I’m sitting outside on one of the most beautiful New England days that I’ve ever seen.
I have a hot hot HOT cup of coffee beside me, with the lid off waiting for it to cool.
As I look more closely, I see that a bug has flown into the coffee and seems to have been killed instantly by immersing itself in boiling water.
Weird.
I picked up Al Gore’s newest book: The Assault on Reason. It’s remarkable. I’ve found that the best way to introduce it to people is to give them a sample of his reasoning without telling them who wrote it. Otherwise, their knee jerk reactions (for or against) overwhelm the logic of the arguments. This is, in fact, precisely the point of the book.
Mass-media political campaigns have to rely on emotional appeal rather than rational argument. Television and radio are great ways to make people feel afraid (or proud and nationalistic), but terribly ways to convey they nuances of government policy. In addition, there is far less of a possibility that an individual citizen will be able to participate (in a meaningful way) in a conversation carried out on television, vs. a similar conversation carried out in newspapers, essays, and pamphlets.
In addition, mass media tends to centralize communication in a top-down manner. Rich corporations have a voice, and use the tools of propaganda and advertising to “manufacture consent,” among the governed.
It’s a neat book. I don’t know yet if I buy into it … but WHERE THE HELL WAS THIS MAN IN 2000? He’s articulate, passionate, blazingly smart, witty … everything that he wasn’t in that campaign.
I got home from Atlanta between 2 and 3am on Friday morning. On Friday at 7pm, I flew to Detroit to see both sides of the fam. I am now delayed in Baltimore, awaiting my flight back to Providence. Tomorrow morning, I shall rise at beastly:30 to go into Boston and work for MIT, integrating new machines into an existing cluster for a rockin’ cool customer.
Since redmed is now between jobs until October, she went up to MI on Thursday, and plans to hang out with grandparents and cousins all week. Thus begins the long needed healing process from (count count) 11 years of post-undergrad medical education. First: Go see family. Second: Check out the house! It’s where you live now! No more call-nights at the hospital!
Michigan was fun but exhausting. I’ll admit that I didn’t bother telling anyone I was coming, since I wouldn’t have been able to stop through and see you anyway. Nothing quite like the call: “Hi, I’m in town, but much too busy to see *you*”. Yeah, I’ve gotten that call, and I try not to hand it out.
I sometimes peruse the access logs on the web server which hosts my pictures and documents. In doing this, I learn many things. For example, today I learned that I’m a member of a “friends group” called “Not Annoying”. Thanks multiplexer! This made my day!
Decent day at the office today, with lots of geeky wrestling with details. A little behind schedule, but we can make it up. Suffice it to say that Solaris is not Linux, and the details of that difference really do matter. On the other hand, this is pretty cool:
ssh -l root -L 8081:10.10.1.253:80 -p 8080 127.0.0.1
For now, I think I’ll go to sleep … since we’re hypothetically getting to the place at 7 tomorrow.
Oh yeah, Cloroquine dreams: They’re WACKY.
Back on the road. This time to Atlanta, to do some work for the CDC. I had forgotten how nice and upscale “real” airline travel seems, from the terminal. Delta has a big, glassy terminal with all new chairs and upscale bars and stuff. Of course, the reason that they spend all that money on it is because people sit there for untold hours. The flight to ATL before mine was “oversold” (aka: they lied about how many seats were on the plane) and so there are a bunch of really pissed off people trying to wrangle their way onto my flight.
Chatted with simianpower on the way to the airport. He was talking about how Northwest’s frequent flier program has more ifs, ands and buts than a teenager explaining their report card.
I love Southwest. Everything is a one-way price, and the “free round trip after 16 segments” is really, seriously a “free round trip after 16 segments.”
In other news, I perceive the airport as rather sterile, anonymous, and lonely today. That’s probably all in my head, right?
Down in ATL until Thursday, then back here for a night, then up to Detroit for a “wham bam” weekend trip to attend two family reunions and check on the slum over which I lord. Then a weeks work at MIT, followed by a week at the beach … kinda … sorta.
Wheeee.
Went for a run this morning, after a pleasant time at the Hope St. Farmers market, and a haircut.
About 2 miles in (my usual turning around point for an impulsive run … also the big house at the midpoint of what technolope dubbed the “philosopher’s walk”) I thought “feelin’ good! feeling’ strong!”.
About 3 miles in (my usual “extreme” turn around point) I thought “why not?”
At the 4 mile point (the overlook over Providence) I thought “wow! I’m in awesome shape”. Note that at this point I have simply completed my usual run.
At the 6 mile point, I thought “hrm, this is gonna hurt, isn’t it.”
I walked in the last half mile.
Go me.
GEEK UPDATE: Google maps has a pedometerHere’s my run
Went back to the other karate school. Took the serious beating at the conditioning class with the grandmaster. I am once again covered in bruises. As Dan said: “You pay for this?”
Also, I learned the following:
Most guys hit harder than most girls. However, some girls hit much harder than most guys.
Ouch.
Also, the Silver Surfer movie sucks … really, really bad.