Friday, February 17, 2006 :::
I meant to post this earlier, but last weekend Jen and I went to a super-secret Nike sample sale. I say that it was super secret but actually there was a really long line. We went early in the morning and waited about 90 minutes before we had to leave, then ended up coming back again at the end of the day. People were still carrying giant trash bags full of clothes and shoes out of the warehouse.
Here's a picture of Jen buying a big sack of shoes for $20 each.
And here's a lady with a bag of shoes almost as big as she is.
Jen and I were joking that there were so many Indians and Asians there (this is Intel country after all) that most of the shoes would end up back on a boat to where they were manufactured. Probably they ended up on eBay.
If Democrats won't stand up to an executive who doesn't worry about trampling the rights of innocent Americans, what do we stand for?
By Sen. Russ Feingold
Feb. 15, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- It seemed like a watershed moment for the Democratic Party. At the end of 2005, Democrats, along with a small band of Republicans, stopped a bad Patriot Act reauthorization bill in its tracks. For me, it was gratifying to have so many in my party openly share -- and act on -- the concerns I had voiced about the Patriot Act back in 2001. But, more importantly, Democrats had decided to stand up to the White House's scare tactics and stand for protecting the rights of law-abiding Americans. Finally, Democrats were refusing to be intimidated by suggestions that protecting our freedoms is inconsistent with fighting terrorism aggressively. This moment was long overdue.
Unfortunately, it was also short-lived. Just two months later, a number of Democrats have agreed to support a reauthorization of the Patriot Act that is basically the same as the deal we rejected in December, and doesn't solve any of the significant problems with the law that Democrats claimed they were concerned about.
Under this deal, the government can still access the library or medical records of someone with no connection to terrorism. After four years of public outcry over Section 215 of the Patriot Act -- the so-called library records provision -- and after the Senate unanimously passed an amendment fixing this provision in July, apparently a number of my colleagues have decided that government fishing expeditions aren't such a big deal.
Almost as bad, the deal fails to fix the "gag order" that prevents businesses from telling anyone that they've received a Section 215 order for records. The deal keeps the gag rule in place for a year; after that, the recipient can challenge the gag order in court but under rules that make it almost impossible to win.
The deal also fails to address the concerns Democrats expressed about news reports of growing use of National Security Letters, which don't even require a judge's approval, to obtain records of electronic communications, credit reports, and financial records. And it leaves in place the much criticized "sneak and peek" provision, which allows the government to secretly search Americans' homes in criminal cases that have nothing to do with terrorism or espionage.
These are some of the provisions of the Patriot Act that pose the biggest threats to our freedoms, yet some Democrats are happily supporting a deal that leaves them firmly in place. That's hardly a victory for our party, or for the effort to protect our liberties as we fight terrorism.
It took a long time for Democrats to step up and challenge the administration's baseless assertions that the Patriot Act could not be changed without threatening the security of the American people. When we finally did so, when we decided to make the case that we can fight terrorism and protect our American principles at the same time, it looked like Democrats were finally ready to stand on principle and offer strong leadership.
Instead, too many Democrats have folded, and momentum for critical changes to the Patriot Act to protect our freedoms has been squandered. Some Democrats may be breathing sighs of relief that the president can't use this issue to paint them as "soft" on terrorism. But we're not doing the party or the country any favors by refusing to challenge an administration that views our freedoms as collateral damage in the war on terrorism. If Democrats aren't going to stand up to an executive who disdains the other branches of government and doesn't worry about trampling on the rights of innocent Americans, what do we stand for?
Expect Democrats and some Republicans to insist that they have won some significant improvements to the Patriot Act. Don't believe it. The few minor concessions they got from the White House are a fig leaf to disguise a complete about-face. Thanks to this deal, the White House will be emboldened in its fear-mongering, Democrats will be perceived as timid, and the American people will still face the prospect of government intrusion into their private affairs. Some deal.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006 :::
Last night I did really well at the gym. Rowed 7 km in a little less than 40 minutes. I really got into it last night and was pushing myself very hard. Felt very good, and this morning weighed in at 189.5, so probably sweated out a half pound or so of water.
It's a shame I can't really work out when I'm on the road. Usually the hotels I stay in have gyms, albeit crappy little ones with one treadmill and one bike, but the problem is the work hours. I'm almost always getting home at 9 or 10 at night and need to cook and go to sleep. Woe is me, my life is so hard. I think I'll try to do some isometrics like pushups and crunches. We'll see if I have the energy.
In the months before and after a major stock market crash, price fluctuations follow patterns similar to those seen in natural phenomena such as heartbeats and earthquakes, physicists find in a study to appear in Physical Review Letters. A University of Tokyo team studied the Standard & Poor's S&P 500 index, focusing on small deviations from long-term index trends. Such up-and-down blips in stock prices are usually "Gaussian," or "normally" random, at least when measured over sufficiently long time scales---for example, for more than one day. That means that fluctuations are likely to be small, while larger fluctuations are less likely, their probabilities following a bell curve. But when the team looked at 2-month periods surrounding major crashes such as the Black Monday event of October 19, 1987, they saw a different story: Fluctuations of all magnitudes were equally probable. As a consequence, the graph of index fluctuations looked statistically similar if plotted over different time scales, anywhere between time scales of 4 minutes and two weeks. Such behavior is called critical in analogy with a ferromagnetic metal at the "critical temperature," when regions form where the metal's atoms arrange their spins in the same direction, and these regions look similar at different levels of magnification. This self-similarity is also seen in the time intervals between heartbeats, or between earthquakes. Mathematically, however, the stock market case differs in that the probabilities do not change with the size of the event, while in other cases of non-critical self-similarity, the probabilities usually follow a so-called power law. It is unclear what individual trading decisions lead to criticality in the stock market, co-author Zbigniew Struzik says, although he and the team at the University of Tokyo are working on finding explanations. Also unclear is whether the findings could one day lead to an early-warning system to predict crashes, and if such a system would precipitate a crash -- or create one artificially -- by inducing panic. "It could compensate for or neutralize the crashes, or make them worse," Struzik says. (Kiyono et al., Physical Review Letters, 17 February)
Monday, February 13, 2006 :::
Had a good weekend with the wife. Did a bunch of errands, hung out and shot some pool, cleaned the house, had [redacted], and did a chocolate and wine tasting at the New Season's Market (think Whole Foods). All in all a very good weekend, and it stayed sunny throughout.
In an unrelated aside, I weighed in at 190.0 lbs this morning. Since my scale only does half pound increments, I am somewhere between 189.7 and 190.3 pounds. That's pretty good for me, since usually I weight around 192 - 193. The lowest I've weighed in the near recent is 189.5 so I'm pretty consistantly around my low weight band. Ideally I'd like to weigh around 185 - 187. So I'm almost there. More so I really just need to keep at the rowing (erg machine) and crunches to tone up my midsection. Otherwise I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. Mostly I attribute this to Jen knowing how to plan healthy meals for the week and keeping us organized. I think most calories are unintentionally consumed when there isn't time to make dinner so you get fast food or eat out. Eating at home is so much healthier, and I almost always eat lunch at home.
Anyway, the clouds are back today but it should be sunny later in the week. It is now that time of year when the sun and clouds battle it out for dominance, with both sides often overtaking the other for several-day stretches at a time. Eventually the sun will win more and more and the clouds will recede to pleasant memories. The trees are budding already.
Also, Salon.com has a wrap-up of reviews of the new B&S album:
Belle and Sebastian, "The Life Pursuit"
Once the cult band of choice for bookish intellectuals and other nervous souls, Belle and Sebastian have gradually reinvented and beefed up their sound to appeal to a whole new world of pop fans, not least international music critics. They've come a long way over the course of six albums, as the Guardian (three stars out of five) points out: "The idea of Belle and Sebastian decamping to LA to work with a big-name producer would once have seemed as improbable as Belle and Sebastian driving a Harley-Davidson around a hotel suite filled with empty Jack Daniel's bottles and coked-out nymphettes." Still, says Pitchfork (rating 8.5), it's been a fruitful trip: "Belle and Sebastian seem to have found new life in their evolution from shy bedsit savants to showy pop adepts."
"The Life Pursuit" isn't Belle and Sebastian's first foray into the world of high-gloss hit-making; 2003's "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" featured maverick pop schlock guru Trevor Horn pushing the buttons. But for Spin, some momentum has in fact been lost with the switch to California-based rock producer Tony Hoffer following "Dear Catastrophe Waitress": "After that hearty, rewarding belly flop, 'The Life Pursuit' is a series of cautious toe-dips," says the magazine, before going on to mix aquatic metaphors, "Hoffer preserves Horn's professional sheen but not his swinging charm, leaving us with all bathwater and no baby."
NME (nine out of 10), by contrast, sees Belle and Sebastian ever more at ease after their emigration from the fragile, acoustic fringes: "There's a real confidence here, not quite a strut, but definitely a swagger," the magazine states, before observing that the band is "still perverse, still twee, but strong enough to take on the bullies." Slant Magazine (four and a half stars out of five) continues the fighting talk, describing "Belle and Sebastian competing in a whole new weight class" with an enhanced sound. And how will the bookish intellectuals reconcile themselves to this cultivation of a new fan base? Not to worry, says Pitchfork: "'The Life Pursuit' is a baroque pop cathedral, welcoming the faithful and newly converted alike."
Finally, I know it's AOL, but you can listen to the full CDs of lots of albums here, including the new B&S. I didn't know about this but it will be nice to use at work.
Thursday, February 09, 2006 :::
Once again Edge.org comes up with some interesting analysis. In this case, they did some brain imaging of people watching the Super Blows ads for the first time. Seems like a lot of people respond to the ads unconsciously much differently than when asked what they thought.
Friday, February 03, 2006 :::
I was cleaning up some pictures on my digicam card, and ran across a few I thought I'd share from around Portland.
This is Jen looking cute standing inside a giant head statue. This is outside the Ballpark.
Here's a picture of Mt. Hood from the Japanese Gardens. The Japanese Gardens are situated at the top of a hill (right above the Rose Gardens) that overlooks downtown and the mountain. I had to color correct this one so it might look a little funky.
This is a little map of the different mountains from a certain spot along a hiking trail near the Zoo. It was a nice view, but you'll have to imagine it.
I unexpectedly had to change my plans last night and flew back to Portland a day early. It turns out that I'm not going to get the tool time I need in Boise, so I'm going to stay in Portland for a couple of weeks instead of wasting my time there. This came from the customer and when he said to postpone my work by a couple of weeks I was annoyed but also happy I'd get to be at home for a while.
Once I heard that I'd be postponed, I changed my flight and rushed back to my hotel to check out and run to the airport. The flight I was supposed to be on left at 8PM, but I got there early enough to be put on the standby list for the 6PM flight. Unfortunately, there were 16 people in front of me on the standby list.
So there is some problem with the plane for the 6PM flight and it was delayed almost 2 hours. It also turns out that my 8PM flight is the same plane as the 6PM flight, so my return flight was now bumped back to 11:30PM. Suck!
I had given up hope of getting on the early flight when they called my name. I was settled down in the computer desk area and had to literally jump up, stuff my mouse, power cords, random papers and crap into my pockets and run over to the gate. The plane was so delayed they called over the loudspeaker "If you're not here by the time I'm done leaving this message we're giving your seat away!" I ran up with my jacket dragging behind me, cords everywhere, my laptop and papers in my hand, and yelled "I'm here! I'm here!" as I ran down the terminal. I finally got on, I think was the last person to get standby on the flight. There were a ton of people standing at the gate waiting for standby and when they saw me run up there was a collective "Aww...." They were so disappointed but I was able to get on.
Suckers!!
So I got back to Portland at the normal time last night and was able to get home and in bed before my orginal flight would even have landed. Jen was very happy that I came home a day early, and we both lamented that we had to go to work today. In any case, things worked out for the best and I'm here for a little while.
I'll be in San Jose in a few weeks, and then back to Boise after that. Travelling....
Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it.
Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.
(...)
Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.
(...)
If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.
It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.
Here's a nice little article about the band Belle and Sebastian. I didn't know they had a new album coming out, but it makes sense since they are doing the American tour circuit. I have, I think, all of their albums including the Storytelling soundtrack (of which I think only 1 or 2 songs actually made it into the movie). Jen and I will be seeing them in Portland. I encourage everyone to check them out.
