Open Left has a video update of the iPhone Hearing. When the chairman of House committee finds out his iPhone is locked to AT&T, it seems some things may change.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard
Last night I was in the mood to see things explode so I went to the latest Die Hard film, Live Free or Die Hard. Hard to believe it's been a dozen years since the last Die Hard film. I think the first one is the best action film made. This one wasn't that good but in the theater it was fun. I laughed a lot during this film. I'd say half the time was with the film and the other half was at the film. And unlike the first one which I remember very well almost 20 (!) years later, this one I'm already forgetting lots of.
Bruce Willis is back as John McClane. Justin Long is his hacker sidekick Matt Farrell. I'm not sure they have actual chemistry together but they both do well in their roles. The film opens with a glitch at the DHS cyber office or some such place. Think CTU from 24. Suspecting it was an attack, the commander orders the round up of anyone capable of doing this. I hope that's still illegal in country but ok. Since there were enough federal agents to do this, they call local police departments to get the suspects and bring them to DC! So to catch a kid in Camden NJ which is right outside Philadelpha, they call the New York City police who send detective John McClane who at the time (3 am) is in Rutgers NJ. Riiiight. Ok we begin the film just ignoring time and space. It only gets worse on this front.
Later the characters go from DC to West Virgina. The bad guys by helicopter and the good guys by car which takes only slightly longer. The helicopter then makes it to Maryland without refueling. There's a big chase scene at the end. An F-35 fighter jet vs a truck. You read that right. The truck is driving on the lower deck of an elevated concrete highway. At one point the jet slowy passes the truck in the background; cause that's how mach 1 compares to say 70 mph. The jet fires a missile at the truck and misses. So then it hovers between the decks just in front of the truck. In this scene, McClane is in the truck. Yep the truck wins and at one point McClane is surfing on the plane. It made the ridiculous scene in True Lies with the jet hovering for 15 minutes seem possible. But by far the worst part of this scene was that after this whole exchange takes place, the van with the bad guys which sped away in front of McClane is only about 400 yards away; close enough for McClane to limp to them.
Ok, evaluating this film on physics probably isn't fair. The plot involves the bad guys hacking into various computers and screwing up traffic lights, TV, powerplants, etc. Not just in once city but across the whole east coast. This isn't small time and I think it loses something from the more human scale of the previous Die Hards. The Cholefication of films (and know it was around long before 24) is starting to bother me. I'm actually depressed that the computer industry has done such horrible job of presenting the machines that virtually everyone uses in so horrible a way that they don't understand to the degree that this plot (and most every plot involving computers) was impossible. Donald Norman would say we don't present a model to the user so that they can understand things.
Some things I have to say: Cell phones don't use satellites. CBs have short ranges. When the east coast has a power failure, the networks go down too, even if you have your own personal generator. When a gas line explodes, gas doesn't continue approaching. If a building explodes, hiding in a van won't help.
I was very happy to see that cars in this film don't typically explode, which is an improvement over many action films. One (or was it two) of the villains lept around like Trinity in the Matrix or Sebastien Foucan in Casino Royale or Spider-Man. It was a bit ridiculous. People don't just get hit by cars, they hold onto them as they drive really fast and then are thrown off them. And they getup just fine. At another point McClane is thrown several stories out of a window and just gets up. Later when someone fell down an elevator shaft I wondered if they would just get up. But then a van fell on them (yes down the elevator shaft) and exploded so that settled my confusion.
What about the rest of the cast? Maggie Q is fine as an assistant villain hacker geek ninja. This is probably possible because the character has no depth other than a serious look. The rest of the casting is questionable. I liked Timothy Olyphant in Deadwood but I didn't like him as the underwritten villain Thomas Gabriel. He's no Alan Rickman or even a Jeremy Irons. Tim Russ who was supposed to be a useless White House liason thought he was still playing Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager. I found Kevin Smith as the hacker Warlock living in his mom's basement to just be ridiculous.
Ok. It may possibly sound like I didn't enjoy the film. Oddly I did. I really did. It was fun and as I said I laughed a lot. it has some very good lines. When McClane asks "Doesn't the government have dozens of agencies setup to deal with situations like this?", Matt replies "The government? After Katrina FEMA couldn't get water to the Superdome in 5 days." It doesn't take itself too seriously and for that reason doesn't come close to the original Die Hard. Maybe that's too much to expect from Hollywood these days; then again, I'm looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum. If you're in the mood to see things explode this will kinda do the trick. If you're in the mood for a mindless summer action flick Live Free or Die Hard will definitely satisfy.
Bruce Willis is back as John McClane. Justin Long is his hacker sidekick Matt Farrell. I'm not sure they have actual chemistry together but they both do well in their roles. The film opens with a glitch at the DHS cyber office or some such place. Think CTU from 24. Suspecting it was an attack, the commander orders the round up of anyone capable of doing this. I hope that's still illegal in country but ok. Since there were enough federal agents to do this, they call local police departments to get the suspects and bring them to DC! So to catch a kid in Camden NJ which is right outside Philadelpha, they call the New York City police who send detective John McClane who at the time (3 am) is in Rutgers NJ. Riiiight. Ok we begin the film just ignoring time and space. It only gets worse on this front.
Later the characters go from DC to West Virgina. The bad guys by helicopter and the good guys by car which takes only slightly longer. The helicopter then makes it to Maryland without refueling. There's a big chase scene at the end. An F-35 fighter jet vs a truck. You read that right. The truck is driving on the lower deck of an elevated concrete highway. At one point the jet slowy passes the truck in the background; cause that's how mach 1 compares to say 70 mph. The jet fires a missile at the truck and misses. So then it hovers between the decks just in front of the truck. In this scene, McClane is in the truck. Yep the truck wins and at one point McClane is surfing on the plane. It made the ridiculous scene in True Lies with the jet hovering for 15 minutes seem possible. But by far the worst part of this scene was that after this whole exchange takes place, the van with the bad guys which sped away in front of McClane is only about 400 yards away; close enough for McClane to limp to them.
Ok, evaluating this film on physics probably isn't fair. The plot involves the bad guys hacking into various computers and screwing up traffic lights, TV, powerplants, etc. Not just in once city but across the whole east coast. This isn't small time and I think it loses something from the more human scale of the previous Die Hards. The Cholefication of films (and know it was around long before 24) is starting to bother me. I'm actually depressed that the computer industry has done such horrible job of presenting the machines that virtually everyone uses in so horrible a way that they don't understand to the degree that this plot (and most every plot involving computers) was impossible. Donald Norman would say we don't present a model to the user so that they can understand things.
Some things I have to say: Cell phones don't use satellites. CBs have short ranges. When the east coast has a power failure, the networks go down too, even if you have your own personal generator. When a gas line explodes, gas doesn't continue approaching. If a building explodes, hiding in a van won't help.
I was very happy to see that cars in this film don't typically explode, which is an improvement over many action films. One (or was it two) of the villains lept around like Trinity in the Matrix or Sebastien Foucan in Casino Royale or Spider-Man. It was a bit ridiculous. People don't just get hit by cars, they hold onto them as they drive really fast and then are thrown off them. And they getup just fine. At another point McClane is thrown several stories out of a window and just gets up. Later when someone fell down an elevator shaft I wondered if they would just get up. But then a van fell on them (yes down the elevator shaft) and exploded so that settled my confusion.
What about the rest of the cast? Maggie Q is fine as an assistant villain hacker geek ninja. This is probably possible because the character has no depth other than a serious look. The rest of the casting is questionable. I liked Timothy Olyphant in Deadwood but I didn't like him as the underwritten villain Thomas Gabriel. He's no Alan Rickman or even a Jeremy Irons. Tim Russ who was supposed to be a useless White House liason thought he was still playing Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager. I found Kevin Smith as the hacker Warlock living in his mom's basement to just be ridiculous.
Ok. It may possibly sound like I didn't enjoy the film. Oddly I did. I really did. It was fun and as I said I laughed a lot. it has some very good lines. When McClane asks "Doesn't the government have dozens of agencies setup to deal with situations like this?", Matt replies "The government? After Katrina FEMA couldn't get water to the Superdome in 5 days." It doesn't take itself too seriously and for that reason doesn't come close to the original Die Hard. Maybe that's too much to expect from Hollywood these days; then again, I'm looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum. If you're in the mood to see things explode this will kinda do the trick. If you're in the mood for a mindless summer action flick Live Free or Die Hard will definitely satisfy.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ginormous Now a Word
A Sampling of new words and senses from the new 2007 update of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
Be a Simpsons Character
If you go to the Simpsons movie web site you can create your own avatar. Yes I have this T-Shirt in this color.
Homer Simpson
What do the British know of Homer Simpson? it seems quite a bit. In a long profile in the Sunday Times (of London) they compare him to Falstaff, Sancho Panza and Chaplin's Little Tramp.
"Homer is good because, above all, he is capable of great love. When the chips are down, he always does the right thing by his children – rejecting an offer of $1m from Mr Burns for a teddy bear of Maggie’s – and by Marge – he is never unfaithful in spite of several opportunities. And it’s not because he fears being found out; it’s because he can’t. What Marge understands and what her sisters don’t is that having all of Homer is far, far better than having half of any ordinary man."
"Homer makes celebrity out of what we all have – incompetence – and what we all want – love. And, when it all goes wrong, as it always will, he utters what has become the curse and prayer of Everyman – D’Oh!"
16 days to go.
"Homer is good because, above all, he is capable of great love. When the chips are down, he always does the right thing by his children – rejecting an offer of $1m from Mr Burns for a teddy bear of Maggie’s – and by Marge – he is never unfaithful in spite of several opportunities. And it’s not because he fears being found out; it’s because he can’t. What Marge understands and what her sisters don’t is that having all of Homer is far, far better than having half of any ordinary man."
"Homer makes celebrity out of what we all have – incompetence – and what we all want – love. And, when it all goes wrong, as it always will, he utters what has become the curse and prayer of Everyman – D’Oh!"
16 days to go.
Bush Approval: 27.7%
Pollster shows Bush's approval rating at 27.7% (and average of several polls). I still think he'll be able to beat Nixon's low. In January of 1974 Nixon was also at 27%, in August 1974 when he resigned he was at 24%. Though this article says Bush is at 26% and Nixon was at 23% in January 1974. Either way, Go Bush!
Sicko: Commenting on Commentaries
Following up on my review of Sicko, here's a good article (via Moore's website) Commenting on Commentaries.
Bush Suppressing Science Again
Daily Kos reports: "Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional committee [Tuesday] that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations."
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Movie Review: Sicko
I've liked all of Michael Moore's documentaries and Sicko was no exception. Apparently trying to head off some of the criticism he usually gets, he toned things down in this one. He doesn't appear in the first part of the film at all, merely narrates it. As a result there are fewer "stunts" in this film; there are no CEO ambushes in Sicko.
The first half of the film is Americans telling various health care horror stories. The ones you've seen in the commericals are all from the first few minutes and he says "but this film isn't about them". They didn't have insurance; instead he covers a lot of people with insurance that were denied coverage by their HMO, usually with tragic results. He also talks with several people who used to work for insurance companies who's job was to deny claims to save the company money. One testified to Congress that her decision to deny coverage for a man ultimately killed him but led to her promotion in the company. Another was employed as an internal investigator to find a reason to deny claims. One woman says her payment was retroactively denied because she once had a yeast infection that she never "declared".
In the US people literally die waiting for help in the emergency room. That happened too recently to make the film, but he did show video tape of an HMO dropping off patients at a free clinic, on the street, delusional, because their insurance had capped off. Apparently this happens frequently at this clinic.
He showed the start of the HMO craze by playing Nixon White Tapes where he first heard of Kaiser Permanente. Nixon interrupts saying he doesn't like these plans. When he's told this is all about private insurance and profits so the incentives are to give less care, he likes it more. Moore then shows Nixon's speech the next day saying HMOs will help Americans. He also graphically shows how much members of Congress are given by the Health Care industry for their campaigns. The prescription drug benefit of 2003 was a boon to these companies and Moore comments how 14 congressional aides moved to insurance companies and the Congressman who led the bill has as well; for a $2,000,000 salary. Nope, no conflict of interest there.
The second half is spent looking for a better system in other countries. He goes to Canada, England, France and Cuba. All these places have single payer universal coverage; that is everyone can get health care paid for by taxes. in this system the practitioners are given incentives to provide better care as opposed to ours in which the motivation of insurance companies is to give less care to save money. Moore spends a lot of time interviewing various patients and doctors and asking "how much does this cost" and they keep saying it's free. It gets a little repetitive but he does clever things to keep it interesting. In an English hospital after being told everything is free he looks for a cashier and has hard time finding it. When he ultimately does it turns out they give cash to patients to reimburse travel expenses. Yeah the cashier pays you, maybe that's why it was hard to find. In France he travels with a night doctor who makes free housecalls within an hour. He also finds that for the new mothers the national system provides nannies for 4 hours a day that take care of the kids and even do laundry. Moore says in the US, the government doesn't do your laundry.
The big stunt is in Cuba. It would surprise most in the US to learn that Cuba actually has quite a good health care system. In the list Moore shows, the US is at 37 which is shameful. The screen shows but he doesn't mention that Cuba is at 39. The crazy thing is that in the US we spend $7,000 per capita on health care, in Cuba it's $250. Moore shows a few clips of soldiers and politicians explaining that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are given good health care. I was a bit surprised that Moore didn't use the opportunity to mention the torture. He then brings 9/11 workers who were denied claims, on a boat just outside the bay and using a bullhorn asks for health care. "We don't want any more care than you're giving the evildoers". Of course they then get good care in the Cuban system.
The point of the film isn't so much to provide an answer merely to say that things can be better and to start public debate. Though I'm not sure what public debate looks like in this country any more. Al Gore's The Assault on Reason does a decent job of describing how broken public debate is. Since everything seems to be money-based, maybe a high box office take for Sicko would spur some action. Public debate by seeing movies, I think I could like that.
Moore doesn't point out the flaws in the other systems. I've heard him interviewed saying their side has been presented enough already. But he does tackle the typical knock on single-payer systems, that socialism is bad. He successfully points out we have socialized firefighters, police forces, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. He shows doctors making good livings in socialized programs. He shows people not having crazy wait times. And really...house calls!
The movie is good. Very touching and at times very funny, often in a very dark way. As an internal memo written by a Capital BlueCross employee after seeing the film says "You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore's movie..." Like all of Moore's films I think he concentrates too much on anecdotes and doesn't give enough statistics. If there was a little more substance I think it would help his case.
I think what's missing from a lot of the debate is the state of our system. Ever try to make an appointment for a checkup? Last time I did it was a 4 month wait. Critics say that free health care isn't free because they pay higher taxes; but they miss the point that the tax increase is less than the current out-of-pocket cost. Those insurance company profits have to come from somewhere. I'm also surprised that the Republicans aren't for helping businesses by alleviating them of their skyrocketing health insurance costs which make them less competitive around the world. I'm annoyed the Democrats can't make this case.
Michael Moore's site is having some problems today. Yesterday he was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. They ran this piece before him and Moore went on this 10 minute rant because of all of these factual errors in the CNN piece. Ah, reasoned public debate between journalists and filmmakers.
The first half of the film is Americans telling various health care horror stories. The ones you've seen in the commericals are all from the first few minutes and he says "but this film isn't about them". They didn't have insurance; instead he covers a lot of people with insurance that were denied coverage by their HMO, usually with tragic results. He also talks with several people who used to work for insurance companies who's job was to deny claims to save the company money. One testified to Congress that her decision to deny coverage for a man ultimately killed him but led to her promotion in the company. Another was employed as an internal investigator to find a reason to deny claims. One woman says her payment was retroactively denied because she once had a yeast infection that she never "declared".
In the US people literally die waiting for help in the emergency room. That happened too recently to make the film, but he did show video tape of an HMO dropping off patients at a free clinic, on the street, delusional, because their insurance had capped off. Apparently this happens frequently at this clinic.
He showed the start of the HMO craze by playing Nixon White Tapes where he first heard of Kaiser Permanente. Nixon interrupts saying he doesn't like these plans. When he's told this is all about private insurance and profits so the incentives are to give less care, he likes it more. Moore then shows Nixon's speech the next day saying HMOs will help Americans. He also graphically shows how much members of Congress are given by the Health Care industry for their campaigns. The prescription drug benefit of 2003 was a boon to these companies and Moore comments how 14 congressional aides moved to insurance companies and the Congressman who led the bill has as well; for a $2,000,000 salary. Nope, no conflict of interest there.
The second half is spent looking for a better system in other countries. He goes to Canada, England, France and Cuba. All these places have single payer universal coverage; that is everyone can get health care paid for by taxes. in this system the practitioners are given incentives to provide better care as opposed to ours in which the motivation of insurance companies is to give less care to save money. Moore spends a lot of time interviewing various patients and doctors and asking "how much does this cost" and they keep saying it's free. It gets a little repetitive but he does clever things to keep it interesting. In an English hospital after being told everything is free he looks for a cashier and has hard time finding it. When he ultimately does it turns out they give cash to patients to reimburse travel expenses. Yeah the cashier pays you, maybe that's why it was hard to find. In France he travels with a night doctor who makes free housecalls within an hour. He also finds that for the new mothers the national system provides nannies for 4 hours a day that take care of the kids and even do laundry. Moore says in the US, the government doesn't do your laundry.
The big stunt is in Cuba. It would surprise most in the US to learn that Cuba actually has quite a good health care system. In the list Moore shows, the US is at 37 which is shameful. The screen shows but he doesn't mention that Cuba is at 39. The crazy thing is that in the US we spend $7,000 per capita on health care, in Cuba it's $250. Moore shows a few clips of soldiers and politicians explaining that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are given good health care. I was a bit surprised that Moore didn't use the opportunity to mention the torture. He then brings 9/11 workers who were denied claims, on a boat just outside the bay and using a bullhorn asks for health care. "We don't want any more care than you're giving the evildoers". Of course they then get good care in the Cuban system.
The point of the film isn't so much to provide an answer merely to say that things can be better and to start public debate. Though I'm not sure what public debate looks like in this country any more. Al Gore's The Assault on Reason does a decent job of describing how broken public debate is. Since everything seems to be money-based, maybe a high box office take for Sicko would spur some action. Public debate by seeing movies, I think I could like that.
Moore doesn't point out the flaws in the other systems. I've heard him interviewed saying their side has been presented enough already. But he does tackle the typical knock on single-payer systems, that socialism is bad. He successfully points out we have socialized firefighters, police forces, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. He shows doctors making good livings in socialized programs. He shows people not having crazy wait times. And really...house calls!
The movie is good. Very touching and at times very funny, often in a very dark way. As an internal memo written by a Capital BlueCross employee after seeing the film says "You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore's movie..." Like all of Moore's films I think he concentrates too much on anecdotes and doesn't give enough statistics. If there was a little more substance I think it would help his case.
I think what's missing from a lot of the debate is the state of our system. Ever try to make an appointment for a checkup? Last time I did it was a 4 month wait. Critics say that free health care isn't free because they pay higher taxes; but they miss the point that the tax increase is less than the current out-of-pocket cost. Those insurance company profits have to come from somewhere. I'm also surprised that the Republicans aren't for helping businesses by alleviating them of their skyrocketing health insurance costs which make them less competitive around the world. I'm annoyed the Democrats can't make this case.
Michael Moore's site is having some problems today. Yesterday he was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. They ran this piece before him and Moore went on this 10 minute rant because of all of these factual errors in the CNN piece. Ah, reasoned public debate between journalists and filmmakers.
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Someone sent me this today and I remember seeing in January but apparently I didn't blog it. Here is A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. I know people at one design firm that reviews an "element" a day.
The Cheapest Days to Buy Certain Items
Smart Money has a kinda interesting article: The Cheapest Days to Buy Certain Items.
Bacon Scented Bubbles for Dogs
I know everything is better with bacon, but this is pretty ridiculous. Bubble Buddy "The original Scented Bubble Blowing Dog Toy! Includes one 4 fluid ounce bottle of Sizzlin ’Bacon scented bubbles for hours of chompin ’fun. "
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Mac Back
I'm declaring my mac restored. I got a call from the Apple on Friday morning (the 29th, that was iPhone day) that my mac was ready and went in and picked it up before heading to NJ for a long weekend. I got back on the 4th. The new hard drive had OS X installed but none of my data. I have an external (LaCie d2 Extreme) hard drive that I mirror my machine's drive using the free Silverkeeper. I try to backup monthly but I've slipped some times. My last backup was June 12th which was fortunate because I think it was March before that.
I had once before booted from the drive but having only one machine I never had a good way to practice restoring. I reconfigured Silverkeeper to copy everything from the drive to the mac. After checking it sixteen times, I let it run and then booted off the mac. It came up, but I couldn't login. Ugh.
So I reinstalled OS X from the installation DVD. When booted for the first time the mac asks if you want to copy data from another machine. I plugged in the LaCie drive and said yes. It copied all my user data over, including that of the 2 additional accounts I have (mostly for testing). It also brought over apps in /Applications (that's not ~/Applications) including MS Office which just worked. I finished booting and ran Software Update and got up to 10.4.10.
I started my apps and all seemed to be right, though 3 weeks old. However I had a problem with iPhoto. It showed my library with the right number of pictured indicated and all my albums, books, etc. It also showed my ratings, keywords and comments, but it didn't show the images. The 6GB of images were in the library but they only showed as grey boxes. I searched the forums which told me about rebuilding the library by starting iPhoto by option clicking on it. I did that several times but no change. I called AppleCare that was so helpful for free when my drive failed, but now they wanted $50 to help. I wasn't quite up to that. I spent the time to write the detailed post on the apple support forums and waited for an answer. In the mean time I went through other things. Someone had sent me some .wmv files that wouldn't play. I assumed they were the latest MS codec that didn't work but I somehow figured out to run Software Update again which downloaded a Quicktime update among other things. Lo and behold, this fixed my iPhoto problems. It uses Quicktime to show the images and it was somehow corrupted and the update fixed it.
The only thing I lost was 2 weeks of data. My email goes through Gmail and while I could read it all online, only the messages since the drive failure were downloaded to Mail.app. There's no way to tell Gmail to mark a time period of messages (from my backup to the failure) to be downloaded via POP3. I went through my email and found the contact updates people sent and a few things to put on my calendar. This weekend I reentered the Quicken data for the period, not too bad. I just need my next bank statement for the details of 3 checks I wrote. I had started using iGTD pretty heavily for todo lists and lost a lot of that, but not too bad (I am still on sabbatical). I had made two donations in June, one of books and one of clothes and while I have the receipts, I had the details as pdf's on the mac. I've mostly recreated the book donation in Delicious Library, but it's hard to determine what books you no longer have. For the clothes I had a handwritten count so recreating the spreadsheet of value should be easy. I had subscribed to some new RSS feeds and I think I've recreated them. I had recently cleanup many Safari bookmarks, but apparently it was before June 12th.
From this experience I understand people's interest in moving to web apps. Gmail kept my data and if I had more online I would have been safer. Unless of course these other companies offering me free storage have a failure of their own. I like that I have a copy of my Gmail via POP3 on my local mac. But it would be nice to have more apps synced like this. iCal and GCalendar are an obvious thing to look into. I also see the value of having a second mac in the case of failure. Using a PC was a little painful and in the two days I spent a lot of time downloading software updates as it hasn't been on in a few months. At that point, .mac used to sync the two machines starts to look appealing. Leopard's Time Machine also looks really attractive. I'm planning on getting a new MacBook Pro when Leopard ships and now I'm thinking about added an AirPort Extreme base station with a drive connected to it. I'm just not sure how well Time Machine recovers from a drive failure vs just finding an old copy of a file you lost.
I had once before booted from the drive but having only one machine I never had a good way to practice restoring. I reconfigured Silverkeeper to copy everything from the drive to the mac. After checking it sixteen times, I let it run and then booted off the mac. It came up, but I couldn't login. Ugh.
So I reinstalled OS X from the installation DVD. When booted for the first time the mac asks if you want to copy data from another machine. I plugged in the LaCie drive and said yes. It copied all my user data over, including that of the 2 additional accounts I have (mostly for testing). It also brought over apps in /Applications (that's not ~/Applications) including MS Office which just worked. I finished booting and ran Software Update and got up to 10.4.10.
I started my apps and all seemed to be right, though 3 weeks old. However I had a problem with iPhoto. It showed my library with the right number of pictured indicated and all my albums, books, etc. It also showed my ratings, keywords and comments, but it didn't show the images. The 6GB of images were in the library but they only showed as grey boxes. I searched the forums which told me about rebuilding the library by starting iPhoto by option clicking on it. I did that several times but no change. I called AppleCare that was so helpful for free when my drive failed, but now they wanted $50 to help. I wasn't quite up to that. I spent the time to write the detailed post on the apple support forums and waited for an answer. In the mean time I went through other things. Someone had sent me some .wmv files that wouldn't play. I assumed they were the latest MS codec that didn't work but I somehow figured out to run Software Update again which downloaded a Quicktime update among other things. Lo and behold, this fixed my iPhoto problems. It uses Quicktime to show the images and it was somehow corrupted and the update fixed it.
The only thing I lost was 2 weeks of data. My email goes through Gmail and while I could read it all online, only the messages since the drive failure were downloaded to Mail.app. There's no way to tell Gmail to mark a time period of messages (from my backup to the failure) to be downloaded via POP3. I went through my email and found the contact updates people sent and a few things to put on my calendar. This weekend I reentered the Quicken data for the period, not too bad. I just need my next bank statement for the details of 3 checks I wrote. I had started using iGTD pretty heavily for todo lists and lost a lot of that, but not too bad (I am still on sabbatical). I had made two donations in June, one of books and one of clothes and while I have the receipts, I had the details as pdf's on the mac. I've mostly recreated the book donation in Delicious Library, but it's hard to determine what books you no longer have. For the clothes I had a handwritten count so recreating the spreadsheet of value should be easy. I had subscribed to some new RSS feeds and I think I've recreated them. I had recently cleanup many Safari bookmarks, but apparently it was before June 12th.
From this experience I understand people's interest in moving to web apps. Gmail kept my data and if I had more online I would have been safer. Unless of course these other companies offering me free storage have a failure of their own. I like that I have a copy of my Gmail via POP3 on my local mac. But it would be nice to have more apps synced like this. iCal and GCalendar are an obvious thing to look into. I also see the value of having a second mac in the case of failure. Using a PC was a little painful and in the two days I spent a lot of time downloading software updates as it hasn't been on in a few months. At that point, .mac used to sync the two machines starts to look appealing. Leopard's Time Machine also looks really attractive. I'm planning on getting a new MacBook Pro when Leopard ships and now I'm thinking about added an AirPort Extreme base station with a drive connected to it. I'm just not sure how well Time Machine recovers from a drive failure vs just finding an old copy of a file you lost.
The New 7 Wonders of the World
By public vote the New Seven Wonders of the World are:
Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Christ Redeemer, Brazil
The Great Wall, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India
Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Christ Redeemer, Brazil
The Great Wall, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Gates' Plans
"A faction led by National Security Adviser Steve Hadley and Defense Secretary Bob Gates is exploring a legislative remedy to close [Guantanamo Bay] and, perhaps, create a new legal framework for trying its inmates:"
It seems Gates also has a plan for Iraq. "In a nutshell, Gates wants Congress to agree to a long-term, Korea-like presence for U.S. troops in Iraq, and in return, Gates will give Congress an end to an ineffective 'surge' policy."
It seems Gates also has a plan for Iraq. "In a nutshell, Gates wants Congress to agree to a long-term, Korea-like presence for U.S. troops in Iraq, and in return, Gates will give Congress an end to an ineffective 'surge' policy."
What happened before the Big Bang?
In What happened before the Big Bang? Bad Astronomy Blog reports on a new paper to be published in Nature. The Big Bang theory describes the universe just after the beginning of time but it doesn't say what happens at the initial moment because the math breaks down.
"Martin Bojowald, an assistant professor of physics at Penn State University, may have broken through this barrier for the first time. He is working on a theory called Loop Quantum Gravity, and it combines relativity and quantum mechanics. Using this new math, something amazing happens: at T=0, the volume of the Universe is not zero, and the density is not infinite. In other words, the math still works, even at The Big Moment."
The Penn State announcement has some more details.
"Martin Bojowald, an assistant professor of physics at Penn State University, may have broken through this barrier for the first time. He is working on a theory called Loop Quantum Gravity, and it combines relativity and quantum mechanics. Using this new math, something amazing happens: at T=0, the volume of the Universe is not zero, and the density is not infinite. In other words, the math still works, even at The Big Moment."
The Penn State announcement has some more details.
Wicked Good Guide to Public Restrooms
Bizarre, Boston Online has the Wicked Good Guide to Public Restrooms. This is what the internet is for.
Supreme Court of US 2007 Term Review
SCOTUSblog has a Round-Up: Grants, Decisions & End-of-Term Analysis.
On June 28th, the American Constitution Society held it's annual Supreme Court Term Review. It's an hour and a half long and there's video and audio available at the site. I found it really interesting. ACSBlog has some shorter posts about it too. The first is a collection of quotes.
Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan: "Obviously the result is different because Justice O'Conner was replaced by Justice Alito. But the tone of this opinion is really quite extraordinary because it has shifted from abortion regulations being designed to further the states interest in human life alone, into a case, and I'm probably going to regret this in a moment after I say this but, that women will later regret their decisions and so in order to protect them we have to save them. And I think this is what got the liberals on the court so upset with the decision. The decision is written in a tone in which the pregnant women is referred to almost entirely as the mother; although these women have made the decision that they do not want to be mothers now. The fetus is always referred to as the unborn child. The doctors are not referred to as physicians but as abortionists. And so this really is a case where the purports to be issuing a narrow decision; that it's just forbidding this one practice an therefore there's no undue burden on women; but the rationale the Court has given here would allow them I think to ban any abortion procedure. Because any woman might regret. Now of course, you might wonder how does the Court know this? And Justice Kennedy is quite candid the Court knows this because it looked deep inside itself. At several points, he said there’s no evidence to support my position, but I don’t need no stinking evidence. And so, I think this is a really fundamental change in the Court’s sensibility about abortion, and it’s played out . . . in a number of other cases where the Court said we don’t actually need evidence because we know this to be true. I'm mean we're back to the Declaration of Independence now, we hold these truths to be self evident women will regret the abortions they have and therefore in order to prevent this we have to save them by denying them the ability to make a choice."
Former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger (I made my best guess at case names in this transcript): "Scalia notes, Scalia in one of his best passages says the court beat Slash to a pulp and throws it's desiccated body out on the street to be picked over while technically alive. I assumed in part it's perhaps that the encomiums we heard in stare decisis by Justices Roberts and Alito in their confirmation hearing makes them hesitant. They said they were not overruling Stemberg in the partial birth abortion case and they overruled it. They said they were not overruling Flast and by their opinion they would have overruled it. They said they were not overruling McConnell in the campaign finance statutes and actually did. The argument that the Chief Justice makes is that that's the more minimal restrained approach. You don't do more than you have to do and if you can distinguish a case then you shouldn't go further. But when it gets to this point I think it just creates incoherence in the law."
Geoffrey Stone has more on Roberts and Alito and how they're violating the stare decisis while they claim they aren't. Vikram David Amar writes in FindLaw about the Hein decision and how it represents this court's decisions.
On June 28th, the American Constitution Society held it's annual Supreme Court Term Review. It's an hour and a half long and there's video and audio available at the site. I found it really interesting. ACSBlog has some shorter posts about it too. The first is a collection of quotes.
Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan: "Obviously the result is different because Justice O'Conner was replaced by Justice Alito. But the tone of this opinion is really quite extraordinary because it has shifted from abortion regulations being designed to further the states interest in human life alone, into a case, and I'm probably going to regret this in a moment after I say this but, that women will later regret their decisions and so in order to protect them we have to save them. And I think this is what got the liberals on the court so upset with the decision. The decision is written in a tone in which the pregnant women is referred to almost entirely as the mother; although these women have made the decision that they do not want to be mothers now. The fetus is always referred to as the unborn child. The doctors are not referred to as physicians but as abortionists. And so this really is a case where the purports to be issuing a narrow decision; that it's just forbidding this one practice an therefore there's no undue burden on women; but the rationale the Court has given here would allow them I think to ban any abortion procedure. Because any woman might regret. Now of course, you might wonder how does the Court know this? And Justice Kennedy is quite candid the Court knows this because it looked deep inside itself. At several points, he said there’s no evidence to support my position, but I don’t need no stinking evidence. And so, I think this is a really fundamental change in the Court’s sensibility about abortion, and it’s played out . . . in a number of other cases where the Court said we don’t actually need evidence because we know this to be true. I'm mean we're back to the Declaration of Independence now, we hold these truths to be self evident women will regret the abortions they have and therefore in order to prevent this we have to save them by denying them the ability to make a choice."
Former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger (I made my best guess at case names in this transcript): "Scalia notes, Scalia in one of his best passages says the court beat Slash to a pulp and throws it's desiccated body out on the street to be picked over while technically alive. I assumed in part it's perhaps that the encomiums we heard in stare decisis by Justices Roberts and Alito in their confirmation hearing makes them hesitant. They said they were not overruling Stemberg in the partial birth abortion case and they overruled it. They said they were not overruling Flast and by their opinion they would have overruled it. They said they were not overruling McConnell in the campaign finance statutes and actually did. The argument that the Chief Justice makes is that that's the more minimal restrained approach. You don't do more than you have to do and if you can distinguish a case then you shouldn't go further. But when it gets to this point I think it just creates incoherence in the law."
Geoffrey Stone has more on Roberts and Alito and how they're violating the stare decisis while they claim they aren't. Vikram David Amar writes in FindLaw about the Hein decision and how it represents this court's decisions.
Bush Commuted Libby's Sentence
I didn't find out about this till I got back, but I can't say I'm surprised.
Dan Filler writes in Concurring Opinions: "Once Judge Walton decided to impose the prison sentence immediately, Bush was left only two options: infuriating his base or nakedly giving cover to a political and professional ally. He did manage to split the baby a bit - by commuting his sentence, rather than pardoning him, Libby will now have to live with at least a few of the nasty collateral sanctions (potential loss of voting rights, loss of the ability to obtain certain professional licenses, etc.) that come along with a felony criminal conviction."
Conservative law Professor Orin Kerr was troubled by the commutation. ACSBlog collects some of his statements: "I find Bush's action very troubling because of the obvious special treatment Libby received. President Bush has set a remarkable record in the last 6+ years for essentially never exercising his powers to commute sentences or pardon those in jail. His handful of pardons have been almost all symbolic gestures involving cases decades old, sometimes for people who are long dead. Come to think of it, I don't know if Bush has ever actually used his powers to get one single person out of jail even one day early. If there are such cases, they are certainly few and far between. So Libby's treatment was very special indeed." Kerr has other comments on it in his blog, the Volokh Conspiracy (which I regularly read), scroll around to find them.
Brad DeLong follows up in Why Did Libby Lie?: "If that theory is wrong -- if there really was no crime -- then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied. People sometimes do have reasons to lie to investigators other than a desire to cover up criminal activity (hiding non-criminal activity that's embarrassing is the obvious one) but if Libby wants mercy he should offer up a plausible score on this account. But Libby hasn't offered any such story. Instead, he's offered a wildly implausible story -- that he's innocent. Under those circumstances, it's very odd to offer clemency. He's shown no remorse and appears to be continually engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Maybe there was no crime here; but if there wasn't, then what was Libby doing? He's not even trying to convince us that he had some other reason to lie."
Jeff Lomonaco called the Libby commutation half a month ago, in an op-ed he submitted to the Los Angeles Times but that it did not take: That would enable Libby to remain free while he seeks legal vindication through the appeals process. But more importantly, it would enable Bush and Cheney to continue the strategy they have successfully pursued in deterring journalists seeking their explanations with claims that they shouldn't comment on an ongoing legal proceeding. If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Cheney would no longer have such a rationale for evading the press' questions - nor would Libby be able to claim the right against self-incrimination to resist testifying before Congress about the role that Cheney and Bush played in directing his conduct.
An Andrew Sullivan reader says the commutation sends a message to those administration officials that might be subpoenaed by Congress that the administration will "protect the loyal".
Adjunct Professor, Nkechi Taifa of the Howard University School of Law points out the double standard of commuting Libby's sentence "because its excessive" but not commuting Willie Mays Aikens sentence of 20 years in prison for selling "user-level" amounts of crack.
The WSJ Law Blog has a A Law Professor's Inside Take on Bush's Commutation Policy. Tim Floyd tried to get a death sentence commuted to a life without parole sentence. He appealed to the White House and was pleasantly surprised that then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales met with him for an hour after looking into the case. "Judge Gonzales told me three things about President Bush’s policy in considering requests for commutation. First, that President Bush would not consider commutation if he believed that the case had already received full and fair consideration by the jury and the courts who heard the case. Second, that the President would not consider the request until he had a recommendation from the Department of Justice. Finally, he said that the President would not act on any request for commutation until all judicial avenues in the case had been exhausted. Just thought you might be interested in what this White House claimed about the commutation process."
Andrew Sullivan wrote about the above "Well, the third condition had been met for Libby. But not the other two. More evidence that this president uses his powers not to advance justice but to perpetrate a double standard of justice for his friends and lackeys. And to protect himself from scrutiny." An Andrew Sullivan reader points out that the 3rd condition wasn't met either.
Here's yet another parallel case where Bush didn't commute a sentence. Sullivan goes further: "The number of people George W. Bush sent to their deaths without a second's thought is higher than any living governor in the United States. And yet it took a perjury conviction of a white, wealthy, connected apparatchik to awaken the president's sensitivity to injustice:"
Fred Thompson (yeah the one probably running for the Republican nomination) has been a staunch supporter of Libby, but it turns out he was also a mole for Nixon in the investigation into Watergate.
Dan Filler writes in Concurring Opinions: "Once Judge Walton decided to impose the prison sentence immediately, Bush was left only two options: infuriating his base or nakedly giving cover to a political and professional ally. He did manage to split the baby a bit - by commuting his sentence, rather than pardoning him, Libby will now have to live with at least a few of the nasty collateral sanctions (potential loss of voting rights, loss of the ability to obtain certain professional licenses, etc.) that come along with a felony criminal conviction."
Conservative law Professor Orin Kerr was troubled by the commutation. ACSBlog collects some of his statements: "I find Bush's action very troubling because of the obvious special treatment Libby received. President Bush has set a remarkable record in the last 6+ years for essentially never exercising his powers to commute sentences or pardon those in jail. His handful of pardons have been almost all symbolic gestures involving cases decades old, sometimes for people who are long dead. Come to think of it, I don't know if Bush has ever actually used his powers to get one single person out of jail even one day early. If there are such cases, they are certainly few and far between. So Libby's treatment was very special indeed." Kerr has other comments on it in his blog, the Volokh Conspiracy (which I regularly read), scroll around to find them.
Brad DeLong follows up in Why Did Libby Lie?: "If that theory is wrong -- if there really was no crime -- then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied. People sometimes do have reasons to lie to investigators other than a desire to cover up criminal activity (hiding non-criminal activity that's embarrassing is the obvious one) but if Libby wants mercy he should offer up a plausible score on this account. But Libby hasn't offered any such story. Instead, he's offered a wildly implausible story -- that he's innocent. Under those circumstances, it's very odd to offer clemency. He's shown no remorse and appears to be continually engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Maybe there was no crime here; but if there wasn't, then what was Libby doing? He's not even trying to convince us that he had some other reason to lie."
Jeff Lomonaco called the Libby commutation half a month ago, in an op-ed he submitted to the Los Angeles Times but that it did not take: That would enable Libby to remain free while he seeks legal vindication through the appeals process. But more importantly, it would enable Bush and Cheney to continue the strategy they have successfully pursued in deterring journalists seeking their explanations with claims that they shouldn't comment on an ongoing legal proceeding. If Bush were to pardon Libby, he and Cheney would no longer have such a rationale for evading the press' questions - nor would Libby be able to claim the right against self-incrimination to resist testifying before Congress about the role that Cheney and Bush played in directing his conduct.
An Andrew Sullivan reader says the commutation sends a message to those administration officials that might be subpoenaed by Congress that the administration will "protect the loyal".
Adjunct Professor, Nkechi Taifa of the Howard University School of Law points out the double standard of commuting Libby's sentence "because its excessive" but not commuting Willie Mays Aikens sentence of 20 years in prison for selling "user-level" amounts of crack.
The WSJ Law Blog has a A Law Professor's Inside Take on Bush's Commutation Policy. Tim Floyd tried to get a death sentence commuted to a life without parole sentence. He appealed to the White House and was pleasantly surprised that then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales met with him for an hour after looking into the case. "Judge Gonzales told me three things about President Bush’s policy in considering requests for commutation. First, that President Bush would not consider commutation if he believed that the case had already received full and fair consideration by the jury and the courts who heard the case. Second, that the President would not consider the request until he had a recommendation from the Department of Justice. Finally, he said that the President would not act on any request for commutation until all judicial avenues in the case had been exhausted. Just thought you might be interested in what this White House claimed about the commutation process."
Andrew Sullivan wrote about the above "Well, the third condition had been met for Libby. But not the other two. More evidence that this president uses his powers not to advance justice but to perpetrate a double standard of justice for his friends and lackeys. And to protect himself from scrutiny." An Andrew Sullivan reader points out that the 3rd condition wasn't met either.
Here's yet another parallel case where Bush didn't commute a sentence. Sullivan goes further: "The number of people George W. Bush sent to their deaths without a second's thought is higher than any living governor in the United States. And yet it took a perjury conviction of a white, wealthy, connected apparatchik to awaken the president's sensitivity to injustice:"
Fred Thompson (yeah the one probably running for the Republican nomination) has been a staunch supporter of Libby, but it turns out he was also a mole for Nixon in the investigation into Watergate.
Friday, July 06, 2007
6th Circuit Says Email is Protected by 4th Amendment
"The Sixth Circuit held today that a federal statute allowing the government to read a criminal suspects e-mails without first obtaining a warrant is unconstitutional. Under the Stored Communications Act, the government may require an internet service provider (ISP) to disclose any of its client's e-mails that have been stored for over 180 days. These e-mails may be obtained without a warrant, and without meeting the probable cause standard which normally limits government seizure of evidence."
iPhone
Not surprisingly, iLounge has the most in-depth iPhone Reviews. The only thing I saw that it didn't mention is that the iPhone doesn't sync To dos from iCal.
I played with a friend's iPhone over the weekend. It's really really nice; feels wonderful in your hand. I'll still try to hold off till my Verizon contract is up in January. I really want rev 2 and hope it will do 3G networks.
I played with a friend's iPhone over the weekend. It's really really nice; feels wonderful in your hand. I'll still try to hold off till my Verizon contract is up in January. I really want rev 2 and hope it will do 3G networks.
New Hans Rosling TED Presentation
In December I posted a presentation by Hans Rosling (co-founder of Doctors Without Borders). In order to make statistics about world poverty and health more useful he's been working on creating better interactive graphics. This 20 minute presentation from TED2007 is a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 one. The graphics have been updated a bit and he goes to extremes to make his point, you have to see the ending.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
7-Elevens Become Kwik-E-Marts
"Over the weekend, 7-Eleven Inc. turned a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience stores of "The Simpsons" fame, in the latest example of marketers making life imitate art. Those stores and most of the 6,000-plus other 7-Elevens in North America will sell items that until now existed only on television: Buzz Cola, KrustyO's cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knockoff of Slurpees."
Yes there's even a blog for this with pictures and the addresses of all the Kwik-E-Marts. The Simpson's Movie opens in 3 weeks and the trailers look promising.
Yes there's even a blog for this with pictures and the addresses of all the Kwik-E-Marts. The Simpson's Movie opens in 3 weeks and the trailers look promising.
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