Funny

It's probably just the fact that the company that censored the ABC Nightline broadcasts for reasons of "political balance" doesn't own any CBS stations, but it's interesting to note that there was no conservative outrage over last night's 60 Minutes tribute to the fallen in Iraq.

Or perhaps it was the fact that it wasn't announced with quite the same gusto as the Nightline broadcast. However, it was still disturbing nonetheless, since it took a full rendition of Barber's Adagio for Strings to simply scan all the photos across the screen--no names, no dates, no commentary--just photo after photo.

And, while not to trivialize either tribute, a scary thought came to me. It took ten minutes to show the photos for Iraq; if they had done the same for World War II, it would have taken the entire Memorial Day weekend.

Since when is "Flossing" an event?

I'm sorry--but the "writers" on Wheel of Fortune need to learn what are actually real phrases, and what categories their puzzles should be classified as.

For example, "Quite the contrary" is not really a common phrase. "To the contrary," yes; "quite the contrary," no.

Or maybe I'm just not living in the "'Quite the contrary' belt." I hear that it's about the same size, and in roughly the same location as, the "17th-century French Drama belt."

Can somebody explain it to me?

Why is televised NASCAR popular at all? I mean, watching NASCAR on television is pretty much like watching a clothes dryer in operation. There's really nothing going on that's particularly compelling--except for possibly collisions that may occur. So, I guess unless this is a commentary on how violent NASCAR dad's fantasies are, it's pretty much a wasted effort in my book.

Remind me why I'm doing this again

Perhaps if a few more influential organizations and newspapers took up the cause of promoting the physical sciences, we wouldn't be trapped in this absurd quagmire of stagnant funding.

I'm ashamed

I'm ashamed to admit that these people live in the same metropolitan area as me.

How dare a citizen of this country decide that its chief executive is incompetent, and have the gall to make that statement publicly?

How dare a citizen of this country decide that containment--a policy which was applied to Iraq--was a more strategic decision than pre-emptive war?

How dare a citizen of this country realize that human beings have innate flaws, and that Americans are human beings just like the rest of the planet?

Utter morons.

He said it, but will he be heard?

This is exactly the kind of policy statements that Kerry needs to be making right now:

"He said the United States has to launch new alliances with other nations, modernize and strengthen the military, end the country's dependence on Mideast oil within 10 years, and make better use of intelligence information and diplomatic and economic power to advance American ideas and values.
'America must always be the world's paramount military power,' he said. `But we can magnify our power through alliances. We simply can't go it alone or rely on a coalition of the few.'
And, he added, in a reference to criticism he has often made of Mr. Bush, 'we can be strong without being stubborn.'"

Specific, incontrovertible, achievable goals--yet a plan that does not force his hand if he gets elected.

Odd . . .

One remarkable thing I've started to realize lately is that I know a hell of a lot of people who really can't stand one another, and this applies to several circles of acquaintances in my life. [I don't think there's anybody in one group that doesn't like someone from a different group--but who knows?]

I'm beginning to wonder if it just means that I'm doomed to spend my life as a mediator or if I'm too much of a social butterly [at least by MIT standards].

Politeness

Just a hint: being polite means to thank the person who lets you into your lab because you forgot your keys, not to ask them "When are you graduating?"

Go, Gore, go

Unfortunately, to most people it will read like spoiled grapes, but nonetheless, Al Gore's latest comments represent one of the best repudiations of the Bush administration's actions in the last four years I've yet seen.

The construction truck next time

Monday, it was the 6.30 am thunderstorm. Today, it was the 7.00 am construction truck that wrecked sleep for everyone in my building (and most of my street for that matter).

Life's wonderful sometimes, isn't it?

Safer, huh?

Fighting the war in Iraq will make the U. S. safer, if Bush is to believed. However, the fact that the ranks of al-Qaeda have allegedly swelled to more than 18,000 shows that such logic is utterly bankrupt.

More secure, my foot.

Oops, they did it again

How many more abuses of power will it take before we realize that handing the government too much power in the name of securing our country can lead to nothing but curtailing of our civil liberties?

Not good

It's never a good sign when you're rehearsing an opera in your dreams.

It's even worse when it's not even an opera you know.

It's worse still when it's not even something that even exists.

And no, I don't think I can compose an opera just to get it out of my head. "Tune-be-gone" won't work here.

Which means that I'll be stuck with this nebulous opera swirling about my head until something even more Kafkaesque comes along to take its place.

For once, a good idea

It's unfortunate that it has to be a lame-duck Democrat suggesting this, but I think it's one of the best ideas I've seen in quite a while.

A great way to defuse the tensions in the Middle East is to reduce the role of theocratic education: that is, have more public support of schools. The only way to do that, however, is through massive infusions of capital combined with intelligent economic form. That's the basic suggestion being made by Rep. Turner of Texas.

Go take a look for yourself. It's well worth the read.

Bushisms

I am currently watching the beginning of Bush's implosion. The only worthwhile thing he has said in the last half-hour is that the actions of the terrorists are the actions of a totalitarian philosophy and fanaticism, and not of a religion.

However, the fact that he stumbles not once, but twice on the name Abu Ghraib, implies that he hasn't even put in enough effort to care about current events. Further still, the fact that he doesn't plan on any changes whatsoever tells us that he doesn't have the courage to correct his course when things start going awry.

All the more reason why it should be obvious that he should be utterly unelectable.

Hey, Nomah, wanna be VP?

"During the NESN interview, Frede jokingly asked Kerry about selecting Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra as his running mate. ''I was thinking of [Johnny] Damon before he shaved [off his beard for charity], you know. He could have had the whole thing going for him,' Kerry quipped."

Except for the fact that Garciaparra's a few years too young for the job, it'd be an entertaining oddball choice. And can you even imagine what a Garciaparra-Cheney would sound like? Nomar would be so syntactically tortured that you wouldn't understand what he's saying, and Cheney just wouldn't answer any questions at all. It'd be great.

You think?

It seems the press is starting to wake up to the fact that they've essentially been giving Shrub a free pass for the last four years.

More disturbing though, is the fact that more Americans think that the media have been too critical of the president (34%) than too lenient (24%).

Not only . . .

does it look like Bill Safire of the New York Times has drunk the administration's Kool-Aid when it comes to Iraq, it looks like he's been doing keg stands with it.

The man is seriously off his rocker--or spending all his time in a certain Egyptian river. . . .

Nothing quite like . . .

. . . a 6.30 am thunderstorm with torrential downpours to make you look forward to the day.

Yuck.

My ears are playing tricks on me

Just heard a little passage in Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra that sounds eerily reminiscent (read, practically identical) to the final bars of the middle movement of Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. I don't quite know what to make of that.

Alias, complete and uncut

Apparently, many people are upset that Alias will be airing uninterrupted episodes next season.

OK, so that's not really the problem. The problem is that said uninterrupted episodes won't start until January. Yes, of 2005. So, the most convoluted drama on television takes an eight-month hiatus (grrr!).

But let's accept the fact that the production schedule of "Alias"--with all its location shooting--is much more demanding than that of, oh, say just about any other show on TV.

And let's also think that giving the writers more time to get their plots straight will help to avoid strangle lapses in the plots. They're labyrinthine without any screwups or forgetful mistakes as it is.

Most especially, after the finale we just had, featuring both figurative and literal backstabbing, who knows what the hell is going on? I don't think the writers have plotted themselves into a corner, but I do think they kind of forgot to have a long-term plan.

Site Meter is on crack

I've thought that Site Meter has been having some issues lately, but that opinion has been confirmed by the fact that it lists some referring URL's to my site which are rather unlikely to be true links--especially considering that they don't have any external links whatsoever!

Does anybody know if Site Meter simply records the previous URL in the window before you click a new link or type a URL in the toolbar?

Note to myself

So, as some readers of this blog will know, a few years ago, I created a libretto for a work to be written by a friend of mine who happens to dabble in composition (amongst other things).

Well, it looks like after all this time, we may still get a work out of it. This, in my opinion, is a good thing [but not "A Good Thing" (TM)]--especially since lately I've been feeling the creative writing bug gnaw at me again. [And, no, I'm not referring to my thesis.]

Like The Apprentice, but with much higher stakes

At least on The Apprentice, nobody was really hurt if the candidates screwed up their tasks.

According to Sunday's Washington Post, they claim that a half-dozen interns with no practical experience were essentially left in charge of a $13 billion budget. You read that right: not million, like billion. [Again, like the Damon Wayans/Pepsi ad, but much more terrifyingly real.]

More and more, are we kidding anyone other than ourselves when we believe that ShrubCo. has a clue as to what they're doing over there?

The Dead Pool

I'm not sure what it says about the crew of people taking part in the contest, but the fact that every participant in this TV Death Pool was able to spot at least four sacrificial lambs from this season's TV entries leaves me to wonder why the networks haven't hired any of us to gauge new series.

Es ist genug!

If there's any doubt that this administration's credibility is tanking and almost ready to go into free fall, just consider the air raid earlier this week in Western Iraq. The government do not dispute the number of dead. However, the government is clinging to the position that the only victims of the raids were insurgent rebels. On the other hand, there are far too many ghastly images of dead women and children to discount completely the suggestion that it was a wedding party that was attacked.

To compound our problems, we've essentialy sacked Chalabi and the INC, we are pinning our hopes that things simply don't get worse after the June 30 handover, and still have no idea to *whom* power will be transferred. The administration is merely clinging, Polyanna-like, to the naive hope that a democratic Iraqi government will spring forth fully-formed in time to take over on June 30.

There is no talk of moving the deadline, yet even a simple analysis of the situation suggests that the only effect of this intransigence will be to give all of our enemies a heads-up as to when will be the best time to step up their campaigns. Moreover, since we've committed to maintaining our present forces at roughly the same amount for at least another year, what is the advantage of specifying a hard target date for the transfer? The only thing that comes to mind: political expedience.

Uh-oh, government!

It looks like one of the prosecution's witnesses at the Martha Stewart trial committed perjury on the stand.

It's nice to know that the government knows who and how to prosecute the corporate mismanagement scandals. Also, it makes you wonder what's going to happen at the penalty phase of Stewart's trial (which still hasn't occurred yet).

Missing the boat by so much, it's not even funny

I've seen some blatantly absurd statements in my time, but La Shawn Barber's editorial on a conservative website has to rank pretty high on that list. Apparently, the main invective impulse of the editorial is that an African-American woman is decrying the Brown decision, declaring:

Although its outcome may have been just, Brown was decided unconstitutional.

Now, let's begin by noting that her claim is incorrect: Brown was perhaps decided unconstitutionally, but it certainly was not decided unconstitutional. Grammatical flaws aside, her argument is clearly based on the most cursory of readings of the original decision. Again, she claims that:

By properly interpreting the 14th Amendment, however, the Court in both Plessy and Brown could have arrived at legally sound decisions.

However, if one reads even the summary of the original Brown decision, one can find that the justices made the following point:

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Ms. Barber's reasons for claiming that this is an incorrect interpretation of the Fourteenth amendment is that apparently

For reasons difficult to determine, the Court chose not to base their ruling on these grounds, but on an analysis of "public education in light of the full development and its present place in American life..."

which is patently absurd, and a misquotation to boot. The actual statement, contained in the syllabus at the start of the decision, reads as follows:

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

They continue on to state that trying to determine the intent of the writers of the amendment--a popular conservative tactic for railing against so-called "liberal activism"--is impossible in the case of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that therefore they need to study the case more closely.

Where they decided the case "unconstitutionally" is an enigma to me. However, it should not be too surprising that Ms. Barber is a proud member of the Ward Connerly school of political thought. Its basic credo: I'm doing just fine, so all you need to do to succeed is work a little harder. Forget affirmative action--all you need is more spit and polish!

Will Microsoft ever give us what we really want?

A recent New York Times article talks about one of the features of Windows Longhorn (apparently so named because of the size of the ego of its developers): the ability to search both the Web and the desktop without the need for a Web browser.

The Microsoft folks believe that in the future, people will see searching the Web and searching their desktop as an integrated operation. Personally, I think this idea is pure and utter nonsense.

If I want to find some information that I'm sure I don't have, I certainly don't want to spend a full minute waiting while my operating system scans my hard drives for information that isn't there. I will just want to Google it. Similarly, if I know that it's a file on my machine, I don't want to be bothered with searching the Web.

The only time this would be at all useful is if you want to compare information stored locally on your computer to information available off the Web. Any other time, about the most "integration" of these two features that I'd care about is a button that says "search locally" versus one that says "search the Web."

So, as I asked above, when will Microsoft give us what we really want, instead of what it thinks we really want?

Update: Corrected the header, because apparently I am unable to spell challenging words like "will."

Sickening

Just when you think you've heard everything, something else comes up that drives you over the edge.

The latest report comes from NBC News, stating that the Bush administration misled the public on the hazards posed by the dust and debris at ground zero and in the surrounding neighborhoods. They are also reporting on the various health disorders being experienced by rescue and repair crews, and the general populace.

The most frightening statistic of all: pregnant women who were within a two-mile radius of ground zero apparently had a 100% increase in the occurrence of underweight babies than observed in the general populace.

Words don't even begin to describe my outrage. I hope New Yorkers remember the Shrub's "strong leadership" when he comes to visit them for the RNC this summer.

Too close for profit

Can somebody explain to me the rationale of having two supermarkets of the same chain not six blocks apart? And one of them where there is basically no available public transportation in sight? It doesn't seem like it could be at all financially viable.

Moreover, they are not even maintained in the same state of repair. The one that is less T-accessible looks downright sketchy, even though it's actually not all that far away from Harvard or Porter Square. If they spruced it up a bit, they'd probably get more business from nearby neighborhoods, who would otherwise just flock to the Porter Square location.

The latest portent of the impending spamocalypse

As if spam weren't already spiraling out of control in 2004, I've just received my first piece of South Korean 419-fraud e-mail.

South Korea is unfortunately the source of much of the world's international spam--probably much more than sub-Saharan Africa, if my inbox is anything to go by. If they start joining in on the 419 advance fee fraud scam, we're all screwed.

Over-promotion?

Apparently the people in the licensing department for the Shrek characters haven't learned to say "no" yet. In the last few days, I've seen way too many tie-in promotions: for sodas, random miscellaneous gear, even antibiotic bath products.

One almost wonders how much of the movie they're going to spoil before it actually comes out. Which would be a particular shame, since apparently the movie is pretty decent (especially for a sequel).

Will people stop trying to get McCain to be Kerry's VP?

This is getting quite ridiculous. Even fellow Senate Democrats are trying to push McCain to be Kerry's VP. How about a nice spot as SecDef or something similar. We do not need an ardent Republican as our running mate (and make no mistake, while there's no love lost for the Shrub, he's still a conservative Republican at heart). The only way this can work is if McCain defects for the Democratic Party, and I don't think he can pull that off.

However, he is the best kind of politician--in the sense that he's not so blindly partisan as to vote against things he believes in just because party leadership so dictates. We'll need all the help we can get if Republicans still control Congress after Election Day. So, let's make sure we have him as someone to work after Bush goes back to Crawford.

Think someone's gonna become unemployed soon?

On Meet the Press this morning, an unseen staff aide of Secretary of State Colin Powell turned the camera away following a rare tough question from Tim Russert. It's not quite clear why it was done, but the remaining audio coverage made it abundantly obvious that the SoS was quite pissed by this behavior.

It sounds like somebody's going to be pink-slipped.

Reenacting The Amazing Race, but without the big prizes

A couple of weeks ago, I had to deal with the mother of all scary flight transfers.

For various and sundry reasons which do not need exploring at this juncture, my flight--on Delta--had a 35-minute connection between flights. This is of course hinging on the first plane arriving on time.

Of course, no such luck. The flight lands approximately seventeen minutes late at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta. [I bet you can already see where this is going.]

I'm sitting in the middle of the plane, and already have my buckle ready to slide off, to grab my overhead luggage, and then head for the terminal the nanosecond the seat belt light is turned off. Unfortunately for me, that day it seemed everybody else had the same idea, so I'm stuck on the plane for another five minutes before I can take my overhead luggage and get to my next flight.

At most other airports and with most other airlines, my connection would be a few doors down. But this is Hartsfield and Delta, so no such luck. With now twelve minutes before my next flight is scheduled to depart, I have to hustle across terminal A--my flight has arrived at one end of the terminal--then get to terminal B, and cross over to the other side. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a problem. However, since for once I don't have any checked luggage, I have to do this while alternately carrying and pulling my suit bag.

Cut to the gate for the second flight, approximately six minutes before the scheduled departure. As I come running at (my) top speed, I see the gate attendant closing the door. I scream for her to wait, and fortunately for me, she does. After a little drama involving tickets and identification, I'm finally allowed onto the plane, and come barreling down the aisle of the plane. Any anger and rancour on the part of the passengers about the person arriving at the last second and holding up departure is quickly wiped away by the sight of me stalking down the aisle to my seat with a look so furious that it could burn a hole through glass a hundred yards away.

Obviously, I made it to my destination in one piece, although quite irate at Delta for its stupid procedures--like scheduling 35-minute connections.

In addition, I was also quite thankful for not having checked luggage this time, which would have saved me the problem of getting to my destination without my luggage.

What happened at my destination is another story, for another day.

Blah

Well, it's another one of those cloudy, overcast days that gives you a sure case of the "blahs." It seems to be the sort of thing that happens with regularity only in the Northeast and in the Pacific Northwest.

Then again, given the weather in other parts of the country, today would be classified as "stormy."

The five people you meet over and over again. . . .

It's kind of strange, but I've found there some people you keep meeting over and over again, under similar circumstances each time.

For example, there's a Yale alum currently at Hahvahd Law who I've run into about a half-dozen times. The bizarre thing is that every single time I've run into him, I've been carrying bags of groceries. Every. Single. Time. It's really, really bizarre.

Then there are the people you're introduced to at a party. Some, you never see again. Others, you keep bumping into at an alarming rate. Sort of like the old "Far Side" cartoon in which a bird and a scientist run into each other, but "this time, the advantage is" the duck's. I'm not quite sure what that means, but that's what it reminds me of.

Coinkydink? I think not!

Interestingly enough, since I've made the post below, I've seen two different references to the so-called "10000 Step-a-day" program. What is this, and how does it work? It sounds like the sort of thing sufficiently close to my normal walking regime that it could be easily manageable.

Inspiration flagging?

The last couple of days I've been having a rather difficult time working on a paper I need to get out by the end of the month. The problem is that the ideas for how to combine the two rather disparate concepts I want to describe is rather challenging, yet it really needs to be done.

I'm not sure how this will happen, but usually some rather blatantly obvious oversight usually is the culprit behind these cases of writer's block.

The burden of knowledge

At the most recent pub quiz I attended, my team was leading going into the final question, but got stuck on the question: "What 1940 film was the first to have a stereo soundtrack?" The answer: "Fantasia."

So why was this so hard? Well, genius that I am, remembered that classical music hadn't been released on LP in actual stereo until the mid-1950's. However, as it turns out, the sountrack was not recorded in stereo. Instead, the illusion of a stereo recording was made by recording different parts of the orchestra onto separate tracks, and then mixing the results to produce stereo effects for the speakers. As it turns out, many people did not actually get to hear the stereo recordings, because of the expense of the system required to create the effect.

So, in other words, we have ourselves a classic example of a "hose," in which those burdened by too much knowledge forget or simply overlook the "obvious" answer which a team less aware of the field might get more easily.

Every step counts

So, as I mentioned earlier, I saw Super Size Me recently.

One of the themes that kept getting raised in the movie was the amount of walking people do--tens of thousands of steps per day for New Yorkers, compared to maybe 2000-2500 steps for suburbanites who commute to work.

This made me curious as to how much walking I do. Not having a pedometer or other device to measure steps, I had to resort to crude counting. However, the results were illuminating.

From my apartment, it takes:

--About 3000 steps to go to the grocery store and back.
--About 1000 steps to get to the nearest T stop.
--About 200 steps to the convenience store around the corner.

At work:

--About 350 steps from the T to my office; and 400 in the other direction.
--75 steps to the end of the hall.
--250 steps to the sub shop in the building next door.

Given all the random walking I do up and down the halls during a typical day, this amounts to something in the neighborhood of 7500 steps per day--or roughly 4 miles. Not quite downtown Manhattan level, but pretty respectable. On the other hand, I might want to investigate walking from Harvard Square to MIT [provided I can do it before it gets too hot during the day in the summertime].

The times they are a-changin'---sort of

It appears that Jerry Orbach is finally moving on from Law & Order. Well, not quite.

Apparently, he's just moving over to the third spinoff series: Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

In other news, there are apparently plans for yet another spinoff: Law & Order: Parking Enforcement.

Piling festoons of film

Our cinematic odyssey through the worst films of all time appears to continue unabated. Some of our upcoming journeys into cinematographic defilement: "Black Knight" and "A Knight's Tale," and "Timeline" and "The Time Machine" (not the original, but the steaming pile of cow manure that was the remake from a few years back). We also have such fine fare as "Lake Placid," "Relic," and "Species" on tap, and even those great classics "Incubus" and "Star Trek V."

Ah, movie night is wonderful. . . .

Sweet, sweet irony

So among Cheney's comments recently about the whole Iraqi prison scandal is that people should leave Donald Rumsfeld, "the best Secretary of Defense this nation has ever had," alone so he can do his job.

Now, the interesting thing is that guess who served as 41's Secretary of Defense." That's right, Dick Cheney. So is he implying that he's being outclassed by Donald Rumsfeld? That's an awfully nice gesture on his part.

As for whether it will be enough to save Rumsfeld, who knows. I suspect that right now the only way for Bush to save face on this situation is for Rumsfeld to resign. Bush politically can't fire him--otherwise he admits the whole thing is a fiasco that he doesn't know how to solve. But Rumsfeld really isn't in a position to quit, either, as he is one of the few people who seems to be able to work with the Shrub. So, it's a lose-lose-lose situation all around. The only thing that works better is if the problem persists for a while. The longer it goes, the more of a pressure cooker it becomes.

In Soviet Russia, Big Mac supersizes you

Recently saw the documentary Super Size Me. I have to admit it's one of the scariest pieces of cinematic fare I've seen in quite a while. The most chilling episode comes when the person running the experiment develops heart palpitations and is encouraged by all of the professionals overseeing this experiment to stop. Yet, he plows on for reasons that stump everyone around him--and everyone watching the movie.

Very chilling. And it makes me look at Big Macs in a completely different light.

Get well soon

One of the series of events that transpired during my recent hiatus was that a friend of mine had to undergo a brain operation to remove a tumor. Fortunately, she is now doing just fine--so I'd like to send a shout-out to Trish. [Link above and at right.]

P. S. Am I allowed to send a shout-out? Or am I too much of an engineer to be able to pull it off?

Not-so-subtle blogger error?

Apparently, in the updating process for blogger (the software, not the person doing the blogging), they managed to screw up a rather important detail. It seems that if you have a draft post, publishing no longer works correctly--you just get a blank screen instead of your default home page.

One hopes that this will be corrected forthwith, but no signs of such are yet apparent.

Winning the war on "terra"

The latest reports on the death of an American contractor at the hands of an al-Qaeda lieutenant in Iraq should rightly sicken us all.

However, we should be even more sickened by the fact that Bush was offered more than once the opportunity to launch a strike against said lieutenant--and refused. Why? Because it would interfere in the case for war against Iraq!

And we should just trust that the government is working in our best interests. Right.

Pro-life stances and stem-cell research

This morning, a New York Times editorial on how many conservatives are beginning to oppose Bush's restrictive stem cell policies suggests that Nancy Reagan's appeals might give Bush sufficient political cover to flip-flop. But is that really necessary?

Given that the alternative fate for the embryos which people propose to use for stem cell research--they will simply be discarded--doesn't it make more sense, from a pro-life perspective, to use those cells for something that will potentially save other lives? If they're going to be discarded, that will be the destruction of a life, too. So why not let the loss be for something much more worthwhile than the crime of simply not being needed?

Common sense?

So, my department had an awards ceremony today. The only problem was, half the recipients weren't even there!

I suspect that the problem is that winners aren't notified in advance so that they can remember to show up. This isn't the Academy Awards--there is no list of finalists publicized in advance, or anything like that. Thus, if you want somebody to show up, you'd better let them know that their presence is encouraged.

Just a hint.

So long, first amendment. It was nice knowing you.

Apparently the FCC has decided that it wants to throw context right out the window:

In a petition filed last month with the F.C.C., a group representing other media organizations objected to a portion of the Bono decision in which the commission said it would now consider any use of the vulgarity in question to have a sexual connotation, regardless of the context. (Bono used that graphic expletive as an adjective in accepting an award.)

Now I don't find much use for "colorful language" in my own speech, but I can see how some people might get so excited that they just blurt out such a word. In most cases, the slip-up isn't really a matter of having a sexual connotation. To assume that there is one whether there is or not is to subvert completely any sort of standards in broadcasting.

As a consequence of this, there is nothing to stop the FCC from going further and classifying further words as "off-limits"--or ruling that certain contexts are no longer permitted. At that point, you're not that far off from state-controlled media. Think recent Iranian politics, and you might have an idea where the bottom of this slippery slope might lead.

Republican convention plans leaked?

It looks like the plans for the Republican National Convention have finally been unveiled. . . .

TO: All RNC Delegates
FROM: Ed Gillespie
RE: RNC Convention schedule.

1700 Before television coverage begins, all important decisions and resolutions are made in secret.
1800 Bush and Cheney enter convention site, walking on platform specially built to make them look taller.
1805 Dick Cheney taken to a "secure undisclosed location."
1815 NRA lobbyists shoot at copies of the second amendment.
1830 Handing out of piles of money to upper-class delegates after the latest "job-promoting" tax cut.
1845 John Ashcroft proposes eliminating some civil liberties.
1900 Michael Powell threatens speakers with a $500,000 fine if they curse during the evening's proceedings.
1905 Colin Powell tries to speak, but is muzzled by Condeleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld.
1915 Reenactment of Bush's military career as half of the delegates go AWOL for the remainder of the convention.
1930 Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz announce plans to attack France, Italy, and half a dozen other European nations because "they talk funny."
1945 Bush hands keys to Lincoln Bedroom to Saudi Prince Bandar in exchange for reduced oil prices in time for the election.
2000 John Ashcroft proposes eliminating some more civil liberties.
2015 Individual tributes to countries in Iraqi coalition begins.
2016 Individual tributes conclude.
2017 The RNC takes time to show its support for the troops in Iraq.
2018 The RNC takes time to thank its major campaign donors.
2100 GWB demonstrates that he is a "compassionate conservative" by hugging a few minorities while picking their pockets.
2115 Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson announces that all scientific panels will be replaced with "faith-based healing" review boards.
2130 Antonin Scalia addresses crowd; all recordings and network broadcasts are censored.
2150 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao takes overtime checks from single mothers and underpaid white-collar workers.
2200 Bush addresses the nation for a full hour without presenting any facts whatsoever.
2300 Scott McClellan denies everything that Bush has just said in the last hour.
2310 Rupert Murdoch hosts a "fair and balanced" live Fox News special about how great the president's speech was.
2330 Bush refuses to admit that he's made a mistake as president.
2345 Condeleeza Rice and Karen Hughes get into a catfight over who loves Bush more.
2355 Cheney returns from "undisclosed location" to hold Bush's hand, just like he did in front of the 9/11 commission.
0000 Convention ends with book burning ceremony, using original copy of the Constitution as kindling.

And you thought "new math" was hard

Oy. I just got a junk e-mail regarding quantum computation. It's completely inscrutable--poor grammar and spelling, which makes the already difficult concepts he's trying to explain even more incomprehensible.

The idea seems interesting enough--compress data signals by using two-dimensional matrix operations. However, the actual execution seems to incorporate some difficulties that would make it difficult to undo. [The fundamental law of data compression, as I often find in the course of my own work: compressing the data is easy; decompressing it is a real pain in the rear end.]

More concert notes

A new nickname was picked up during the rehearsals for our concert on Saturday. During one particular passage in the Copland, the basses sing about whales--it's a slow-moving, rather low passage, resembling the whales themselves. However, there's a middle C in the midst of one of the phrases that has a tendency to be attacked too strongly.

Unfortunately, one of our freshman basses sang with a little too much vehemence in that passage, and had to be quieted down by our conductor: "too much whale there, Eddie." Hence, in the choir's parlance, he is now officially "Eddie the Whale."

It's a minor note, but it was quite a comic one in the thick of some very long rehearsals.

Not quite getting it, version 2

OK. The "blogspot" ads currently include an ad for the "Republican store." Given my rather obvious political leanings, the presence of a "Republican store" ad on this website strikes me as rather distasteful.

That's all I have to say on that matter.

For now.

Got narration?

So, the MIT Chamber Chorus had its spring concert on Saturday, featuring the world premiere of Libby Larsen's The Nothing That Is, with a healthy dose of a cappella music in the first half: two short Barber pieces, and Copland's In the Beginning. The latter is about as big as a cappella pieces get: it's about 400 bars and 15 minutes long, without a single break for obtaining new pitches. So, of course, this means that staying in tune is a real pain, especially with all the sudden jumps in harmony (such as a downward half-step modulation halfway through that defies all natural musical impulses). Our chorus was not immune to this: our pitch fluctuated up and down, yet, miraculously, we somehow manage to get to E flat major every time at the end of the piece. I guess one can say "all's well that ends well."

As for The Nothing That Is, my role was not a singing role--although there is a prominent baritone solo. Instead, my role was narrative: reading from the Apollo 13 flight transcript, as well as snatches of speeches by Kennedy and something suspiciously sounding like an introductory celestial mechanics lecture. The performance went mostly without hitches, except for me forgetting to read a few zeroes as zeroes (I said "ten" for "one zero" in one spot, and "two point oh" instead of "two point zero" in another). The one exception was a faster than usual tempo at one section that forced me and the other narrator to play catch-up with the chorus. [Too many syllables, and not enough seconds to get them all out at the tempo that was hit.]

For the most part, though, it was an enjoyable evening that ended way too soon.

Back to blogging

Now that I have a little more free time, it's time to dust off the blog a bit and do some updates.

While I was in the midst of writing my thesis, it seemed I'd never have time to blog again. After having written it, I found that I had so many things to say that I didn't know where to start. Then, after finding where to begin, so many things around the world started happening that I was frankly left quite speechless.

So, I figure the best way to get started is to start writing.

I figure I'll also take advantage of some of the new style files to spruce things up. I'm not quite fond of the look, even still--it was just the best of the (relatively) limited options we had previously.