuate chairmannightgown visual whomevernguyen waterside cradlemagna

i know i've said this before, but who falls for this stuff? i mean, could your spam be much less effective? actually, they could. i got another one today, with the subject line "vacuum pumps – cause deformed pen1s." the content of the email was for cheap prescription drugs. maybe the only way they get anywhere is by people clicking the unsubscribe link (which unfortuantely then verifies that their email address is valid and has a human being at the other end, which then causes them to send even more spam).

for some reason, it all reminds me of an exchange between Beavis and Butthead, where Beavis experiences a moment of deep reflection:

• Beavis: "uhhhh....hey butthead, if it's dark inside your butt, how do the turds find their way out?"
• Butthead: "uhhhh....i think they can like, see in the dark....like bats."
• Beavis: "Ohhh....yeah...yeah...that makes a lotta sense...yeah."

if this kind of logic obtains for spammers, then their tactics make a whole lot of sense.

Posted by docrpm on 01.26.05 at 6:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

January 23, 2005

newspaper pile-up

file under: thoughts about things

the wreckage is strewn across the house — a two–month pile–up involving late–model Wall Street Journals and San Francisco Chronicles. the yellowing pages, piled here and there, are a testament to my laziness, my inability to follow the simplest of modern morning rituals.

...

it could be worse: i could keep everything. instead, i am selective in my garbage–collecting. every few days, i scan the stack of papers on the dining room table, looking for articles of interest, things worth a visit at some indeterminate point in the future. those go into one or more piles, and the rest goes into the recycling bin.

i usually scan the front page, but i just can't seem to sit down for the rest of it. there always seems to be so much to do during the day (not to mention the fact that i usually sleep as late as possible, thus leaving precious little time for lollygagging in front of the newspaper in the morning). so i save a section here, a section there, and promise myself that in that next block of free time i have, i'll sit down and catch all those culturally enriching tidbits, those insights about technology, the political analysis that helps me to pretend i'm informed.

but the next block of free time comes, and goes, and the papers sit there waiting patiently.

eventually it gets so bad that elaine starts to notice all of my little piles. each corresponds, more or less, to a certain period of time. dining room table is probably sometime this week. unused dining room chairs (above or below) are probably a week or two ago. living room table? last month. once the magazine rack in the living room fills up, i know there's a problem, since that's the more–than–a–month–old holding pen.

when i reach that container saturation point, like today, i have to make the tough call: sit down and actually read the stuff that i've set aside, or pitch it. if i decide to catch up, it's always a mixed bag, because i can only scan the wreckage, as it were, looking for survivors worth saving. an article about bittorrent? heck yeah...a tremendous coincidence, since i've been reading a lot about it in the past few days. articles about planning for my financial future? hmmm....probably worth a read, but it seems like there might be too much thinking involved. bush's inaugural speech? a few paragraphs ought to be sufficient to create a feeling of uneasy vertigo.

i know it will never change. it's like a new year's resolution: you can keep it for awhile, but old habits die hard. and so i suspect the rest of my life will be spent dealing with occasional newspaper pile–ups, unless of course, i just stop having them delivered...

nah. where's the fun in that?

Posted by docrpm on 01.23.05 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 21, 2005

those sticky labels on stuff you buy

file under: thoughts about things

we went to IKEA last weekend (again). even though we went to look at a chaise lounge extension for our karlanda sofa, we wound up buying dishes. this always happens to me at IKEA. it's like the whole store is one big impulse buy; i rarely buy what i go there to get.

we got home with our IKEA365 dishes, and realized that our snazzy new glasses all had white sticky labels on them, each with a bar code and a product identifier. of course, these stickers had to be removed before use, but it's always a crap shoot with these things. they seem to fall into two categories:

1. "quick release" stickers that peel right off, leaving none of their gummy poo behind
2. "engineered–by–NASA" stickers (EBNS) that seem like they're holdovers from the space program, engineered to withstand re–entry through earth's atmosphere without showing the slightest hint of coming off

i've got no issues with labels in the first category. that's the way things should be. it's the EBNS labels that make my blood boil. of course, you can't look at a sticker and tell in which category it belongs. one needs to proceed as if they're all of the EBNS variety, and then be pleasantly surprised if they turn out to be quick–release.

for me, the sticker removal process usually goes something like this:

• sneak up to the sticky labels in question, preferably when they're not looking; act nonchalant — they can smell fear
• start at one corner, digging a nail underneath to get a starter edge; i dig up enough of an edge so i can get a good grip, thus avoiding immediate tear–away (a rookie maneuver)
• i gently tug at my starter edge and slowly start peeling; i'm going after the holy grail of label peeling at this point – the perfect, intact–label peel, where you get it all in one pull without leaving anything behind
• as i gain confidence that this is a quick–release peel, i speed up the pull a bit, or start acting like i'm the boss (clearly not the case)
• as the label comes up, i hear a slight tearing noise as the paper begins to separate from the adhesive
• the paper part of the label (or a small fraction of it) tears away, and i'm left with a mix of adhesive goo and paper left behind (along with the rest of the sticker)
• i scream
• elaine tells me to calm down, it's just a sticker
• i spend the next five minutes manually scraping at the remnants of the sticky label and the goo it's left behind
• the sticky label laughs at me from the grave — a nice gummy film is left behind as monument to its memory

at this point, i usually drag out either the cotton balls and nail polish remover, or i crank up the hot water in the sink, and scrub the adhesive scum off with soap. i probably should have done these things from the outset, but because there's always the possibility that the label is a quick–release, i try to take the easy way out.

now, i realize the label makers are in a bind. they have to engineer labels with the perfect balance of stickiness: sticky enough to stay attached under normal operating conditions, but not so sticky that you can't pull them off. it doesn't seem like it should be that hard. i mean, engineers at 3M solved this years ago with the Post–It note, right? we put an unmanned probe on Titan, for heaven's sake, why can't we make the perfect label? is it that there's just too much variation in the stuff we stick things to, or are people just being lazy with their adhesive label engineering?

i suspect the best course of action at this point is to follow elaine's advice — calm down, it's just a sticker.

Posted by docrpm on 01.21.05 at 12:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

January 20, 2005

in the wayback machine with bill

file under: thoughts about things

check this out: bill gates strikes a pose for teen beat magazine (1983)

this is funny on many levels. the thing that i like most is the hacker– cred points he gets for the eye luggage. i can just hear the girls: "did you see the bags under his eyes? i bet he slept under his desk all week. he is HOT!"

Posted by docrpm on 01.20.05 at 4:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

January 15, 2005

hooray for Huygens!

file under: thoughts about things

the Huygens probe landed successfully on the surface of Titan yesterday — hooray for Huygens! from 750 million miles away, it transmitted data with all its heart for almost four hours, and then went silent as its batteries died. here's the first color image of the surface of this magnificent moon:

it took 15+ years (planning + flight–time), $3.26 billion, and the cooperation of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian Space Agency, and people from 17 nations. it's one of the most amazing things done in the history of human space endeavors, and it's just one part of the larger Cassini–Huygens mission to study Saturn and some of its moons. check out the following for the complete 411 and lots of cool stuff:

• NASA Cassini-Huygens site
• ESA Cassini-Huygens site
• Wikipedia: Cassini-Huygens mission
• Wikipedia: Huygens probe
• listen to the sounds of an alien world

i don't remember the last time my geek buttons got pushed this hard. i basically spent most of this afternoon reading, learning everything i could about the mission. during my wanderings on the Web, i collected a few facts and some random observations. read on for more...

...

here's what you'll find below:

• images from huygens
• about titan
• about cassini–huygens (mission + craft)
• stuff that went wrong
• mission challenges and devilish details
• deep thoughts

images from huygens
scientists will be poring over the data from Huygens for a long time. right now, there are a few cool images, a few surprises, and lots of speculation. the images below show two aerial views (top: drainage channels leading to ???; bottom: 360 degree panorama showing what appears to be a coastline)

a great composite of the Huygens images above can be found at spaceflightnow.com, where they've annotated the images to show where Huygens' landing spot is relative to the images.

about titan
Titan was discovered in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens. it's one of the more amazing moons in the entire solar system, which is no doubt why it was chosen as worthy of observation. just a few facts:

• It is one of 33 Saturnian moons and is bigger than the planet Mercury
• Titan is the only moon in the solar system massive enough to have a dense, planet–like atmosphere with clouds
• Titan's surface temperature: -290 degrees Fahrenheit
• Titan's atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, methane, and other organic compounds

about cassini-huygens (mission + craft)
the Cassini–Huygens mission is massive in scope and duration. a complete description of the mission can be found on the ESA web site. a few interesting facts:

• Project initiation: ~1982 (discussions began at NASA)
• Launch date: 15 Oct 1997
• Cassini mission duration (around Saturn): 4+ years
• DIstance of journey: 3.2 billion miles
• Huygens mission duration (on Titan): ~4 hours (2.5 in atmosphere + 1.5 on surface)
• Cassini-Huygens is the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built (5650 kg = 12430 lbs)
• Gravity assisted maneuvers (2 x Venus, 1 x Earth) provided the equivalent of 68000 kg of rocket fuel; this was required because there was no way to impart enough energy to send it directly to Saturn
• Cassini uses Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) for power (heat generated by decaying plutonium); solar arrays would have been too large (based on power requirements)
• No other human-made craft have landed on celestial bodies as far away as Titan

stuff that went wrong
the mission is an incredible success. however, a few things went wrong...fortunately, they didn't damage the success of the mission:

• Cassini telemetry firmware used to communicate with Huygens had a critical design flaw; it couldn't handle the Doppler-shifted signals that would result from Huygens' descent through the atmosphere of Titan, and thus would be unable to relay Huygens' communications (Huygens could not communicate directly with Earth; it had to relay all communications through its parent). mission control altered the trajectory of Huygens' landing to compensate; they were successful, but it was close...there was almost no margin for error.
• Cassini had two redundant communication channels to capture Huygens' image data; one of these channels failed due to a missing computer command (human error). half of all Huygens' image data was lost, but 350 high–quality images still made it home, along with all other scientific data and additional observations from ground–based radio telescopes.

mission challenges and devilish details
as i read about the mission, and how Huygens made its successful landing yesterday, it started to dawn on me all of the little details the mission scientists had to consider to be successful. some of them seem pretty obvious when you think about it, but i'm sure there are thousands more:

• Huygens had to land on the sunny side of Titan (otherwise the images would have been pretty boring, yeah?); come to think of it, the atmosphere on Titan has a layer of smog 300+ kilometers thick ...how did they even know it was going to be light at the surface?
• scientists weren't sure whether Huygens would land on a mountain, in a sea, or on a spire of methane ice. they had to design the craft to work regardless of its landing spot.
• Huygens was crammed with lots of gizmos to measure conditions on Titan; but think of it — if you were going to another world, what experiments would you want to perform? how did they decide they wanted acoustical measurements to see what Titan sounded like?
• Huygens entry trajectory had to be precise (within 3 degrees), otherwise it would not be able to communicate with its parent (see stuff that went wrong above).

deep thoughts
the news these days is filled with too many examples of human ugliness: war, murder, rape, torture, corruption. it seems no depth is too deep — we can sink there. at the same time, we do things like Cassini–Huygens: we work together to explore our solar system, to try to fathom the mysteries of time and space, to find our place in it together.

if a team of three space agencies, working for 15+ years with people from 17 nations, can land a probe on another world, it seems there might be hope for us yet...

Posted by docrpm on 01.15.05 at 2:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

January 12, 2005

it's official - no WMDs!

file under: thoughts about things

the US has announced, officially, conclusively, finally, on–the–recordly, that no weapons of mass destruction were located in iraq. they're calling off the search and reassigning the 1700 people who've been scouring the desert for the past 112 years with magnifying glasses and specially designed bioweapon dowsing rods.

it's nobody's fault, mind you, that we didn't find anything. i'm happy our president is above going around assigning blame or admitting we made a mistake or doing any of that accountability stuff. that's just stinkin' thinkin', and this administration is more about gettin' things done; there's lots of hard work out there to be done, after all.

i will sleep better knowing for sure, with absolute certainty, that there are no WMDs out there in iraq. it was keeping me awake, really. i'd lie there thinking, "we went to war because there were WMDs...where did that sneaky saddam hide them?! are they stashed in bunker–buster– proof caves in the mountains of afghanistan? did he ship them to libya disguised as funny red hats, and now khadafy is gonna lay waste to our freedoms after gaining our trust?"

but no.

i don't have to think these things any more, because there are really, truly, no WMDs in iraq. never had 'em (after 1991), never had a workable plan to get 'em — wanted 'em, hell yeah — but just couldn't get their sunni salami together to build 'em or buy 'em.

so, i'd like to take this opportunity to say, "thank you george bush, for making the world a safer place for democracy. we look forward to the result of the upcoming iraqi elections with great, great anticipation. since you have stated with certainty that the elections will be held and they will forge a democracy in that poor country, i can sleep well about that issue, too."

PS: for those worrying simultaneously about rathergate and WMDs in iraq, the Poor Man has put together a nice quantitative comparison of the two searches.

PPS: i'm not finding fault here with the dedicated legions of people in the ISG who conducted the search, nor am i saying that there was never a possibility that iraq had WMDs after 1991. i'm finding fault with our president's complete inability to admit having made a mistake of grand proportions (something that David Kay admitted openly before the senate armed services committee). i'm finding fault with an administration that has taken this long to admit something that everyone has pretty much known for a long, long time.

don't take my word for it; take the word of David Kay (quoted by AP). he knows a lot more about it than i do:

"It is like dropping a shoe a little late. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone who follows it very closely has suspected anything else over the last year. It was a matter of when the obvious would be done."
  — David Kay, former head of the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) charged with finding WMDs

NOTE (01.18.05): an astute reader suggested that i would be wise to read david kay's report, that it in fact showed that iraq had WMD programs that were in violation of various UN resolutions. while i think it's clear that iraq was in violation of numerous UN resolutions, it is not at all clear that iraq had ongoing and viable chemical or biological weapons programs. the open-ended language of kay's report showed that no clear conclusions could be drawn (cf., intentions of the iraqi government and possibilities that things could have happened had UN sanctions been withdrawn). my primary conclusion from reading the kay report is that UN sanctions after 1991 worked, for the most part — saddam hussein's regime was thwarted in its desire to obtain WMDs. for addition analysis, you can read slate's commentary on the kay report and kay's final testimony before the senate armed services committee.

and one final PS: the thing that burns me even more about this is that clinton, for his frisky sins, got impeached, whereas bush will probably be remembered warmly as a proactive, no–nonsense president.

Posted by docrpm on 01.12.05 at 9:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

natural disasters as an engine for social change

file under: thoughts about things

NPR ran an interesting piece on All Things Considered today about disasters and how the changes they wreak go beyond physical devastation. in particular, they examined the 1976 Tangshan earthquake (north-east of Beijing, China), an 8.3 temblor that killed at least 240,000 (this is the official chinese estimate; outsiders estimated the number could have been as high as 750,000).

...

china refused outside aid, insisting that they could deal with it themselves. indeed, the Red Flag journal is quoted as saying:

"Any grave natural disaster can be overcome with the guidance of Chairman Mao."
 — Spokesman for the Red Flag journal

as it turns out, charmain mao was not up to the task (he was on his deathbed at the time). the disaster was one big domino that helped end the cultural revolution and pushed china to move away from mao's vision of a world without the influence of bourgeois intellectuals (seismologists among them). chinese earthquake experts (those that weren't in re-education camps) had apparently warned the government that a quake was likely, but their warnings went unheeded...

this type of social change as the result of disaster doesn't seem unique, and is even understandable. religious figures can turn disaster into a catalyst for change – "God is angry with us...we must cast out the [insert scapegoat for social problems here]!!" i've heard several stories after the tsunami that this is the message some muslim imams are bringing to their flocks...this is not to say that christians or people of any other religious persuasion would act differently. in the face of incomprehensible tragedy, it's easy to point to the unhappiness of your local deity, and to incite change as a result.

what changes will come about in Asia as a result of the tsunami? it's too early to tell. apparently, after almost 30 years, people still comb through the rubble in Tangshan, looking for baubles amidst the wreckage of people's lives. the echoes of disaster can be heard for generations...

Posted by docrpm on 01.12.05 at 5:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

January 11, 2005

stray cards

file under: thoughts about things

you might have received a few stray cards in the mail lately...you know, those envelopes from friends postmarked between dec. 25 and jan. 4; people writing to wish you a "happy new year!"

please.

we're wise to that game, people.

...

when you go to the card store, you rarely see shelves lined with 'happy new year' cards. there's a reason: no one sends them. at least, not intentionally...it's really a big cover-up. a cover-up for the lazy, the busy, and the guilty.

didn't send your christmas cards out in time? no problem! just plop a generic card in the mail, call it a 'happy new year' card, and move on to bigger and brighter things. someone sent you a card but you didn't send them one? don't feel guilty!! send out that 'happy new year' card and you'll be right as rain!

...

guilt. it's what makes the american christmas holidays go 'round. in case you didn't feel enough for not getting friends and family their "fair share" of presents, xmas–card guilt is there to save the day. i sent a few cards this year to folks that aren't normally on my list, mostly because they were a nice part of my year, and i wanted to wish them well. i got (unexpected) cards from them after xmas in response; it seemed odd, but i guess everybody wins: i get to hear from people and they get to use up those extra cards. the same happened to elaine.

i'm not trying to make anyone feel bad here. in fact, quite the opposite. i wish people felt ok if they didn't send cards to people who sent them something (card, Caddy, or otherwise). communications, like gifts, should be offered with no strings attached.

instead, it seems like every action we take around the holidays is imbued with so much meaning...every card, every call, every fruitcake.

it's all a big social game (or at least, it seems so to me). it's not about one-upmanship – it's about reciprocity (or the appearance of it). as long as you maintain card–sending parity with your friends and family, everything is ok. you may have off years, but re–establish things the next year, and life goes on. slip too much and risk dropping off someone's card list: "steve didn't send me a card last year! humph! we'll see if he gets one next year, by gum!!!"

but there i go being cynical again.

i guess a part of me just wishes that christmas cards weren't the only time i made the effort to get in touch with certain people. it's a far too infrequent dialog to have with friends and family, especially considering that none of us knows the arrival time of that bus with our name on it. at the same time, there's a subset of my acquaintances who would probably think it weird if we talked more than that – there's the christmas card expectation, and to go beyond that might seem odd or perhaps even needy, in a holiday sort of way.

christmas cards are definitely an issue for me (see holiday hostage for previous thoughts). it seems like such an insignifcant worry in the grand scheme of things, and yet every year, the ghost of christmas past rises up again, and says, "did you send a card to uncle snerd? after all, he wrote you last year!"

Posted by docrpm on 01.11.05 at 6:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 23, 2004

rat bastard spammers

file under: thoughts about things

in a previous entry, i informed my kind readership that comments within this blog were being (temporarily) disabled. this was done as a prophylactic measure to stop the flood of comment spam i was getting. my solution worked for about two weeks, but it turns out that my foes are determined.

the rat bastard spammers are back.

i can think of a few forms of human life that are lower on the totem pole [insert lawyer joke here], but spammers are feeding pretty near the bottom of the well. i have a message for these people (if you'll forgive me for being impolitic): "p*ss off, you worthless scumbags – you're polluting the internet with useless garbage and save a small minority of individuals, we all wish you would just go away."

how are they spamming me? i'm not sure. i removed code within my site that provided the means to insert comments, but they seem to have gotten around that (they're probably either caching successful spam targets, or pulling my (cached) pages off Google). regardless, it sucks.

while i don't count myself as an author, per se, the phenomenon of comment spam would be akin to random people inserting ads about poker or viagra or wanton teenagers inside the books you picked up at Borders (or your favorite indie bookseller of choice). absolutely no one would tolerate that kind of crap (at least, i hope they wouldn't). and yet blogs are different, probably due to the fact that they're still in their infancy as a writing form.

so...this dictates a fairly immediate upgrade to my blog. i apologize in advance for any outages.

Posted by docrpm on 12.23.04 at 12:51 AM

December 22, 2004

10 things i forget (part I)

file under: my life , thoughts about things

in no particular order:

1. what day of the week it is
2. whether or not i've watered the plants
3. people's names
4. people's names (it's so bad that i'll count this one twice)
5. going back and buying newlyweds gifts after their wedding if i have no time to buy the gift before the wedding
6. canceling those stupid free-for-30-day phone solicitor offers that i accept just to get them off the phone without seeming rude
7. how long it takes to christmas shop
8. to read lists that i create for myself so that i don't forget things (thus rendering the process of list creation meaningless)
9. to turn the heat off when i leave the house
10. to live every day of life as if it is my last

there are definitely more, although i can't remember what they are right now...

Posted by docrpm on 12.22.04 at 11:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

santa is scary

file under: thoughts about things

on an entirely different holiday note, parents should remind themselves that kids and santa are often like gasoline and matches. alder was kind enough to send me a gallery of scary santa pics just in case there was any question. my personal favorites are #7 (santa after too much eggnog) and #9 (former felon turned santa). this probably exposes my deeply twisted and cynical view of Xmas.

bah humbug.

Posted by docrpm on 12.22.04 at 9:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

timely advice for holiday parties

file under: thoughts about things

wondering how to satisfy your holiday partygoers? worried that brie, crackers, and a BV cabernet are becoming a bit passe as appetizers? looking for something new and exciting to liven things up? well, look no more:

the good housekeeping 10PM cookbook has got some tried and true ideas for you.

if these don't work, well, your guests just don't know a good time when they see it. either that, or you skimped on the booze...

(thanks for the pointer, sean!)

Posted by docrpm on 12.22.04 at 9:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 12, 2004

past as prologue in iraq

file under: thoughts about things

the following quote made my stomach churn:

We . . . imagined that we had bestowed on the Iraqis all these blessings of democracy. ... Nothing could be more undemocratic than the result. A handful of politicians obtained possession of the machinery of government, and all the elections were rigged. . . . In this process they all became very rich.

is this colin powell predicting the failures of the bush doctrine in iraq? a left-wing pundit putting forward his 'told-you-so' vision? it almost seems like it could be, but it's not. in fact, it was Major John Glubb who wrote those words; he was the british officer who organized the Arab Legion, and he was speaking about the failure of british policy in iraq after it invaded the country during world war I.

a more extensive commentary on past lust-for-oil incursions in iraq can be found in a commentary by edwin black. mr. black has also written an article expressing his belief in the futility of elections in iraq.

the similarity of current and past circumstances is eerie, although each situation was spawned by a different set of events. regardless, it brings to mind santyana's famous quote that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

do people in iraq want a western-style democracy? some of them probably do; lots of them probably don't. will elections, held jan. 30 or otherwise, magically create a stable democracy in iraq? it seems highly unlikely. will elections instead lead to deepening ethnic and religious conflict, and ultimately civil war? as the magic eight ball would say, "Outlook Not Good."...

Posted by docrpm on 12.12.04 at 4:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 1, 2004

gettysburg address, PPT style

file under: thoughts about things

powerpoint presentations are like vampires: they suck the lifeblood from ideas and information, and they're impossible to kill. microsoft should release powerpoint with a little label like the intel badge, one that says Vampire inside ™.

the best lampooning of PPT style i've seen to date is a witty parody of president lincoln's famous speech:

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Address

this pres reinforces my vampire comparison. the original gettysburg address was memorable for its power, for the melancholy and passion it evoked, for its important call to action. in the hands of powerpoint, rendered in corporate non–speak, even lincoln's ideas can be reduced to a dead lump of clay, a mass of soul–destroying Arial and bar charts.

unfortunately, powerpoint isn't going to die any day soon; corporate america has neither the wooden stake nor the will. it's a quick and easy way to convey information, and in a world of time–starved people, the quick and easy route is the path of least resistance. in the wrong hands, though (and based on what i've seen, most hands are wrong with powerpoint), the result is soulless and no information is actually transferred.

so, the next time you pull out powerpoint, do the world a favor and put it back in its crypt. if you can't, then do what you can from putting your audience to sleep. i'll do the same.

NOTE: for those interested in ways to improve powerpoint presentations, edward tufte's article the cognitive style of powerpoint is probably a good place to start.

Posted by docrpm on 12.01.04 at 9:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 27, 2004

where's my monster snorkel?

file under: thoughts about things

one of my favorite gary larson cartoons depicts a small, rotund boy hiding under the blankets in his bed. the room is full of monsters, but jimmy has got a monster snorkel that lets him breathe while safely under cover, and the monsters are none the wiser.

larson's genius was in exposing the concept of the monster snorkel (or the equivalent): something simple to protect us from the bad things in the world. sadly, the world can be a scary place, and there aren't any monster snorkels. about all we've got is our reptilian brain.

my trip to the garage the other night reminded me that the reptile inside is alive and well...

...

***

trash pickup occurs on tuesday mornings (early), which means trash usually goes out monday night. our three color–coded trash bins live in the garage, so last monday, following the routine, i took the trash down clad in my usual evening attire (flannel PJs, slippers, fleece pullover). it was dark, but the light above the garage stairway bleeds into the garage enough to support the business of garbage dumping, tool–rummaging, or whatever other urgent midnight task needs to be performed down there. it does not, however, cast light into all those nooks and crannies that are life–support systems for fear.

i discovered this fact while at the turning point of my journey. i was in the corner, the spot farthest from the stairwell, my back to the vast expanse that is our garage, and i was dropping bags into bins. you might say this is the most vulnerable position possible in my seemingly safe abode (dark, spooky garage, back turned, hands occupied, guard down, wearing PJs and slippers). if i were a monster, that's when i'd attack me, my slavering fangs bared to rip through that flannel.

at least, i think that's what my reptilian brain was thinking. at that moment, it hijacked higher cortical function and took over the show.

the hair on my neck stood up and it suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world was to get up that stairwell into the warm, cozy, monster–free house. i squelched the urge to run like a little girl, clear evidence that the higher brain counts for something (i.e., saving face with your girlfriend by not running from boojums hiding in the shadows of our garage).

so that's what i did. i calmly walked up the stairs (no! run run run!), clicked off the light, closed the door, and locked it. phew — disaster narrowly averted (note to self: take down the trash during the day).

***

the whole incident reminded me of when i was a kid, and of the deep–seated fear that would occasionally strike, the kind of fear that couldn't be assuaged by any amount of parental cooing or logical analysis. after all, we're talking about monsters here, people...

the thing that got my reptilian fires burning more than any other was, oddly enough, taking down the trash. we used to live in an apartment building on the top floor, and the dumpster was outside, three floors down, in the alley behind the building. there were two ways to get there: (1) walk down the stairs, out to the front of the building, up another flight of stairs, then across the carport, OR (2) walk down the back stairs to a small passage that emptied right in front of the dumpster. needless to say, route 1 was much longer and well–lit, whereas route 2 had a directness only matched by its potential to spawn blood–curdling terror in a 9–year old.

for some reason, i would always wait until it was dark to take out the trash. there were too many other things to be done during the day, after all. once the chore couldn't be avoided any more, i'd pick up the bag, walk down the hall to the fork in the hall, and stand there. garbage bag clutched tightly, i'd try to decide whether i was gonna be a man and take the fast (dark! scary!) way, or act like a coward and take the long, slow way.

despite my general cowardice, i actually chose the dark, quick route more often than not. by going that way, i could simultaneously be done with taking out the trash quicker, and also prove (to myself, if no one else) that i wasn't fazed by the gauntlet of terror (even though i clearly was). in the end, i survived, and am here to write of my trash–dumping adventures.

***

after 37 years, i still haven't seen any real–life monsters (other than people). every once in awhile, though, the reptile inside takes over to remind me that just because i haven't seen them doesn't mean they're not hiding in my garage. it may not be a monster snorkel, but it's all i've got.

Posted by docrpm on 11.27.04 at 7:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 12, 2004

3D map of election results

file under: thoughts about things

check out the following map showing the election results by county, with population density represented in the third dimension. the blue spikes are the most striking feature, but not that suprising. more interesting are the subtler features (like Austin, that blue bump in the middle of Texas). this is the last map i will post — i promise:

   http://www.esri.com/industries/elections/graphics/results2004_lg.jpg

(thanks alder!)

Posted by docrpm on 11.12.04 at 5:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 11, 2004

My First Guffaw

file under: thoughts about things

david sedaris has the unique ability to make me laugh so hard, i cry. i splutter. i spasm. when i saw him tuesday night with elaine, joy, and kevin, i did something i'm not sure i've done before: i guffawed.

...

before experiencing a guffaw first hand, i was never really quite sure what it was, what it would feel or sound like. i'm not sure where i've seen people guffaw; maybe in a comic book? a cartoon? the funnies? i can't remember. regardless of how it got into my brain, i had the impression that a guffaw was a genuine reaction to something really damn funny, and i was just missing out by not having had one. reading the news doesn't really help, i suppose.

it was maybe half way through his show. he was reading a diary entry, i think, about his brother paul's predilection for the crudest things possible. in the present case, it was a little toy monkey with a little toy weenie that he (the monkey) yanked on when wound up, simulating little monkey masturbation. apparently, lisa was visiting paul at the time, and found the masturbating monkey disgusting. she said so, after which paul decided he would have a little fun — he put the monkey inside an espresso package of lisa's and sealed it. he figured she'd see the monkey when she got home and went looking for a caffeine fix (har har har).

as it turned out, she wasn't heading home; she was heading up to a cabin where her in-laws were staying, and the espresso was to be a gift (or at least enjoyed by all). as it also turned out, her father-in-law suffers from alzheimer's, but is capable of performing simple tasks, such as getting the newspaper, or, perhaps, making coffee.

you see where this is going already.

lisa and her husband go to the cabin, and at some point coffee is made (by the father-in-law, naturally), at which point he opens the package and discovers the masturbating monkey. as if that's not funny enough in and of itself, it also turned out that lisa's father-in-law is a retired baptist preacher, so one can only imagine his reaction (and hers — "that monkey is not mine!").

i think the guffaw happened somewhere around the time i realized precisely where the monkey was headed, so to speak.

it just sort of exploded from my body. it wasn't really a laugh, and not quite a cough or a belch or a wheeze. it was an uncontrollable, rapid expulsion of all the air in my lungs, accompanied by a loud bark (bah!). just as one coughs to expel phlegm or other nastiness while sick, so did i have to guffaw to expel the humor caught in my chest. it was very satisfying, i must say (even if people did look at me sorta funny).

so if you haven't experienced a guffaw first hand, and would like to give it a go, i suggest a reading by david sedaris (on tape or CD, if not in person). if you manage to find the elusive guffaw, i hope you enjoy it as much as i did.

WARNING: there are those who enjoy reading mr. sedaris, but do not find the same pleasure in hearing him. his voice is...distinctive. personally, i think it goes quite well with his brand of satire; it cracks me up. your mileage may vary. you have been warned.

Posted by docrpm on 11.11.04 at 7:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 8, 2004

brooks and the values-vote myth

file under: thoughts about things

david brooks has written a very provocative article on the relationship between moral values and the election results. he has some valid criticisms of recent behavior from those on the left side of the aisle. for the full article:

new york times op-ed: the values-vote myth

there are a number of points with which one could take exception, but i'll leave that dissection process to the interested reader.

Posted by docrpm on 11.08.04 at 4:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 5, 2004

actually, we're purple

file under: thoughts about things

here's another set of maps (thanks elaine!) that illustrate ideas similar to those from the previous red v. blue entry:

   Princeton map of county-by-count election results

instead of clear red v. blue differentiation, this map seems to indicate that the US is, more or less, purple. there are some blue splotches and some red splotches, but i see a whole lotta purple...

look around on the web. there seems to be an obsession with maps at the moment, showing once again how good information design can convey huge amounts of data with one image. here are a few more (some pulled from boing boing):

• states area-adjusted by population
• a comparison to civil war demography
• New York Times election results

Posted by docrpm on 11.05.04 at 10:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

red v. blue

file under: thoughts about things

no, i'm not talking about the TV show related to Halo. i'm talking about the election results...of course.

my friend pascal has taken the time and applied his skills at information design to create an elegant representation of the election results. his illustration shows two things:

1. the US is divided ideologically, not geographically
2. certain states wield political influence (and reflect popular opinion) to a much greater degree than their geographical area would indicate

in my opinion, these diagrams also illustrate the lack of a clear mandate. if the President really had a clear mandate, wouldn't it be self-evident? would he even need to plant this idea in the minds of the masses? just because he says it doesn't make it so. make your own judgments. if john kerry had won with the same margin and had said, "it's clear that i have a mandate to reverse course in this country," i would have groaned just the same...

Posted by docrpm on 11.05.04 at 9:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

November 4, 2004

unsubscribe

file under: thoughts about things

i got to thinking about my soon-to-be-dead email address in more depth when i decided to unsubscribe from an old mailing list this morning.

it was a list devoted to a community of people with whom i used to work (the company is now defunct). someone set up this list as a way to keep in touch and to talk about (ostensibly professional) issues in which the membership would be interested.

a few years back, someone posted something on the list of a political nature. while i'm not normally one to suppress the exchange of ideas, i took exception in this one case, since i felt what was being said was (a) not appropriate for the list, (b) completely silly with minimal basis in fact, and (c) horribly inflammatory, bordering on hate-mongering. i went back and forth in my brain about whether or not to respond, and how i should respond. i ultimately decided to just say i thought the list wasn't really meant for that sort of stuff. for that, i got flamed. so, i stopped posting to the list, although i never unsubscribed (because people did decide to leave politics aside...).

in the past week, activity on the list was high, and most of it was political (and left-leaning). yesterday, it degenerated into an all-out, profanity-ridden flame war, filled with some pretty hateful garbage. it was amazing to watch a group of supposedly intelligent, conscientious individuals sink to the basest levels. the most sickening moment was when one of the members of the list posted a private email in which she had been flamed with the torch set on nuclear. she held up this email as proof of the author's vileness as a human being, then proceeded to do the same, in open forum. nice.

unsubscribe.

while i would not have defended this other person's private vilification (because it was pretty raw), it seemed to me that the public exposure of it, followed by taunts in kind, was no better. it seemed worse, in fact, because it took whatever shreds of decorum were left on the list and threw them out the window. i felt like i was watching two five-year-olds fight, and it make me sad and sick. what made me even sadder was that no one said anything negative about the public exposure, while some in fact kept flogging the person whose private email had been exposed. like bloodlust, only within the context of a flamewar, people eventually just wound up emailing obscenities.

is that what we've come to? or is that, in fact, what we've always been and will continue to be? maybe i just witnessed a few bad apples screaming in a crowd of otherwise good, silent eggs.

i'll probably never know, but based on that kind of behavior, it's pretty easy to see why human beings seem to like killing each other so much.

Posted by docrpm on 11.04.04 at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

digital dead letters

file under: thoughts about things

one of my email addresses is about to pass into the digital afterlife. it's been a dutiful message repository for almost five years, and for that, i salute its service. it has also sadly become clogged with spam; there's not enough Dran-O in the world to get rid of it all. so, without additional delay, here is my tribute:

docrpm@sprintmail.com is dead! long live docrpm@sprintmail.com!

once it slips off its non-mortal coil, i wonder, how many digital dead letters will be left to wander the Internet? how many important communications will i miss? how much spam will bounce back to non-existent senders? what ripple will its passing leave in the digital pond?

the digital age, it seems to me, must be rife with this sort of detritus, garbage spawned by evolution and growth and change, not to mention forgetfulness. i couldn't possibly remember all of the places i've used that email address:

• purchases from stores (mostly digital) whom i'll probably never visit again
• mailing lists i don't really read, but from which i'm too lazy to unsubscribe
• sites that asked for my personal information, whom i was trying to send to a relative email dead-end
• stuff from a long time ago, when i didn't have any other email address
• basically anything involving people or entities i don't know, or don't interact with often enough to care if they get in touch with me

it lived as an identifier in a few important places, but i knew where those were and changed them (i hope). other than that, my spam email address, as i called it, had been relegated to being a third-stringer in the email world. i hope it doesn't hold that against me when it visits the SMTP pearly gates...

Posted by docrpm on 11.04.04 at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 3, 2004

the day after

file under: thoughts about things

i woke up this morning and decided that, after some thought, i'd write some of my feelings about the election. i've changed my mind. sort of.

anything i could say about politics or foreign policy or religion is pretty much irrelevant (though that hasn't stopped me before). the process of democracy has brought us our next president, and as americans, we are bound to respect the choice of the electorate, independent of whether it's our choice or not. that's part of the deal.

fortunately, this year we were (mostly) spared post-election cries of dimpled chads and fraud and dirty tricks. from where i sit, it seemed like the engine of democracy worked (even if it clunked a bit here and there).

respect for other people's belief systems stops me from saying anything more. each of us can't really know what other people are feeling today (jubilation, wariness, weariness, sadness, nothing) unless they tell us explicitly. occasionally, people (yours truly included) will project their belief systems onto others, and assume, for example, that because they are happy about the outcome of the election, then their close friend John or Jane will be, too.

as it turns out, none of us really knows for sure what our friends John or Jane think, and by spewing more rhetoric or venting more spleen after the election, we run the risk of dividing friends and neighbors and family even more than they already might be. in my opinion, the divisiveness of this campaign shows we are already at risk of losing whatever collective identity we have as americans, and it's time to stop, take a step back, and really think about what we're doing and saying.

we need to find a way as a country to expose common ground where there seems to be none. john kerry, in his concession phone call to the President this morning, reportedly said it's time to unify the country. this blog entry, which is hopefully lacking in personal attacks or partisan sniping, is brought to you in my effort to contribute to that process, however small in scope or effect that effort may be.

Posted by docrpm on 11.03.04 at 4:23 PM | Comments (4)

October 26, 2004

rant – counterrant

file under: thoughts about things

ok, so i just got finished ranting about how design was dead blah blah blah, and then elaine sends me this really cool Web site. this is the kind of thing i'm talking about in terms of what's possible on the Web:

check out Word Count, an example of outstanding information design from the AIGA annual design competition.

Posted by docrpm on 10.26.04 at 10:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

brain surgery made easy!

file under: technology , thoughts about things

"Yes! You too can be a brain surgeon, with the new Brain-O-Rama surgeon's helper, a revolutionary new tool from the makers of the incredible Gung-Ho knife!! For just $49.45, you get the Brain-O-Rama scalpel, a rubberized dummy to learn your way around the skull, and complete instructions with helpful anatomical diagrams. You'll be taking care of tumors in 30-days or less, or your money back!!!!!"

it seems like i'm being ridiculous. i am. and so are half the people trying to sell the latest [insert noun here] made easy products or books or tools or 12-day-tutorial-magic-or-your-money-back courses.

just because i know where your prefrontal cortex is, or because i've heard of broca's area, you wouldn't want me cutting into your brain with the best scalpel in the world. it wouldn't make any difference, even if i had read the Dummies book and had seen "Extreme Autopsies" on FOX last week.

and yet people keep talking about making hard things easy, and others keep falling for it. books keep selling that demystify the mystical and show how, gosh, well, it turns out that brain surgery is easy after all, and we were just foolin' ya so we could keep the money for ourselves (ha!).

i could make jokes all day long, but i believe this kind of behavior, and the thinking behind it, has consequences. it devalues the effort required to create things of value or utility, or to provide important services. in turn, it reduces the perceived value of the fruits of these labors. it cheapens the world and destroys our appreciation of people and the beauty they often create.

...

i saw a Web site this morning advertising a software product with the tagline, "Web application development made easy" (company and product name withheld, since i'm sure it's a fine product made by nice people). the use of the word "easy" implies that anyone could do it, even my Grandma. if they had used the term "easier," this would have implied that it might actually be hard in the first place, and their tool was here to help, by gum.

even though it was probably just a marketing decision to position their product as they did, it struck me that people often think that things should be easy, could be easy. well, sometimes they are and can be, and we make them harder than we should. sometimes, however, they aren't (easy) and we can't (make them easy), regardless of how we might try.

some people really need to face the music – a lot of things in life are hard and require effort. there are no shortcuts. the people who do these hard things have usually arrived at their skill after taking a long, bumpy road full of toll booths that don't make change. architects, craftspeople, engineers, doctors, teachers – they're all professionals who worked to get where they are (maybe even struggled). society benefits from their skills, and they in turn reap the rewards. they shouldn't give it away for free, because it's worth something.

on the flip side, there shouldn't be an expectation that anybody can pick up a book and suddenly wield the equivalent of a scalpel – it insults the craftspeople or engineers or doctors who do it for a living, and puts the scalpel–wielder in a pretty awkward position.

no one would claim, of course, that "Surgery for Dummies" would ever be a best-seller, and yet the thinking seems to be different when it comes to the digital world. somehow, because it's not tangible or because it's new or because your kids seem pretty good at it, it's something that anyone could just pick up and learn and Presto!, instant Web designer.

i keep working for clients who are under the mistaken impression that building Web sites is easy. while it's my job to disabuse them of this notion, to help them understand the bits and bytes, as it were, there are times when the process becomes frustrating. through it all, the "idea of ease" seems implicit in the hearts of many businesspeople — it's really quite straightforward and will just sort of "work out" in the end. 50-page web site in one week with two developers, one of whom is actually a technical writer in the marketing department? no problem!!!

it is a problem.

and yet companies do this, over and over and over. anyone in marketing who has ever surfed Google is suddenly an expert in online advertising strategy. ever heard of Dreamweaver? hellooooo, Web developer! ever cropped a picture in Photoshop? good – you're our graphic designer. budgets are stretched, and people are forced to "step up," which is just a corporate euphemism for doing a job for which you aren't qualified or trained.

i'm exaggerating slightly, but the scenario i've painted above isn't far from the truth in much of corporate America. people seem to think the Web is different, that it's easy, that no rules apply. wrong – Web design and development are crafts and skills like any other.

the problem is driving away much of the talent from the Web, maybe in the same way that the craftsmen of old were driven away by mass production of (lower quality) goods. based on discussions with friends in the business, the business-view of Web design and development is gradually crushing people under its profit-driven wheels. many people got into the business because they felt the excitement and the potential, because they loved designing and creating new things they believed were useful or cool or interesting. some people were in it for the money, too, but that doesn't negate other motives.

these days it seems that building web sites, in most cases, has very little to do with creativity. it has everything to do with cold, hard business reality, and the incomprehensible short-sightedness that often goes with it.

fine — it's a job. get over it, you say.

you're right, of course. it is just a job. as my friend Gene says, we're not saving lives here.

what we are doing, in my opinion, by falling for the "ideas of ease" described above, is thoroughly commoditizing the process of Web design and development, along with a lot of other things. people are squandering much of the Web's potential and reducing its ultimate value, instead aiming for what's perceived as good enough (the 40% solution, in most cases).

good design (in all of its forms) will hopefully never go away, as long as there are people passionate about practicing it. the stage on which good design plays, however, seems to be getting much, much smaller, on the Web and elsewhere.

Posted by docrpm on 10.26.04 at 7:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 21, 2004

the perils of faith-directed leadership

file under: thoughts about things

the following entry was spawned by Ron Suskind's New York Times article, Without a Doubt. in my opinion, it's an important and terrifying piece depicting a president possessed by evangelical certainty.

***

faith and religious belief are important in the lives of most people. they take as many shapes as do the people who practice them. our Constitution and our law have enshrined the freedom of religious practice; it is a central tenet of our government to protect these rights. it is also a central principle that religious practice is separate from the practice of government. our founding fathers were wise to legislate this separation, because the practice of religion, based on faith, should not be commingled with the practices of state, which have their feet firmly rooted in the empirical realities of the world in which we all live.

president clinton was a man of faith, as have been many other presidents, and yet i never felt his faith caused him to suspend rational consideration of empirical facts. indeed, there are some who would say that faith (or intuition) and rationality complete a circle, that they balance and inform each other. in this sense, a faith-informed leadership is natural, even expected. however, a president's faith should never supercede or dominate the choices of government, and this is where i believe we have gone astray.

in short, we seem to have veered into murky territory where faith is being improperly used as a weapon in the war of ideas. if i criticize the president for being a religious zealot who claims himself to be the right hand of God, i am certain people would complain that i am denying the president's right to his religion. it is natural, after all, that as a religious man, his faith will inform his thinking. as stated above, i couldn't agree more.

however, when faced with challenging questions or facts that oppose his vision, Bush dismisses them based on his gut instinct. his certainty, driven by his faith, destroys the possibility for dialogue and demands unflagging devotion in his followers. there is no dialogue with George Bush – only dissent or agreement, my way or the highway, black or white. in my mind, this is faith-directed leadership – faith and the certainty it provides have taken the driver's seat from dialogue, and are leading us on a white–knuckle crusade.

there is a name for democracy without dialogue and dissent – it is dictatorship.

as our democracy suffocates under Bush's faith-directed leadership, Suskind's ideas will probably only serve to polarize the electorate even more. the president's detractors will voraciously consume the article and see it as a ray of light in an ever-darkening room. his supporters will read the first four paragraphs and dismiss it, seeing a biased, left-wing journalist with an agenda to unseat a man making the world safe for freedom.

the most disheartening quote in the article for me was not anythinig said by Bush, but something said by one of his supporters and aides in Washington:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. "You think he's an idiot, don't you?" I said, no, I didn't. "No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!" In this instance, the final "you," of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

this is the division our nation faces. my faith in our electorate is waning – nothing can bridge this kind of gap.

faith-directed leadership is a perilous course, a dark and windy road that America has pursued these past four years. if george bush is re-elected, the consequences of following this road will be broad; they will echo across our futures, not as trumpets celebrating triumph, but as righteous drums of war, paranoia, and fear.

Posted by docrpm on 10.21.04 at 9:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 18, 2004

p2p politics

file under: thoughts about things

lawrence lessig is one of my heroes. read his blog. think about his ideas. or, if that's too much effort, check out his his p2p politics site. he put it together as a simple tool to allow people to share political content by emailing links to an archive of political ads.

visit lessig's p2p politics site

it's supposedly a non-partisan forum; he has invited kerry, bush and nader to make content available on the site. at present, content has been contributed by moveon.org and the kerry campaign; the bush campaign has yet to contribute anything. one commenter notes that the libertarian candidate was not, apparently, invited.

regardless of my own political leanings, i think it's important to have access to all of this content. for example, i'm probably one of the few people in the US who hasn't seen any political ads, most notably any of the bush campaign's provocative ads. lessig's site could provide a single archive for all of this information, allowing people to share it and think about it as we come down the home stretch....hopefully, bush will make his ads available.

Posted by docrpm on 10.18.04 at 8:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 8, 2004

OCDN

file under: thoughts about things

OCDN – Obsessive Compulsive Desktop Noodling (n. or v.t.): From the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Volume 5 (subsection 'Computer-related issues'). The process of incessantly rearranging and/or resizing computer desktop windows in a (largely futile) effort to optimize the use of on-screen real-estate. Common sufferers include graphic designers, information architects, web developers, or those who are just generally anal retentive. See also procrastination, boredom.

Posted by docrpm on 10.08.04 at 3:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 3, 2004

rashomon and the frailty of human perception

file under: thoughts about things

akira kurosawa's rashomon is a masterful piece of film-making. it recounts a set of heinous events from several different perspectives, and in the process tells a story about the subjectivity of human experience, and the way that truth is usually in the eye of the beholder.

as i've consumed the presidential and vice-presidential debates over the last few days, along with the exhaustive media analysis and punditry, i've had the distinct feeling i was reliving kurosawa's film.

...

the first presidential debate seemed a clear win for kerry, from my perspective. i felt that the President was inarticulate, peevish, and off balance. kerry, on the other hand, seemed polished and unflappable – his positions on the issues, while rehearsed, were at least coherent with some world-view based on the planet earth in 2004.

and then i watched the subsequent analysis on NPR. one conservative commentator (whose name escapes me) sat directly opposite donna brazile after the debate and shared his opinions. in his opinion, president bush was clearly more articulate, more poised, and generally won, without a doubt.

are we on the same planet?

i read a fair amount of commentary after the debate, and most conservatives went so far as to concede that this might not have been the president's best outing and that kerry did 'ok.' but to say that bush was articulate and poised, in all sincerity, on national television?

it boggles the mind, not that he would say these things, but that our points of view on the same set of events could be so radically different.

my girlfriend elaine put her finger on it quite well – when it comes to watching these debates, we've all got our filters on. we see, to some degree, what we want to see and what fits with our world view. if someone thinks dick cheney is a pitchfork-wielding pit viper from the 7th plane of hell (and a grumpy one, at that), then that's what they'll see, whereas others might see a solid, devoted defender of national security with a wealth of experience and knowledge. is john kerry a flip-flopper, or someone who sees complex issues from all sides, and who does his best to rationalize competing points of view? probably depends who you ask.

i think the debates are an important part of national elections, rules and rehearsed points of view and image contests included. they provide an opportunity to hear and see things slightly less canned than what you'll see at a press conference or in a scripted performance.

is there an objective truth about the debates? are there clear winners and losers? does it really make a difference in the end?

again, i guess it depends who you ask.

Posted by docrpm on 10.03.04 at 2:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

i used a pen

file under: thoughts about things

as amazing as it sounds, i actually used an entire pen recently. i don't mean i threw it away once it started sputtering and splotching and misfiring. i mean i was writing, ink was flowing and the words were filling the page, bold as day, and then the ink just stopped (followed by the words, naturally).

...

this never happens to me.

i've got a small army of half-used pens floating around the house. they lie on the desk. they sit on shelves. they sleep on the floor, just out of reach under the bookcase. they hide in cabinets and drawers. they're everywhere, and somehow they never get used up, because i always buy new ones before i throw them away (fighting the tension between waste and actually being able to read what i write).

most of the pens i have floating around are woefully inadequate – strictly second-string in the world of writing implements (barely keeping the bench warm). you can feel the metal scraping across the page as you try to write, and there's as much paper showing through your ink as there is ink covering paper. pretty sad, actually, but i keep these pens because they sort of work; if i needed to scrawl my dying words, they might just do.

pen manufacturers probably build their pens this way intentionally – decrepitude by design. it fits right in with the american modus operandi of consumption: everything is disposable, even if it's still useful. well i for one am glad that the people who made that pen i used up don't buy into that whole negative attitude towards properly engineered pens.

now, i just wish i had written down what kind of pen it was...i must not have been able to find anything decent to write with.

Posted by docrpm on 10.03.04 at 2:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 30, 2004

presidential debate rules

file under: thoughts about things

there has been a great deal of discussion in the media about the impending presidential debates, specifically regarding the 32 pages of rules that govern the debates. i have found some media commentary on these rules to be highly biased (in one direction or another).

for your reference, the following link leads to a PDF containing the 2004 presidential debate rules (as posted on john kerry's web site, but apparently scanned from the original document):

2004 Presidential debate rules

for further reference regarding the selection criteria for the debates, please refer to the following:

CPD Debate Selection Criteria

Posted by docrpm on 09.30.04 at 11:21 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

September 27, 2004

arcodology

file under: technology , thoughts about things

arcodology (n.): the black art of code examination and analysis, performed during software upgrades and/or web site refreshes. arcodologists sift through tangled code fragments, often (but not always) of unknown origin and authorship, in search of meaning, enlightenment, or any shred of code that can actually be re-used. See also frustration, laziness, and cruft.

...

i spend a fair amount of time writing code, and often have to re-write stuff that someone else has written. it keeps me awake at night, thinking about all the terrible code out there (including my own). it reminds me of one of my favorite computer geek quotes:

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
   – Weinberg's second law

the code you can't touch is the worst
here's the scenario – you're working on a web site redesign, and you've got a week until launch. you're only supposed to touch these pages (not those), and don't change any of the nav framework, ok?

ok. no problem. only a few pages to code? easy. until you look under the hood and see HTML riddled with more font tags than MicroSoft FrontPage from 1996 <shudder>. and let's not even talk about using single-column, single-row tables to do god-knows-what.

c'mon, people. it's 2004 (almost 2005). let's at least get rid of the font tags. please.

or is stuff you can change worse?
the code you can change might even be worse, because if you're an anal retentive code snob like me (i can see the comments already...), you just have to change it so you can sleep. time never permits, of course, so you struggle through the night, tossing and turning, thinking about those crufty CSS files still sitting around that you just didn't have time to fix <shudder, again>.

so what about this site, mr. code weenie?
the HTML for this site sucks. so does the CSS. i should know – i wrote it. it's not standards-compliant, it doesn't validate, the CSS is inelegant, and a lot of it is just a plain HTML–table–hack job. i want to rewrite it, now that i've read Zeldman's standards book. he has inspired me to make the time to do it.

it takes time. it takes effort. it's worth it.

Posted by docrpm on 09.27.04 at 5:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 15, 2004

explain this

file under: thoughts about things

the advance of scientific knowledge is a process largely characterized by slow, incremental improvements punctuated with bursts of innovation and insight. in many cases, these spikes of activity are paradigm shifts catalyzed by the explanation of nagging exceptional phenomena that don't fit within the extant framework of understanding, or with the abject failures of existing theories (e.g., the ultraviolet catastrophe).

explaining exceptional phenomena is an important part of scientific progress, and provides insight into the scientific method itself. this process can also lead to apophenia when it comes to resolving other open questions (i.e., people attempt to establish relationships between things when there are none).

john harris has written an illuminating analysis of these 'unprecedented phenomena' and their relationship to scientific progress, using the Oklo fossil reactor as an example.

while i think he's hit the nail pretty squarely on the head, there are a few things i'd like to add...

...

unprecedented, or unexplained?
it is a semantic distinction, to be sure, but i wonder whether the term 'unprecedented' is the right one...for example, when eric cornell and his team at NIST created the first Bose-Einstein condensate, their creation was surely unprecedented, yet it could be explained perfectly well (assuming one was conversant with this particular branch of statistical physics and quantum mechanics). crop circles, on the other hand, are unexplained, and yet are certainly not without precedent.

my point is that whether or not something has occurred in the past, or whether it occurs again in the future, has no bearing on whether it can be understood within the framework of scientific knowledge. for this reason, i think it is 'unexplained' phenomena that often lead to the paradigm shifts to which john refers.

unexplained phenomena and the scientific method
by an odd coincidence, an article was written about unexplained phenomena and the scientific method in the most recent Wired magazine. the article is a fascinating (if abbreviated) account of the quest to unravel the Voynich manuscript, a mysterious document that has perplexed cryptographers and linguists for centuries.

the Wired article describes the efforts of Gordon Rugg, a British computer scientist and psychologist, who has been looking at how scientists come to an understanding of things (or fail to, as the case may be). dr. rugg has devised 'the verifier approach,' a method of approaching scientific problems that have evaded solution despite intense efforts. he used the Voynich manuscript as a test case for his 'enchanced' scientific method, and came to a very interesting conclusion: the manuscript is a hoax (ha!).

scientists often talk of 'solution spaces' (where one can find the solution to problems), and while 'hoax' was certainly within the solution space for the Voynich manuscript, it's not a solution that appears to have been pursued in any depth (after all, where's the fun in a hoax?). indeed, it appears that a thriving community of Voynichologists have been avidly chasing various theories for years. rugg's verifier method appears to have pulled the rug out, so to speak.

the implications are....huge? insignificant? unknowable? perhaps large, unexpained problems in science will yield to dr. rugg's verifier approach. the unfortunate thing is, with many of these problems, there is no way to empirically verify the correctness of the proposed solution. in other words, you could do an analysis of all the scientific literature and come to a conclusion about the origin of life and the universe, but there would be no way to verify your assertion(s).

some things are just better left as mysteries, i suppose.

Posted by docrpm on 09.15.04 at 1:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 9, 2004

the king is still alive

file under: thoughts about things

i was at Safeway today and discovered, much to my surprise, that the King of Rock and Roll is still alive and well (what would we do without 'The Star'). they used a double in his coffin when he was buried, apparently. imagine that.

50 years from now, i wonder if the king will still be alive, slightly grey around the temples, seemingly unaffected by the forces of time and space. i mean, if anyone was going to be immortal, i guess it would be Elvis, yeah?

Posted by docrpm on 09.09.04 at 1:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

September 6, 2004

desolation wilderness, one year later

file under: thoughts about things

last year, my friend trevor and i went to desolation wilderness and had a fantastic experience (despite some fairly ravenous and determined mosquitoes). so good, in fact, that we're going back this year (friday, to be precise). in anticipation of the forthcoming adventure, i finally got off my butt and finished putting together the photos from our last trip.

so, without further ado, check out my desolation wilderness pictures from late july 2003.

NOTE: for any backpackers interested in where we stayed, our camp site was nestled right next to Alta Morris lake. we had it all to ourselves for 4 days in the middle of july...

Posted by docrpm on 09.06.04 at 6:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 26, 2004

wasting on a corporate scale

file under: thoughts about things

i got a piece of junk mail from AOL today.

AOL goes beyond your average junk mail peddler. a simple piece of printed matter is not enough for this purveyor of bytes. no - they have to send CDs in packages that keep getting bigger.

remember when CDs were first released, and they came in tall cardboard boxes? (ok, maybe you don't remember, but i do). over time, the manufacturers reduced the size of the packaging to something that fit the bill, as it were - a package the size of a CD.

not so with AOL. they decided that their marketing would be more effective if they increased the size of their packaging over time. the box i got today was a double-wide jewel case with hosting-porn splattered all over the inside.

the waste makes me angry. i know it's just the tip of the iceberg, that there are bigger fish to fry in the world of waste, but this example just made my blood boil.

dare i say it? [whispered voice - no one is listening - spam would have been better...]

Posted by docrpm on 05.26.04 at 7:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

April 26, 2004

itsy bitsy spider

file under: thoughts about things

i was standing by the kitchen sink today and saw a spider sitting near the faucet . a black spider, with a compact body and a small red flourish on his furry back, the kind of spider that jumps when it feels the urge. the kind of spider that makes me uncomfortable.

how he came to be in the kitchen sink, i'm not sure. i think he might have emerged from the recently-deceased cactus (covered with webs) that had been brought into the kitchen for post-mortem inspection.

he moved across the porcelain expanse of the sink in fits and spurts, often in circles. his lack of progress didn't seem to bother him. for all i know, he thought he was making progress. he kept tracing a clockwise circle from the vertical surface of the sink, up over the lip to the flat top, then back down, over and over and over, until someone caught his eye...

at some point, he came upon the faucet's shiny base, a tiny mirror in the spider's world. he was face to face with his twin and was clearly fascinated...he touched it with his front legs, reared up on his back legs, paused, moved back and forth, side to side. he climbed up on the base of the faucet, and suddenly his doppelganger was beneath him, taunting, always just out of reach. he must have stared at himself for a minute or two, month's in spider years.

eventually he lost interest and moved off into the broader universe of the kitchen. maybe he felt that if this other spider had anything to offer besides mimicry, it would follow...

after letting him wander about for 10 minutes, i trapped him in a tupperware dome and transported him to the backyard...another universe to explore. it's the closest i'll ever come to being a deity. i hope he wasn't a house spider, unprepared for the wilds of our backyard.

sometimes i feel like that spider. the world is a mystery. things happen, many of them outside our control, and one has no choice but to just keep spinning webs and looking for flies.

Posted by docrpm on 04.26.04 at 7:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 15, 2004

response to a critic of my paraphrase of condi rice

file under: thoughts about things

the following is a response to someone who recently criticized some of the writing on this site severely (please see Comment #3 on the entry regarding condoleezza rice's testimony).

if i didn't welcome comments (even harsh, judgmental ones), i would neither write, nor allow comments. however, i seem to have really pushed some buttons lately. while i don't want to be defensive, there are some very interesting parallels and assumptions within the negative criticism i've received. i'd like to try to clarify my own position a bit here, and a bit in another, more extended, entry to come shortly.

if you're interested in reading my response to pete, please continue...

NOTE: the email address that pete gave when posting his remarks was fraudulent (go ahead...try to respond to his comments yourself). i stand by my beliefs enough to not only post them on this web site, but to allow the world to criticize them (and apparently me) directly.

******

...

"Thanks for taking the time to share your opinions. I'll do my best to address some of your points without pontificating or being defensive. I will also try not to attack you personally, despite the fact that neither you, nor the other person who commented on this entry, did the same.

Your whole blog is pontification laced with opinions sorely lacking any shred of factual support. "Our president is a jingoistic neanderthal"--is that a personal attack? I think so. Really effective. Maybe you should get your information from something other than the New York Times and Moveon.org "meet ups".

For what it's worth, I'm neither a follower nor a supporter of MoveOn.org. Why everyone makes this assumption is beyond me. My political views are not easily aligned with any one group or organization, and while reducing me to the stereotype of a far-left-leaning liberal may simplify things, it overlooks a more complex reality.

You don't even know me. How could you make assumptions about the full scope of my political beliefs based on a few politically oriented blog entries?

Regarding "my whole blog" being pontification laced with opinions sorely lacking any shred of factual support...have you read the entirety of my blog? all three years of it? if you feel that my politically oriented entries fail factually, then make that your criticism, and i will accept it. i might even try to back up my opinions with facts (even though i should be free to express my opinions without doing so). please don't criticize the entire body of my writing because a small subset of it offends your sensibilities.

one last point...i am not writing for an academic journal, a newspaper, or any other entity where reference to other material is required. my blog is filled with my opinions, by and large, and i have never claimed otherwise. in fact, i would argue that this is the primary spirit in which blogging was started...

Thank your lucky stars that someone is finally doing something about the Muslim fanatics who want to kill you because Mohammed told them so...give me a break. The only solution is to hit them, before they hit us.

agreed that this is one solution. it is not the only solution. tyranny and violence are things to be stamped out, but there is a whole arsenal of weapons to do so, and not all of them are military. most diplomatic solutions had been exhausted with hussein, but that doesn't mean we should have attacked his country at the time we did, and without the crucial international support that bush senior got in the previous invasion (which was much more clearly justified).

also, to what degree was Hussein a Muslim fanatic? he was a lunatic and a despot and a horrible human being, but his government was predominantly secular. bin laden and other fanatics have profoundly different religious ideology. again, i'm not an expert, but based on everything i've read and heard, this is the case. please feel free to correct me if you think i'm wrong.

there's also an underlying assumption here...that i didn't support removing saddam hussein. i think one of my previous entries clearly indicates my own ambivalence about the subject. it also very clearly states that i can't claim to understand the situation in the middle east better than anyone else.

for reference: the right views

Do you really want suicide bombers showing up at Safeway? Do you want radicals to drive oil tankers into Starbucks while you're sipping soy lattes and articulating your tofu commune ideals? What are you going to do? Negotiate? Hand hold? Ask Madeline Albright how successful that strategy was...

um...no. i never said i did.

where was it that i communicated my 'tofu commune ideals'? you're making unwarranted assumptions about my opinions and some archetypal lifestyle you believe they reflect...i don't even drink lattes, let alone soy lattes.

The problem is much bigger and goes much deeper than what Bush has inherited: the CIA is ineffective, hamstrung by career bureaucrats; the FBI is too bureaucratic hamstrung by bureaucrats concerned only with with covering their own assess instead of doing their job. And previous administrations have done nothing for years.

i agree with this, by and large. i never said otherwise.

JFK (the last Democrat with a spine) said it best: "We don't do things because they are easy, we do them because they are hard"

i'm not sure of the context in which this remark was made, so I can't tell the degree to which it applies here. nonetheless, i'm not averse to doing hard things. fine. make hard decisions. kill people. kill LOTS of people, including women and children. make sacrifices for the greater good of humanity. sometimes, it must be done. but tell the fucking truth about it. that's my big problem with this administration (and with many others, for what it's worth).

i doubt you've even read this far...i hope you have, and i hope my explanations have provided you with the sense that perhaps there's more to me than the liberal leftist stereotype that seems to have been applied. i don't even know what tofu commune ideals are, so don't accuse me of having them. i probably would have been thrown out of the commune for the ham sandwich i had for lunch today.

regards,
rPm"

Posted by docrpm on 04.15.04 at 7:17 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

April 14, 2004

our president is a jingoistic neanderthal

file under: thoughts about things

words fail me when it comes to insulting our president. i am so apoplectic over the current state of domestic and foreign affairs that i am becoming almost as illiterate and boorish as he is.

just in case there was ever any question about his ability to construct grammatically correct sentences, please read the text of his speech to the nation last night. not that i never make mistakes myself, but please...

we are not amused.

we hope his flag-waving supporters are not amused, either, and that they begin to question whether or not it would be wise to keep someone in office with the IQ of a neanderthal (no offense meant to our brethren from the past) and with the most irritating self-satisfied smirk on the planet earth.

what a jerk.

my alice-in-wonderland rant at george bush
admit you were wrong. admit you failed the american people. ask for help. admit you have made the most catastrophic foreign policy failure of the last 30 years. step down. resign. go away. go back to texas and live out your life in peace without ruining the world any more than you already have.

or perhaps your inability to speak also prevents you from listening.

oh wait. we already knew that.

Posted by docrpm on 04.14.04 at 6:00 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

April 9, 2004

a paraphrase of condoleezza rice's testimony

file under: thoughts about things

the following is a paraphrased excerpt of condoleezza rice's testimony to the national commission on terrorist attacks upon the united states, given this past thursday in washington, dc:

blah blah blah structural problems with interagency communications blah, blah blah blah blah , blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. did i mention, serious systemic issues, nyah nyah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah we only had 233 days! blah blah blah we're doing our best, really. blah blah, blah blah nyah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah shaking the trees blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah definite progress is being approximated. blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah legal impediments to anything really getting done blah blah; blah!!! blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah did i mention only 233 days to get this sh*t straightened out? blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah hey, i'm just covering the collective white house patootie, here, people, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah! blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah it wasn't really a plan, so much as an idea, sort of blah blah blah blah blah blah blah nyah blah nyah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it's not our fault...we made no mistakes. blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah thank you.

for interested readers, the full text of dr. rice's prepared statement is available as a PDF.

side note: i have never been so ashamed to share a meaningless title with someone.

Posted by docrpm on 04.09.04 at 10:49 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

March 26, 2004

getting there second

file under: thoughts about things

my previous post about NASA's Stardust mission was spawned after reading a Wired article about the Probe Flotilla to Scour Planets.

as evidenced by my post, the story of Stardust really did it for me. i was so fired up that i decided to submit the links for that site to boingboing.net.

NOTE TO SELF: always read all of boingboing before submitting a link. do a full text search if necessary.

as it turns out, someone else had already submitted a link about aerogels, which they had found on the Stardust web site. by the timing of things, i'm pretty sure they found the Stardust web site just like i did, by using the Wired article.

the link timeline of shame
here is how events unfolded with respect to link generation (all events occur on 03.26.04):

• 02:00am PT: Wired posts article about probe flotilla; article contains link to Stardust web site
• 03:30am (Timezone unknown): Link about aerogels posted on hinterlands.cc (doesn't anybody sleep around here?)
• 09:26am (Timezone unknown): boingboing posts a link to the aforementioned aerogel post
• 11:37am PT: rPm becomes fascinated with Stardust, and reads everything on the Web site
• 01:12pm PT: rPm completes post about Stardust and feels good
• 01:14pm PT: rPm posts Stardust link suggestion on boingboing, ignorant of the fact that if he had scrolled down the page a bit before posting, he would have seen that someone else had already done it
• 03:56pm PT: rPm looks at the boingboing RSS feed and sees aforementioned post about aerogel; he thinks "what an interesting coincidence!"
• 03:57pm PT: rPm realizes with both humor and sadness that he got there second, about seven hours late

on almost being first
this happens to me a lot. it seems to be happening more lately, or at the very least, i'm more aware of it. i'll think something or write something that i think is terribly witty, pat myself on the back for said idea or writing, and then find out that someone on the net had the same idea or wrote almost the same thing two [hours|days|months|weeks|years] ago (my post on link reciprocity is a good example of me discovering this in real time while i write a post).

it's really embarrassing. it makes me realize that i'm far from alone in my ideas, which can either be good or bad, depending on your perspective. it also makes me wonder about how original ideas really come about. are there original ideas, or are we all just pulling from a collective "idea sea," and some of us are just better fishermen than others?

i'm sure someone's already thought about that, though, so i'll just save myself the trouble and do a google search.

Posted by docrpm on 03.26.04 at 4:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

stardust

file under: thoughts about things

our tax dollars are spent on a lot of questionable things, many of them stupid (e.g., the multi-billion dollar missile defense system that will never, ever, ever work).

and then there is the incredible work that NASA is doing. tax dollars spent to understand the universe and to invigorate our sense of wonder.

i'm not talking about the Mars rover mission. don't get me wrong - it's about as cool as space missions get, but for some reason, it didn't push my geek buttons in the same way that Stardust did.

Stardust is a tiny robot whose incredible mission is to capture the dust from a comet and bring it home to earth. if Mars rover is the big, popular kid who gets all the attention, Stardust is his scrappy, determined little brother.

the mission of the little robot-spacecraft-that-could reads like a science fiction story; it captures my imagination and makes me feel like a kid again.

...

mission synopsis or sci-fi story?
a tiny probe is shot from the earth in Feburary 1999. its mission is simple - go collect the stuff of stars, the dust being ejected from the surface of comet Wild 2; bring home samples. about 1/1000th of an ounce will do, provided the captured dust particles are unharmed.

in the course of its mission, stardust will fly a total of 3 billion miles. it hurls around the sun twice in elliptical orbits, at an average speed of 48,000 mph. at its furthest point from the sun (aphelion), 253 million miles distant, it is farther away than any solar-powered object we have ever created.

after reaching aphelion, it flies around the sun again, finds its way to comet Wild 2, and then passes through the comet's dust cloud (coma). during its 13,000 mph close encounter, it extends a tennis-racket-shaped collection grid filled with aerogel, a substance almost indistinguishable from air. the dust particles slam into the grid at 3.8 miles per second, but this cosmic catcher's mitt slows them down in a microsecond and leaves them undamaged. it cradles them in a delicate web of silicate networks, protection for the journey home.

the return capsule must fly another 1.14 billion miles to get home. it must survive a descent through earth's atmosphere; during its 28,000 mph re-entry, parachute snap, and landing, it will experience loads up to 100 times the force due to gravity (a human being would black out at about 5g's). on its final descent, it is traveling faster than the Apollo space capsules and 70% faster than the space shuttle on re-entry.

it will finally come to rest in the Utah desert on Sunday, January 26, 2006 at 2:45am. its precious cargo, 1/1000th of an ounce of cosmic dust, will help unlock the secrets of comets and the shrouded early history of our solar system.

aerogel - the coolest stuff there is
the collection grid used to capture cosmic dust is filled with aerogel, a substance closer to air than anything else. NASA's stardust web site is full of photos like the one below.

a high-speed flyby
the animated sequence below is what stardust captured when it flew past Wild 2. we've become so jaded to images from space; my sense of amazement and wonder came back after reading the story of the little robot that took these pictures, and the billions of miles it traveled to get them.

cool facts
the number of cool facts about the stardust mission fills an entire page. i was ooh-ing and aah-ing and wow-ing through all of them...here are a few Stardust highlights:

• It is the first U.S. mission launched to robotically obtain samples in deep space and return them to Earth.
• It is the first U.S. mission designed to return samples from another body since the Apollo missions to the moon.
• It is the first NASA mission dedicated to exploring a comet.
• Scientists hope to collect more than 100 particles from a newly discovered beam of particles streaming into our Solar System from other stars in outer space.
• Comet Wild 2, the destination of Stardust, almost collided with Jupiter in 1974, causing its orbit to be deflected closer to the Sun.
• By circling back to swing by Earth to get a gravitational slingshot out to the comet, Stardust uses a smaller rocket. This saves over 8 million dollars.

in the gutter, looking up at the stars
i felt like a kid again reading and seeing the hyperreal story of Stardust. it seems that much news in the world today beats us into depression or apathy or anger or sadness. why no t have incredible stories like that of Stardust front and center, right next to the ones about war and suffering and insanity? maybe more people would look up at the stars and remember that we all share them.

Posted by docrpm on 03.26.04 at 1:12 PM

March 25, 2004

amazing things in washington

file under: thoughts about things

some amazing things happened Wednesday in the Sept. 11 Commission hearings. richard clarke, the former white house counterterrorism chief, spoke his mind in a way that none previously has in these hearings:

• he took responsibility and openly apologized for failures, both his and others
• he stared at partisan bickering until it went and hid in the corner
• he spoke eloquently and intelligently about complex matters of foreign policy, national security, and humanity in the modern world
• he actually answered the questions that people asked him, as opposed to doing the political-CYA bob-and-weave
• he told it like it is, on multiple occasions:
• sometimes, american government needs body bags before it's willing to take action
• condoleeza rice is a liar and sycophant who is uninterested in facts that deviate from her views or those of the white house she supports [that's a paraphrase]
• white house advisors often put administration policy in the best light when speaking in public, regardless of the scary grandma hidden in the attic (so to speak)
• he made it abundantly clear that the bush administration is looking for bumper-sticker solutions to charles dickens problems

it's no wonder he pissed a lot of people off in washington. oh well. his book is number one on amazon, and in my opinion, he's the hero of these hearings so far...in the inimitable words of Nelson, "hah ha."

Posted by docrpm on 03.25.04 at 12:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2004

bert, i'm scared

file under: thoughts about things

i've seen this a few times on the net...it's one of those things that you laugh about, pause, then wonder if you should have laughed.

do you know what your terror-alert level is? i'm having a stop-drop-and-cover flashback.

Posted by docrpm on 03.15.04 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

anti-social software ... buy now!

file under: technology , thoughts about things

ok...this cartoon is really, really funny (if you're a geek or someone who's a little fed up with all that email from friendster or orkut or YASNS).

Posted by docrpm on 03.15.04 at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

orkut rants part II

file under: thoughts about things

it seems i'm not the only one who got steamed about orkut. i just did it a few months later than lots of other people...

danah boyd has hit a lot more points in her entry about orkut, and has linked to a number of other posters.

i will point to one more thoughtful post: jeremy zawodny took things a step further and asked the question, why would google be interested in orkut? of course he's right (it's all about the users), along with others who point to possible applications like social-network-filtered search.

Posted by docrpm on 03.15.04 at 10:45 AM

outsourcing rhetoric

file under: thoughts about things

the next time someone on either side of the political aisle talks about the scourge of outsourcing of american jobs, think twice. actually, think three times. this is carefully calculated rhetoric designed to provoke an emotional response in american voters (and in the powerful labor unions whose support politicians need).

the truth of the matter is a bit more complex.

the wall street journal published an article today with the headline "more work is outsourced to U.S. than away from it, data show". figures from the U.S. Commerce department released on friday show that the U.S. has a $53.64 billion surplus in trade in private services...other countries exported $131.01 billion in services to the U.S., whereas we outsourceed (imported) $77.38 billion.

outsourcing of services has increased more rapidly than have our exports, but not by much. certainly not enough to justify all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that's been going on lately.

it's an election year. politicians will manipulate and distort information in such a way as to bolster their campaigns. the average voter will often swallow their manipulations wholesale, without trying to get at the "real" information (if there even is such a thing).

Posted by docrpm on 03.15.04 at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 14, 2004

future impossible

file under: my life , thoughts about things

i went to a friend's place in berkeley today for an impromptu BBQ, an opportunity to enjoy the sun.

before elaine and i arrived, i thought to myself, i've known this guy for 19 years. 19 years. when i was a kid, 19 years was an age to which you aspired, not a period of memory or acquaintance or anything else. and then i remembered how we met...

he and i were in the same math class our freshman year in college (math 4, uc berkeley, 1985). we also shared the same section. he was the weird guy who sat in the corner with a backpack that had bands like 'bauhaus' and 'sisters of mercy' scrawled across the blue canvas with liquid paper.

i was thinking tonight, imagine if he and i had been pulled aside one day and told, "look...in 19 years, you two will be sitting on the deck of a multimillion dollar home in berkeley owned by you (Mr. X). one of you will be a partner at a respected management consulting firm with 3 kids, the other will be a freelance internet consultant with a PhD in condensed matter physics." we would have laughed. possibly hysterically. and yet that's how life worked out.

anything can happen. it's all a mystery. we're driving down a road at night, and our headlights are only showing us part of the road, even though we might think or wish it were otherwise.

Posted by docrpm on 03.14.04 at 12:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 12, 2004

orkut's velvet rope

file under: technology , thoughts about things

social networking is all the rage, or at least it seems to be. i keep hearing about it everywhere i turn (NPR, friends, blogs, san francisco magazine, the checker at the grocery store). i have my doubts about most of these players, but there is a recent entrant that pushes a different set of buttons: orkut

...

orkut was one service with which i was not familiar (negative web geek points). it's a "google-affiliated" social networking application that, from what i read, is a combination of friendster and tribe and ryze and [insert other social networking app here]. there was recently a party to celebrate the launch of orkut, and reading the descriptions made me slightly queasy.

bubbly anyone?
the social networking craze definitely seems a bit "bubblish". whenever i hear about launch parties with people slapping each other on the back for being www-celebrities, and launching a service with no viable business model or clear value proposition, alarm bells go off and i feel like puking over the side of the boat. commentators and reporters have been noting the hype factor for some time now, and don't take this quite as seriously as insiders do...

still, one gets the sense that VCs are swimming these waters like sharks, and people are thinking they can build the first money-printing machines of the 21st century web. i have no doubt that money will be made, but only by relevant applications that offer something beyond vague, and possibly undesirable, promises of expanding your network of friends.

the net's velvet rope
the thing that troubles me about orkut is the thing that some are claiming is so cool: it's invitation only. for me, this feels like the net equivalent of the velvet rope at some too-cool-for-school metropolitan club. no one likes those either, except for the people who get behind the rope and feel more socially relevant as a result. eventually these ropes become more fit for the gallows, in my opinion - exclude and die.

but it's about the community
forgive me if i'm being impolitic, but...bollocks.

the orkut web site proclaims the following:

one source indicates that orkut has around 130,000 users at present. in what sense is this a close-kit community? studies have shown that the social channel capacity of humans is about 150 people (see Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, p.179 and references cited therein)...that's to say that 150 people is about the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have genuinely social relationships.

a service like orkut was destined to grow rapidly. it follows from basic six-degrees-of-separation arguments (see The Small World Experiment and related links for more information, if you're unfamiliar with the concept). the people who built the system had probably watched friendster, and knew what they were up against, especially with the name of google floating in the background.

my point is that it's ludicrous to say that a web service (a la orkut) is invitation-only in order to maintain a close-knit community. there is no such thing in a social networking application like orkut, one that has the power of google behind it and that grows to hundreds of thousands of users in the space of a few months. many communities will exist within the orkut meta-community, defined by the relationships between its members, but there is no orkut community per se - a city, maybe, but no community with close social relationships amongst all of its members.

exclusion, hype generation, and business obfuscation
the invitation-only requirement on orkut simultaneously creates a sense of exclusion (for those not invited) and exclusivity (for those who are). i can come up with a few possible reasons for the invitation only policy:

• limit the service to the technorati elite: this doesn't make much sense...even with an invitation only policy, exponential growth through densely connected social networks would guarantee that many members would not be a part of this ill-defined group
• limit the service to those who really care about networking, as opposed to tourists: this is equally unlikely. in fact, by making it exclusive, they have probably generated more interest among people likely to be tourists. i can just imagine the party conversations..."are you on orkut?" [pause] "orkut? what's that?" [pause] "oh...you don't know about it?" [person A drops person B's hipster quotient, person B wants to get on orkut to regain status]
• generate buzz and differentiation from the anyone-can-join melee (and concomitant growth issues) happening at friendster: this seems much more likely...after all, everyone is on friendster, right? who would want to join such chaos? [you wouldn't, probably, but perhaps for another set of reasons beyond the scope of this entry.] orkut is a little late to the party, and they want to generate interest. it just seems to me that this is an insulting way to do it, one that sends the wrong message to people interested in being a part of new online communities.
• manage the (pedestrian) technology problem of scaling: this is possible, but depending on how deep the google affiliation goes, it's hard to imagine. google has to have an infrastructure that could easily support something like this without a great burden on their systems. maybe i'm wrong...

the real reason for the invitation only policy is unimportant. what matters in my mind is that the stated reason is so blatantly false...this immediately leads to the conclusion that there is some other reason that's not being stated, and that it probably has something to do with manipulative marketing, generation of (possibly undeserved) hype, and the obfuscation of true motives. business are by no means required to state all of their objectives to the marketplace, but at least come up with more convincing lies (or don't say anything at all).

the power and peril of open doors
in my partially informed opinion, social networking applications should allow anyone to join, but should transparently protect users from scale issues and other problems associated with mob dynamics (see Shirky's a group is its own worst enemy). if you want to facilitate more close-knit communities, then allow users of the system to create invitation-only groups. what they do in those groups, and what value they derive from them, is their business (provided that said groups don't violate other laws etc. etc.).

the problem with any open door policy is that sometimes the "wrong" people come through the doors. maybe they're not cool. maybe they don't have the interests that organizers were hoping for. maybe they're disruptive or crude or insulting or generally ill-mannered. but that's ok - sufficiently stable, open communities have ways of dealing with people who actively disrupt and act to the detriment of the community (e.g., charters, rules of conduct, etc.). they also welcome and benefit from diversity and openness; this is their strength.

closed-door groups deal with this problem in a more proactive way - they set up a barrier to keep others from getting inside the walls in the first place. their community is defined more narrowly. in some cases, for very small groups of individuals with a focused interest, this makes sense (e.g., ex-employees of the Acme Widget Design Company of San Francisco). in other cases, closed-door groups act more like country clubs - the requirements for entry have little to do with shared interests, and everything to do with things like economics or social status.

the (un)egalitarian web
one of the things i always liked about the internet was the sense of egalitarianism (perhaps it's illusory, but the spirit seems there). everyone had access to about the same content and interaction potential, with exceptions for places where public/private distinctions make clear sense. blogs and social networking applications have been expanding and enhancing these ideas in many ways, by increasing the number of geniune voices on the web and establishing communities with new and unusual contexts.

applications like orkut, or rather the exclusive policies associated with the application, are a step backwards and to the right. in my opinion, they establish a bad precedent, one that i suspect others may start to follow. get ready for the country-club web...

a side note about orkut's T&Cs
independent of my feelings about their entrance policy, orkut are also doing something that, in the words of one commentator, is unconscionable. take a look at orkut's terms and conditions before you sign up:

in other words, whatever content you create or post on orkut, they own. period. that just plain sucks.

Posted by docrpm on 03.12.04 at 11:22 AM

March 11, 2004

prescience redux

file under: thoughts about things

in a previous entry entitled Prophecy and Free Will, i examined the relationship between prophecy, imagination, and free will, specifically in the context of Frank Herbert's Dune universe.

a recent post on virtualtravelog.net examines the limits of prescience, but in a different context, one bounded by the concrete reality of the year 1945. specifically, john discusses a 1945 Atlantic Monthly article by Vannevar Bush called As We May Think, which put forward a series of interesting technology-oriented predictions.

john's analysis on virtualtravelog.net is sound, as always, and provides many interesting insights that i won't repeat. i would like to add, however, more notes of praise for vannevar bush, and to highlight a few other areas where mr. bush missed the mark in his largely utopian predictions. there's also a bit of an intersection with my previous post on prophecy...so, for the interested reader:

...

a few historical notes about vannevar bush
vannevar bush was, without doubt, one of the great scientific men of the twentieth century. he was, for all intents and purposes, a physical embodiment of the scientific and technological knowledge extant in the United States in the World War II era. he was a diplomat, a politician, an engineer, a mathematician, and probably a humanist (if one can make inferences from his politics).

his list of accomplishments is long, but he may be best known as director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, as co-creator of Raytheon, as a key organizer of the Manhattan project, and as the founder of the national science foundation and the system of research that supports many of today's universities. in 1945, he also "predicted" a large number of things, most notably the "memex" (a desktop device that sounds pretty much like today's personal computer) and the rise of the information age.

it is sad that he is not remembered more clearly. before i read john's essay on bush's predictions, i had only heard of him in passing in graduate school; i knew nothing of his contributions to modern american science and technology.

it is even sadder why he is most likely not remembered: he, along with j. robert oppenheimer (creator of the atomic bomb), staunchly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. at the time, McCarthyism was in fashion, and oppenheimer was cast out of washington as a communist and a national security risk. bush supported him in the historic senate hearings, but to no avail; after oppenheimer's fall, bush become progressively disillusioned with the relationship between science and politics in the US, and fell out of touch with science policy and washington himself.

[full disclosure: my admiration for oppenheimer is transparent; it no doubt colors my views on bush, although i will try to keep my biased comments to a minimum.]

prediction v. extrapolation
extrapolation is the process of making inferences about the future based on known facts and observations. prediction verges on prophecy, and has an air of the mystical (or the religious, depending on your view of these things). it may seem like a sematic distinction, but i believe it's an important one: vannevar bush was making extrapolations based on the state of science and technology in 1945. he was not making mystical predictions a la nostradamus. this is not to lessen his amazing ability to synthesize a massive body of knowledge and put it to bear on extrapolating one possible future. if one agrees that bush was extrapolating, not predicting, then the use of the term prescience may not be warranted either...it stands to reason that many of bush's extrapolations were incorrect, given his incomplete knoweldge regarding future discoveries in physics, chemistry, and materials science which would subsequently be applied to technological innovation.

bush's content utopia v. the reality of copyright issues
bush's vision of the memex as a desktop repository for the body of human knowledge was compelling. it was also fatally flawed with an idealism to which many scientists are susceptible (also known as the 'build-it-and-they-will-come' mentality). the reality is that people get money for generating content (e.g., the publishers of scientific journals, magazines, books, and just about anything else). copyright and money go hand in hand, and bush failed to take into account the fact that content leads to copyright leads to money leads to greed leads to hoarding of said content.

in the real world, at least for the foreseeable future, the body of human knowledge will not be made available, free of charge, for access over the internet or through any other means. wars are being fought in the trenches of digital and international copyright to address some of these issues, but the victors won't be apparent for some time to come. until then, we will have to satisfy ourselves with limited access to free content - bush's visions of the memex solving the "selection" problem (i.e., of finding content once it has been created and stored) have yet to be realized.

a laudable omission
vannevar bush didn't talk about the use of scientific advancement for other means. in the ashes of world war II, he looked idealistically towards a brighter future, one where we had learned our lessons, as millions lay dead across the world's battlefields, and as entire societies would be wounded for generations to come. he looked to where scientists would (and should) turn their intellects in the post-war years, and he imagined some grand things.

sadly, we did not learn our lessons in world war II, and i don't think we ever will. science and technology will always be used in warfare. if recent history is prologue, then technology will become more important in the wars of the future (cf. Iraq). scientists, well-intentioned and otherwise, will inevitably get sucked into the fray.

muad'dib, meet vannevar bush
paul maud'dib felt the terrible burden of prescience. his son leto felt it even stronger. every decision is tied into a web of consequences, many intended, most unintended. perfect prescience is a prison, because the prognosticator is trapped by his knowledge of consequences. bush's extrapolations about the memex probably inspired some scientists, maybe even those who were involved in the initial developments of the PC and the internet. his ideas had consequences, some good, some bad.

did vannevar bush think about the consequences of his extrapolations? are futurists responsible in some measure for the futures they foresee? is there even a point to making extrapolations based on a limited (even flawed) body of knowledge?

at some point, extrapolation and prediction merge into fantasy, creative stories about a world that could be; extrapolations and predictions become dreams. if we didn't fantasize about other worlds and futures, these dreams would die, along with vannevar bush's idealism. i, for one, would be very unhappy in a future without dreams...

Posted by docrpm on 03.11.04 at 3:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 10, 2004

point reyes pics

file under: thoughts about things

pictures from a recent camping trip to point reyes are now available here.

it was a quick, somewhat last-minute, trip, but it proved to be one of the best i've had in point reyes. it helps that winter seems to have summarily vacated the bay area, leaving behind anomalous (but welcome) sun, warmth and good cheer about things in general.

highlights of the trip included:

• a hill-free hike that even i could do without whinging about my pack being too heavy and "who picked this hike anyway?"
• the best weather i've ever seen in the fog belt that is normally point reyes
• the company of friends Pete and Aidan (just met and catching up with, respectively)
• a 5-hour bonfire on the beach, started using the box of wood aidan dragged for 3 miles
• the bottle of small-batch bourbon brought by friend Pete, which helped the fire in its mission to keep us warm
• a quick day-hike with aidan spent talking about everything and nothing at all, as needed
• an hour spent on the beach, with book cracked, shirt off, and toes firmly buried in sand

day-tripping in the bay area...enough said

Posted by docrpm on 03.10.04 at 1:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 4, 2004

a mighty weed

file under: thoughts about things

weeds will outlive the cockroaches after the cockroaches have outlived us.

this is the conclusion i've come to after spending 2 hours removing roughly 411,268 weeds from the gaps between the flagstones that tile our very modest-sized backyard (when i say modest, i mean it's the postage-stamp version of a real backyard, although we still love it).

and i'm not done. there are still more weeds. i need to finish the flagstones, and then venture in amongst the plants, where the weeds are playing the am-i-a-cute-happy-plant-or-a-nasty-soil-eating-cancer game we all love so much. they play this little masquerade, thinking we won't pull them out. a lot of the time, they're right.

as i was hunched over in my garden, with failing circulation (due to overly tight gardening kneepads) and with what felt like the back of an 80-year-old, i made a few notes:

• plants (usually the nice one you bought last week at Home Depot or some rare orchid you've been breeding for years) can be pulled with almost no effort, like they don't even have roots, whereas weeds might as well be anchored in concrete
• weeds, specifically those with tap roots, come loose quite easily, and then always snap with a small, dirt-muffled laugh just when you think you've got them, leaving precisely 1 inch of root in the soil (no amount of further digging will expose the root that was left behind, by the way - nice try)
• the exquisite care taken at the outset of a weed-pulling session (e.g., have i got all the root?; oh...i can't compost all that dirt; i should leave behind the moss between those stones, etc.) is invariably replaced by wanton weed, plant, and dirt destruction, where the ends justify any means
• just when you think you're done...

weeding is like fighting entropy...it's a losing battle. so i've decided to take a zen attitude - enjoy the ride, be one with the earth. say hello to the worms and the potato bugs and the earwigs in your garden, and don't worry about leaving those roots behind, because you always will. maybe there's a life lesson here, but my knees hurt too much to see it.

Posted by docrpm on 03.04.04 at 10:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

January 16, 2004

rhino life support

file under: thoughts about things

after a few million years of evolution, humans have grown from knuckle-dragging primates into amazingly sophisticated thinking and artistic machines, with massive civilizations capable of seemingly endless achievement. and let's not forget the place where we really earn our evolutionary stripes - as overblown life support systems for germs.

sure, we can jump and shout about technology and art and science, being the top of the food chain, going to the moon, making iPods. blah blah blah. but when it really comes down to it, what can everyone do effortlessly, from birth and without training? become hacking, sneezing, phlegm factories.

as i was laying on the couch last night, propped up to avoid death by drowning, i was thinking about our curious relationship with these little bugs. specifically, i was wondering, why do we feel sick when we're, well, sick?

...

nasty, but relatively benign, little pathogens like the rhinovirus (aka, the common cold) and influenza have to be the worst house guests ever. i mean, seriously:

• they come uninvited
• they don't leave when they're told
• they prevent sleep
• they make us socially undesirable
• they turn us into whiny, disgusting blobs of sniffling, sticky goo
• they prevent certain other things from happening bewteen consenting adults... (not that you would want to, if you're conscientious about your loved ones)

why why why? i mean, from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes no sense. doesn't it make a lot more sense to have a virus that (1) makes you spew pheromones that say i'm-hot-and-sexy-and-available, and (2) causes you to unconsciously lick your hands repeatedly and in private? skip all the crappy feelings and other gooey side effects. just think of the transmission rate (all that kissing as a result of (1), then plenty of door knobs and elevator buttons and shaken hands covered with invisible cooties from (2)). heck, everyone would probably want to get sick.

stephen jay gould probably wrote an essay about this very topic. maybe i should go read one of his books.

i'm feeling kinda tired, though. i'll get to mr. gould right after my nap.

PS: the astute reader with a long history on this blog will (hopefully) forgive me for having written on this topic before. what can i say? when you're cooped up at home for a few days, you get bored and feel like sharing. hey, it's better than going outside and sneezing.

Posted by docrpm on 01.16.04 at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 3, 2003

google eggs

file under: thoughts about things

go to Google, type the words 'miserable failure' in the search field, and click "i'm feeling lucky". you will be rewarded with a nice surprise. think of it as an early Christmas present from me to you.

Posted by docrpm on 12.03.03 at 6:33 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

November 7, 2003

end of world

file under: thoughts about things

in days when things are looking pretty grim around the world, laughter is usually the best narcotic.

for your enjoyment, the end of the world (a simulation in Flash).

Posted by docrpm on 11.07.03 at 5:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

September 10, 2003

holesong

file under: thoughts about things

i didn't know that black holes can sing. it's kind of irritating, though, that stars (and other black holes) are the only things that will be around long enough to really enjoy the show.

[side question: would john cage think this was cool, or would he be jealous that his symphony won't last as long?]

Posted by docrpm on 09.10.03 at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 1, 2003

the sun-dried page

file under: thoughts about things

my dictionary sits quietly on a shelf in my living room, taking up five inches of precious book real estate. it used to belong to my ex-stepmother. it sat on a table at my father's house, open, its spine buckled under the weight of its pages.

at some point, with logic only a 10-year-old could decode, i decided it would be best to leave the dictionary open at its midpoint. i did the math, and chose pages 1150 and 1151 as those that would face the world (misgive to mistress - an interesting pair, in retrospect).

and so the dictionary laid open on the table, exposed to the sun, collecting dust and disinterest. i don't know how long it suffered there, but pages 1150 and 1151 eventually wrinkled and yellowed, their age a testament to lexical laziness.

it's hard for me to believe that no one used the dictionary, and then inadvertently left it open at another page (because who, besides me, would be so fastidious as to return it to misgive-mistress). maybe each time i visited my father, i returned the book to its rightful resting place. it was so long ago that i don't recall.

i just remembered all of this today, as the sun shone through my window and i struggled to remember a word...

Posted by docrpm on 08.01.03 at 4:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 21, 2003

bots in your pants?

file under: thoughts about things

dockers has made the leap to using nanotechnology in their pants.

or wait...no...we're sorry!!! heh. we're just corporate bozos using scientific terminology as a smokescreen to make it look like we're releasing new and innovative products.

[note: their web site doesn't contain any references to nanotechnology, which means either they removed their "unintentional" gaffe, or CNN.com fabricated the whole story.]

Posted by docrpm on 07.21.03 at 2:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 16, 2003

really old gas

file under: thoughts about things

rubber ducks. gas giants. it's all good for the geek.

anal-retentive geek note: in the headline of the NASA article, they indicate that the planet is "still there, according to Hubble space telescope." just to be precise, all we know is that it was there 5600 years ago (since M4 is 5600 light years away). thanks for your attention.

Posted by docrpm on 07.16.03 at 2:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 9, 2003

flotsametrics

file under: thoughts about things

on january 10, 1992, a great tragedy occurred on the high seas. a cargo ship going from hong kong to seattle was swallowed by a terrible storm. when it emerged from the maelstrom after a long, dark night, several 30-ft cargo containers had been washed overboard. one of them contained a shipment of toys; not your garden-variety toys, mind you, but 29,000 yellow rubber duckies, blue turtles, red beavers, and green frogs.

all were presumed lost at sea, never to be cherished by small children in bathtubs across america, never to be chewed lovingly by the family dog. a brief memorial service was held by the captain to mark their passing.

but wait! ten months later, our intrepid little friends began washing up on the shores of sitka, alaska, and have been circling the oceans of the globe ever since. nations rejoiced, and 11 years of oceanographic research was spawned (a science now referred to as 'flotsametrics', its practitioners calling themselves 'driftologists').

when asked why they engineered these little toys to be so tough, the chinese engineers replied, 'well, we didn't want some poor child to cry because his rubber ducky sank in the bathtub.'

Posted by docrpm on 07.09.03 at 10:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

June 5, 2003

evite-isms

file under: thoughts about things

an evite arrives in your (e)mail, and there it is — that feeling of excitement and anticipation. what's the occasion? who's going? what evite design template did they use, the martini glass or the signs of the zodiac?

and then you click the evite, heart aflutter, and it opens, and suddenly you remember...the people who sent this evite actually expect you to respond.

...

there's so little room to respond, maybe only a sentence — 50 or so little characters. and with only this tiny canvas on which to paint, you, the invitee, are putting your wit and character on display for all to see.

people seem to take different approaches:

• the witty non-sequitur: a totally random remark designed to demonstrate flair and bravado...i can never pull this one off.
• the easy way out: that's right. some folks just don't say anything...which makes you wonder — do they have anything to say? will they really contribute to the party?
• the rapier wit: a one-liner that will either make you smile broadly, snicker, or perhaps even guffaw. people who can pull this off usually set the stage for a competition between those who want to seem witty (and there's nothing wrong with that).
• the informational response: "wouldn't miss it" or "looking forward to seeing you guys!". these people are confident, and don't feel compelled to show off. either that, or they're just boring.
• the linguistic cop out: i've used this one before...i just say something like "[insert witty remark here]", which might be seen as cleverly self-referential in its approach to witticism, but would ultimately reveal itslef to be thoroughly banal and unimaginative, especially when repeated across multiple evites which many have seen ("there he goes, using that dumb phrase again — it was only borderline-funny the first time").

i find myself torn. i was staring at an evite last night, trying to be witty, without looking like i was trying too hard to be witty, and then worrying that what i was saying was not really funny at all. i wasted too many precious seconds of my life on that evite. i think next time, if something amusing comes to mind within 5 seconds, i'll write it down. otherwise, i'll take the easy way out.

but what will people think?

Posted by docrpm on 06.05.03 at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

May 21, 2003

al Barney

file under: thoughts about things

in an effort to create a kinder, gentler method of interrogating enemy soldiers, the US has resorted to something so sinister, so terrifying, that i'm certain i'll be having nightmares for weeks to come.

i'm talking, of course, about Barney (your favorite purple dinosaur and mine).

it appears that iraqi soldiers are being forced to listen to Barney, as well as things like Metallica's "Enter Sandman", in an effort to break their resolve and thus force them to spill the WMD beans, as it were. in the words of one US soldier (quoted in this week's Newsweek):

"These people haven't heard heavy metal before...They can't take it."

who needs hans blix...we've got Barney! now, we might have issues with Barney and Colin Powell giving a joint address to the UN Security Council, but i'm sure Bush's spin doctors could figure something out. after all, look at their boss.

Posted by docrpm on 05.21.03 at 10:12 PM | Comments (2)

April 10, 2003

it goes woo-woo

file under: thoughts about things

Go here.

this is so wrong, and yet, so funny.

after enjoying the show, keep two things in mind: (1) it's strictly for decoration, and (2) when speeding away after your next TV interview, remember to watch where you're driving when you put the pedal to the metal. there are kids out there, people.

Posted by docrpm on 04.10.03 at 9:46 PM | Comments (1)

April 7, 2003

the right views

file under: thoughts about things

in a time when there is so much to write, i have written nothing.

this self-censorship stems primarily from a feeling that certain topics, like religion and abortion, are often best left undiscussed, mostly because they are matters of personal opinion, and not subject to rational discourse. it has also seemed to me lately, at least here in san francisco, that there are clearly 'right' and 'wrong' things to believe about the war in iraq.

independent of the content of the discussion, this feeling of political and moral righteousness troubles me.

...

the situation in the middle east is complex and chaotic, and something that very few people in the world understand even half as well as they think they do (yours truly included).

in discussions of the war in iraq, people are seemingly lumped into two convenient, easily understandable categories: those jingoists who support the war, and those pacifists who believe it to be an exchange of blood for oil, a slaughter of innocents, and a sad turn in world history.

this polarization of allowable opinions is an oversimplification, in my opinion, one that overlooks the complexity of the issues at hand.

it overlooks the possibility that someone may see the inevitability, perhaps even necessity, of armed conflict, while still feeling that it was not approached in the proper way, and that it is terrible to grease the wheels of politics with blood from precious human lives. a spectrum of possible beliefs exists, some of which may even seem mutually exclusive. this is one of the amazing things about people - that we can hold rationally inconsistent opinions without our heads exploding.

yet there seem to be right views and wrong views, and people often make assumptions about which views one holds.

i was walking down the street the other day, and a woman on a street corner was handing out leaflets that proclaimed 'books not bombs.' how is a feeling, conscientious person to argue with this logic? if one believes in books, does this mean that bombs, even for self-defense, are out of the question? or conversely, if one feels that bombs are a necessary component of being a sovereign nation, does this mean one does not want books for children?

is the argument this leaflet puts forward really logic? or is it an emotional argument designed to sway an opinion? are the two things (books and bombs) actually mutually exclusive? how is this argument different from us showing how the iraqis are committing war crimes, while silently covering up the fact that we are, too? each is political communication designed to sway opinion one way or another. they vary greatly in the gravity of what they communicate, but their aims are the same. they each distort a complex and unpleasant truth.

this woman followed me for a few steps down the street and asked, 'what do you think about the war?' i couldn't respond - i just wondered, does she really want to know?

Posted by docrpm on 04.07.03 at 8:29 PM | Comments (2)

February 5, 2003

party angst

file under: thoughts about things

i've had a few parties lately (new year's, birthday, chinese new year), and have noticed a few themes that seem to play out consistently, mostly along the lines of angst...as a result, i've come up with a short list of things i need to keep in mind when throwing parties.

...

rule 1: there will always be a moment, however brief, when you think no one is coming
call me insecure, but it always happens. the internal dialog for me goes something like, "maybe they forgot. maybe that evite didn't go out (see rule 4). did i say 7 or 11? (they rhyme, after all)."

corollary to rule 1: people always show up late, unless you expect them to
two hours late seems to be a pretty good rule of thumb, for my friends at least. if it's a dinner party, 30-45 minutes is more like it...if you're running late, people will almost always wind up waiting for you and then give you grief for showing up late to your own damn party.

rule 2: you will always buy too much food
whatever you buy, make sure it's something you're going to enjoy eating for a few days, because that's exactly what's going to happen.

rule 3: you will usually buy too much booze
i remember the college days, when it seemed there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of my guests. those days are gone. worried about that well-stocked bar? i'd venture that almost any party can get away with beer, wine, vodka, and coke (and maybe a mixer, lemons, and limes). forget about kamikazes for jane or wine coolers for your friend ralph. they can make do...

rule 4: technology is great, but it's no substitute for a phone call
thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e., evite), you can now avoid making those irritating phone calls and confronting people about a social event! just send an evite!!! bzzzzt. despite implicit promises to the contrary, there is simply no substitute for talking with someone, and even then, there's no guarantee that they will come, even if they say they wouldn't miss it for the world (see rule 6)...

rule 5: you will always, always, forget to invite someone
maybe i'm just absent-minded. i don't have that many friends. and yet, every time i have an event, i always forget someone and feel guilty about it for weeks. people are usually pretty understanding about this...

rule 6: shit happens
this can be applied to just about any circumstance that doesn't go your way. your best friend doesn't show up to your party? hey, it's ok! shit happens. it's really, really, true. when experiencing feelings such as those found in rule 1, one should always remember rule 6.

got any rules to add? let me know...

Posted by docrpm on 02.05.03 at 9:59 PM | Comments (1)

we really, really mean it

file under: thoughts about things

based on the presentation of secretary powell today, it seems there is only one thing that can avert a disastrous war - iraq must, within the next week or two, produce all of the weapons we "know" it has.

weapons inspectors will not find the needle in the iraqi haystack unless iraq cooperates. their apparent policy of systematic deception comes as no surprise, and unless some bizarre planetary alignment occurs and allah or whomever else wills it, i have little doubt they will continue to prevaricate. this leads to a clear scenario:

1.  inspectors go to iraq and find little or nothing new, even if they have triple the number of inspectors and U2s and reports from joe-i'm-on-the-inside intelligence officer and anything else we can dig up to throw at the problem
   
2.  iraq continues to claim that everything we are saying is the opposite of truth, and denounces the world community for following in american military footsteps
   
3.  inspectors return and deliver a report to the UN security council that is ambiguous and inconclusive, modulo possible additional support for the fact that iraq is not cooperating
   
4.  faced with the grim dilemma of we-say-they-say, the US of course stands firm with "we say", and lays down the final gauntlet - war
   
5.  the UN security council does who-knows-what, and war happens anyway
   

maybe i'm being too pessimistic. i hope this is not the scenario that plays out, but i fear it will be...i pray that i am wrong wrong wrong.

if war is the result of this process, the best possible outcome is that we, as a world community, can avoid having to ever go through this madness, and what madness may come soon, again. given human history, i doubt we can even achieve that...we seem bent on destroying each other.

Posted by docrpm on 02.05.03 at 7:25 PM | Comments (1)

January 29, 2003

rhetoric soup

file under: thoughts about things

what is one to believe?

if one were to believe our president, iraq and saddam hussein will be spreading death and destruction across the middle east, and perhaps the world, if we don't do our "duty" (i.e., bring death and destruction to the iraqi regime as soon as possible).

then again, there are many people far more informed than yours truly who would say the opposite - hussein does not pose an imminent threat, and we should let weapons inspectors do their job. after all, how hard do you think it would be to find a few roomfulls of nasty biological agents in an area the size of california?? i think i'd like to have more than a month or so to do the job...

and so, i will sit briefly in my political analysts's virtual armchair and offer my thoughts...

...

logic does not appear to be in the extensive vocabulary of our president. or at least, he doesn't appeal to logic in making his arguments. emotion rules the day when he speaks about the "threats" to american liberty posed by iraq.

a few points...

1. iraq probably has some nasty stuff, but why would they use it?
saddam hussein may be a lunatic, and an oppressive dictator who tortures his own people, but i would argue that he is not stupid. he has not stayed in power this long, with this much opposition, without having a few high-octane brain cells. what could he possibly gain by using WMDs (weapons of mass destruction, for those not in tune with the argot of global warfare)? if he has them and used them, the world would come down on him like rain in seattle...it would all be over. it just doesn't make sense that iraq would poison israeli infidels with anthrax, or blow up the saudis just for kicks, or lob a few SCUD missiles towards the US (damn, you mean they don't fly 10000 miles?).

2. why are we so concerned about this NOW?
saddam hussein has always been a bad person. ok, so maybe we didn't think he was so bad when we gave him weapons to fight iran, but who's counting? since the gulf war, he has been a megalomaniacal tyrant bent on building weapons and bolstering his position within the country. what has changed in the last few months to merit this intensity of attention, this drive to disarm now, or face the consequences? hmmm...let's see...we haven't caught osama bin laden. the US economy is flagging and dragging. the so-called "war on terrorism" isn't really playing as well as it used to. i know! let's manufacture a new enemy to distract and despise!

3. links to al qaeda? give me a break...please.
i have read numerous articles by supposedly intelligent journalists, and heard countless reasons, that make a good case why the iraqis would have absolutely no interestin dealing with terrorists like al qaeda. hussein's regime is secular - they have no links to islamic fundamentalism or its cause. they don't even like those guys, because they're more nuts than hussein is himself. where is the evidence that hussein has been concocting nefarious plots with osama and his buddies? (silence) well, there was that meeting that might have happened in prague between an iraqi official and some al qaeda operative... (silence) maybe colin powell will lay it all out for us next week at the UN.

4. hussein does not hold a monopoly on brutal despotism. why do we turn a blind eye or seek diplomacy over war with nations other than iraq?
hussein is a convenient, recognizable, target. with sufficient horsepower in the propaganda machine, he can be portrayed in a way that creates fear and doubt and the apparent need for action. brutal, tribal regimes in africa that slaughter their enemies with abandon? not our problem. north korea? hmmm...that's a tough one. let's let diplomacy take its course. saudi arabia? well, yeah, they don't really treat their women very well, and they're kind of mean, but they're our buddies!

in short, i would argue, from a strictly logical standpoint, that military action in iraq makes no sense, at least not at the moment. the downside would be terrible. the upside? what upside? regime change? put it this way - any person who can unify the Ba'ath party, the Kurds, and the sunni muslims deserves the nobel peace prize - twice.

and now it is time for me to leave the political armchair and move someplace a little more comfortable and a little less ambiguous...

Posted by docrpm on 01.29.03 at 10:16 PM | Comments (3)

January 8, 2003

it's after 10

file under: thoughts about things

i like staying up late.

my blood starts flowing more freely once the sun sets. it's not like i'm out clubbing or bar-hopping or doing many of the typical things that creatures of the night do (blood-sucking and generally wreaking havoc with creatures of the sun). nope. usually i'm pretty boring - i read, i noodle on my mac, i write, i watch movies and consume microwave popcorn with abandon, and sometimes, only sometimes, i listen to music.

unfortunately, the rest of the world does not share my nocturnal bent. my fussy downstairs neighbor, in particular, is one of these people. last night i was cranking my computer stereo at near-maximum volume, sound positively screaming out of my 1.5-inch desktop speakers. i'm lucky my windows didn't shatter in the cacophony...

fortunately, the aforementioned neighbor came up to provide her form of sound-oriented community service.

...

(ding dong)

"it's after 10. could you please turn your music off?"

i was happy about the fact that she said Please, but turn the music off? and is there some unspoken rule about 10pm being the witching hour after which all sound-generating activities must be put to rest? she didn't even say Hello or Thank You. and just for the record, i have never complained about the awful organ music that is her sole musical predilection.

generally, i try to be considerate as a neighbor. i try not to stomp around, i clean up the random junk paper that collects on the front stoop (a thankless job), and i try to keep it down. all of these little things go unnoticed, though, when the music is on just a little too loud, a little too late.

i'm being a little extreme here. to be fair, the music probably was just a tad loud, and it was 12:30am. sorry.

maybe it was just the nature of the neighborly exchange that ruffled my night-owl feathers. those few tiny words (Hello, Thank You, Down) would have made all the difference.

ok. i'm done being cranky. i'll go back to being a good neighbor.

Posted by docrpm on 01.08.03 at 12:06 PM | Comments (4)

December 27, 2002

aL's 2003

file under: thoughts about things

aLan yost is a name you should remember. he will be famous someday. in case his web site isn't proof enough, we now have his 2003 calendar to remove any and all doubt as to his comic and artistic genius.

send accolades. send unmitigated joy. send checks. he deserves it.

Posted by docrpm on 12.27.02 at 5:00 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2002

the superfluous gift

file under: thoughts about things

the giving of gifts is not exactly my strength. for certain people, i do just fine. for others (like my parents), i just wind up feeling a bit like sisyphus - the shopping rock keeps going up the mountain, but it always comes back down.

today was a case in point - a gift exchange with cherished friends, in fact with some of the only people with whom i do go through the gift ritual. a time of joy, a moment to reflect on our friendship and to bask in the glow of shared affection.

until the wrapping comes off, that is...

...

"oh no!"

i did it again. i bought them something they already have. i did this for my friend's birthday just a few months ago, and now i've done it again with his wife for christmas (i punted on his gift for christmas, going the gift certificate route - i didn't want to commit the same gaffe with him twice).

it's not as bad as the patently unwanted gift ("ooh look, dear!!! one of those ninja chipmunks that sings! let's put it somewhere prominent, like the bottom of the well you're digging in our backyard this weekend!"). on the receiving end for these sorts of gifts, one can't help but think, "what is it about me that made you think i would like this?"

it's not quite that bad. i mean, i got them something they already had, which meant they wanted it at some point. there's no way i could have or should have known they had already scratched that particular itch. and yet somehow, there' that feeling that i should have been telepathic.

that's it!! i need the "gift telepathy helmet" (i think the sharper image sells them - a hot item, from what i understand). put it on, and immediately divine the perfect gift for that special someone, for the dad who already has enough "creative" ties and monogrammed golf tees, or for the mom who says that all she wants is some nice new trivets for the kitchen.

if only it were that easy...

Posted by docrpm on 12.18.02 at 5:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2002

fear and control

file under: thoughts about things

in this writer's opinion, a scared populace is one that is relatively easier to control. people unite in many things, and fear is, unfortunately, one of them. the people of the united states, for better or for worse, seem gripped by fear these days, and it may be our undoing.

...

in michael moore's incisive documentary bowling for columbine, he posits that one of the reasons americans are so obsessed with guns is because of a collective sense of fear that we have developed. we fled british oppression to ostensibly establish a colony/country/place where people could believe what they wanted to believe, without fear of reprisal - a noble ideal. and yet from the first days we arrived on these shores, fear has been a part of our lives.

moore argued, rather compellingly, that it began with the indians. we took care of that, more or less, and once we had rid ourselves of these fearful 'outsiders,' we began to pursue the practice of slavery, in contrast with our ideals about an egalitarian society. at some point, a split appeared between those who felt this was morally wrong, and those who felt it just. war ensued, along with a (moderate) rise in power among those who had been oppressed. some people now had reason to fear the black masses they had trodden upon for so long. and on things went...

world wars with ferocious dictators. internal unrest, followed by a seemingly triumphant civil rights movement. and then a cold war between the US and communist foes across the ocean. it seemed that we always had something to be afraid of, and today is no different, if one is to believe the media.

the news is now disproportionately splattered with images and thoughts that engender fear - murderous rampages by gun-toting teenagers or postal workers, nameless black criminals prowling and preying in the streets of inner cities, flesh-eating bacterial plagues finding their way from across the sea, killer bees, defective consumer products, poisoned halloween candy...you name it.

and the fears du jour? terrorists. and ruthless dictators bent on US destruction. and smallpox. and showers of ballistic missiles from north korea or iraq or some other 'rogue' nation that wants to see our dreams lie in ashes.

do you believe all of these things? do you believe that the threat of smallpox is greater than that of not educating our children properly? or of taking care of our elderly? or of doing what we can to combat starvation in the world? do you think the US government should spend billions on a ballistic missile defense system whose chances of success are, at best, circumspect? do you believe you should forfeit your civil liberties to allow our government to stick their noses into your personal life in pursuit of potential threats to 'homeland security'?

i'm just asking questions. i'm not saying you should or shouldn't believe in any of these things. i'm just suggesting that we might be better off if we took a big step back from the rhetoric of a president who is, from my perspective, trying to gain control of the world's oil supply and secure himself a second term in office.

and if you think i write these words lightly, consider that what i have written has probably now been flagged as worthy of further inspection by echelon or some other homeland security monitoring system.

FDR was right. the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Posted by docrpm on 12.17.02 at 6:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2002

christmas card re-tread

file under: thoughts about things

what i said last year applies equally well today. no need to rehash, so i'll just re-tread.

Posted by docrpm on 12.11.02 at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)

December 9, 2002

the wave

file under: thoughts about things

it's a social nicety we are all familiar with, at least those of us who brave the urban streets in our modern chariots.

it's a small thing, really. some poor soul is trapped trying to merge, or caught at an intersection with no break in sight, and you pause to allow them to join the fray. you lose a precious five seconds in your act of kindness, causing blood pressure to inch up a few points, but you do it out of the goodness of your heart. after all, you would hope that someone would do the same, were they in your shoes.

in this not-so-humble writer's opinion, your courtesy should be acknowledged, not with flowers or fanfare, but with 'the wave.' the hand doesn't have to go out the window (unless obscured by tint) - it just needs to go up in the air, the barest notch above the gearshift will do just fine. a few calories expended to grease the social machine...

and yet, people don't seem to do it, at least, not all the time. this is where road rage is born, people.

occasionally there is the need for the reverse wave, too, where someone doesn't let you in, but by gum, you're going to merge anyway. you raise your hand to say, 'sorry...asshole move, and i know it...' it can be a risky proposition if someone honks and you raise your hand after the honk (it could be mistaken for a gesture involving the middle finger). i'm never sure what do do in these situations.

i won't overanalyze. just remember to do the wave the next time someone lets you in (or the next time you cut someone off - innocently, of course). at the risk of engaging in hyperbole (who me? hyperbole?), it's things like this that keep the fabric of our society intact.

Posted by docrpm on 12.09.02 at 7:51 PM | Comments (2)

ikeatonic

file under: thoughts about things

ikea is like a casino that deals in (and often shatters) home furnishing dreams.

its stores are labyrinthine, designed to prevent easy escape, and impulse items await at every turn. i haven't seen the video surveillance cameras, but i know they're there, hidden above the björklund designer shelving units (easily complemented with expandable starkjowinterklung lighting inserts), or perhaps inside the hellström lamps. these cameras feed cables, which in turn feed black-and-white monitors; furniture pit bosses scrutinize dazed families of three as they careen from lighting into linens, through dishware and back again, in search of the perfect home improvement item.

it doesn't matter to ikea whether or not you fulfill your dreams, because you always leave the store with something, filling the coffers of some mysterious swedish furniture conglomerate in a land far, far away...

...

i'm not sure if, like casinos, they pump oxygen in to keep people awake, but if they don't, they should.

elaine and i barely escaped alive yesterday. our life energy was drained beyond reason, and we ultimately descended into that state i like to call 'ikeatonic,' which is close to catatonic, but has much greater potential to do harm to your pocketbook. you get to the point where you're so bewildered by accessorizing options that you just go for the low-hanging fruit, as it were. beaten down by the ikea machine, you succumb. the dialogue is familiar to any of us who've been through the maelstrom and back:

"ooh, look! groovy white plastic lamps for $12.95! it looks like something out of clockwork orange!"

"but you don't need any lamps..."

"(thoughtful pause) well, yeah...but...it's $12.95!!!...and the bulbs are right here. it's all so convenient!"

we went through the store, top to bottom, even though we were only in search of three very specific items (coffee table, duvet cover and flannel sheets, lamps). it's funny how that happens at ikea - maybe there's something subliminal in the music.

anyway, we made our table selection quickly (tables are on the top floor, right next to couches...they lure you in with the relatively easy stuff first). with our confidence boosted, pick-up aisle noted, and our purchase satisfaction guaranteed, we allowed ourselves a diversion into the chairs section. i've been eyeing one of those poäng armchairs for some time...hmmm....(no. can't afford it. must not divert from primary mission).

no sooner had we ventured on than i got distracted again. cd storage was strategically placed near armchairs - they know what you're thinking (however far-fetched the connection). needless to say, we wasted about 15 minutes before i admitted defeat and moved on.

it just went downhill from there. linens. lighting. you name it. it was just one distraction after another, each promising to do something to your abode, although what, one cannot say...

after another hour of zombie-like meanderings, we eventually made it out to the gargantuan warehouse space where the self-service furniture pickup is located. we'd made some headway with smaller items throughout our journey, but the real payoff was coming - a new coffee table for elaine was waiting patiently in the stacks.

or was it? let's see here...aisle 5A...eksjö coffee table...oh yeah, there it is. as i pull it off the shelf, a feeling of triumph coursing through my veins, elaine utters words straight out of my worst shopping nightmare:

"hey, wait a minute. that's the eksjö side table...where's the coffee table???"

OUT OF STOCK.

sadness enveloped us like a winter storm in sweden, only there was no vodka waiting to lift our spirits (the cinnamon rolls and hot dogs by the checkout stand were a weak substitute).

oh well...it'll be easy enough to pick the coffee table up when i go back to return that home office accessory i couldn't live without (you know, the one that's too big for my desk?). but now i know the key...in through the out door, bypass the cinnamon rolls and hot dogs, and head straight for the self-service aisles.

i hope one of the pit bosses isn't watching...

Posted by docrpm on 12.09.02 at 6:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 2, 2002

typo on page two

file under: thoughts about things

copy editing is a thankless job. it's also one that oftens goes unnoticed, because when you've done your job properly, things don't necessarily look great, they just look...right. right?

people seem to notice mistakes, not the absence of them. when was the last time you saw someone slap a copy editor on the back and say, 'great job!'? you're probably more likely to hear someone say, 'are you done with that yet? we've got real work to do here, and you're kind of holding things up...'

why am i troubled by the plight of copy editors? well, i spent most of yesterday reading and re-reading an important proposal, searching for rusty needles in the haystack. the actual editor was in canada for the weekend, the document was due, and i'm ok with words. you can figure out the rest.

after more hours than i'd like to remember, we put the beast to bed, celebrated briefly, and then started printing. i left the office with a deep sense of satisfaction over a job well done...until i got home, that is.

...

it was only then that i remembered typos i hadn't corrected, and started worrying about all the other document gremlins that made themselves invisible to my prying editor's eyes.

while laying in bed, suffering through deliverable tremens, i decided there were at least three laws of copy editing worth remembering...

I. The Law of the Obvious Typo
Every document will contain at least one obvious typographical error. This error will be noticed by one of your colleagues, most likely one rarely referred to as 'eagle-eye.' They will casually glance at the document (after it has been printed, bound, and delivered, of course), and will say to you (the editor), 'oh, i noticed a typo on page two. not a big deal, really, but, gee...' after this discovery, you will notice that people in the office start making off-handed remarks about optometrists to you, and how craigslist has lots of great job listings these days.

II. The Law of Diminishing and Destructive Returns
The longer you edit a document, the less effective you become. at some point, entropy weaves its way into your brain, winds its way down your arm, and starts popping out through your fingertips like an alien ooze infection. you will start doubting even the simplest phrase, thinking that it isn't quite as compelling as it could be, or that it's about as clear as galois field theory. you will fix these apparent mistakes, impressed with your insight and attention to detail, and in doing so you will introduce even more typographical errors, which you must then catch on your next pass through. each subsequent read will lead to more errors and the need for more editing. you must stop at this point, hand the document to someone else, and go to sleep under your desk. failure to do so will result in complete meltdown (of both you and the document).

III. The Law of Asymptotic Editing
You will never be able to create a perfect document. Editing is like trudging along a literary hyperbola - you approach perfection asymptotically, but you never quite get there. At some point, you just stop editing (maybe at 99.9% correctness), and then you try to go on with your life knowing deep, deep inside that there's a comma splice or a run-on or (gasp) a misspelled word in something with your name on it. (note: any mistakes that are left in the document will be attributed to you, the editor, not to the author who actually made the mistake in the first place. you will need to live with this as well).

any resemblance between these laws and the three laws of thermodynamics is purely coincidental (and possible subconscious). in any case, if you ever have chance to work with a good copy editor, make sure to let them know that they are doing a competent, if unremarkable, job. they will go to their grave knowing that at least one person understood their plight.

Posted by docrpm on 12.02.02 at 5:07 PM | Comments (1)

November 6, 2002

crash position

file under: thoughts about things

"ladies and gentlemen, due to a sudden change in cockpit personnel, emergency oxygen masks have been deployed for your use. your new republican pilots will do everything within their power to stop the out-of-control descent of this aircraft, but under the weight of defense spending, growing budget deficits, foreign policy gaffes, and misguided leadership, we're pretty sure this bad boy is goin' down.

thank you for flying American Airlines! we hope you've enjoyed your flight, and will come fly with us again soon!"

(flight attendant blows explosive bolts on exit door, at which point the plane depressurizes and she and remaining crew jump from aircraft with parachutes. passengers who voted for the cockpit personnel change are wearing broad smiles, with their fingers in their ears and their eyes closed; passengers who did not vote for the change look wide-eyed and confused, democratic deer caught in GOP headlights.)

Posted by docrpm on 11.06.02 at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2002

can i vote "maybe"?

file under: thoughts about things

free and open elections are the pinnacle of democracy. it is a right that we are given by our government, a gesture of trust that says we, the people, should and must have a voice in the way our society is governed. and the faintest whisper counts just as much as the loudest scream - a single vote can affect the fate of millions.

there's only one problem: you have to figure out who, and what, to vote for...

...

people in america are very helpful, and when it comes to elections, things are no different. scores of selfless, objective philanthropists are willing to help you make the right choice, an informed decision that takes into account the myriad pros and cons of any ballot proposition, bond measure, or intellectual topic for debate.

and you don't even have to look for help. rest assured that if you have a publicly listed telephone number, a television, a radio, a doorknob on your house, or feet to walk down the street, you will be found and help will be proffered. actually, you probably don't even need feet...just some means of locomotion. but i digress.

informative, full-color flyers with cool, objective facts give you the knowledge you need to sort out the issues. sensitive, topic-focused commercials also help to raise awareness. and just in case you don't really go in for flyers or TV, then all you have to do is answer the phone - odds are, it's someone there to help, like Martin Sheen or Gray Davis! (don't worry, they have your phone number)

numerous unbiased groups of people are at your beck and call, trying to share their knowledge. for example, in SF, i had the help of both the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender organizations, the California League of Conservation Voters, the San Francisco Democractic club, the Bay Guardian newspaper, and any number of other groups aligned for (or against) certain measures or people or small creatures or important piles of stone.

and it's a good thing we get all of this help. in california, and san francisco in particular, democracy is in full bloom, with a full spectrum of offerings on which your vote is desperately desired:

• US house of representatives
  
• governor
  
• lieutenant governor
  
• secretary of state
  
• attorney general
  
• controller
  
• treasurer
  
• insurance commissioner
  
• state superintendent of public instruction
  
• board of equalization
  
• california state senate
  
• california state assembly
  
• numerous state judicial seats
  
• 7 state ballot measures
  
• 20 local ballot measures (sorry non-Bay-Area readers, only Bay Area residents are this blessed...)
  
• SF board of supervisors
  
• BART board
  
• SF community college board
  
• SF board of education
  
• SF superior court judge
  
• SF assessor-recorder
  

fortunately, you get a voter's information booklet, along with the aforementioned philanthropic assistance, to help sort all of this out. sure, it's 240 pages long (i wish i was kidding), but it's a riveting read, one might even say a real "page turner". never mind that you might not even know what the people in those respective public offices do...that's an auxiliary concern.

(excuse me while i put on my serious hat)

i spent at least four hours trying to read through all of the ballot measures, candidates statements, and miscellaneous propaganda that got dumped in my mailbox or on my doorstep. i listened to debates on the local public radio station. i did my best to be informed. and at the end of the day, i found myself exhausted by the rhetoric, posturing, and corruption that seems to be the lifeblood of the american political process.

at the end of it all, i found myself voting party lines, making educated guesses on some propositions, following the recommendations of trusted organizations and groups on others, and abstaining on those measures that seemed nice on the surface, but purely political once you scratched off the gilt.

suffice it to say that i didn't feel the power of democracy coursing through my veins when i cast my vote(s).

it's not supposed to be this way. i like to think it all starts out with well-intentioned people and efforts to make our country, and hopefully the world, a better place, but in the end it gets perverted into this monstrosity.

and don't get me wrong - after all of this, i still believe that voting is critical, one of the most important things we can do as citizens. after all, why would i spend four hours reading a voter information booklet and scouring the Web to find out things like the rules imposed by the Ellis Act, and how they might be in conflict with a measure regarding condominium subdivision regulations?

people wonder why voter apathy is so high in the US. i'm not sure myself, but i suspect it may have something to do with the fact that in many cases, we simply can't decide what to vote for, and we get tired trying to listen to (or tune out) all the people trying to help us make the right choice.

sometimes, i wish i could just vote "maybe," because that's how i really feel...

Posted by docrpm on 11.05.02 at 8:29 PM | Comments (1)

October 17, 2002

american dreams

file under: thoughts about things

the following is the text of a letter i sent to my representatives in congress. if recent actions by our governement upset and concern you as much as they concern me, i suggest you do the same. visit either the senate or house web sites and locate your representative.

***

Greetings Senator Boxer, Senator Feinstein, and Representative Pelosi:

I write to you today to express my concerns regarding recent actions by the President and Congress, specifically related to general US foreign policy, the ongoing fight against terrorism, and the seemingly inevitable invasion of Iraq.

I recently attended a lecture discussing a new book on human nature, and the author presented what I thought was a very timely quote from one of our founding fathers:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

-- James Madison (4th president of the United States)

Lately, it seems we dream that we are angels, our delusions driven by the terrorist attack that changed this country forever. We need to wake up from this dream; we need to realize that we cannot act alone to combat our fears and create a better world; we need the support and assistance of our human brothers and sisters, the world community. In some cases, we should even defer to their collective judgment, because the wisdom of the group often surpasses that of the individual.

And yet we act as if we are alone, and we act with oppressive righteousness:

...

 We pursue interventionist, short-sighted, self-interested foreign policy initiatives that the bulk of the world does not support. As a direct result, we strengthen the perception that Americans live behind a wall, only deigning to come out when it behooves us economically or politically. We are steadily isolating ourselves from the world stage, becoming the bully on the playground who eventually has no friends save those he scares into submission.

 Our president's knee-jerk, ill-informed, pro-Israeli policy demonstrates little genuine interest in resolving one of the most challenging conflicts of the 20th century, and appears instead to be exacerbating the problem. This in turn heightens tensions in the Middle East, and increases the perception that President Bush is anything but a compassionate, concerned diplomat whose goal is to achieve peace.

 We threaten to erode our own civil liberties through our war on terrorism by steadily encroaching on personal privacy; we also threaten to reduce the freedoms enjoyed by those who would join us as immigrants. This country is strong precisely because it is a melting pot, open to people of all creeds, colors, and philosophies. Based on what I've heard lately, fewer and fewer people of differing ethnicities and philosophies feel welcome here.

 We are blind to the potential insanity of our course of action in Iraq; it seems apparent to everyone but us. President Bush is behaving in a manner that does not befit his station within the greatest democracy ever conceived. He is alienating the United Nations, as well as most of our allies, and he appears to be bullying Congress in the process.

We live in a global community, our economies and actions tightly linked, and the United States should behave as such. And yet, somehow, we keep building walls between ourselves and others, hiding inside the righteousness of the new American Dream. If our country is defined by its actions, then let us prove ourselves to be intelligent, compassionate, open, and wise, rather than reactionary, militaristic, and self-interested.

Thank you for your consideration of my remarks, and thank you for serving this country with conscience.

Posted by docrpm on 10.17.02 at 2:04 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2002

GO BIG Now!

file under: thoughts about things

you lose 100 hairs a day - stop the madness!

need a low-interest home mortgage? of course you do!

c'mon guys, women agree - Size DOES Matter! So GO BIG Now!!!

...

spam.

you hate it. i hate it. everyone hates it. i bet the people who do it even hate it.

and yet there it is. sullying the Inboxes of the world, clogging the networks, raining down like anti-manna from heaven. every day, the rain just gets heavier and heavier. our email addresses propagate like rabbits (or maybe pigeons), spreading from one junk marketing agency to the next, and the spam is soon to follow.

they have no shame. they will never stop. they will play on your physical and financial insecurities. they will ignore your gender (what, you're a woman? hey, you need a big penis, too!). opt out? nice try - those 'remove me from your f*ing email list' links never seem to work, do they? want to call someone in customer service to complain? riiiiiiight.

a recent favorite was the email spam for a new herbal penis enlargement medication - it guarantees that your John Thomas (and your parnter's satisfaction) will grow by at least 27% within 30 days (or your money back, of course). they lose money on every sale if your trouser snake doesn't turn into an Anaconda!!!

i went to the site. i wanted to see who was selling this stuff, and what their pitch was. it had to be better than the email, right? bzzzzt. about 5 minutes after clicking the email link, the page loads, and you're faced with a header the size of Montana that says:

NO GIMMICK....REAL SCIENCE!!!

maybe it's just me, but anyone who claims that something is no gimmick, and is based on real science, immediately proves the opposite. the picture of the geeky white guy in the lab coat, rubber gloves, and glasses, sitting intently at his computer? that didn't assuage my concerns one bit. i mean, the guy wasn't even wearing the right kind of safety goggles. really - if you're making stuff that causes penises to virtually explode to new dimensions, you'd be wearing the best safety goggles known to mankind, right?

the thing that really twists my noodle is that these things are obviously scams. it's not as if there's some sophisticated, charismatic huckster trying to woo you with silky promises. there's no mob psychology at work here, either. you can't really tell whether the guy next door is buying the penis enlarger stuff.

laws can't stop it. technology can sort of stop it, but only if you're on a PC, or if you don't mind sending your email through someone else's servers before it gets to you. it seems like the spammers are winning this battle, and there's no end in sight.

which reminds me, i got this email from a guy in Nigeria who's a former diplomat trying to flee oppression - all he has to do is transfer $435 million out of his bank account and into a nice, safe US account to make it happen. i don't think i can put that much money in my wells fargo account without raising an eyebrow or two - anybody want to help? it sounds legit.

Posted by docrpm on 09.22.02 at 1:03 PM | Comments (1)

September 18, 2002

get your war on

file under: thoughts about things

subversive political propaganda seems particularly apropos these days, as the world stage starts to look like a bizarre hybrid of greek tragedy and monty python. for an often-caustic, always-irreverent, and darkly funny look at US political shenanigans and corporate misconduct, check out Get Your War On. make sure to visit some of the older pieces, particularly those involving Voltron and Enron.

this is not for the faint of heart. you have been warned.

Posted by docrpm on 09.18.02 at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

please press "0"

file under: thoughts about things

it has become progressively more difficult to speak to living, breathing human beings these days, at least when it comes to getting something that approaches customer service. it used to be that help was just a phone call away, but now your fingers just can't do the walking.

what specifically am i talking about? well, have you ever heard this phrase: 'if you'd like to speak to a customer service representative, please press "0". you will be connected to the next available agent. the current wait time is unavailable, but we suggest you go out for coffee. and maybe a bagel. thank you!'

...

i'm not ashamed to admit that i recently went on the dot.com dole. in my direst hour (all things are relative, of course), the Employment Development Department is there to help, and Uncle Sam just decided to loosen the purse strings, recognizing just how tough it is to keep oneself in cappucinos and BMWs these days.

the EDD has a Web site. you can sign up online. they have extensive help information. they give you almost everything you need without ever having to speak to anyone. they are the picture of efficiency when it comes to mailing your forms quickly and on time. there is, of course, the nerve-rattling phone interview where you have to honestly answer questions like 'are you willing and able to work full-time,' but this is a minor inconvenience.

everything is great, in fact, until the moment when pre-recorded help labyrinths and Web sites fail to give you the diamond in the rough you're searching for.

for example, i have a problem with my last claim. the machine-prepared help information on the form they sent me was not illuminating, to say the least. i called EDD several times (the phone numbers are scattered on every surface of paper they send to you), and have so far determined that they have two messages.

in the first, a woman apologizes profusely for the 'heavy call volume' (i.e., you're never going to speak with anyone), then proceeds to give a five-minute informational message, after which she tells you to call back later - goodbye.

in the second, a man leads you through some menu choices (menu options! i must be getting somewhere): 'for english, press "1"; if you are interested in an existing claim, press "1"; please enter your social security number; please enter your 4-digit PIN number; for a non-existentially challenged service agent, press "7"'. after navigating the telephone equivalent of scylla and charybdis, he finally informs you soberly, 'we're sorry - the maximum number of callers waiting for assistance has been exceeded. if you still need to speak to a customer service representative, please try your call again later. goodbye.' his voice is so sooothing, you almost forget to get mad. for about 12 microseconds, that is.

i'm beginning to think i might actually have to go to the local EDD office to try to speak with someone. incredible. but what would that get me? i'd have to wait in line for three hours. i could bring a little snack and a book, and perhaps a pillow to sleep, but what if i had to pee?

i think i know what i'm going to do next, but of course i couldn't publish my intentions in a public forum. if anyone has suggestions for how to get satisfaction, i'm all eyes.

Posted by docrpm on 09.18.02 at 9:07 PM | Comments (2)

September 17, 2002

icelandic pancake

file under: thoughts about things

last saturday, elaine made a pancake in the shape of iceland. we were cooking breakfast, and there it was, bold as day, staring at me from its warm place of rest on the griddle.

now, under normal circumstances, i wouldn't be able to make an assessment about the shape of iceland, or any other island country, for that matter. if the pancake in question had been born another day, i might have suspected it looked like bali, or perhaps one of the Hawaiian islands. maybe even one of the bahamas. i might have even just thought it was a tasty little pancake, ready to be drowned in butter and maple syrup.

but this particular pancake arrived at an auspicious time...

...

saturday followed last thursday, and last thursday, we went to see gus gus at Bimbo's 365 club in North Beach.

so why would a pancake remind me of gus gus, or vice versa? well, gus gus hails from iceland, and their latest CD, which i purchased two weeks ago, has some nifty artwork i admired that shows an outline of iceland sitting in the middle of a large red dot (buy the album - you'll see what i mean). so there you have it - the iceland-pancake connection.

i didn't really know what to expect from the show. a no-name act was opening, and i had no idea whether there would be a crush of gus gus fans swarming the club doors like visigoths at the gates of Rome. maybe gus gus was past its prime, and i, being a die hard fan, was the only one eagerly awaiting the show.

we got there just as the doors were opening, not to a gaggle of rabid fans, but to about six people yawning mildly - 'oh, they opened the doors? cool.'

concerned about the paltry seating at Bimbo's, we walked calmly (not wanting to appear too eager) in search of seats. we were faced with a sea of empty chairs and tables, their empty surfaces beckoning to be filled with posteriors, drinks, frivolity, and maybe band propaganda.

it was then that the first happy accident occurred. we were circling two tables like vultures, along with another couple, trying to decide which offered the best view, which had the right 'vibe.' we both settled on the same table, as it happens, and so decided to sit together (since all tables were for five). joy and kevin (and soon after, their friend Nikki) were just what the doctor ordered in terms of table mates - real, nice people. friendly, interesting, funny, the right side of kooky, and just the opposite of pretentious.

so, with cool companions in evidence, we were ready for the show. the opening act, balligomingo, came out shortly after 8pm - two women to sing, one shaved-bleached-blond-tattoed man to twiddle knobs, and the blandest video backdrop you could imagine (think blue, think 'balligomingo' in white text, and put them together). they could sing, they could stalk the stage, and they made nice music, but it was all just foreplay.

gus gus took the stage at 9:30pm, and from the first beat, we were enslaved. all songs save one came from their latest album (Attention), and without exception, they remixed the tracks so they sounded shiny and new. no need to blather. the lights were right, the beat was right, the video was right. the house had filled, and everyone swayed and bounced and joined the gus gus euphoria.

what more to say? great show and new friends to boot. next stop - amon tobin and dj food.

Posted by docrpm on 09.17.02 at 7:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2002

awaken your shoes

file under: thoughts about things

aldo shoes has a new ad campaign. i got wind of the aldo revolution on the side of a bus. thank goodness, because otherwise i would have kept looking at shoes in the same old boring way - utilitarian devices we strap to our feet to fend off dookie, gum, glass, and perhaps to occasionally make a fashion statement...

...

the crux of the aldo campaign is as follows:

"Awaken. Imagine. Inspire. Connect...There's a world waiting for you to explore."

i suppose the last bit makes sense - shoes are the vehicles through which we can explore more of the world. now, while aldo probably doesn't provide us with hiking boots for himalayan adventures, it does certainly facilitate fashionable club outings, office envy, and perhaps even acts as that intangible element to tip the mating balance in our favor.

i'm not sure about awakenings, imagination, inspiration, or connection. maybe i'm just a troglodyte, but i fail to see how shoes, even well-designed chaussures, are a part of these higher endeavors.

the marketing machine clearly has other ideas, perhaps even some deeper vision that escapes me. either that, or they're just completely full of it.

Posted by docrpm on 09.10.02 at 7:12 PM | Comments (2)

August 28, 2002

double vision

file under: thoughts about things

the most bizarre thing happened to me today. either i'm losing my mind or there are beings with strange powers walking the planet.

...

i was walking back to the BART station after a fine lunch with my friend Travis, when i saw a large black woman coming towards me. the street was fairly empty, so i couldn't help but notice her. she was maybe five and a half feet tall, equally round, with a short afro like tangled clumps of steel wool. she was talking to herself quietly as she made her way down the street, mutterings intelligible only to her. all of this paints a fairly common picture in san francisco until we get to her shirt - a white T-shirt with a black-and-white face shot of Brandon Lee, wearing his full goth-clown makeup from 'The Crow.'

why this woman would be wearing this T-shirt made no sense to me. maybe it was not so much chosen by her, as it was simply available. in any case, i spent about 5 seconds thinking this was odd and then fell back into whatever ocean of thought i was sailing before i saw her.

about four minutes and two blocks later, i looked up and saw her again, walking straight toward me in the same direction she had been walking before, muttering, Brandon Lee's face staring at me with that crooked clown smile.

i had been walking in a straight line at a reasonable pace. i made no stops. she was walking in the opposite direction, moving much more slowly than i. and yet, somehow, she appears in front of me again. it was like that scene in 'The Matrix' when Keanu Reeves sees the black cat twice (you know, glitch in the matrix, they've changed something, blah blah blah).

there are really only a few scenarios possible:

1. she is an undercover Olympic sprinter. she ran around several blocks, stopped, and started walking again, just to mess with my head.
2. she is actually an alien disguised as a street person, and has a small teleportation device that she used, just to mess with my head.
3. she turned around right after i passed her, sped up, passed me without my noticing, then circled back to walk the same way again (just to mess with my head).
4. she took a four-block cab ride just for giggles (...).
5. i am losing (or have lost) my marbles.

i think i need a job to distract me from noodling about things like this...

Posted by docrpm on 08.28.02 at 6:28 PM | Comments (0)

pigeons (again)

file under: thoughts about things

another entry about pigeons seems a little excessive, but life knows nothing about my blogging...

i was walking home from BART yesterday, minding my own business, when suddenly i heard the familiar sound of a pigeon in distress. i'm used to this sound by now, given my previous close encounter with these avian feces peddlers. what are the odds that i should have two pigeon close encounters in as many weeks?

...

the source of the distress was easy enough to find...sitting on a Victorian doorstep in front of me, naked to the world and its evils, sat a baby pigeon. this one was a little older than the one i had tried to rescue (in vain), but it was just as helpless. aside from the desperate 'cheeps' coming from this fuzzy grey prey, i heard the voices of its brethren nearby. tilting my head to the heavens, i saw the perch from which it had fallen - a ledge on the Victorian in front of me. i could see its parent in the makeshift nest, powerless to do anything about its offspring far below (and apparently oblivious as well).

it seems that pigeons falling from their nests is a common occurrence, which makes me wonder, where the hell do they all come from? if half of them fall out of their nests, and others get picked off by crows before they even hatch, it seems that the whole survival-of-the-fittest thing puts them pretty low on the survival totem pole, so to speak.

the surviving sibling from my previous encounter is still in the nest, unable or unwilling to fly away. its buddies keep falling out of their nests, subject to the whims of gravity and the like. these birds don't really seem engineered to survive, and yet they're everywhere, cooing and pooing and giving contractors a reason to build those nasty spikes you see on ledges all over the place.

what gives? i'm open to your theories...

Posted by docrpm on 08.28.02 at 1:58 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2002

the cardboard-box man

file under: thoughts about things

i see him every few weeks, sometimes more. he drives a pale, metallic green american car from the 70s. his back is stooped with age, his face hidden behind coke-bottle glasses. he's usually wearing a powder blue leisure suit, or the equivalent, something he's probably worn for the last 30 years...

when i see him, he's always moving slowly and deliberately, intent on his singular mission - cardboard-box recycling.

...

he must have the corner on the san francisco cardboard-box recycling market. or at least, that's what i imagine. his car is packed to the rafters with flattened boxes of every shape, size and origin. they bulge from the trunk, obscure the windows, and pull the car to the ground. outside of a recycling plant, i've never seen such a menagerie of boxes, nor anyone so intent on collecting them.

the thing that struck me most when i saw him was not his profession, or his car, or his leisure suit, but the odd trajectories our lives take. ten years ago, i couldn't have imagined being in the place i am now, doing what i do now (ok, yeah, i'm unemployed, but i mean before that). similarly, i'm sure he couldn't have imagined being the cardboard-box man. if i had a time machine, took a snapshot of him today, went back to his childhood, and showed him a picture of his future, he would laugh and tell me i was nuts, that he wouldn't end up that way.

it seems to me this is the nature of life. we imagine futures, project ourselves forward to successes and happiness (or failures and sadness), but in reality, the threads of time and chance tangle to hide the reality...

maybe some people wind up where they imagined, but how many don't? look at yourself today - are you where you imagined you'd be?

Posted by docrpm on 08.21.02 at 7:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2002

the first one is free

file under: thoughts about things

as if there aren't enough temptations...

this weekend was particularly debaucherous, at least, gastronomically speaking. friday night, niman ranch steak at Home (the restaurant, not the place). saturday night, monkfish and kobe beef cheeks at Watergate (the restaurant, not the hotel or scandal). sunday afternoon, burgers at in-and-out (the burger joint, not the act), followed by the thing most cherished by police and the american obese alike: krispy kreme donuts.

...

elaine did it. she was the serpent who spoke the words as the last bits of in-and-out passed out of sight. they make it too easy, you see. in daly city, the krispy kreme is right next door to the in-and-out. they both have drive-thrus, too. who ever heard of a donut drive through? it's wrong, i tell you.

i held strong: 'you can have some donuts sweetie...i think my double-double was enough for me.' (errrrrp) it was easy - through the doors, past the cookers, up to the specimen case, packed with glazed, crullers, jelly-filled. no problem - easy to resist all of that. and then, the magic words, music to the ear of most americans: 'would you like a free sample?'

i did a double-take, just like you re-read that sentence. 'excuse me?,' i said. yes, that's right - a FREE sample of krispy kreme donuts. glazed, to be precise, and recently spawned from the frying vat - warm, and ready to stay that way in your belly.

my knees buckled. the room spun. how could i resist? how could anyone resist such a temptation? the only people who could resist are the ignorant, those who have not tasted from the tree of donut knowledge.

they put heroin in those donuts, you know. i didn't care. i ate the sample and bought more for breakfast. you know, the box even tells you how to reheat them in the microwave...

resistance is futile.

Posted by docrpm on 08.19.02 at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2002

have you seen us?

file under: thoughts about things

they arrive in the mail every few days, these flimsy, envelope-sized sheets of paper. on one side, you'll find an ad, perhaps for a cheap oil change or discount goods. on the other, the side holding your name and forcing you to bear witness, are the pictures, the names, the statistics: name, DOB, age, ht, date missing, last seen...

...

every time i get one of these cards, it makes me sad. i never recognize the faces. they smile at me innocently from the card, the children asking for help, the adults, to turn a blind eye. when i look into the child's eyes, i can't help but think that they are gone forever, lost to this world (maybe by their own choice). when i look into the adult's, i ask myself, does this look like a kidnapper? a murderess or murderer? a pedophile, even? and the eyes always answer, quite simply, 'no.'

the pictures show smiling faces taken during smiling times, so it's hard to imagine the state of mind that led to a child's flight from home, or a parental kidnapping, or even worse, an abduction. chaos, anger, loss, madness - these things are all opaque to us as we look through the window of this small card stuck in our mailboxes.

i went to the web site on the card, wondering how much these things help, feeling guilty that i suspected they helped very little. i wanted to be proven wrong. i wanted to feel like people's hard work made a difference sometimes. you will have to go to the site and judge for yourself...after looking and thinking, i now feel that regardless of how much difference they make, if even one child is found as a result, it matters.

in 2001, the NCIC database held 840,279 missing persons reports filed that year (up 444% from the 154,341 entries in 1982). the FBI estimates that 85-90% of those reports are for children, which means roughly 2000 children are reported missing every day. it means that a parent felt strongly enough to call the police and file a report; it does not mean the child was kidnapped or harmed, necessarily.

in these statistics, 'missing' includes runaways, children taken by non-parental family members or parents without custody, and non-family abductions. most of these cases are solved quickly and without harm having come to the missing; 651,209 cases in 2001 were listed as 'Juvenile,' indicating that no foul play was suspected.

what about children taken by non-custodial parents? i used to think to myself that it's none of my business, that the problems of a family are invisible and unknowable to me, and thus i shouldn't interfere. but think of it from the child's perspective: when they are taken by that parent, even if the parent is in the right, they immediately become fugitives from justice, and they live the lives of fugitives - running, hiding. this is no way for a child to grow up...of course, there must be desperate situations where one parent, perceiving danger to their child, has exhausted all of their legal means to save their children, and feels abduction is the only solution. short of saving a child from certain physical abuse or death, i'm still not sure it's justifiable to lead them into the scary world of flight and pursuit.

and then there are the rest of the cases...one half of one percent of missing children cases are non-family abductions where foul play is suspected and danger is predicted. statistics show that if the abductor plans murder, 74% of the time they will do the deed within three hours of the abduction. the card in your mailbox is too late for these children. this is terrible - children are taken so quickly, their lives extinguished by demons walking the earth. at the same time, it means when you see those pictures, there is usually hope that the child is still alive, somewhere.

we are at the top of the food chain, with nothing to fear, except ourselves...we are also the only ones who can try to stem the tide of madness.

Posted by docrpm on 08.13.02 at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2002

black pigeon down

file under: thoughts about things

life is a delicate thing, but the world is anything but a gentle place - survival of the fittest is the cold truth, for pigeons, people, or polar bears. this week, some local pigeons taught me this lesson first hand as i tried to disrupt the gentle balance of life and death in their world.

...

if you ever wondered where baby pigeons come from (or conversely, where pigeons lay their eggs), i think the appropriate response would be 'anywhere they bloody well can.' this would happen to include the empty flower pot that sits on a small ledge outside my back door. the door opens out onto a landing with rickety, half-enclosed stairs down to the weed-patch-cum-garden behind my building. this atrium of sorts provides a quiet, sheltered place for raising avian families, and since i'm on the top story, pigeons can easily just fly down from the roof to feed their young or do whatever else they do as parents (which isn't much, from what i can tell).

several attempts have been made to lay eggs on that back landing (at least two in the empty pot, and one beneath the barbecue that sits out there collecting rust). none have been successful to this point; i think the crows often pick off the eggs before they mature and hatch. the latest attempt was successful, though, with two eggs reaching the proper ripeness and hatching to reveal their passengers.

i thought that pigeons, like many greek gods, might just appear in toto and mature, ready to fulfill their mission in life (fly, defecate, and destroy). actually, they come out as deformed little pigeonlets, which would have been a more reasonable expectation. pigeons are not attractive birds; it's no suprise given what they start out looking like. wrinkled prunes covered with tennis-ball fuzz is the best description i could offer.

i am not, in general, a fan of pigeons, in case it wasn't yet obvious. i can't say i really know many people who are. 'rats with wings' is a moniker that is used freely, and i must admit to often thinking it's not far from the truth. however, there's something about babies of any species that can bring about a change of heart. babies are so helpless, so much at the mercy of their surroundings, and when i see them, i can't help but feel some sort of kinship or protectiveness.

but i digress...

after the babies were born outside my back door, i watched them with fascination every day. i usually tried to be voyeuristic, looking through my bathroom window, but occasionally i had to take the trash down, and the back stairs are really the only way. they grew quickly, but they stayed in the helpless stage for much longer than i would have thought. on top of that, momma (or papa) pigeon was usually not in evidence. sometimes i'd see her/him up on the roof looking down, or heara chorus of little sheeps announcing the arrival of food.

two days ago, i walked out to dump the trash, looked in the nest to check on my friends, and found that the plurality of the nest had decreased by one. one pigeon was missing. the one that was left was clearly not ready to fly, not even close, so its sibling was probably the same. given that pigeons don't really carry their young like cats, the options were few, and all seemed to boil down to falling out of or being jettisoned from the nest, which meant the little guy had to be nearby.

sure enough...two steps down the stairs and i saw him, shivering weakly on the staircase, cheeping madly at my approach. my immediate thought was 'rescue mission' - but how am i gonna get the little guy back in his nest?? i figured maybe i could cup him gently in my hands and deposit him back in his home, or something like this, so i started moving down the staircase slowly.

i tried not to be intimidating, but it's pretty tough given that i probably looked like a 100ft-tall monster in search of pigeon dinner. so, he did what i would probably have done - kept his eyes on me and started backing up. well, unfortunately, there is a small gap between the enclosing wall of the staircase and the steps, just big enough, in fact, for our friend to fall right through it. two stories, straight down.

so far, my rescue mission was not looking good.

i ran down the stairs, and there he was, a little wobbly, but not too much the worse for wear. amazing - a human falling the equivalent distance would have broken quite a few bones. my mission still had a chance. the only thing i had to figure out was how the hell to get him without hurting him and without him or his brother pecking me with their sharp little beaks.

at this point, we descend into comedy as a grown man starts talking with a two-week-old pigeon, trying to say reassuring things, making cooing noises. sort of like what people do when they see babies. my first attempt was to try to shoo him into a box with a mopstick, carry the box up the stairs, and then drop him in the nest. this failed miserably; he just ran under the stairs and hid. then i decided that i would have to just pick him up. not wanting to get pecked, i went and got some leather gloves and went in for attempt number two...

it was much easier than i thought it would be. i scooped him up gently, made my way up the stairs, then set him in his nest next to his brother, who was protesting quite loudly and puffing up his little pigeon chest. despite his protest, my mission was apparently successful, as our little future divebomber cheeped in appreciation.

i went back inside and felt that i had done my good deed for the day. i had lunch, and kept checking on my friend throughout the afternoon, now that i was his guardian angel of sorts. maybe two hours after i put him back in the nest, i looked out and to my horror, there was only one pigeon in the nest. a little cheeping sound from below revealed our buddy two stories below again. so, i donned my trusty gloves, went downstairs, and performed rescue mission number two, hopefully the last...

the next morning, i woke up and went to check on my friend. he looked a little tired and weak, but was still in the nest sleeping, his little chest moving up and down. his brother seemed perfectly happy to have him there, and i heard them being fed earlier, so everything seemed ok. it appears that the grim reaper is fairly determined, however, and the next time i went to check, he had gone to the great poopfest in the sky. a brief service was performed in the backyard - the family were not in attendance.

i felt sad. it was just a pigeon, a dirty pigeon of which there are probably hundreds of thousands in san francisco alone, but it didn't matter. i had tried to alter the balance of the world by involving myself in its welfare, and i couldn't stop wondering whether i had helped or hurt or made any difference at all.

after all this, the one idea that sat in my head, ringing like the bell of the grim reaper, was that survival of the fittest is reality, not just some textbook idealization...how does anything make it through the teeth of predators, the burning stare of the sun, the chilling hand of rain and snow?

it's a pigeon-eat-pigeon world out there, but somehow life thrives...

Posted by docrpm on 08.11.02 at 6:44 PM | Comments (1)

the amazing mosquito

file under: thoughts about things

anyone who is familiar with my sleeping habits will tell you that it almost takes an act of god (or some other suitable deity) to get me out of bed. apparently, mosquitoes work, too.

a few nights ago, i was awakened in the deep, dark night by that all-too-familiar eeeeeeeeeeee sound - you know, the feeding call of your friendly neighborhood mosquito. i flailed my arms around, trying to swat my nemesis, but it was all in vain. it might veer away for a few moments, but it always came back, homing in on the precious territory right above my ear. i tried hiding under the covers, but i could still hear it, hovering on the other side of my grey flannel shield. pretty soon, i felt like my whole body was crawling with unwanted visitors; every little itch or twinge became a harbinger of bites to come.

...

this has happened before, of course. i usually turn on all the lights and wait quietly in bed with the patience of oceans - anything to rid myself of these miniature flying vampires (my buddhist sensibilities take a break when it comes to mosquitoes and cockroaches). if elaine is sleeping near me, though, i can't very well wake her up to suffer with me. what to do?

i did the only thing possible - i went and slept on the couch, closing the bedroom door behind me. in retrospect, this wasn't really a gallant thing to do, leaving the damsel to face the dragon alone, but i don't really think straight at 4 in the morning (sorry, sweetie...).

as i was drifting off to sleep, happy on the couch, the math geek in me started wondering about the odds. i mean, how big is my room, and how can such a small bug home in on a potential dinner (me) so quickly, and without fail?

mosquito mathematics
my room is 16ft x 12ft x 14ft, or roughly 4.6 million cubic inches. if i assume the little guy fills up about 1 cubic inch of that space, then this means he's searching a volume 4.6 million times his own size. let's translate this into human terms - if i turn myself into a box 6ft tall, 2ft wide, and 0.5ft thick (ignoring the paunch, of course), then this means i fill up about 6 cubic feet, or 10400 cubic inches. the corresponding volume for me to search would be 48 trillion cubic inches (28 million cubic feet).

now, if the juicy space above my ear (the one the mosquito always finds) is about 1 cubic inch, then this is 0.00002% of the total volume of the room. translating into our human terms above, this would be 5 cubic feet out of 28 million.

mmmm...human pizza
so what does this mean? imagine a room that is one mile long, 10 feet tall, and 500 feet wide (roughly 28 million cubic feet). now pack the room with 5.6 million boxes of equal size (each filling 5 cubic feet). to make things interesting, let's say you're starving to death, and one of those boxes contains a nice hot Dominoe's Pizza - you can smell it, vaguely, but the lights are out in the room and you absolutely have to have that pizza. (hey, this might make a good reality-TV show...)

that's a pretty tall order, even if you can smell the pizza (fyi, if you opened 1 box every second, it would take you 3900 days to look through them all). of course, our mosquito friend has wings, and he's not slowed down by having to open boxes, so my example is a little extreme, but you get the idea.

it's pretty amazing. i think these guys are going to be around long after the nuclear winter, chillin with the cockroches. i wonder if they can get their little probosci through those hard cockroach shells...

Posted by docrpm on 08.11.02 at 6:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2002

forgotten things

file under: thoughts about things

three times today, within the space of fifteen minutes or less, i saw people drop or forget things as they rushed to point B. guardian angel, or merely observant bystander? i couldn't figure out which...it just seemed weird that this would happen three times in rapid succession.

the first was a woman at the Wells Fargo ATM. she made her deal with the machine, then walked away, a faint beeping following her into the street. i looked at the machine, and saw her card sticking out of it like a gold tongue. "excuse me, ma'am? i think you forgot your card..." she didn't even really seem surprised that she had left her friend behind (i actually left my card at an ATM once, so i could relate).

the second was a man walking his dogs. as one ran past, the other lagged at a particularly tantalizing parking meter. he yelled, "come on rusty!", and the dog dutifully ran along. the owner bent over, unclipped his dog's leash, dropped a studded dog collar from his pocket, and continued on his way. "excuse me, sir? i think you dropped something...or perhaps it was your dog." (har)

the third, not ten seconds after, was a woman crossing the street with a stroller. as she inched the nose of the stroller up over the curb, baby squealing with joy, a small box of (raisins?) fell off the back of the tipped baby buggy. "excuse me, ma'am? i think you dropped something."

i felt like i accomplished a full day's work in those fifteen minutes. i got some good karma points, too. (well, at least for the ATM card. and maybe the raisins. just think how angry that kid would have been without her raisins.)

as i walked home, i thought of all the things we forget, or drop, or lose. if, as Douglas Adams posited, they all wind up on some planet in outer space reserved for lost things, then there must be a heck of a lot of stuff piled up on that planet.

let's see...if 50% of the people lose only 1 item per year, and the time-weighted average of population over the last 2000 years is something like 1 billion people, then that means (rusty wheels turning)...500,000,000 people losing 2000 things, which adds up to...a trillion lost things. that's probably a conservative estimate. really conservative.

trillions upon trillions of lost and forgotten things. carl sagan would be proud.

Posted by docrpm on 07.16.02 at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)

July 10, 2002

the conversation

file under: movies , thoughts about things

i just watched 'The Conversation,' an intriguing movie that explores issues surrounding personal privacy, responsibility, and social isolation. it's funny, but it was produced in the 70s, yet all of these themes have resonance today.

why do we value privacy? it seems like an obvious question, but after watching this film, and thinking about it a bit, the answer is anything but obvious to me. do we want privacy to conceal things that we consider embarrassing? or perhaps to conceal crimes, however minor? what about retaining a sense of individuality within mass culture, having a sense that there are certain things that belong to us as individuals, and no one else? the last seems the most promising alternative, although the others could come into play, given the right circumstances.

privacy. individuality. socially imposed morality. anonymity. somehow these issues seem tied together in a gordian knot.

it reminds me of a book that a friend loaned to me (last year, i think): 'how to be invisible' (in the societal and economical, not physical, senses). a hundred years ago, being invisible would have been easy: leave town, don't tell anyone, and try to lay low. now our fingerprints are everywhere. the digital age has given us many freedoms, a world of information at our fingertips. it has also made us visible...credit card traces, information stored in unknown databases, a wealth of statistics available to many bidders. and what about all those vidcaps of you standing at the teller machine or walking through the airport or doing XYZ? sureveillance is everywhere (i'm not being paranoid - just look for the cameras, and you'll see more than you might like...).

is this bad or good? in the liberal information age, freedom of information is often considered good. information wants to be free. but what about freedom of your information? there is a curious double standard we set up here regarding information that is considered relevant to the public (and therefore consumable), and information that is private, sacrosanct, visible only to us and those we consider trustworthy.

i dunno. maybe having a PO box wouldn't hurt after all...

Posted by docrpm on 07.10.02 at 2:49 AM | Comments (2)

July 1, 2002

theory - action

file under: thoughts about things

one small quote from 'waking life,' before i forget. these four guys are walking along the street, spewing this crazy stream-of-consciousness rant about social contracts and moral relativism and deconstructivist nyah nyah, when all of a sudden, they come across an old guy who's climbed up to the top of a telephone pole.

sartre: "Need any help getting down there mister?"

old man (looking uncertainly down at the ground): "Nope. I don't think so."

sartre (walking away): "Crazy old bastard."

nietzsche: "That guy's all action and no theory. We're all theory and no action."

Posted by docrpm on 07.01.02 at 11:31 PM | Comments (1)

waking life

file under: movies , thoughts about things

i think i just experienced a buffer overflow in my brain.

'waking life,' by Richard Linklater, was my entertainment for the evening, and unfortunately it has reduced me to incoherence. as the dvd spun, the images and thoughts and ideas kept cramming themselves into my head, like laundry into a hamper, and now i'm full.

people in Linklater films always seem so witty and energized and filled with curiosity and wonder. even the insane spew venom in an articulate way. their narratives and fantastic philosophies seem to unfold in real time like some renaissance tapestry, thrown off the loom as fast as a cheap t-shirt. no stuttering or hemming or hawing - not even an 'um' to break the existentialist train of thought. people are insightful or crazy or hysterical, all at the speed of sound. it's not always perfect, and occasionally borders on mental masturbation, but it's still a fun ride.

but it's all just a simulacrum (a dream, maybe?)...in the real deal, we don't really get to rehearse. it all just happens.

just think how different life would be if we could say, "Cut! ok...i didn't sound really coherent there. let me try again, and this time i'm gonna do it like some crazy french philosopher who's had one too many espressos. ok...ready...Rrrrroll it!"

Posted by docrpm on 07.01.02 at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2002

necessary adversity

file under: thoughts about things

"challenge and difficulty matter less to the great majority than accomplishment and gain."
  -- Greg Bear

it's always great to come across unexpected gems in books. i wouldn't have anticipated the above quote from a sci-fi diversion, yet there it was, and it got me to thinking about my ongoing (un)employment situation.

every time i face a little adveristy, i find myself fighting it on some level, as if it is a foe to be defeated, compared to the rewarding comraderie of success and simplicity. it's a meaningless value judgement, of course. and yet, when adversity comes knocking on my door, i often kick and scream, like a child who's been told that santa claus won't be coming this year.

it brings to mind the whole life-as-race cliché (i.e., in life, you run, you jump over some hurdles, and at some point, you cross the finish line to accolades, wealth and cheering crowds). my dad, attempting to pass along a little wisdom (thanks dad), once gave me an article decrying this cliché as fallacy. the writer suggested that life isn't really a single race that has an end, so much as it is a series of races, each with its own hurdles, and the rewards of crossing many finish lines. sometimes the reward isn't even that great - maybe it's just some luke-warm gatorade and a little breather before the next race. the point is that to expect only a single race makes the next one that much harder to run...

so i've got a few hurdles to jump over - big deal. it's just the latest race in a series, and the hurdles i have are molehills compared to the mountains many others leap over - i've got no reason for complaint.

besides, the exercise will help work off this gut i've developed...

Posted by docrpm on 06.25.02 at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2002

nascar debacle

file under: thoughts about things

sometimes it seems the planets are aligned against you. no matter what you do, whatever can go wrong, does go wrong, and whatever can't go wrong, does go wrong (or at least goes less than swimmingly). but we try to look on the bright side - if you're with a good friend and you can laugh at your misfortune, then everything is good.

fun in the sun
my canadian buddy jason turner invited me for a day in the sun, the roar of nascar engines filling our ears, the thrill of the race in our hearts. as a long-time racing fan, who was i to refuse? we set up the details, left early (anticipating traffic), and planned an excellent day. (aside: jason is the only person whom i refer to as my 'buddy' - saying buddy in canada is like saying 'you betcha' in minnesota. in other words, it's required.)

you want traffic?
roughly 3 miles before we got to Infineon Motor Speedway in Sonoma, cruising at 75mph down Hwy 37 East, jason commented that his wife seemed a little off with her dire predictions about race-day traffic (it had been smooth sailing to that point). roughly 2.5 miles from Infineon Speedway, we entered a transient, newly formed parking lot on said Highway, and both cursed the fact that jason had said anything (there was no wood to knock on, unfortunately).

we spent the next 2.5 hours traveling the remaining three miles. we had left san francisco at 9am, thinking we would get to the track at roughly 11-11:30 (plenty of time for a 12 noon race start). unfortunately, the race started without us, as we sat in our car staring towards distant parking lots on rolling grass hills (at least they were kind enough to have a B2 bomber and the Blue Angels do a fly-by to signal the start of the race - the sonic boom was nice even inside the car).

we finally parked the car at 12:30pm. we had been traveling for a little over three hours.

we have shuttles
parking at Infineon Speedway consists of poorly defined dirt and grass areas where you can leave your vehicle. shuttles are available to ferry people to the nearby track, or so we were told. the race track was not even visible from our parking space (a bad sign, given that we were on the top of the largest hill in the vicinity). undeterred, we walked down the hill to catch what was surely a high-speed shuttle to the track; we'd take the shuttle, stroll straight past the pits to our fabulous start-finish-line seats, following clear and useful signage along the way to avoid getting lost.

we spotted the nearest shuttle stop, boarded one of five waiting shuttles, and started down the single-track dirt road to the raceway. shortly after we started our not-so-high-(actually-it-was-pretty-slow)-speed trip, the absent-minded shuttle driver turned around and asked the passengers if any of us knew where she was supposed to turn and where she was taking us.

(a long pause ensued, during which passengers looked at each other, giggling in a vaguely uncomfortable way, not sure whether the driver was joking or not...she was not.)

as a matter of fact, none of us on the bus knew where we were going (aside from the obvious answer - the racetrack). clearly, we were delinquent in our responsibilities as patrons of this particular raceway operation. at first we felt sheepish for dereliction of duty, but then reality kicked back into gear. at this critical shuttle moment, our confidence in the degree of organization at Infineon Speedway began to decline rapidly (after all, they should have told us that we needed to be able to give directions to our shuttle driver).

we stayed on the bus, and eventually the speedway came into sight. our hearts leapt!! (of course, in a masculine we're-at-the-racetrack-with-big-powerful-machines sort of way) finally we could see and hear the sleek multicolored vehicles (still in the distance, mind you), roaring around the curves of the track, gripping the road with sticky rubber gloves. the level of anticipation in the shuttle rose - we were going to make it - it seemed certain.

but then a huge gaggle of unruly pedestrians got in the way of the shuttle and the driver became flustered. 'where am i taking you? oh lady, get out of the road! hey!!' (at this point, the driver hit a female pedestrian, and even though the bus was moving very slowly and no one was hurt, consternation ensued from the hittee's nascar comrades-in-arms). after a moment's discussion, we decided we might have better luck (and greater speed) making our way on foot. our shuttle adventure had lost its charm.

where are our seats?
we could see our goal (the start-finish line) off in the distance, and there appeared to be a good number of obstacles between us and it, the most important of which was the racetrack itself. we could see no clear path leading us to the holy grail. of course, in retrospect, the shuttle would have driven right past it, although we couldn't have known. anyway, hunger and thirst were clouding our judgement, so we decided to get some food, ask directions, and make our way down (or over, or across - whatever).

we milled for a few minutes, wandering past what appeared to be stands selling racing paraphernalia, and then our noses led us to a food alley of sorts. all the food options that presented themselves were of the outdoor-sporting-event variety (overpriced, usually grilled or fried, uniformly bad for you). after surveying a few equally unappealing options, we settled on steak gyros with the works (why this seemed the most appealing, i'm not entirely sure).

gyros in hand and mouth (and partially on pavement, pants and shoes), we made our way towards the track. we asked a security guard the best way to the start-finish line, and he smiled and said we had 'a ways to go.' we sensed he was speaking euphemistically, or at least very kindly, and appreciated the sentiment. he said if we followed the path we were currently on, we'd get there eventually.

so we tried to make our way and eat our gyros at the same time (continuing to dribble gyro juice all over ourselves, i might add). the nice clear signage that we had expected was mysteriously absent, and the only maps we could find seemed to lack the all-important 'you are here' symbol, which left us with very imprecise notions of exactly how far we had to go. meanwhile, huge crowds of rabid, often drunken, nascar fans of all varieties milled around us, which both distracted and confused.

starting to doubt our progress, we asked another security guard directions. she patiently assured us that we were on the right track, and to just follow the food-and-gift road until we hit the magic tunnel - our goal was just on the other side...well, we found the tunnel, and once we came to the light on the other side, we realized that we were on some sort of island in the middle of the track - the bleacher holding our seats was right in front of us, but the track was unfortunately in our way. huge blowup foster farms chickens, resting on the top of a nearby foster farms food truck, sneered down at us, laughing at our incompetence.

we wandered aimlessly for a few more minutes in search of the second previously-unheard-of tunnel, and eventually found it (although not through the help of any signs - there were none). we broke on through to the other side, weaved around a bit looking for section J, took the stairs, proudly showed our tickets (we passed the seat-location test!), and took our seats.

at this point, it was 1:30pm. 42 laps of the 110 lap race had been completed, and we were just sitting down. we felt like losers. also, at this point, we speculated that if we wanted to get out before the post-race parking-lot hysteria, we should leave at lap 80 or 90.

finally - nascar racing
as advertised on our tickets, we were seated directly above the start-finish line. to our left, we could see in the distance the exit from the S-turns, followed by the chute leading to the hairpin before the front straight. the hairpin itself was invisible, and the S-turns were too far away and up the hill to get a view, which meant we could not see any of the passing action. not ideal, since watching racing on straightaways is like watching paint dry quickly. as a consolation, the pits were right below us, affording us a view of the action: tune-ups in 15.6 seconds flat. we were also seated in the blessed shade...

underneath the bleachers, the sound was deafening - without earplugs, we would have been deaf in minutes. fortunately, jason always carries earplugs (garnered on numerous united airlines business flights). he assured me that the crumpled package did not indicate use. i didn't care - i just wanted to be able to hear the race without wincing in pain.

there were a few yellow flags, requisite leadership changes due to pit stops, and the occasional crash or spinout, but in the end, the race was uninspiring. maybe all the effort to get there created unrealistic expectations. demons riding turbocharged chariots from the pits of hell, doing pyrotechnic battle for the souls of the innocent, might have done it, but regular old nascar racing kind of left me flat.

the thing i found most interesting was the sponsorship of all the drivers. when i was a kid, it was basically booze, cigarrettes, and motor parts that kept racers moving around the track. today, it's M&Ms, viagra, and america online that fill the coffers. for some reason, this seems to violate my sensibilities about race-car driving, especially something as ostensibly macho as nascar. i mean, what nascar driver wants to be driving the viagra-mobile? (not that there's anything wrong with that, but...)

journey - part II
we decided to leave at lap 94, since it looked like car number 44 had it locked up (nadeau, 6-second lead, no more pit stops necessary - he lost due to mechanical failure on lap 108, oddly enough). we had only been in our seats for a little over an hour.

we made our way out, headed for the pack of shuttles, and got in line.

it just couldn't have been that easy. none of the shuttles seemed to know where they were going, but they all assured us that they were not going where our car was parked. we walked around, asked about five different security people for directions (since they were the only official-looking people available), and got a different answer every time. we eventually gave up and just started walking up the hill, sure that we would find a shuttle stop.

a shuttle stop presented itself soon, and we got in line. as we stood there, chaos seemed to grow and grow and grow around us, until it reached a fever pitch. bikers were hauling off with their girlfriends, kids were complaining about being hot, trucks and bikes and cars were filling the roads, and tempers started to flare as people realized the system was breaking down completely (what little system there was). no shuttles came - we eventually decided to walk two miles through the dust and heat to the car.

hindsight
once we got a little ways up the road, we realized that the whole shuttle thing was a joke. there was absolutely no way any shuttle could get up the road to the parking lots. the roads were all full of cars trying to leave, but everyone was just sitting there, glassy-eyed, stuck in traffic.

teeth coated with dust, sweat flowing freely, and big smiles on our faces, we got to the car at 4pm. we hopped into the expected traffic jam, made our way out of the speedway (faster than we would have thought), and fled west on our beloved Hwy 37. no traffic stood before us - just open road, beckoning that we put the pedal to the metal. and we did, right up until we hit the traffic jam on 101, backed up for 5 miles from the san rafael bridge interchange.

some days...you just have to smile. ;-)

Posted by docrpm on 06.23.02 at 7:46 PM

June 20, 2002

paunch happens

file under: thoughts about things

note: anyone with high hopes of philosophical content in today's entry should adjust their expectations (in the words of Freitas).

ask anyone who has known me for years, and they'll tell you that i have always stayed skinny as a rail, regardless of what's been thrown down the proverbial chute. of course, it's nice to be able to easily win contests where people try to figure out which guy has the smallest butt, but this distinction loses its glamor after awhile. in fact, i always wanted to gain weight, if anything so that i didn't blow away in strong breezes.

in college, i ate nothing but frozen dinners, pizza, beer, pasta, and the occasional hot dog (i weighed 145 lbs.). graduate school saw me switch to healthier fare, including about 5 lbs. of brown rice a week, plenty of tofu, and lots of green vegetables (still about 145, and as regular as an atomic clock). when i started pulling down big bucks working for the man, and began eating out a bit more, i 'ballooned' up to 153. in other words, not a lot going on in the weight department.

the last few months have seen me spend more time on my keester at home, though - no more three martini lunches or jet-set lifestyle after the layoffs, right? it turns out lassitude has its rewards...

a few days ago, sitting at my desk at home, shirt off, basking in the infrequent san francisco sun, i looked down, deep in thought. i found it hard to think, because this big paunch was obscuring the view of my navel, where i often gaze for inspiration. i then had a flashback to a recent trip to Dolores Park when i got sunburned, and realized the zebra-striped burn across my belly was not due to amateurish application of suntan products (you can probably fill in the blanks here).

the mental cogs turned for a moment, and then let me down slowly with the bad news: karmic retribution has struck, my friend...all those years of saying i could eat anything and not gain weight have come back to haunt me. finally, the cheetos and fritos and quesadillas have come home to roost, like unwanted dinner guests, on my belly.

is this the beginning of the downward slide into middle age, decrepitude, and adult diapers? certainly not. i'm sure that cutting back to one bag of cheetos a week should clear this up in no time.

Posted by docrpm on 06.20.02 at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2002

wrong train

file under: thoughts about things

i was downtown the other day, heading home after a brief shopping venture. as i headed for the Montgomery BART station, i dodged my way past the requisite panhandlers and headed fast into the underground. i rocketed down the escalators to the platform, the sound of an impending departure floating up the hexagon-coated tubes. a train was leaving on the other platform going to the East Bay - oh, well... after a few minutes, my train arrived, and i hopped on board, ready to head home for a nice cheese sandwich.

only i was on the wrong train.

'embarcadero...next stop. next stop...embarcadero.' not possible. this train is headed the other way. i sat there in disbelief, the doors to the platform gaping at me uncertainly. the seconds ticked by, until i finally realized my error and jumped off the train.

as i sat on the proper train heading towards the Mission, i reconstructed my entry into the station, going over it piece by piece. i simply could not figure out how i had climbed inside the wrong silver tube...what if that decision had really mattered?

the only reason that i consider this odd is that i almost never get lost. my internal guidance system, while not as accurate as a GPS, rarely leads me astray. in fact, i don't recall ever getting on the wrong BART train.

for a few minutes, i had trusted my instincts over my senses - i had walked into the station, onto the platform, and onto the train on complete autopilot. the urban world is a dense labyrinth, and i had temporarily lost my way. all the things i use to find my coordinates in the world - signs, landmarks, names - went out the window.

it made me realize how often i don't really pay attention to where i'm going...i just go. how many other things happen on autopilot? how much of my life am i not paying attention to?

Posted by docrpm on 06.11.02 at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2002

web world

file under: technology , thoughts about things

i just read the travel diary of a friend of mine who is navigating his way through the medinas and mysteries of Morocco and other North African ports. he wrote it yesterday (depending on your frame of reference), and immediately i know of his cockrcoach encounters, his tense bus-mediated engagements with gun-toting militia, his simultaneous disorientation and wonder.

this is a thing the web does for us - it shrinks the world, it makes distant events more immediate and accessible. when tim berners-lee, or whoever it happened to be, coined the term World-Wide-Web, they probably had no idea just how perfect the term would be. we are now connected by internet cafes in tangiers and casablanca, cubes on our desktops, sleek web-enabled toys in our pockets - anything that offers us a keyboard to tap and a screen to be our window into a world of stories.

i remember a day when gasoline was $0.40/gallon and immediate tales of the world could only be found on the television, a dictator that arbitrated what was interesting and therefore consumable. the Web has changed the paradigm - we can consume what we want, when we want, and often without boundaries or media filters.

each of us has the power to communicate with all of the connected world - billions of people can visit virtual doorsteps we create. even though i've been living with the Web for years, somehow i always forget this simple, yet astounding, fact...

Posted by docrpm on 05.24.02 at 7:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 8, 2002

tyranny of choice

file under: thoughts about things

it's not as if i've been doing anything momentous for the past three weeks. some work, some play, and absolutely no writing. i've been distracted.

as i was searching for sleep last night, gears grinding down for the day, i was thinking about distraction. more specifically, i was thinking about modern life and the treasure chest of choices with which we're burdened and blessed. i was also thinking of at least three other totally inconsequential and unremarkable things at the same time, which reinforced the thread in my head about distraction. for example, i started to think about how many thoughts i could keep in my head at the same moment, running like trains on parallel tracks, and i found that as soon as i started thinking about it, i couldn't do it any more - there was just the one train. speaking of that, have you ever read 'the great train robbery'? i read it as a kid and really liked it, but i couldn't tell you a thing about the story beyond the title and what i can infer from it (i.e., there is a crime in which a train is involved in some fashion). it's often that way with me and books, even earth-shattering, recommend-them-to-everyone-you-know books. i just forget. but i digress.

the tyranny of choice any of us faces on a given day is staggering - which side of the street to walk on going to the store? which t-shirt to sport? what's for breakfast? why choose to read instead of write, or pick my nose instead of change the world? most of the time, i don't really think about it - i'm just a bag of bones, drifting like a large, hyper-evolved amoeba from stimulus to stimulus.

the smooth, comfortable paths i've worn often lead me down the same roads, and i forget that there are others. it's a constant battle to remain aware of the decisions i make. they are conscious, yet unconscious. sometimes it's just like surfing the web, jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink, a chain of events that make up the web of my life.

so tonight, after udon with shrimp dumplings and an enterprise fix, i decided to write about the beautiful tyranny of choice. do i lead it, or does it lead me? after you've read this, where will it lead you? i don't have any answers.

right now it's leading me to bed and a book. if only i could decide which of the seven on my nightstand to read...

Posted by docrpm on 05.08.02 at 10:28 PM | Comments (2)

March 19, 2002

simple, yet seminal

file under: thoughts about things

the myriad distractions of modern life drive our attention away from the things that are important. perhaps the most critical of these things are the people we call friends, lovers, comrades in confusion and joy.

without a feeling of duty associated with work, i am constantly focusing my attention (and numerous spare moments) on the people in my life. connection becomes an ever-present necessity, instead of an unfulfilled desire. our relationships are the things that survive any employment chaos, any strife. in fact, they are the things that help us to rise above any challenges that we face, whether personal or professional.

ryan hoguet and i spent this evening in a sci-fi universe- a nerdy pleasure, to be sure. such simple things, a little star trek voyager, followed by starship troopers, with intermingled dialogue about the politics of warfare and post 09.11 malaise. and maybe some slightly drunken ramblings about how these bits and pieces connect with the other parts of our lives and our world views. before this, a day spent with elaine traveling through time to see the thoughts and ideals of the dadaists and surrealists, followed by an indian feast fit for kings.

i would not trade these things for the greatest treasure. i am a lucky man. i hope that i never lose sight of these gifts.

Posted by docrpm on 03.19.02 at 2:07 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2002

noe valley parking

file under: thoughts about things

after that last deeply philosophical entry, a light entry seems appropriate, something to cleanse the mental palate (or scrape off the burned noodles, as it were). i was looking for parking the other day, and it occurred to me there are several laws at work when it comes to parking here (and maybe elsewhere):

1. desperation breeds failure when it comes to parking.
2. after parking your car, a closer space will always appear as you walk to your destination.
3. if you have to drive around the block or make a u-turn to get a spot, you won't.
4. any spot that looks too tight for your car is.
   
5. assumptions are usually misplaced when it comes to the charity of towing-hungry homeowners (see previous law for corollary).
6. tickets for street cleaning violations are dispensed with 100% efficiency, counter to all known laws of physics and human behavior.
7. the more you have to carry, the further you will park from home.
8. the likelihood of forgetting where your car is parked is proportional to the probability that you will get a ticket before you remember.
9. on any day when you can't recall on which side of the street your car sits, it will always be on the side where street cleaning is happening that day (see previous law for corollary).
10. parking is still better in noe valley than it is in the Haight or North Beach.

and so i circle the streets with the other residents of noe valley, sharks in search of the perfect prey - a big spot, with clear curb cuts, close to home.

Posted by docrpm on 03.13.02 at 2:40 PM | Comments (0)

prophecy and free will

file under: thoughts about things

Frank Herbert's Dune has been fueling my thoughts lately. it's been twenty years since i first read it, and i'm finding it well worth a second visit. the themes that strike me hardest now are those related to time and the course of events, and how prophecy, religion, imagination, and free will are players on those stages.

prophecy is prediction, bounded by physical possibility, and it soothes fears of unknown futures. the prophet, whether tool or visionary, becomes an avatar bringing messages from that unknown future, and gives light where there was shadow. only gods (or our conception of them) could presume to grasp the chaos of connectedness in our world, to divine how that chaos hardens into an immutable past. the prophet and their prophecy are thus bound in a Gordian knot with religion and mysticism.

imagination, on the other hand, gives birth to a brilliant zoo of ideas and visions, some of which may exist, many of which do not. unlike prophecy, it isn't bound by possibility or time. the only limits imagination knows are those created by collective knowledge and the mind's ability to dream. imagination has no need for religion or politics or physics, because there is no expectation that the fruit of imagination need bear any resemblance to reality. a crucial point, however, is that we can constrain our imaginations to the possible or the real if we desire it; we can create boundaries to make the imagined thing more plausible. we can imagine a physics or politics or religion that entertains and inspires.

imagination and prophecy intersect where the imagined thing lives in the future, where we dream of what could be. in this sense, i think imagination can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. our imagination spawns a beautiful thing (a flying machine, a space craft, a world filled with peace), and then our bodies strive to create it, to make it real. the dreamer becomes a prophet, yet not one bound by religion or mysticism.

the third lover in this menage à trois is free will. prophecy seems to deny free will on some level, since it posits a pre-determined future that exists and can be predicted. on closer inspection, and with the multiple-world theories of quantum mechanics in mind, maybe it's better to say that prophecies harvest the tree of all possible futures, and reveal one or more likely branches. free will still exists in this world of prophecy, since our actions can lead us down one branch or another. imagination, and its transformation into self-fulfilling prophecy, all but requires the free will of an individual to mine the creative depths, and to proactively direct the course of events.

In Dune, Paul Atreides gains visibility into multiple possible futures, and directs his actions to avoid the less desirable ones. he is a prophet, and yet he is not spoken to by any visible gods. his consciousness has evolved to the point where he is no longer shackled by the manacles of the present. Arrakis and the fantastic world of the Fremen comes from the imagination, and speaks of prophecy and imagination and religion itself, a never-ending self-reference. who can say whether anything like Herbert's dream will come to pass?

Posted by docrpm on 03.13.02 at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 7, 2002

fight entropy

file under: thoughts about things

there is a silent enemy at work in our universe, a misanthrope who toils over his trickery in the shadows. the patience of ages is His, as He weaves a cloak of chaos and disorder through the fabric of our lives. many know His name, yet He is misunderstood and often simply tossed aside like so much high school physics. His name is Entropy, and He will dance with us until the end of time.

His greed is boundless - there is nothing He can't touch, no trinket beyond His wandering eye, no task too great. He wears your car down. He makes your hair drop out. Stars and galaxies fall under His spell like fair maidens under a vampire's gaze. His allies are everywhere - the snickering dishes in the sink, the dust mites on the floors, the pile of disorganized photos in the closet, the luggage of friends that explodes to fill the house.

armed with vacuum, spray cleaner, and anal-retentive genes, i dance with Him, and he whispers illusions of order in my ears. but then lassitude strikes me, and He smirks as my laundry piles up to the ceiling and my garbage overflows.

someday i'll go over to the Dark Side, and revel in the supremacy and beauty of His chaos, but for now, i'll keep my vacuum cleaner handy.

Posted by docrpm on 03.07.02 at 1:20 PM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2002

academic babble

file under: thoughts about things

what?

i came across this word while thumbing through the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. it refers to a technique devised by linguists in the 1940s which determines the rate at which a language has changed over the centuries. while i definitely fall into the everything-about-language-is-cool camp, it just struck me that they couldn't have come up with a more pedantic, impenetrable, academic moniker. i'd like to see one of those linguists tell one of their buddies what they do over a pint at the pub: "i've been working on this new thing ... it's called lexer ... uhhh ... statisstiticial ... (burp) ... glockenspoo ... eh, forget it. another pint of guinness?"

Posted by docrpm on 03.06.02 at 3:19 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2002

pass the Kleenex

file under: thoughts about things

from our lofty perch of evolutionary superiority, gained through millions of years of back-breaking genetic drudgery, we bask in the glow of being the preeminent species in the universe (other planets or galaxies or whatever don't count - only Fox Mulder believes in that stuff). we talk about other species in terms of how close they are to our perch, or how we need binoculars just to see them down there in the evolutionary dirt.

how conveniently we forget that certain microscopic bugs can reduce us to hacking, creaky, phlegm factories in a matter of hours. a few days at home, sick with the flu or a cold, where Kleenex becomes your closest friend, brings things into sharper focus. and that says nothing of the truly nasty microbes. someone a degree or two of separation from me just died recently of spinal meningitis - thought it was the flu, then two days later he was gone, a good man leaving behind a partner and friends and a good life. i thought of that as i laid on my back, wheezing, clutching my dear box of Kleenex, and wondering whether that neck pain was just an influenza ache...

we all know we're just visitors here, but it's also good to be reminded of our immigration status every once in awhile. homo sapiens is one species; we may think of ourselves as a big splash in the pond, but it's the bacteria and viruses and fungi that really rule this world (with cockroaches scurrying close behind, of course). not only is human civilization a cigarette burn in the film of world history, we're also a grain of sand on the beach of life. current estimates put the number of bacteria and virus species in the world at 1.5 million and 400,000, respectively; that's roughly two species of bacteria for every person in the city of san francisco.

top of the food chain? maybe...rulers of the world? you decide.

excuse me while i go and blow my nose.

Posted by docrpm on 01.23.02 at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2001

holiday hostage

file under: thoughts about things

warning: the following message contains some holiday cynicism, and is probably way too long for the subject. Christmas devotees and people with more pressing last-minute shopping are duly advised.

it all started innocently enough in September, with a day to honor the cause of labor unions in America. Labor Day, the first post-summer holiday, was a welcome notion after months of toil without rest, although i was working too hard to actually observe it...nonetheless, it was the thought that counted. so i say to myself, first week of september...christmas madness is months away, a veritable eternity.

flash forward to November, and a day of Thanksgiving. this year was harder than most to find those things for which to give thanks, but we managed (wine helped). in the tryptophan haze that followed the usual turkey - mashed potato - broccoli - wine - bread - and - don't - forget - the - (gallon of) cranberry - sauce extravaganza, we stoked up the fire and sat comfortable in the notion that we wouldn't be caught dead shopping that weekend...still plenty of time to take care of all of those Christmas things.

and then suddenly it's the week before Christmas and you haven't bought your Mom anything (and we all know that Mom's forgive these transgressions of ours, but some of us who shall remain nameless (me) still manage to feel like shit about it). the cards haven't even been sent yet...my god, man, at least rouse yourself from that post-thanksgiving stupor and scribble some cards, you christmas-hating troglodyte!! how hard could it be after all? i don't have that many friends; it will be a good way to connect with all those people who think i got kidnapped by aliens this year.

i bought the cards and was all ready to sit down and write, but then i took a small trip into the northwest. i took the cards with me, filled with the best of intentions, but somehow they just sat in my luggage, looking at me longingly every time i opened my bag. plenty of time to still write those cards...i'll do it when i get back. and then i was back, and there was no avoiding it any more. it was at this moment that i really began to feel like each of us is held hostage by the holidays in our own special way. for me, christmas cards are one of the candy-cane bars in that prison of mirth and merriment that is the christmas-(you better be happy)-holiday season.

christmas cards come in several flavors. some people just sign their cards - no personal greeting, just generic best wishes, or perhaps love if you're lucky. then there are those with children who send family photos (usually a variation on the generic theme, although without the thoroughly uncreative cards we often have to buy while pinching our noses). the bulk message is another popular trick; spend a little more time, write a note summarizing events of the year, print, insert, and then sign with perhaps a few words. finally, there is the holy grail of Christmas cards: the personal, hand-written message, crafted with care for everyone on our list; this is the ideal for those who eschew presents, who want to create something more meaningful, and who save enough time to pen messages that don't sound like Christmas spam.

given that i've gotten progessively worse at keeping in touch, the personal message is usually the approach i take, since it's the one time a year that i connect with the people who are or have been in my life. my desire to take this approach flies directly in the face of my laziness, and the fact that i usually wait until absolutely the last possible minute to get these messages out to people. this year, i chose a variation - create a small printed message that everyone gets (the spam), and then add a small note at the bottom (the personal touch, the icing on the spam, if you will). that way, i could get everything done in an evening, ready at dawn for delivery through sleet, snow, and rain to people across the globe.

and so the process begins. write the personal message - strike the chords you want to strike, hit the highlights, avoid overly sentimental schmaltz, and finish with best wishes couched in non-cliched terms (harder than it sounds; almost every word uttered this time of year is a time-worn cliche). ok...that wasn't too bad. how many people do i need to write this year? hmmm...better get out the Handspring and scroll through the address list. you've bought 20 cards, so make it count...lets' see...we've got relatives, friends, and family of friends. uh oh...there are at least 30 people on the list. scratch people from the list, or buy more cards tomorrow? buy more cards.

now that i've got the spam and the list, i can print and create that personal touch. contrary to manufacturer promises, my printer is about as slow as tectonic plate movement, which meant that printing 15 color sheets took about an hour. so we'll multitask...start printing, write on completed sheets while others print, repeat... and remember to think about buying another printer.

now on to the personal messages. i didn't leave quite enough space at the bottom of my bulk insert for a long message (the subconscious at work). oh well...sentiments in heart, muji pen in hand, printer printing, i set myself to the task. at a paltry three minutes a message, for 30 cards, there's another hour and a half. but it's done. except i need to address the envelopes.

do i have everyone's current addresses? will the excuse ring true if they get returned ('i sent your card weeks ago...i must have an old address')? it turns out that when i transferred my analog address book into the digital world, my analog brain left out a few people. so, i gather addresses from three places (Handspring, analog address book that i saved in case i made the mistake i knew i would, and email containing addresses that had changed but that i hadn't updated in my Handspring). as i'm addressing cards, i run into the age-old dilemma - for friends that are married, did their wife take their name? if i'm not sure, will they be offended if i use the husband's name? is it enough to write to the 'Johnson Family'? should i include the cherished pet in the address?

addresses are done. now we're in business...except i don't have enough stamps. i will have to buy more tomorrow, along with the extra cards i have to buy because i couldn't bear crossing people off my list. it's time to sleep. (through all of this, the elves are laughing through the aforementioned candy-cane bars).

i overslept and missed the mailbox pickup in front of my building. it's pouring rain, and i have to take my laundry to the cleaners. shit...ok. almost done. collect laundry, drive to post office and circle like a restless shark for 10 minutes looking for parking, mail batch one, buy more cards and stamps, go home to insert inserts, affix stamps, go back to post office and mail batch two (holy mother of god! a parking spot in front of the post office!!!).

total estimated time: 7 hours (for 30 cards, an average of fourteen minutes per card)

whoever said that christmas cards were an easy way to reach out to people was either (a) deluding themselves, or (b) not possessed of the same neuroses running amok in my mind like small, sinister wood elves. maybe it's me that said it's easy, but i only did it because i really do care about all of the people to whom i write my personal notes, complaints and cynicism aside. like a modern-day reindeer, i'll hurdle any number of obstacles, elves, santas, and crazed holiday shoppers to complete those cards. it matters. and fourteen minutes is not a lot of time to give to the people who make your world a better place.

Posted by docrpm on 12.22.01 at 4:27 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2001

use those headlights

file under: thoughts about things

quote for the day: "...writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." - E.L. Doctorow

Posted by docrpm on 11.30.01 at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)

that fluorescent glow

file under: thoughts about things

as i was lying in bed the other day, rain pouring down like it was the arrival of the apocalypse, i was thinking to myself, 'is there any good excuse i can come up with for not going into work today?' silence ensued in my brain. then came several other small trains of thought, one several cars long contemplating things i didn't like about my office, an express related to bathroom functions, and an intercity train leading to vacation.

on that first train were thoughts of fluorescent light bulbs. yes, my brain leads an exciting life...it's true.

i'm not certain whether they're satan-spawn or energy-saving saviors. i tend to think the former. i know why we put them in office buildings, but they're so dehumanizing for some reason. now, i know i've got some issues around lighting (naked light bulbs are tantamount to nails on a chalkboard for me), but i don't think i'm far off base here. here are just a few reasons why i think fluorescents should be banned from any office with a modicum of respect for its denizens:

• you never see full-spectrum lighting in autopsy rooms - always fluorescent
• the almost-perceptible buzzing noise they create (think barton Fink and mosquitoes...)
• the healthy, semi-green glow one gets after working under their soothing white wash (not)
• the lack of concomitant lighting design creativity ('hey! why think? i can just put in more of these fluorescents!')
• late-breaking additions by frh:
  
  • pro: you can use them for mock jedi battles if things at the office get too tense
  • con: they interfere with the warm, comforting glow of the cathode ray tubes

my work here is done. go forward and unscrew fluorescent bulbs around the world. send the subversive message to the masses (if it's one with which you agree). learn how to save energy without them, and make the office world a healthier, saner place.

Posted by docrpm on 11.30.01 at 8:36 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2001

everyday heroes

file under: thoughts about things

in most of our everyday lives, we aren't faced with invincible multi-armed foes or impossible odds. we don't storm a beach at normandy after breakfast, or fly to the moon over the weekend. we watch movies. we get coffee. we go for a hike. we stub our toes. we work and we do our best. or at least, that's what I do.

as I drifted off to sleep last night, after-images of 'Saving Private Ryan' in my head, I thought about these things. i thought about the last part of the movie, when a man thinks of the sacrifices others made so that he could live a life of freedom. he asks, 'have I been a good man? did I live my life as best I could?' faced with the acts of heroism that made his life possible, I guess he was asking, 'have I been a hero in my own life?'

what does it mean to be an everyday hero, if you don't save lives, if you don't thrill millions, if you don't alter the course of human history?

i think heroism takes shape in small things...the waitress who smiles brightly when you order your eggs and homefries (and of course, that biscuit with herb gravy). the corner grocer who sells little things that make your life more pleasant (coke, chips, beer, whatever). or maybe it's the thing that girl said to you at work that made you look at life a little differently. or the homeless guy who seems happy when he talks with you, even though he's got every reason to be sad. a million things that I overlook or take for granted every day. and all of these things done without expectations of thanks or recognition...any hero who basks in the glory of their heroism just seems cheap - a cardboard cutout, a fake. it's the ones who never say anything that are the most amazing, who are just doing what needs to be done, doing their best, trying to do something good for other people or the world. no cool green tights, flak jacket or space suit. just real people, living as best they can...

Posted by docrpm on 11.18.01 at 6:06 PM | Comments (0)