AvraShow
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Insight into Iran, via Netflix
I've never been to Iran but I have some idea of what it's like thanks to Netflix. There is a large subset [not large enough, imo] of Netflix movies available to watch instantly. You can add any of those to your Instant queue. You have to opt in for the Silverlight experience.
I mentioned previously how I hooked up my new laptop to my HDTV via HDMI cable. I tried the Netflix "watch instantly" feature and found the picture quality good and the experience reasonably effortless.
Bill Scott, UI engineer for Netflix, gave a talk at the Mix 2009 conference on modern user interface conventions. They've tried to make the Netflix navigation experience effortless, although they don't quite succeed.
I'm enjoying his book on Web interaction design patterns. It categorizes and names the conventions you see everywhere on the net, such as drag and drop (he says you have to give users an "invitation to drag" to somehow let users know a thing can be dragged) and he favors direct in-place editing (rather than navigating to another page to change a photograph's title or description as an example).
Designing Web Interfaces
Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions.
It took a bit of thinking to guess why the wireless connection was sometimes not excellent. I have one of those netbooks I almost always keep on but with the lid closed in what I assumed was a sleep or hibernate mode. I have no technical expertise on this, just a guess, but I think the router is still aware of that wireless Internet connection when the netbook is asleep, so I shut down my netbook when I want to watch a streaming Netflix movie.
I watched the animated movie Persepolis which is a kind of autobiography of a girl growing up during the transition from the Shah to the Islamic Republic. Although I cringe at the amount of smoking (I have a respiratory problem that causes me discomfort at the presence of cigarette smoke), I understood a lot of the family and cultural dynamics of the girl growing up in Iran and sent away to a bittersweet life in France as a young adult before returning home to Iran.
With so many of their citizens under the age of 30, Iran has a generation gap as America did during the 1960s. You get a real sense of the everyday repression of youthful casualness and the ominous presence of the moral guardians patrolling the streets looking for women not dressed modestly enough but also intruding behind closed doors looking for alcohol or responding to pop music.
It shouldn't have come as a total surprise that the election there was fraudulent. I remember watching the Chris Matthews show when he said his catchphrase "tell me something I don't know" to his panel of guests right before the Iranian election. One guest said that despite a recent increase in popularity of the reform candidate, it had already been decided that Achmedinijad (sp?) would be named as the winner. Actually, that show was four years ago, a few weeks before the previous election. You can look it up, Chris.
I've never been to Iran but I have some idea of what it's like thanks to Netflix. There is a large subset [not large enough, imo] of Netflix movies available to watch instantly. You can add any of those to your Instant queue. You have to opt in for the Silverlight experience.
I mentioned previously how I hooked up my new laptop to my HDTV via HDMI cable. I tried the Netflix "watch instantly" feature and found the picture quality good and the experience reasonably effortless.
Bill Scott, UI engineer for Netflix, gave a talk at the Mix 2009 conference on modern user interface conventions. They've tried to make the Netflix navigation experience effortless, although they don't quite succeed.
I'm enjoying his book on Web interaction design patterns. It categorizes and names the conventions you see everywhere on the net, such as drag and drop (he says you have to give users an "invitation to drag" to somehow let users know a thing can be dragged) and he favors direct in-place editing (rather than navigating to another page to change a photograph's title or description as an example).
Designing Web Interfaces
Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions.
It took a bit of thinking to guess why the wireless connection was sometimes not excellent. I have one of those netbooks I almost always keep on but with the lid closed in what I assumed was a sleep or hibernate mode. I have no technical expertise on this, just a guess, but I think the router is still aware of that wireless Internet connection when the netbook is asleep, so I shut down my netbook when I want to watch a streaming Netflix movie.
I watched the animated movie Persepolis which is a kind of autobiography of a girl growing up during the transition from the Shah to the Islamic Republic. Although I cringe at the amount of smoking (I have a respiratory problem that causes me discomfort at the presence of cigarette smoke), I understood a lot of the family and cultural dynamics of the girl growing up in Iran and sent away to a bittersweet life in France as a young adult before returning home to Iran.
With so many of their citizens under the age of 30, Iran has a generation gap as America did during the 1960s. You get a real sense of the everyday repression of youthful casualness and the ominous presence of the moral guardians patrolling the streets looking for women not dressed modestly enough but also intruding behind closed doors looking for alcohol or responding to pop music.
It shouldn't have come as a total surprise that the election there was fraudulent. I remember watching the Chris Matthews show when he said his catchphrase "tell me something I don't know" to his panel of guests right before the Iranian election. One guest said that despite a recent increase in popularity of the reform candidate, it had already been decided that Achmedinijad (sp?) would be named as the winner. Actually, that show was four years ago, a few weeks before the previous election. You can look it up, Chris.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Highly recommended documentaries
Next Thursday or so, today being July 3, there are two nature documentaries on Animal Planet cable channel worth watching.
I have no pets. I had a dog at five years old they tell me, and I saw a picture once of me and that German Shepherd, but I don't remember it. Our family had a cat once and I like cats.
Have you heard of Christian the lion? Seen the youtube video? Well they did a one-hour documentary film about Christian called "A Lion Called Christian."
If you don't want to wait, or are curious, or have seen the brief clip on youtube, visit this link then click the video to watch lengthy excerpts from the documentary:
http://animal.discovery.com/tv/christian-the-lion/
You really get a sense of his personality and incredible playfulness. What you don't see are some important missing details that explain the full story of the reunion.
Coincidentally, on the same day and repeated the following Friday (these programs air regularly, so check your local listings as they say if you miss them), is a documentary about Jessica the hippo. It's interesting to watch her open the door and walk around the house. Enough said.
One regular program on the National Geographic Channel that always amazes me is The Dog Whisperer. He is called out to visit people with troubled pets ranging from aggression to fear to quirky idiosyncrasies. I hate to admit it, but my first thought when I started watching the show on each visit was that dog is toast. And the people often say they were sure their dog was going to be the one that Cesar could not help.
For dogs that are frustrated and not getting enough exercise, Cesar often uses his rollerblades to take the dog for a brisk walk and run and to bond with him. Not only does it wear the dog out a little bit, but, Cesar said, it surprises them that he's faster than them.
I thought to myself skeptically, how does he know they are "surprised"? Then I remembered how easy it is for us to know when a dog is happy by its facial expressions and body movement. And there may be nobody in the world who understands dogs better than Cesar Milan.
But I shouldn't be so amazed at the sociability and bonding between people and animals, especially animals that live in social groups. I once saw a program about dogs that described how the family pet was running alongside their pickup truck and barking furiously during a dust storm along the farm's road. They wondered what was wrong with him. Finally, in desperation, the dog ran ahead of the truck and threw himself in front of it so that they hit him and had to stop. It turned out there was some obstacle in the road or crevice just a few yards ahead that they would have encountered had not old Rusty (I'm just making up a name here) forced them to stop.
So I briefly thought that was an example of a higher intelligence and altruism shown in animals as is often seen when people jump into rivers to save strangers in trouble. But then I realized that we as a species probably favored people who helped their family and neighbors, and this trait could easily be favored over time until it became a common reaction in social species such as people. Compare the way a mama bird will appear to have a broken wing when a predator threatens her young. That behavior must have taken some time to work out until it became instinctive.
Next Thursday or so, today being July 3, there are two nature documentaries on Animal Planet cable channel worth watching.
I have no pets. I had a dog at five years old they tell me, and I saw a picture once of me and that German Shepherd, but I don't remember it. Our family had a cat once and I like cats.
Have you heard of Christian the lion? Seen the youtube video? Well they did a one-hour documentary film about Christian called "A Lion Called Christian."
If you don't want to wait, or are curious, or have seen the brief clip on youtube, visit this link then click the video to watch lengthy excerpts from the documentary:
http://animal.discovery.com/tv/christian-the-lion/
You really get a sense of his personality and incredible playfulness. What you don't see are some important missing details that explain the full story of the reunion.
Coincidentally, on the same day and repeated the following Friday (these programs air regularly, so check your local listings as they say if you miss them), is a documentary about Jessica the hippo. It's interesting to watch her open the door and walk around the house. Enough said.
One regular program on the National Geographic Channel that always amazes me is The Dog Whisperer. He is called out to visit people with troubled pets ranging from aggression to fear to quirky idiosyncrasies. I hate to admit it, but my first thought when I started watching the show on each visit was that dog is toast. And the people often say they were sure their dog was going to be the one that Cesar could not help.
For dogs that are frustrated and not getting enough exercise, Cesar often uses his rollerblades to take the dog for a brisk walk and run and to bond with him. Not only does it wear the dog out a little bit, but, Cesar said, it surprises them that he's faster than them.
I thought to myself skeptically, how does he know they are "surprised"? Then I remembered how easy it is for us to know when a dog is happy by its facial expressions and body movement. And there may be nobody in the world who understands dogs better than Cesar Milan.
But I shouldn't be so amazed at the sociability and bonding between people and animals, especially animals that live in social groups. I once saw a program about dogs that described how the family pet was running alongside their pickup truck and barking furiously during a dust storm along the farm's road. They wondered what was wrong with him. Finally, in desperation, the dog ran ahead of the truck and threw himself in front of it so that they hit him and had to stop. It turned out there was some obstacle in the road or crevice just a few yards ahead that they would have encountered had not old Rusty (I'm just making up a name here) forced them to stop.
So I briefly thought that was an example of a higher intelligence and altruism shown in animals as is often seen when people jump into rivers to save strangers in trouble. But then I realized that we as a species probably favored people who helped their family and neighbors, and this trait could easily be favored over time until it became a common reaction in social species such as people. Compare the way a mama bird will appear to have a broken wing when a predator threatens her young. That behavior must have taken some time to work out until it became instinctive.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Amazon Review
I've been a customer at Amazon.com for 10 years. Besides books, I've bought electronic accessories, DVDs, and software. I've recently been ordering fresh food from Amazon Fresh now available in my area. Since it is not available everywhere yet, I thought I would write out my views.
I was an early enthusiast of Homegrocer.com. Their well known failure as a company included building huge, automated warehouses and making deliveries with refrigerated semi-trucks to individual households. Irrational exuberance. Their downfall was also caused by the fact that their prices were higher than a typical grocery store because they couldn't get groceries from distributors at the same low prices as supermarket chains that were ordering huge quantities.
But the concept of ordering over the Internet and having it delivered to your door is still a viable model for a business, even for something we like to select individually, such as fresh produce. Think of the time it takes to go to the store, gather your items, and go through the checkout process, and then schlep (haul) your food home.
There are a couple of gotchas about grocery deliveries: they have to keep refrigerated stuff cold and frozen stuff frozen, and Amazon does that with little frozen packets like blue ice for the cold stuff and dry ice in Styrofoam packing for the frozen stuff.
The key for me is their flexible delivery times. You can select to have your order delivery before dawn or from 9 a.m. to noon or from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. or 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and unlike Safeway.com, you can indicate when you select the delivery time not to be disturbed and they will leave it at your door. And a nice thing that they've thought of is that each plastic bin is secured with a little plastic tie that must be cut with scissors or a pocketknife so that creatures or curious passersby or the wind won't open them.
There is not much of a markup in groceries, and I don't think they can make much of a profit when you consider the added cost for sending out refrigerated or frozen items, but if people tend to add gourmet or specialty or already-cooked items to an order or if they scale up to a significant number of customers in an area, this could be a good long-term business for Amazon. I wish them the best.
I've been a customer at Amazon.com for 10 years. Besides books, I've bought electronic accessories, DVDs, and software. I've recently been ordering fresh food from Amazon Fresh now available in my area. Since it is not available everywhere yet, I thought I would write out my views.
I was an early enthusiast of Homegrocer.com. Their well known failure as a company included building huge, automated warehouses and making deliveries with refrigerated semi-trucks to individual households. Irrational exuberance. Their downfall was also caused by the fact that their prices were higher than a typical grocery store because they couldn't get groceries from distributors at the same low prices as supermarket chains that were ordering huge quantities.
But the concept of ordering over the Internet and having it delivered to your door is still a viable model for a business, even for something we like to select individually, such as fresh produce. Think of the time it takes to go to the store, gather your items, and go through the checkout process, and then schlep (haul) your food home.
There are a couple of gotchas about grocery deliveries: they have to keep refrigerated stuff cold and frozen stuff frozen, and Amazon does that with little frozen packets like blue ice for the cold stuff and dry ice in Styrofoam packing for the frozen stuff.
The key for me is their flexible delivery times. You can select to have your order delivery before dawn or from 9 a.m. to noon or from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. or 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and unlike Safeway.com, you can indicate when you select the delivery time not to be disturbed and they will leave it at your door. And a nice thing that they've thought of is that each plastic bin is secured with a little plastic tie that must be cut with scissors or a pocketknife so that creatures or curious passersby or the wind won't open them.
There is not much of a markup in groceries, and I don't think they can make much of a profit when you consider the added cost for sending out refrigerated or frozen items, but if people tend to add gourmet or specialty or already-cooked items to an order or if they scale up to a significant number of customers in an area, this could be a good long-term business for Amazon. I wish them the best.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Watching videos from Mix09, one presenter called offstage to someone named Austin. It wasn't me.
But I did hear one of the keynote presenters use a phrase I wrote in my "graphic design principles for developers" ASP.NET blog when he spoke about using these new graphics effects for good, not evil.
Although he might have gotten it from reading my blog, it's likely he got the phrase from the title of a presentation at last year's TechEd conference (something like "Using WPF Graphics and Animation For Good and Not Evil"). That session's presenter probably read the phrase in my ASP.NET blog. By using appropriate keywords, my ASP.NET blog entries show up on the ASP.NET blog's main page so these posts are read by many more people than who know me personally.
Anyway, when I first saw that a phrase I'd written was being used in the title of someone else's presentation, I initially felt as if my original writing was being used without permission or acknowledgment. Of course legally one cannot claim the use of a common phrase or expression.
I recently saw a musical guest on Saturday Night Live perform a catchy song. Most artists on that show I'm unfamiliar with and often never even heard of.
But this singer-songwriter did a song that I started liking almost immediately. His name was Jason Mraz and the song was "I'm Yours".
I watched a few versions on YouTube. In some interview, he said he was in Sweden for the first time and playing that unreleased song in concert while everyone to his surprise knew all the words and was singing along! So he said he decided that if people like the song that much (his fans must've all gotten bootleg copies recorded at some previous concert), he would record the song right and give them a good copy.
Evidently he has a loyal following, but that song in particular seems to have crossed over into wider public consciousness.
I bought the sheet music to strum the chords on my guitar. The sheet music says to play "with a Reggae feel." Notice how the emphasis falls on the 2nd and 4th beat, instead of the 1st and 3rd, where the words are:
I [boom] won't [boom] hes [boom] - i - [boom]
tate [boom] no [boom] more, [boom] no [boom] more...
But I did hear one of the keynote presenters use a phrase I wrote in my "graphic design principles for developers" ASP.NET blog when he spoke about using these new graphics effects for good, not evil.
Although he might have gotten it from reading my blog, it's likely he got the phrase from the title of a presentation at last year's TechEd conference (something like "Using WPF Graphics and Animation For Good and Not Evil"). That session's presenter probably read the phrase in my ASP.NET blog. By using appropriate keywords, my ASP.NET blog entries show up on the ASP.NET blog's main page so these posts are read by many more people than who know me personally.
Anyway, when I first saw that a phrase I'd written was being used in the title of someone else's presentation, I initially felt as if my original writing was being used without permission or acknowledgment. Of course legally one cannot claim the use of a common phrase or expression.
I recently saw a musical guest on Saturday Night Live perform a catchy song. Most artists on that show I'm unfamiliar with and often never even heard of.
But this singer-songwriter did a song that I started liking almost immediately. His name was Jason Mraz and the song was "I'm Yours".
I watched a few versions on YouTube. In some interview, he said he was in Sweden for the first time and playing that unreleased song in concert while everyone to his surprise knew all the words and was singing along! So he said he decided that if people like the song that much (his fans must've all gotten bootleg copies recorded at some previous concert), he would record the song right and give them a good copy.
Evidently he has a loyal following, but that song in particular seems to have crossed over into wider public consciousness.
I bought the sheet music to strum the chords on my guitar. The sheet music says to play "with a Reggae feel." Notice how the emphasis falls on the 2nd and 4th beat, instead of the 1st and 3rd, where the words are:
I [boom] won't [boom] hes [boom] - i - [boom]
tate [boom] no [boom] more, [boom] no [boom] more...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
I owe an apology to Sarah Palin. People get so used to the habits and conventions of their community that it makes anything different seem strange.
A lot of people, myself included, thought that a mother of small children with a shotgun shooting and skinning a moose was weird and discomforting. And for Washington, California or New York, it would be out of place.
I used to think that chopsticks were primitive implements left over from an antiquated traditional society. But when your main staple food is rice, the sticky grains are easier to pick up in a clump with two sticks pressed together than they are falling off a spoon or fork.
I also thought of acupuncture as a primitive superstitious ritual, even before I heard their theory of invisible channels of energies that are opened or blocked to balance the body. I've heard enough people with seemingly untreatable medical problems claim that acupuncture was the only thing that helped with their pain to believe that there may be some reason it has been used for 5000 years or so.
Chinese medicine talks about rivers in the body and the winds in what seems like a primitive representation of the human body, but if you think about it, there's no reason that diseases and parts of the body or specific plants or animals should be given names derived from an ancient unused language (Latin). It's just that we've grown used to that convention.
So actually, stopping at a fast food place for burgers for the family from cattle that have been raised on vast tracts of land in South America on bread made from flour grown in the Midwest would be a lot more inefficient and use more environmental resources than eating the flesh of a local herbivore.
Politically speaking, her silence in the media on efforts to repair the economy lead me to conclude there will be a Palin campaign for president in 2012. She is a very competitive person. If she wanted to maximize her chances, she would be spending every waking moment studying world politics and American history. I don't think she has that amount of drive, or feels that this would be necessary.
After the attack from Al Qaeda, George W. Bush was fuming and kept asking people to check to see if Saddam Hussein had anything to do with that. Even though someone on his staff said they checked and said no, I don't think he ever totally believed it. When speaking to the Alaska National Guard as they were preparing to deploy to Iraq, Gov. Palin said something about fighting against those who attacked us on 9/11! I had this image of her as the last believer.
A lot of people, myself included, thought that a mother of small children with a shotgun shooting and skinning a moose was weird and discomforting. And for Washington, California or New York, it would be out of place.
I used to think that chopsticks were primitive implements left over from an antiquated traditional society. But when your main staple food is rice, the sticky grains are easier to pick up in a clump with two sticks pressed together than they are falling off a spoon or fork.
I also thought of acupuncture as a primitive superstitious ritual, even before I heard their theory of invisible channels of energies that are opened or blocked to balance the body. I've heard enough people with seemingly untreatable medical problems claim that acupuncture was the only thing that helped with their pain to believe that there may be some reason it has been used for 5000 years or so.
Chinese medicine talks about rivers in the body and the winds in what seems like a primitive representation of the human body, but if you think about it, there's no reason that diseases and parts of the body or specific plants or animals should be given names derived from an ancient unused language (Latin). It's just that we've grown used to that convention.
So actually, stopping at a fast food place for burgers for the family from cattle that have been raised on vast tracts of land in South America on bread made from flour grown in the Midwest would be a lot more inefficient and use more environmental resources than eating the flesh of a local herbivore.
Politically speaking, her silence in the media on efforts to repair the economy lead me to conclude there will be a Palin campaign for president in 2012. She is a very competitive person. If she wanted to maximize her chances, she would be spending every waking moment studying world politics and American history. I don't think she has that amount of drive, or feels that this would be necessary.
After the attack from Al Qaeda, George W. Bush was fuming and kept asking people to check to see if Saddam Hussein had anything to do with that. Even though someone on his staff said they checked and said no, I don't think he ever totally believed it. When speaking to the Alaska National Guard as they were preparing to deploy to Iraq, Gov. Palin said something about fighting against those who attacked us on 9/11! I had this image of her as the last believer.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is being written about and documentaries shown on PBS as the 200th anniversary of his birth is remembered.
Carl Sandburg wrote a six volume biography of Lincoln. I read an abridged version of one in the three paperback set for a book report when I was in high school.
In the downtown Portland library I checked out the unabridged tape cassette versions and would listen to them as I walked in Powerline Park to recover from a respiratory problem.
Although Sandburg has been criticized for including dubious anecdotes of Lincoln's childhood, he had the good fortune and timing to be able to speak personally with people who met Lincoln as children or whose parents worked with Lincoln or knew the family. And with a poet's command of language combined with a knowledge of the Illinois area and temperament, Sandburg sometimes manages to give us an almost personal glimpse at the character and personality of Abraham Lincoln.
One story I wish I could relay more accurately was during an early political campaign nominating Lincoln for perhaps Senator. In a political gathering, some people came into the crowded room carrying old planks they brought from a river where Lincoln had built fences. "Where in the world that you get those?" Lincoln asked. When they told him it was from an area where as a youth he had split logs to make fences along the river, the crowd started chanting "identify your work, identify your work."
All he would've had to do would've been to look over the old weathered boards and say yes it was his work to send the crowd into a frenzy. But his deep-seated honesty I suppose kept him from even playing along in fun and he answered it may have been his work, but if it was, he'd done a lot better work than those boards.
I think that was where the nickname "the rail-splitter" took hold.
Another insight into his inherent kindness and understanding of people had to do with Gen.McClellan. Evidently General McClellan was loved by his men as they would march and train. He refused to engage General Lee in battle convinced the enemy army had overwhelming numerical advantage. He was always requesting more and more troops from Lincoln. His troops were building trenches and always preparing for battle.
From what I remember, they fought against General Lee's invading army and forced them to retreat. Had they pursued the retreating army, they could have won a decisive victory. Lincoln's letters to McClellan implore him to action.
But what I found amusing occurred years later when Lincoln was facing dim prospects for reelection. One political party wanted to nominate George McClellan for president. McClellan was eager to run as their presidential candidate, but hesitant about their platform to immediately end the war, thinking this would mean the soldiers had given their lives in vain. So during the convention, he waited a few days while considering the situation.
"He's entrenching! " Remarked Lincoln about the guy who had given him so much grief and was now going to run for president against him.
Abraham Lincoln is being written about and documentaries shown on PBS as the 200th anniversary of his birth is remembered.
Carl Sandburg wrote a six volume biography of Lincoln. I read an abridged version of one in the three paperback set for a book report when I was in high school.
In the downtown Portland library I checked out the unabridged tape cassette versions and would listen to them as I walked in Powerline Park to recover from a respiratory problem.
Although Sandburg has been criticized for including dubious anecdotes of Lincoln's childhood, he had the good fortune and timing to be able to speak personally with people who met Lincoln as children or whose parents worked with Lincoln or knew the family. And with a poet's command of language combined with a knowledge of the Illinois area and temperament, Sandburg sometimes manages to give us an almost personal glimpse at the character and personality of Abraham Lincoln.
One story I wish I could relay more accurately was during an early political campaign nominating Lincoln for perhaps Senator. In a political gathering, some people came into the crowded room carrying old planks they brought from a river where Lincoln had built fences. "Where in the world that you get those?" Lincoln asked. When they told him it was from an area where as a youth he had split logs to make fences along the river, the crowd started chanting "identify your work, identify your work."
All he would've had to do would've been to look over the old weathered boards and say yes it was his work to send the crowd into a frenzy. But his deep-seated honesty I suppose kept him from even playing along in fun and he answered it may have been his work, but if it was, he'd done a lot better work than those boards.
I think that was where the nickname "the rail-splitter" took hold.
Another insight into his inherent kindness and understanding of people had to do with Gen.McClellan. Evidently General McClellan was loved by his men as they would march and train. He refused to engage General Lee in battle convinced the enemy army had overwhelming numerical advantage. He was always requesting more and more troops from Lincoln. His troops were building trenches and always preparing for battle.
From what I remember, they fought against General Lee's invading army and forced them to retreat. Had they pursued the retreating army, they could have won a decisive victory. Lincoln's letters to McClellan implore him to action.
But what I found amusing occurred years later when Lincoln was facing dim prospects for reelection. One political party wanted to nominate George McClellan for president. McClellan was eager to run as their presidential candidate, but hesitant about their platform to immediately end the war, thinking this would mean the soldiers had given their lives in vain. So during the convention, he waited a few days while considering the situation.
"He's entrenching! " Remarked Lincoln about the guy who had given him so much grief and was now going to run for president against him.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
2009
9 years ago I was filling my bathtub. Really. I'd taken elective Computer Science classes and remembered how teachers gave us clever tips on how to save space in our programs by using just two digits for the year. I was taking no chances.
An interesting ceremony at the end of the year is to look back and look forward to what might occur. The Roman God Janus with two faces always seemed as strange and foreign to me as the many-armed God (Shiva?) of India, but I see now it's the perfect representation of this habit or ritual we seem to do at the end of a year.
I have great hope. I do not think all will be well, but I think there will be some bright spots and improvements.
Here is Dave Barry's view of 2008 (you might have to create an account to view it. Don't know why TV stations and newspapers bother visitors to register. I'll bet they lose half the would-be viewers to their stories, but I guess they must get some advertising benefit.)
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/v-fullstory/story/826965.html
If you read the column, you can see trouble coming for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the column unrolls the year month-by-month. You'll also learn little-known details, such as:
Meanwhile John McCain, still searching for the perfect running mate, tells his top aides in a conference call that he wants ''someone who is capable of filling my shoes.'' Unfortunately, he is speaking into the wrong end of his cellular phone, and his aides think he said "someone who is capable of killing a moose".
I read a great newspaper column at the end of the decade a while back that I will try to locate the author and ask for permission to reprint on my blog as we wrap up the decade in a few months. That's the last thing on my to do list in 2009.
9 years ago I was filling my bathtub. Really. I'd taken elective Computer Science classes and remembered how teachers gave us clever tips on how to save space in our programs by using just two digits for the year. I was taking no chances.
An interesting ceremony at the end of the year is to look back and look forward to what might occur. The Roman God Janus with two faces always seemed as strange and foreign to me as the many-armed God (Shiva?) of India, but I see now it's the perfect representation of this habit or ritual we seem to do at the end of a year.
I have great hope. I do not think all will be well, but I think there will be some bright spots and improvements.
Here is Dave Barry's view of 2008 (you might have to create an account to view it. Don't know why TV stations and newspapers bother visitors to register. I'll bet they lose half the would-be viewers to their stories, but I guess they must get some advertising benefit.)
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/v-fullstory/story/826965.html
If you read the column, you can see trouble coming for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the column unrolls the year month-by-month. You'll also learn little-known details, such as:
Meanwhile John McCain, still searching for the perfect running mate, tells his top aides in a conference call that he wants ''someone who is capable of filling my shoes.'' Unfortunately, he is speaking into the wrong end of his cellular phone, and his aides think he said "someone who is capable of killing a moose".
I read a great newspaper column at the end of the decade a while back that I will try to locate the author and ask for permission to reprint on my blog as we wrap up the decade in a few months. That's the last thing on my to do list in 2009.
