Escaped Thoughts

I was doing some Perl hacking today (in strict mode, of course) and stopped when I realized I had typed the following:

my $failures = 0;

“For both our sakes, I would that word were true.”

Category: Geek

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I think the em-dash—that fantastically useful divider—is rapidly replacing the comma as my most over-used punctuation mark. Although parentheses and semi-colons (some of my other favorite punctuators) tend to creep in fairly often as well; maybe I just need to write down fewer of my tangential thoughts?

Category: Language

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It seems that the songs aren't true, because I'm sitting here listening to the rain on our deck/patio/porch (I may, at Josh's suggestion, start calling it a lanai—no-one can agree on what it is, but I think everyone could agree on it not being a lanai). You can take the man out of Oregon, but you can't take Oregon out of the man—as much as I enjoy the sunshine here, grey rainy days make me feel like I'm truly home.

Category: Life

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Working inside the reality-distortion field every day has intensified my innate need to buy gadgets that I probably don't need—luckily, Laura acts as a force of sanity, causing me to ration my purchases. The problem is, this leaves me with the task of picking which gadget to get first. Here's my current wish list:

• 512 MB RAM – there's nothing quite like RAM to make an old computer feel zippy and new again. The 512 I have now is nice, but I'm often near or past the upper end because of all the stuff I keep open all the time (as the 1 GB of virtual memory files that live full time on my drive can attest to).
• Keystation 49e – I've always sort of wished I'd stuck with piano, and now Garage Band is making getting back into it even more tempting. Sure it's not a real piano, but it's much smaller, cheaper, and easier to move, so it's actually feasible. This is perhaps the most dangerous of the items on my list, since it could be a starter drug for larger, more expensive keyboards (like the 61es).
• iSight – What would I use it for? Who would I talk to? I have no clue. Do I want one anyways? Heck yeah. The RDF at its finest. In my defense, I do have some plans to play around with stop-motion and time-lapse recording, which should be fun.
• iTalk – It's less important now that I'm not on the move as much as I was in college, but still potentially useful for filling the iPod's input void.
• AirPort Express – Right now my G4 is our wireless basestation, which means I can't put it to sleep and, more importantly, it has to live on the wall with our cable modem. As a bonus for the AirPort, that's the wall with our stereo stuff (for the moment at least). So although not vital, it would give us more freedom, which could become even more important whenever we move, depending on what the new layout is like.

I've pretty much narrowed my first choice down to the RAM (boring, but safe) and the keyboard (cool, but risky). On one hand, I'll never say to myself, “Boy, I sure wish I hadn't bought that RAM. I never use it!” On the other hand, I won't be saying “This RAM is so much fun! I could just play with it for hours and hours!” Do I want the subtle, pervasive improvement to my whole computer experience, or the Christmas-morning excitement and the possibility of a new creative outlet?

So here I am, balanced between childishness and fuddy-duddydom, stability and excitement. If you think about it, isn't that really a metaphor for the struggle we all face daily in our lives to define who we are?

No, I didn't think so either.

Category: Geek

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What is the gender-neutral, singular word for cow or bull (in the standard bovine usage—“whale”, “elephant”, and the like will not be accepted)?

I've posted the answer to the last quiz; I'll try to be more prompt this time. Once again, no looking it up before answering!

Category: Language

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We watched the second presidential debate last night, and I'm definitely glad I've been watching. Each time I see them I feel better about voting for Kerry—he presents himself very well, he's clearly intelligent, he's respectful, he's not a robot like Gore was, and he is able to clearly articulate definite plans. Bush keeps looking bad in the debates: he gets flustered and angry, steamrolls the moderator, and mostly doesn't have concrete rebuttals. For example, they've had several exchanges that essentially went like this:

Bush: My opponent is wishy-washy! He's flip-flopped on the issue of <whatever>

Kerry: No, I've been consistent, and here's exactly why I made each of those decisions and how it fits with my overall convictions. <clear and concise explanation>

Bush: He's inconsistent! That's just how it is!

Why doesn't he just jump up and down and say “Are too! Are too!”? Obviously I'm biased, but I truly believe that Kerry's points are significantly more based in facts, whereas Bush's are more based in rhetoric. And while it's not like I'm an undecided voter, I'm really glad I can feel good about voting for Kerry, instead of being resigned to voting for him.

Now two moments that struck me most: the funniest moment and the scariest moment.

The funniest moment was Bush's comment about the sort of judges he wanted on the Supreme Court. He basically said he wants constitutional literalists. Then as an example of what he doesn't want, he talked about the Dred Scott decision:

Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all—you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America. And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists.

www.washingtonpost.com

This is priceless stuff. He was clearly about to say that the Constitution says that we're all equal. So... he wants judges on the Supreme Court who don't know the difference between the Constitution and the preamble to the Declaration of Independence? I don't think that a document that at the time counted some people as three-fifths of a person can really be said to be one that “speaks to the equality of America.”

The scariest moment was when Bush spoke about the Patriot Act:

Our law enforcement must have every tool necessary to find and disrupt terrorists at home and abroad before they hurt us again. That's the task of the 21st century. And so, I don't think the Patriot Act abridges your rights at all.

Wow. He could have said something about why it's important, and then talked about making sure it's done carefully and adjusted as necessary to protect rights, but he didn't. Instead he said several times that he doesn't believe it treads on our rights at all. That's a disturbing stance, as is his statement that “every action being taken against terrorists requires court order, requires scrutiny”, in light of the fact that part of the Patriot Act was ruled unconstitutional for lack of judicial oversight. The fact that he thinks that preserving our rights is the same as giving law enforcement “every tool necessary”—would he say that a police state wouldn't infringe our rights because it's necessary to keep us safe from the terrorists, then? I'm not saying that I think he really wants a complete police state, but the idea of being led for another four years by someone who thinks that giving more power to law enforcement is the same thing as preserving our rights is very scary.

Category: Society

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This one requires that you answer in the comments, so don't be shy! Here's the quiz: define the words “biannually” and “bimonthly”. No cheating by looking it up! Answer based on your current knowledge only.

Category: Language

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This optical illusion, if it can be called that, is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. Stare at the center, don't move your eyes, and don't blink. It's like magic! Even the name—motion induced blindness—is cool.

Bonus points if you can get all three dots to vanish—I've done it once, so I know it's possible.

Category: Random

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On Tuesday I experienced my first earthquake—I slept through the one the week before, and I didn't notice the one or two small ones I've technically been through in Oregon. It was strange, because I mostly heard it, rather than felt it, so I was sitting there trying to figure out what someone could be rolling around above my office that would make so much noise... it sounded like a truck. So that was kind of fun, alough I'm glad I was 120 miles or so away, since I don't think being right on a 6.0 would be so much fun.

Then, to round out my California experience, Cupertino had a power outage on Friday (although to be fair it wasn't a true California blackout, but instead the more pedestrian someone-screwed-up-a-transformer kind of outage that was all too common back in Cleveland Heights). It was a new experience in that it was my first power outage while in a building with fire doors that all close automatically when the power goes out. Having all the lights go out then hearing doors slamming shut all around me gave me a momentary feeling of being in a supernatural horror movie.

So having had both an earthquake and a power outage in the same week, I think I can really start to feel like a true Californian. If I'd been more on the ball, I could have gone surfing this weekend and rounded out the experience.

Category: Life

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