Movie Review: WALL-E

*This review contains spoilers*

“WALL-E” is a very strange children’s movie. This film isn’t afraid to be either desolate or off-putting and I don’t mean that in a bad way. For one, the setting is not a happy one. And the lack of dialog in the first half really hammers home how empty and quiet an abandoned Earth would be. In fact, I spent a great part of this movie seriously horrified either by the state of Earth or the state of humanity. If it wasn’t for the completely sweet WALL-E himself, I think the movie would have been too dark for most adults much less children. WALL-E as a main character is quite interesting because this movie isn’t about him growing and changing so much as it is about his effect on the people and machines around him.

See full post for further thoughts.

Still, those adults who’ve been decrying the movie as anti-human....Um, what movie did you see? Because the movie I saw named WALL-E ended on a hopeful note. The humans take control back; this is especially clear if you watch the credits where humans and robots are working together to rebuild society (including cities, industry and such). If anything, I found the movie to be profoundly redemptive on that score. Humans, having exchanged comfort for responsibility long ago, take charge of their destinies once more from little things like working on the computer past “bedtime” to bigger things like saving children from being crushed.

And this story of the humans parallels the robots. Humans gave into easy-living; robots submit to programming. Both have to overcome these impulses to take conscious control of their futures. The moving force for this is WALL-E himself who without really trying or meaning to, entices every robot and human he comes into contact with (except the Autopilot) into acting “outside the box”. From teaching robots how to wave hello-goodbye to forcing two humans out of their projection bubbles, he is the force responsible for the robots and the humans becoming something new.

I didn’t leave with the “Yippee” (like after Nemo) or a “Hell, Yeah!” (like after Incredibles). More like, “Hmmmm....That was interesting.” American cinema is certainly evolving when a supposed children’s film provokes more thinking for me than 90% of the officially grown-up films out there. The animators at Pixar should be commended for creating a remarkably grim movie that also happens to be entertainingly adorable. Because, desolate visuals or no, I still want a WALL-E robot.

Link to full post.

Boom De Yada = Love

So, I crossed 20 posts this month. Something I haven't done in a while....But looking back at the posts, man, have I gotten grumbly about things! This is not to say there aren't things to grumble about.....Just, it's such a cool world full of things worth geeking out over. How cool you ask?

Discovery Channel Cool.


I solemnly swear that unless aliens invade the planet or something equally OMG!, my posts for the upcoming weekend will be hopeful and enlightening (after a fashion).

Link to full post.

Friday Narnian Silliness

You know why I like fanfiction? Sure it's really, really weird and occasionally really, really badly-written. You have to dig through a lot of so-so stuff to find those pearls. But what pearls they are....Every now and again, some fan creates something that is so perfectly awesome you simply must acknowledge being paid to do something isn't the same thing as doing it well. Today, is one of those times.

From the kinky dens of LiveJournal I give you:
"Peter the Magnificent & Caspian the Super Fine"

Choice Quote (of many, many possibilities):

NARNIANS: We’ll kill you, Telmarine!
CASPIAN: How about instead you make me your king?
CENTAURS: You have to admit the boy’s devilishly attractive.
TALKING SQUIRREL: His profile would look good on our money!
NARNIANS: All hail King Caspian!

Link to full post.

Yet Another Comment on DC vs. Heller

Like many concerned with self-defense, I’m quite happy with today’s decision by the Supreme Court on the DC vs. Heller case. Short, short version: Yes, dear citizens, you really do have an individual right to keep & bear arms (barring some restrictions whose legal details that will be left as an exercise for the readers).

I’ll leave the legal commentary to the professionals but I would like to talk about a few structural and stylistic items which caught my eye in reading the opinion of the Court.

Overall, reading the majority & dissenting opinions was very much like watching a well-versed history professor debate two well-meaning sociology professors....In other words, a rhetorical bloodbath for the dissenters. This is most telling when you look at the length of the opinions:

Justice Scalia (Majority): 67 pages
Justice Stevens (Dissent#1): 45 pages
Justice Breyers (Dissent#2): 43 pages

Do you know the difference between opinions resulting in the longer length for Justice Scalia? CITATIONS. In great numbers and copious detail. Justice Scalia’s opinion is overflowing with them. In some parts, paragraphs consist of a couple sentences followed by 5-10 sources for an assertion. Whole pages are nothing but quotes. And his sources extend from a hundred years prior to the Founding to the present day. Seriously, the opinion reads like a history paper. A kinda awesome history paper.

Also, I don’t always agree with the man but Justice Scalia knows how to turn a phrase. A couple of my favorite zingers from his opinion:

“A purposive qualifying phrase that contradicts the word or phrase it modifies is unknown this side of the looking glass (except, apparently, in some courses on Linguistics).” -p18

Or what happens when a Supreme Court Justice with a good understanding of history can knock bus-sized holes in supporting arguments from supposedly-unbiased Linguistic professionals.

“If so, they overread Miller. And their erroneous reliance upon an uncontested and virtually unreasoned case cannot nullify the reliance of millions of Americans...” -p55, footnote

This isn’t funny by itself. However for some reason, it reminded me strongly of this "Star Wars" quote. Seriously, read this sentence aloud then listen to the quote (Start at 0:20). Hilarious I tell you.

Link to full post.

"Human Rights" For Me But Not Thee

Do you want to know why for most Americans the UN has all the moral authority of “third rate den of whores”? Well, this is exactly why. The UN “Human Rights” council banned criticism of religions (well, really only a particular one) in order to stifle discussion on genuine human rights abuses in the Muslim world.

Genital Mutilation? Nope, can't talk about it. Child Marriage? What? It's a cultural institution, really. Honor Killings? I'm sorry that's a private family matter....Not even, or perhaps not especially, any NGOs decrying abuses of human rights as codified by sharia law.

I cannot express how grateful I am that the United States is not part of the UN Human Rights Council and therefore not tarnished with the same brush as these amoral, oppressive reprobates. The fact that we allow this kind of repressive tactic to occur on our soil is however a total disgrace.

Link to full post.

Overheard At Work, pt14

Engineer1: “My boss is making me do this.”
Engineer2: “Her boss is [insert name here].”
Accountant: “Yeah, well, your boss doesn’t impress me.”

Link to full post.

Hardy Heron – Full Review

While Gutsy involved some very obvious changes to the desktop, Hardy so far strikes me as a more under-the-hood upgrade. Overall, this resulted in a fairly seamless upgrade with a couple of exceptions. This post was delayed because I didn’t want my (very frustrating) search for a music app to interfere with my review of the upgrade.

See full post for my (few) upgrade problems, things I like about Hardy, things I don’t like and my overall opinion of this upgrade.

I. Upgrade Problems

1) Errors installing Scrollkeeper: Honestly, I have no idea what this means. It about gave me a heart-attack during the install because my computer got stuck on this for several minutes. Here’s what it looks like:
There have been others with this issue but it had a much bigger effect for them than me. Unless, this error is the reason for problem #2?

2) Kernel Panic with -18 Kernel: With Gutsy, I had Kernel problems because I was loading an older version without realizing it. With Hardy, the most recent version was the source of my troubles. An older version worked OK (so I could check things out) but it’s best to use the most recent one I think. Many other people have had kernel issues with this upgrade but unfortunately, the fixes can be a bit technical. Here’s what worked for me.

I booted into recovery-mode for the latest kernel. Recovery-mode has undergone some changes. Instead of a terminal, it now goes to a very basic menu. I choose to “Rebuild damaged/broken packages”. Once complete, there's an option to reboot in normal mode.
No more kernel panic. I was able to reboot into version 18 with no trouble at all. Since my initial upgrade, there’s been a kernel update to -19 which I haven’t had any trouble with at all.

3) PulseAudio Integration: This didn’t appear until very late in the game (after 2wks). Because of my music application difficulty, I guess I may not have noticed it right away. Basically, PulseAudio confuses the computer when two applications (like your music player & your browser) try to use sound at the same time so it just doesn’t play one (usually video sound in your browser). Now I had this exact problem with Gutsy and could never get it fixed. However for Hardy, after some looking around, I found this very helpful guide in the Ubuntu forums. I performed steps A & B, then rebooted. This completely corrected my sound problems. So, bad = there can be sound problems, good = they’re a lot more fixable than in Gutsy.

II. Things I Like In Hardy

1) Streaming Sound WORKS (for the most part): With the exception of the confusion listed above, the improvement to streaming sound functionality is huge. Even before they were fixed, the sound issues were less frequent and pervasive. In Gutsy, it really interfered with my Last.FM app, music player(s), and video streaming. In Hardy, my problems were limited to video streaming and were much more correctable. This is the single most noticeable improvement from Gutsy to Hardy. I know for some people it went the other way around but in my case, Hardy is a dream sound-wise compared to Gutsy. The only other sound issue was with Last.FM. It kept stopping and then buffering the files the first few days. But then I got some software updates and it never happened again.

2) Shorter Boot & Shutdown Times: I have no idea why this would occur or even if it was supposed to. But it is nice, especially when I have to restart after a round of updates.

3) Brasero CD Burner: I do really like this application because since switching to Ubuntu, I’ve been making more data CD’s for back-up programs, etc. Brasero lets you burn several types of CDs and it’s quite intuitive to use. For audio CD’s, creating and rearranging a track-list is dead simple:
Brasero does have one flaw. It doesn’t accurately track file size. I have to attempt burning my disc several times because while it said I had plenty of room left (see bar in lower right), the actual MB amount was over the limit of the disc:
As you can see this MB amount is barely below the 700MB limit of the discs. But if you look at the earlier pic, it appears there’s tons of space left! You don’t know the MB amount until you start the burn process. If you burn a lot of CDs this would only be a problem at first, until you get a feel for it but it is annoying.

4) A Couple of Little things: Just some minor features that I noticed and liked. (a) Hard drives are labeled by their memory size not their “designation” (ex – sbc3). Much easier to keep track of. (b) This is a tiny change that makes a big difference. The “Control Center” is now available immediately under the system menu:


III. Things I Don’t Like In Hardy

1) Start-Up Manager Changes: One of the changes in Gutsy I really liked was the improved “Start-Up Manager” functions. For some reason, those changes have been removed and the “Start Up Manager” greatly simplified (to the point of being useless). Here’s the Gutsy version:
And here’s the Hardy version:
Doesn't this look so useful? Choosing the kernel version and a number of other functions has been removed. Why?

2) Most of My Firefox Themes Were Obsolete: With the Upgrade to Firefox 3, most of my themes just became null & void. A mitigating factor on this is that Firefox will regularly check for updated versions that are compatible so I don’t have to go digging for them myself. Still, Firefox was kinda plain for a while. By the time of the “official” Firefox3 release last week, several themes including Phoneity Modern (my fav), were all upgraded for the latest version.

3) XMMS Is GONE: I’ve already ranted about this here. This was the biggest Hardy downer for me.

IV. Overall Opinions

I actually like Hardy. Again most of the changes are either less noticeable than Gutsy or involve things I don’t use. But for the things I do use and see, this was a good, relatively glitch-free upgrade. After reading the forums, I was really worried about making my sound troubles worse and Firefox 3 being buggy. For whatever reason, they didn’t come up during my upgrade. For the most part, Hardy is a great deal more stable than Gutsy for me. The most significant change is the lack of XMMS (which I’m certain I will get over...eventually).

Link to full post.

Educational Statistics...

I’m currently reading a report on a study performed by the Urban Institute on the effectiveness of the “Teach for America” program, which hires new college graduates to teach in under-performing schools. Obviously, teachers’ unions don’t like the program (monopolies rarely like competition).

While the report is a bit dry with the discussion of how the data was parsed this way & that, the conclusions of the study are quite interesting. The bottom line is that when it comes to math & science teaching, students in under-performing schools show more improvement (in test scores) from the “Teach For America” participants than they do from experienced, collegiate-certified teachers. It also cites several other studies that found out pretty much the same thing using slightly different methods and data sets from other states.

However, the reach of teachers’ unions must be great. A little bit of hedging from the report:

“We should note that the findings here do not necessarily mean that there is no value to teacher training. It is possible that the teachers that TFA recruits and selects would be more effective with more pedagogical training.”

Sure, it is possible. But the more important question for me: Is it likely? I would be very curious to see a long-range study to determine if the effectiveness of TFA teachers goes up or down after “official” training & certification. If their performance does increase, then we have a great new pool of teachers. If their performance decreases, I think we should seriously examine teacher certifications and collegiate education-programs.

The last paragraph has the most telling conclusion of all:

“[The findings] stress the likely importance of strong academic backgrounds for secondary school teachers. They also suggest that policy makers should focus more on issues of teacher selection, and less on issues of teacher retention...”

In essence, “hire people who know something about the subjects they are teaching and quite keeping people on the payroll who don’t”. (1) The fact that anyone needed a study to come to this conclusion doesn’t leave me with a good impression of our education system. (2) I’m certain it will take hundreds of similar studies and millions more failed students before teachers unions will concede the point.

Link to full post.

w00t - Even NASA scientists say it

Excuse me, I'm going to geek out for a minute....

They found water ice on MARS! Go Phoenix!

Please tell me they got video of it sublimating away (and therefore proving its iciness). Because that would be awesome...*googles like a geeked-out googlin' fool*.......OMG they DID!

Lower left corner = ICE chunks evaporating

*ahem* Off to bed now.

Link to full post.

The Great Music App Search

My long-promised Hardy Heron review has been delayed in my search for a new music application. I’ve tried just about everything available at this point and I’m quite surprised it took this long to find a player. Note: I did not find a “player I like as much as XMMS” but rather “one that works well”.

See full post for a recounting of my slightly disgruntled examination of music applications.

Goddammit. Why no XMMS? Really. What’s so wrong with a really simple music player whose appearance I can change? I know, after my Rythymbox woes, I decided to search around for something else after the Hardy upgrade. But this is a forced change...I don’t react well to forced changes. I went through a crazy number of players until I found something that actually did the one or two functions I need in a music player in a way that didn’t annoy the ever-loving heck out of me. Here’s a summary of my music player adventures:

Aqualung: Didn’t work AT ALL. As in, didn’t even open. No link for you.

Audacious: Opened and allowed me to load my library as a playlist but didn’t play AT ALL. No link for you either.

BMPx: Opened and very feature rich but easy to navigate interface...With one key exception...You cannot load your entire library as a playlist. This is for some complicated technical reasons but frankly, I don’t care.

Amarok: Opened, loaded library as playlist and played. However, it was slightly buggy sound. Occasionally it would fritz out entirely and I’d have to tweak some preferences to get it playing again. Also, there are too many features in this program! It felt like I was using a 100-function Swiss Army knife to chop celery.

Exaile: I had high hopes for this one. Opened, loaded library and played music with no problems. Much fewer features and a less cluttered interface than Amarok (even though its supposed to be an Amarok clone for GNOME):

Unfortunately, Exaile has one key flaw: a terrible, horrible tag generator/editor. It imported a lot of my filenames as “Titles” instead of the actual tags. This isn’t a few files. It’s 1000+ of 2600 files. Which is a ridiculous amount of work. Not to mention, the tags menu is useless.


Banshee: Opened, loaded library & played. No bugs. One key thing some people may not be aware of: The version of Banshee available through “Add/Remove...” is not the latest (indeed that version kinda sucks). To get the latest version, open “System”—“Administration” – “Software Sources”. Under the “Third Party Software” tab add the following two entires:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/banshee-team/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/banshee-team/ubuntu hardy main

Then open up your terminal and type the following:

sudo apt-get install banshee-1

This version of banshee has Last.FM compatibility but it doesn’t let you play “Friends” or “Neighbors” only similar artists to stuff you’ve already played. Still, it’s good to finally have something decent to play music:

There’s still a major tagging problem, where some of my general folder names (“70s Stuff”, “Musicals”) are being loaded as album names. Also, the “Download Album Art” feature is especially irksome. Thank god they at least give me the option to turn it off. But I have to turn it off each time I open the program, yuck. Is there nothing better?

Songbird: FINALLY. It looks complicated but this sucker does exactly what I want. Opened, loaded music library and played. This one requires an install similar to Banshee. Add the following to "Third Party Sources":

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu hardy main

Then run the following from the command line:

sudo apt-get install songbird

When you first open the program,you select a folder and it automatically loads your library, first thing! I had a moment of "Oh not again!" panic when the library first loaded. The tags don't fill in until you play the tracks!

Meaning.....I do not have to re-input tag data. EVER. Between this and the (thankful) lack of automatic "Download Album Art" feature, I'm officially SOLD on this player. There's also an add-on that allows for audio-scobbling via Last.FM.

Although the default theme is really dark, installing different themes is as easy as in Firefox. (They are called "Feathers" here)

Right now, I'm running a nice light green/gray theme to go with my desktop a bit better.


Now, after all this searching and frustration, I would like to get on my soapbox a little. Please ignore the following....

(/Begin rant)
For all their so-called variety, the music players available in Ubuntu aren’t very satisfactory to me. I understand a lot of people have very strong favorable opinions of these players but, for me personally, they seriously underwhelm. They all look the same and while they let you do complicated things, there’s very little emphasis placed on making simple actions simple. 97% of the time, I do one thing with a music player: load my library as a playlist, hit “shuffle” and play. That’s it.

BMPx considers this unnecessary; Amarok worked but was buggy and the other features just overwhelmed (who needs all that crap?). Exaile had the worst tag editor in the history of mankind. Don’t even get me started on Rythymbox. Simpler players such as Audacious and Aqualung didn’t work at all. I’ve gotten to the point where I see that oh-so-recognizable style of interface and cringe. Because it means that this player will be a complicated chore to use. I was even reluctant to try Songbird simply because its similarities. Thankfully, while it has plenty of fancier features, it's very easy to use and doesn't require a lot of work on my part.
(*deep cleansing breaths* End rant\)

Now that I have a player that shows songs with correct tags, I can now complete my cross-reference between my music collection and my MP3 player. Once I’ve correctly synced my files, I’m going to go on a celebratory music-buying spree like you would not believe. Amazon Downloads better brace themselves....

Link to full post.

In (Someone Else's) Mail

Once again, my coworker has received something amusing in the mail*. However, this time it is not a call to God. Today, it was a nicely printed invitation to dinner and some lectures on Estate Planning. Unfortunately, the lecture list provided does not inspire confidence. Please read the text in the red square:

Notice anything?.....Here’s a hint: J(1), T(2), W(3), R(4), O(5), S(6)...Yes, that’s right people who cannot differentiate between five & six are going to instruct you in financial matters. Note: these same people can exactly predict your losses ($780,800) from an incorrectly planned will. Perhaps it is only small numbers they have trouble with?

Also, I really don’t think they should be giving a lecture entitled “How to Disinherit You Own Children Unintentionally”.....It should be referred to by its true name, “How To Punish The Ungrateful Brats Without ‘Officially’ Disinheriting Anyone (And Getting Away With it)”.

*Why do I always get the boring junk mail? How is that remotely fair?

Link to full post.

Petroleum & People Skills

When will the US government is finally getting off its duff and allow drilling in "coastal" waters! With oil prices as high as they have been, I’m really surprised we haven’t been OKing a lot more domestic drilling. There are at least three major sources of domestic oil that aren’t being exploited: ANWR, oil shale and coastal drilling. If we started accessing these resources and building some refineries it could really reduce the prices at the pump both short term and long term.

So, there’s no good reason we have to keep paying through the nose for foreign oil. No good reason except certain people would rather make working Americans pay big money in order to discourage oil use.

While there have been great strides in making solar and wind power more affordable, they aren’t yet ready to compete with coal and oil. They are getting there. Yes, we should be encouraging this trend. But, we should also be working to make that transition as painless as possible. Otherwise, too many people will associate going green with financial ruin and bureaucratically coerced sacrifices. By preventing us developing resources and infrastructure, what could have been a painless (and more voluntary) transition is going instead to be a financial train-wreck for working class Americans. Don’t environmentalists realize how much damage they are doing?

If you’re a working class American paying $4+ per gallon and you found out that there was plenty of oil, only you weren’t allowed to use it, how happy would you be with the the people who told you “No”? How much would you trust them next time they said going green was necessary? There’s been some very good strides recently in the environmental movement to portray a more positive message of the future (not “OMG, We’re Going to DIE! And we kinda deserve it.” but “Hey, the future could be cool if we work at it a little”). Now, for many Americans, that good is being undone. Because when they think of the green movement, they will think of artificially high oil prices and coercive manipulation by bureaucrats.

(I know the green movement includes a very diverse selection of opinions, some of which I have no problem with. However, the “average” American isn’t necessarily informed about that diversity. There is a real risk of the subset of opinions on drilling and refinery construction harming the average American’s opinion of the larger movement. Considering that some changes do need to be made, I really worry about this.)

Link to full post.

ACTA = OMG Scary

Well, it appears the United States government has decided to stop being a country of the people, for the people and by the people. Instead, it has chosen, along with the governments of other nations, to become the paid thugs for Big Entertainment.

This week, they have been in secret negotiations to grant border guards the right to scan your laptops, ipods, media devices for infringing material and confiscate or destroy them without due process of right of appeal! What does a border guard know of intricacies copyright law? How will they know the difference between mp3 files from your CD collection and content downloaded illegally? Or is the whole point to criminalize ripping files from their CD collection? Is this Big Entertainment's way around the "fair use" doctrine which has so far protected the activity? If you don't believe me, see for yourself how utterly terrible this treaty is.

There was no public outcry for this. There was no public opinion consulted on the validity, necessity or terms of this treaty. No, this treaty is based on outcry by corporations afraid of change, based on inaccurate data they themselves generate. It is the result of consultation with only one side of the complex and PUBLIC discussion that has occurred lately on copyright. It was intended to be negotiated entirely in secret and presented to the American people as holy international writ.

More importantly, it is a supremely bad law that is based on a 20th century perspective of copyright. A perspective that this paper makes abundantly clear has no bearing on reality in a digital age. The technological ignorance of CEOs of entertainment companies and our elected "leaders" is going to lead to a terrible set of laws which protects no one, helps no one and criminalizes every single person with digital media on their computer.

Our politicians are such amazingly gutless sell-outs. And, the entertainment industry apparently thinks it is completely reasonable to criminalize every single one of their customers world-wide. I wonder how many of them have degrees in Constitutional law or, hell, even copyright law. More importantly, I don't recall electing any entertainment CEOs to office. Just because something is good for the Entertainment Industry's tired, out-dated business model does NOT mean it is good for the United States, its citizens or any other country in the world.

Go here to read more....but only if you have a strong stomach.

(I actually wrote my Senator about this one...that's a first for me. But if we get copyright reform wrong, it sets a really bad precedent for the other technological changes coming this century)

Link to full post.

My Alma Mater in Action (sigh)

One of my coworkers has a University of Texas desk calendar with fun facts and quiz questions about the university. Since three of us are all graduates from the Austin campus, he often shares the daily entries with us. Here is today’s astonishing revelation:

“The University of Texas At Austin Fact (of the day):
L. Theo Bellmont, for whom is credited for helping create Memorial Stadium, is also credited with helping discover and create the Southwest Conference.”

As can be expected by anyone with a lick of understanding of English, my coworkers and I mocked the living hell out of this sentence. Mocking was imperative because it was very, very, very poorly written. If this sentence is indicative of the quality of education received from UT Austin, I should be demanding a significant chunk of my money back.

How is it wrong? Let me count the ways:

1) “for whom is credited for” is totally incorrect. Please read it aloud to develop a full appreciation for the supremely clunky phrasing. It should be “who is credited with”.

2) “create Memorial Stadium” – Granted, I’m just an engineer, but aren’t stadiums built? Did he wish the stadium into existence by using the power of the Force? How exactly do you “create” a stadium in a way that doesn’t involve more applicable verbs like designing, financing, building or overseeing?

3) "credited" used 2X! - The English language in wonderful in its variety. To use such a vanilla verb twice in the same sentence is just lazy, especially when so many better options are available for the second use: "originated", "advocated for", "greatly improved". These other verbs are preferable because they can be more specific about what this man's achievement actually was. Simply checking Wikipedia for Mr. Bellmont would help anyone in accurately describing his accomplishments.

4) “discover and create the Southwest Conference” – You cannot “discover” a sports conference! The Southwest Conference is a frackin’ football league not something dug up in Bolivia proving the existence of pocketknives in Pre-Columbian cultures. To describe it in this way, conflates his achievement by linking it connotatively to more scientifically rigorous accomplishments. Which is ridiculous & wrong. Compared to “discover”, the second use of “create” is almost acceptable. Except it is the second word used twice in ONE sentence. BUY A THESAURUS PEOPLE! A better phrasing would be, “founded and developed the Southwest Conference”.

Is it too much too ask for someone with an understanding of English sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary? Especially when using a University’s name, a University which presumes to have multiple experts in all of the aforementioned topics.

*is feeling very smug about having never donated to the Texas Alumni Association*

(For the record, my version of the sentence would read: "L. Theo Bellmont, who is credited with helping fund the construction of Memorial Stadium, also founded and developed the Southwest Conference.” Read it aloud and tell me it isn't 10x better than the original.)

Link to full post.

Beijing Olympics Protests

A bunch of people are posting protest graphics for the upcoming Beijing Olympics on Flickr. They are good enough to overcome my aversion to Flickr and look around:

Keep up the good work guys. Knowing the Chinese government, there will be plenty of fodder for moral indignation.

Link to full post.

Antiquing Patterns

Yesterday, my mom & I went antiquing several places west of San Antonio (mainly Castroville & Uvalde). Antiquing offers up a treasure trove of patterns both good and bad. Full post contains some of the best & worst from the trip. Lots of photos (not dial-up friendly).

Teaser: Rugs are whole pattern-fest on their own. But here's a sampler.

As far as antiques go, it appears the really crazy upholsteries are on the chairs. Like so:
It's like a summer-style naval pattern. Way too busy for me.

I found a pattern somewhat similar to my recently replaced tablecloth:
A little lighter than mine but still quite appealing, I think.

The same I cannot say for the overly pink setee:
Yuck.

Remember:


I bought a cabinet on this trip and when we went to load it, I noticed on of my Mom's blankets:
Whoa, this is ugly! And very, very pink.

It's not just chair that have outrageous prints. Here's a tablerunner:
Why would anyone think "depressing, mutant Cupids" is a good motif?

And someplaces have old scarves. Most of the time, they're pretty good. However, there are exceptions:
I'd feel like I was wearing an ornate tile floor around my neck. Or Celtic traffic signs.

Some of the chairs have absolutely lovely prints. Here's one I was really surprised by:
Very light coloring but it's pretty.

There's also this very colorful piece:
I wouldn't want a whole room done with this, but on a few throw pillows, it'd be great. Because of all the colors in it, you could use it after redecorating several times.

That was good use of color. This is bad use of color:
Staring at this too long makes your eyes tear.

Of course, sometimes you discover something so outrageous it redefines “bad”:
Betty Boop upholstery = SO VERY WRONG.

Now, antique shops always have a lot of rugs. For the most part, they are pretty vanilla neo-victorian prints. There are exceptions, both good:

And bad:
It looks like the welcome mat to Strawberry Shortcake's home.

A lot of places include quilts in their displays. Again, most of the time they are pretty much what you expect. But occasionally, there's some pretty crazy patterns:
I feel like a colorblind person's scrap bin was used to make this quilt. Having said that, it's so crazy I almost find it appealing...Almost.

One place had a whole quilting room, which would have been cool if it wasn't for this thing:
AHHHH!!! Flowers Everywhere! Run Away Before the Vines Get You!

I also really, like the screens used to divide up the rooms. Usually these have floral patterns or are solid wood colors.
Given the gold color, I shouldn't like this but the geometric print is just too wonderful.

Certain patterns would be overwhelming if done in bright colors:
But when done in washed-out or monochromatic tones, they look pretty darn cool.

Some patterns have no hope color-wise:
*shudder*

In addition to the stuff inside antique shops, occasionally the walls and floors offer worthy textures and colors of their own. These include:
Shiny concrete

Wooden walls

Granite Counter-tops
Or colorful walls

I'd really like to try several of these out as desktop wallpapers. Could lead to some different-looking themes.

*Ends post because she is thinking about redoing her desktop...And she ran out of photos*

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The Sportscaster In Upholstery Hell

Every now and again, working with a bunch of guys exposes me to parts of the world that I simply never knew existed. Indeed, I would have been happy to remain ignorant. For example, I have discovered the fashion “sense” of sportscaster Don Cherry.

Dear God, my eyes burn. Let me share the pain. Optical masochists are welcome here.

On one level, I admire a guy who can navigate the super-macho world of sportscasting while wearing this outfit:
On another level, I want to bleach my brain clean of the image.

And, worst of all, that’s not the ugliest suit he’s worn. Occasionally, he takes on a nature/grandma’s-couch theme:

Suits like this make me want to burn down the rainforest. Or at the very least, set fire to a greenhouse. Good frickin’ riddance to inspiration for these monstrosities.

In an effort to convey a more masculine image, he moved on to geometric patterns.
It didn’t work.

I would just like to thank Mr. Cherry for so thoroughly traumatizing my delicate pattern-loving sensibilities.

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Engineering Lunar Telescopes

Someone figured out how to make concrete from synthetic lunar dust and spin it to make telescope dishes. Can I just say how incredibly cool that is? Carry on.

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E-Books Galore!

Recent attempts to read have been a bit uninspiring for me ("Code 2.0" took me a ridiculously lone time to get through). So in an effort to get back into my reading groove, I downloaded and read several works from Manybooks.net.

“Raffles” by E.W.Hornung: Basically this is a parody of the Sherlock Holmes by a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle. Aside from some embarrassing changes in slang since the nineteenth century, it’s held up remarkably well. The Raffles character is enjoyable and the narrator-sidekick is a bit amusing as his conscience turns on and off depending on how desperate he is for money. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in this series.

“Planet of the Damned” by Harry Harrison: What a nice little suspense novel! The settings and circumstances are all sci-fi but at its heart this is a story of a clock ticking and one man’s attempts to avert disaster. While reading I found it quite dated but I cannot recall why; it definitely has an old-fashioned sensibility but it serves the story quite well. Very nice with some quite interesting twists.

“The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft: I read this one after realizing I never had checked out the origin of the whole Cthulhu business. Lovecraft builds a horror tale strictly around events investigated but never seen by the narrating character. Very good tale that leaves you with a palpable sense of dread and foreboding.

“The Aliens” by Murray Leinster: An interesting first-contact tale. This one isn’t as dated as the Harrison novel (in terms that it was clearly written in the 1960). The story does a pretty good job of conveying the fear, misunderstandings and potential of contacting an alien race. Again, this had a couple of interesting turns. The only downer was the completely nonsensical science. Giant Magnets as Stardrives?!

“The Time Traders” by Andre Norton: I’m not usually one for time-travel stories or Andre Norton but this was a damn good book! Russians stealing technology through time-travel and the efforts to recruit non-conformists to travel back in time to hunt them down….It’s one hell of a premise. I can’t wait to check out the sequels.

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Movie: “Catch & Release”

“Catch & Release” is a somewhat strange film, a romantic comedy that isn’t exceptionally comedic. Don’t get me wrong, I found it an enjoyable film but its best feature was the fact that the character and situations felt very real and complicated. Granted, there are standard aspects to the film but they are executed well and don’t detract from the fact it’s a remarkably good movie about the emotional aftermath of a death. People find out things they didn’t know, people act badly and people surprise you. Also, for all its conventional pedigree, there were several plot elements that tweaked the expected a little.

If you want a light-hearted romp of misadventure and romance, this really isn’t the movie for you. But if you’re in the mood for a more contemplative tale of funerals, friends and falling in love, then I would very much recommend this movie.

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Hardy Heron Update - Initial Review

WAAAAYY Better than Gutsy for one reason alone.....My streaming media sound works flawlessly! It quit working about a month ago in Gutsy and I put off updating until I could get it worked out. Glad I didn't wait any longer. Hello YouTube! *waves* Hello Last.Fm! *hugs* I've missed you both!

*intends to stay up waaaay too late watching "Britain's Got Talent!" on YouTube*

(more detailed review to follow)

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Women Aren’t “Naturally” Bad At Math = DUH

A fewe months ago, I went onto my soapbox about women in engineering after reading an very disturbing article that presumed women needed special curriculum in order to succeed in math and scientific fields.

At lunch today, I read another article over at Ars Technica, “Why Judy Can’t Add”. The punchline: A huge international study has found that lower math scores in women is a mainly social phenomenon (ie – it is directly proportional to the amount of gender equality in the societies tested).

This confirms yet again, that expectations matter.In my case, my parents, my teachers and my classmates all had very high expectations regarding my intellectual abilities. I didn’t realize until I got to college and especially when I got out in the workplace how rare that can be.

For most, little girls learn it’s unfeminine to be intellectual or more specifically mathematical from the adults around them. That subtle education affects their schoolwork and testing. The result is a gap in performance that “everyone” knows is because women aren’t as good at math as men. Which the next generation of women sees as reason to not fully apply themselves to mathematics because if it’s biology, then it doesn’t matter how hard they study, right?

Perhaps the self-esteem movement isn’t completely unfounded. Confidence in yourself is well and good but it has to be based in a real ability to perform. Maybe instead of hyping the more generalized self-esteem we should be emphasizing analytical skills and intellectual esteem in and for our young women. It also couldn’t hurt to remind them of women who are clearly intellectual success stories.

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Take That You, Extrovert-Centrists!

Today, I was exceeedingly happy to read this article over at The Science Blog. Apparently, recent research validates the idea that it’s OK not to talk about your traumatic experiences immediately following those experiences. The article does point out some caveats and expresses that everyone reacts differently.

Still for too long, the mental health professions assumed everyone wasn’t different and there was only one healthy reaction: to express your feelings as quickly as possible. As someone whose general reaction to anything is to not talk about it for a while*, I’m greatly heartened to have scientific backing for that stance. Few things annoy me more than someone forcing my emotional timetable into fast forward because it doesn’t meet their expectations.

*I'm a muller. Someone who mulls. My brain sometimes works on problems while I'm doing other things, so when I come back to the problem it's already half-solved. I handle any problem I'm stuck on by putting it down for while.

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