So I come across a Yahoo News headline that reads: "Scientists find explanation for mysterious space blobs". WTF? What is that, a Z movie someone saw at three in the morning? So I click through, to get a news story with the following headline: Telescope finds space blobs are pubescent galaxies.

"Space blobs"... "Pubescent galaxies"... So, Yahoo News is apparently staffed by closet creationists, who are trying to discredit science by making it seem ridiculous and/or associated with paedophilia. Hmph.

Resolve... weakening -- toys... shiny...

About a year ago I posted a rant about the iPhone, about cell phone pricing in Canada, and especially about why I would never, ever sign a cell phone contract again. I've been pretty firm in my resolve up till now, but a couple of weeks ago Apple announced the latest version of the iPhone, the 3G S, and I just had to take a look. This in turn led me to take another look at the available plans, and, erm, well, hrrrmmm, ahh... <tugs at collar uncomfortably>

 

Phooey. I'm tempted, I admit it. Fido, especially, got my attention with its assertions of honesty in billing -- i.e. no 'system access fee' or similar claptrap. (Check out this article -- I especially like the line about people actually getting traction against utter ripoffs like this.) So I looked over my billing history with Virgin Mobile and, if you squint a bit, the difference in dollars is not that big. at least on the minimum bandwidth plan that Fido offers of 500 MB per month.

 

That noose is looking more like a silk cravat every day...

 

Just caught wind of something cool whilst surfing on Videosift -- seems I'm late finding out that Sarah Atkinson's bro (and tunesmith of Teach Yourself Piano) landed a gig programming real-time digital video goodness for WETA Digital down in New Zealand. Congratulations Kevin!

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's. Not a revelation, really; the news came out in 2007, and it's as heartbreaking today as it ever was. But the BBC is now showing a multi-part series about Terry's experience with the condition that I am going to have to watch.

And it was just as I thought of writing this blog post that it finally clicked: In Vernor Vinge's most recent novel Rainbows End, he depicts a near-future 2025 in which Pratchett fandom has leaped beyond his ridiculous success in the publishing world and has achieved a pop-culture status comparable to Harry Potter. The punchline for this novel, published in 2006? The protagonist is an elderly man who, thanks to revolutionary new treatments, has just recovered from... yes... Alzheimer's.

Stay with us, Terry. The world needs more Rincewind.

Found photos

I'm always lusting after new technological toys, and I'd still like to get myself one of those nifty netbooks. The only thing that stops me is that I have absolutely no real need for one (of course, that's the definition of a toy). I even test-drove an Asus Eee PC when they first came out, only to return it; the first generation came with excessively tiny screens and cramped keyboards, but they've improved since then.

So I've had my eye on the Acer One at Future Shop for some time now, waiting for an advantageous price, which is how I happened to come across a nice little trove of pictures taken with the built-in webcam. Just pop in my thumb drive, a little surreptitious copying, and poof -- found art! See them here.

Obama's Inauguration

The festivities around Obama's inauguration are already receding into the mists, but I've been "challenged" to write something on my blog about the big event, so here goes.

The main thing that strikes me about Obama's election is the aura of unjustified high expectations that came with it. Maybe it's just the contrast with his hated predecessor -- the excellent syntax; the air of calm, unflappable on-top-of-it-ness he exudes; the sense one gets that his positions on various issues, whatever they are, are the products of thought and not just the received obstinacies of a child of privilege; these are all to the good. However welcome the contrasts, though, Obama's supporters have a habit of reading into him whatever they most want to see. I think most of them are destined for disappointment.

To be sure, there have been some encouraging developments so far, beginning with Obama's first order of business: an executive order to shut down the extralegal Guantánamo Bay prison hole as soon as possible, and in no less than a year. Of course, a commitment to constitutional government and basic human rights is the least one should expect from any politician, much less a trained constitutional lawyer. Still questionable, though, is Obama's commitment to impose accountability on the individuals, like Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez, who did so much to turn the U.S. into a torture state run by executive fiat in the first place. (Bush and Cheney themselves are more than likely untouchable.)

Other things are simply not on the table, although I think a lot of the people who voted for Obama think they are. Although I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, I doubt that Obama will ever apply his message of "change" to the parts of America's political system that really need it, like electoral finance, for example. (Rick MacArthur agrees with me.) What exactly were people expecting? Candidates who look like they might rock the imperial boat get weeded out long before they get near the presidency. In the last election, the Republicans rejected a serious conservative like Ron Paul and went ga-ga over, God help us, Sarah Palin. The roots of the sickness run deep.

The real change that Obama represents is not what he plans to do, but the changes that made him possible, going back to Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. That's the kind of change, change coming from below because people demand it, that makes a real difference. In the end I expect Obama to be more change's beneficiary than its agent. We'll see.

Whoops

The cell phone has been showing two bars a lot lately. It was becoming increasingly clear that the battery is dying and wouldn't take a charge, so today I finally bought a replacement. Toted it around all day, then finally cracked it open this evening to put it in and get it charged up.

It... doesn't fit. Darn, they sold me the wrong battery. My fault too, though, I never checked. Back it goes tomorrow.

OFTAA Towers Strikes Again!

It's baa-aack... Or more properly, it never went away.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

The Apartment Building From Heck! Oh OFTAA Towers, without you, where would I be?

A choice quote from Juan Cole's new article about the pending U.S. withdrawal (maybe) from Iraq:

Perhaps never before in history has an invader that won a crushing military victory, and that continued to occupy its prize, voluntarily accepted such humiliating terms from the vanquished. It is difficult to discern how Bush's agreement differs from the "surrender" Democrats were accused of advocating when they put forward a similar timetable for complete withdrawal.

Poor Bush, you'd think he'd be used to humiliation by now.

Speaking of violent occupations, I signed this petition today. Have a look.

Canada's Internet is crap - Boing Boing

Canada's Internet is crap - Boing Boing

Well, duh.

G.M. and Chrysler Explore Merger - NYTimes.com

Mathematicians talk about invariants -- quantities that, no matter how they're transformed, never seem to change. Some examples are:

- In topology, the Euler characteristic is represented by the Greek letter chi (χ). In any topological space, where V is the number of vertices, E is the number of edges, and F is the number of faces, the equation χ=V-E+F always holds true. In 3-D space, for any convex polyhedron, χ = 2. Always.

- For any complex number z=x+iy, the real part x and the modulus |z|=sqrt(x^2+y^2) are invariant under complex conjugation.

Outside the realm of mathematics, there are other invariants. For example, there is Buckaroo Banzai's law of universal auto-ubiquity: No matter where you go, there you are.

Now we can add another universal, unchanging invariant: There will never be a better time to get out of the auto industry. After all, we know how well it worked out the last time.

Police: iPhone Left In Hot Car For Three Hours | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Lately I've been worrying that The Onion might be slipping, but that's probably just jaded nostalgia. This week, at least, they're in top form. Check it out.

Po-mo scribe David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008. Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, 1943-2008. Recquiescant in pace.

These things always come in threes. Who's next?

Now, I'm no budding financial genius, but I know enough to be scared when this happens, followed by this – all in the wake of this, and this, basically as a result of this, more than likely stemming from reckless this. Who knew the day would come when I'd actually be relieved not to be a homeowner?

P.S. Just noticed my last post was #100. Hmm, that averages to about twenty per year. None too prolific, but *shrug* it's just a hobby.

Remember a couple of months back I posted about the Spore Creature Creator? At least, I think I posted about it -- or maybe I only did a Facebook status update. Anyway, the full game came out today, and I was out at Future Shop early to pick up what is certainly the most eagerly awaited PC game of the year.

Even though Will Wright's latest opus is a single-player game and can be played without the revolutionary online content-sharing component (the reason why they released the Creature Creator early), Electronic Arts still requires product activation before you can play. Unfortunately, they seem not to have learned from the problems with the European release and haven't provisioned enough server capacity to deal with first-day demand. Thus, this sight greeted me after I got home and installed the game:

In case you can't make it out, the error message reads: "The game can not start. The game needs access to the internet in order to verify ownership of this game. Please ensure that your computer is online and try again." Although this blog post should be adequate proof that my connection is not the culprit, I double-checked by visiting a site I would never willingly have visited previously, and yes, my worst fears were realized.

Here's hoping the slashdotting doesn't last forever!

Here's a funny-slash-jaw-dropping follow-up to my rather sour previous posting about the iPhone. Apple's online store lets you download approved applications to run on your iPhone; some are free, but most come with a price. Apple takes a 30% cut off the top from every sale for ahem "upkeep".

The joke? Some created an application titled I Am Rich and, with Apple's permission, posted it for the maximum allowable price of $999.99 (U.S.). The sum total of this application's capabilities are to sit in your list of icons and, when opened, display a big red ruby on the screen to alert people of your, um, richitude. That's it.

Eight people downloaded it before it got yanked. That's about $5,600 for the developer and $2,400 for Apple. I wanna be in that business.

Who exactly was firing shots on Ottawa Street late Saturday night or Sunday morning? Julie tells me she was in a friend's back yard around 1:30 AM when he not only positively identified the sound as gunfire, which may or may not have come from two separate guns, but found a spent shell casing in front of his house and handed it in to the police. There was a brief mention at the top of the A Channel news last night, but the police aren't saying anything and I can't find a whisper about it in today's Windsor Star.

In other news, I came across a blog I wish I'd known about earlier. With the decline of the auto industry, Windsor has never been more in need of fresh ideas. Scaledown Windsor is a welcome development and a hub for new thinking about transportation and development in this excessively auto-centric town.

This week I'm driving up to Toronto to visit Cam at his new place. I've been looking forward to the trip for several weeks, so it's too bad Mary told me last night she has to work Saturday and Sunday. It's still looking like a busy weekend, though, since Mom will be in town too and I'm stopping off to visit Lisa and Derek overnight on Friday. And now Karl has entered the mix as well. A social life! Who woulda thunk it?

Visible Insanity

With the 2008 Summer Games only a few days away, anticipation in China is running high… One enterprising petit-bourgeois wanted to promote his restaurant to the world, so he plugged his Chinese-language text into an online translator, took the English result that came out and paid for a sign which he hung for all the world to see. What did he get for his troubles? "Translate server error".

Now, go stick your head in a pig!

You heard about the 5.4 earthquake that struck southern California this morning, right? Well, in Burbank the TV cameras are always rolling, and Ain't It Cool News has kindly posted some video clips of people caught in the moment of reacting to the quake.

Ever wonder how you'd do in an earthquake? Hmmm, I'm not sure if my pectorals are quite, uh, rippling enough... (Watch the first clip, you'll get it.) What exactly is the risk of a Big One striking Windsor in my lifetime, anyway? Must remember to ask Maria sometime -- after all, she can see the universe in a grain of sand.