April 2005 Archives

Republican Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania thinks the National Weather Service should be less of a service. He is introducing a bill that will make it illegal for the NWS to provide any information (other than severe weather forecasts) that the private sector could also provide. The decision on what services the NWS may provide would be made by one person: Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.

These other (non-severe weather) services that could be discontinued include routine public and marine forecasts that many citizens and residents of the US depend on. Moreover, Jeff Masters over at Weather Underground makes several excellent points about the quality of the NWS' services:

It is unclear from the bill's language whether the NWS would be allowed to continue making its routine public and marine forecasts. This decision would be made by the Secretary of Commerce. I believe the expertise of the NWS forecasters is unmatched anywhere in the world, and throwing away their forecasts would be a shameful waste. Although the private weather industry can and does provide routine public and marine forecasts, the quality of these forecasts is sometimes poor and would likely worsen if the NWS ceased issuing forecasts. When I participated in forecasting contests both as a student and an instructor, I discovered that while it was difficult--but not impossible--to beat the NWS forecast, it was nearly impossible to beat the "consensus" forecast--that is, the average of everyone's forecast. Private weather industry forecasters do their own forecasting, but will usually check their forecast against what the NWS says before sending it out. If the NWS forecast differs considerably, there will frequently be an adjustment made towards the NWS forecast, resulting in a better "consensus" forecast. So, with the proposed legislation, not only would we lose the best forecasts available, but the forecasts from the private weather companies would also worsen. Many sectors of our economy depend upon good forecasts, and passage of the bill might result in a loss of millions of dollars to the economy.

He goes on to say that other reasons for this bill to be opposed include (a) it wouldn't really reduce the NWS' spending, since in order to forecast severe weather, they have to forecast 24 hours a day anyway, and (b) the benefits to Americans and American companies from this bill are neither uniform nor highly likely to occur. You can read Dr. Master's Weather Undergroundentire commentary here. There is also an online petition to stop this bill: sign the petition

While I'm certainly not in favor of wasteful government spending, the effectiveness of the NWS as a centralized weather agency certainly seems to indicate that we shouldn't be messing with a good thing. The NWS doesn't have a material impact on our country's economy (not the way things like, oh, the war in Iraq do), so cutting its services makes little sense in the overall scheme of things.

Basically, technology is killing you slowly. Yesterday, we found out that constant email use makes you retarded. Now, the Washington Post has a story about how thumbboards (a la Blackberries and Treos) can hurt the nerves and tendons in your hands:

Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as "overuse syndrome" or "BlackBerry thumb." In some patients, the disability has become severe.

The American Society of Hand Therapists issued a consumer alert in January saying that handheld electronics are causing an increasing amount of carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. With that warning, the society included directions on how to properly hold the devices, urging users to take breaks and, if possible, place pillows in their laps so their wrists are in a more upright position.

The obvious conclusion is for scientists to hurry up and get us those neural implants we've been asking for.

Interesting study reported on by CNN Europe:

LONDON, England -- Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard.

So that's why I've started getting the munchies after sitting at my desk for a while!

Read the entire story.

I was clued into this phenomenon by a colleague at work, but Googling for it turned up a rather fascinating piece of research by Mike Adams of ECSU:

The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall Of American Society

It has long been theorized that the week prior to an exam is an extremely dangerous time for the relatives of college students. Ever since I began my teaching career, I heard vague comments, incomplete references and unfinished remarks, all alluding to the "Dead Grandmother Problem." Few colleagues would ever be explicit in their description of what they knew, but I quickly discovered that anyone who was involved in teaching at the college level would react to any mention of the concept.

The basic problem can be stated very simply: A student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year.

Check out the entire report here.

To continue our fledgling "Gadget Bag" series, GearBits' own former contributor, Mitch Hamm, updates us on his gear du jour:

I have been through several digital eras in the past ten years. I think things kicked off seriously for me when Microsoft debuted Win95 and I was at the launch party ready to ditch Windows 3.1 and get on with my life. Reality set in soon after and I bailed from Windows for a four year defection to Linux. During this time I was heavily involved with the late, great HP 200LX palmtop. Once it became technically obsolete, I wandered in and out of the Palm world looking for a new love, but none ever came. I am still without a PDA that I rely on and trust like I did my old 200LX.

My latest digital era began long ago, but I never could wrap my head around the concept. I even came to Craig several times with my devious plan, but he just could not "grok" and I'm sure he still can't. I finally put my plan into motion in March after my employer let me know that I had been a very good boy last year...

My bag is a 15" Powersleeve made by Booq. It's just big enough to carry what I need, but not large enough to tempt me into carrying a bunch of extra junk. I also like the "portrait mode" suspension it has versus the conventional landscape mode.

In it I carry a 15" G4 Apple Powerbook. It is a 1.67 GHz model with 128 MB of VRAM, 1GB of main RAM, 100GB hard drive, an 8X Superdrive, Bluetooth 2.0, and built-in 802.11g wireless. I always wondered if the Powerbook hype was true and after two months with it I can say that yes, it's all that and a bag of chips.

Along with me in the Booq is a Radtech BT500 bluetooth mouse, an Apple iSight for stunning video conferencing, a 1GB iPod Shuffle for portable tunage, a Motorola HS810 bluetooth headset (works with the Powerbook and the phone), a Canon Powershot SD300 for pictures and movies, and a Motorola V710 phone keeps me in touch.

In the back pocket of the Booq I always have the latest issue of
Make magazine which is my new favorite publication. Most everything else I read on Zinio in digital format.

So it seems my digital life has come nearly full circle in the past
ten years of so. On Friday, April 29th, Apple launches "Tiger" and I'll be there. My how things have changed since Win95 came out...

We'll continue the series next week, so stay tuned.

So yesterday, I notice that my home printer, an HP Officejet 6110 4-in-1, has a blinking exclamation point and the LCD shows this:

------------------------
Error:
Left cartridge incorrect
------------------------

Incorrect? How can it be "incorrect?" It's the same cartridge that has been in there for 6 months or so now and has worked great for several dozen pages. Why is it suddenly "incorrect?"

Looking for an answer on HP's website, it provides unsurprising advice if cleaning the contacts doesn't work: "If the message recurs, replace the print cartridge indicated by the message."

Gee, yeah, at $30 a pop and with HP's financial problems mounting, I'm not surprised they're relying on built-in obsolescence of user-replaceable (but not serviceable) components. Coincidentally (or not), the date printed on the newly "incorrect" cartridge is 2005/05/24 -- one week from today.

I understand them wanting customers to have good printing results, so expiration dates on cartridges can help us avoid using ink that might not perform well. But, to just deactivate a cartridge at some arbitrary date regardless of the cartridge's ink quantity or quality, if that's what HP is doing, seems a bit disingenuous. That would be like the milk bottle suddenly locking its cap on the expiration date despite that particular bottle still containing some drinkable milk.

While I do think HP makes the best printers, this lack of honesty/consideration for its customers doesn't make for a healthy long-term outlook. You watch...someone with a better attitude and equally competent engineers will come along and eat HP's lunch.

I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but I just found out that I can pull up a list of every movie I've rented from Blockbuster.com, when it was sent to me, and when I returned it. This is pretty nifty info to be able to pull up. Here's the list of what we've rented since we joined last November:

Elf [P&S] (2003)
Godfather (1972) 
Last Samurai [WS] (2003) 
Mean Girls [WS] (2004) 
13 Going on 30 (2004) 
Donnie Darko (2001) 
Jersey Girl (2004) 
Raising Helen [WS] (2004) 
I, Robot [WS] (2004) 
Nightmare Before Christmas [Special Edition] (1993) 
Bad Santa (2003) 
Control Room (2003) 
United States of Leland (2002) 
Minority Report [WS] (2002) 
Casablanca [Special Edition] (1942) 
Elephant (2003) 
Mona Lisa Smile [WS] (2003) 
Dr. Strangelove [40th Anniversary Special Edition] (1964) 
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood [WS] (2002) 
Modern Times (1936) 
Terminal [WS] (2004) 
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004) 
Soylent Green (1973) 
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) 
School Ties (1992) 
Night in Casablanca (1946) 
Saved! [WS] (2003) 
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [Special Edition] (1975) 
Terminator [Special Edition] (1984) 
Amelie (2001) 
Army of Darkness [Limited Edition] (1992) 
Top Gun [Collector's Edition] [WS] - Bonus Disc (1986) 
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle [Unrated] (2004) 
Cutting Edge (1992) 
Taxi Driver [Collector's Edition] (1976) 
Andromeda Strain (1971) 

What I wish they'd do is offer up a little RSS feed of what I currently have out so I could add that feed to my blog's index page. Instead of a "Now Playing" showing what I'm listening to (as many people have), it could automatically show what movies we're watching.

In obvious imitation (and the corresponding flattery) of Gizmodo's "Gadget Bag" series, I thought I'd ask a few of my more tech-savvy friends what gear they carry around on a regular basis. First up to the plate is Bob Nonnenkamp, IT professional and really swell guy:

My gear "bags" are a laptop-carrying backpack and a belt holster.

I have grown to dislike most work travel. But not liking something, unfortunately, doesn't make it disappear. (Wouldn't that be nice?) So anything that makes me more productive on the road is goodness. Yeah, I might waste a bit of time at home getting all my toys to work, but that's fun.

I have a couple laptops for work, but I mainly use my ThinkPad T41. It's light and sports 2GB of memory, though my ideal laptop would have at least 3GB. The media-bay battery gives me a total of 8 hours of road warrior time for those coast to coast jaunts. Occasionally I add my external Plexor DVD writer to the laptop bag when I'm teaching a class.

For laptop connectivity, I used to connect my Sanyo4900 Sprint phone (unlimited data plan) cell phone to the laptop to stay on top of Instant Messaging and access mail. Being able to stay connected at 150 kilobits even though you're in a customer's secure computer room is a great way to get the job done fast, though I always get people bumming my notebook for network access. Now that I have a Treo650, I'm still waiting for Palm/Sprint to support the Bluetooth network access for my laptop. (Principles keep me from the buying PdaNet software to do this.)

This leads us to the belt holster, which holds the Treo650. I have a hybrid stereo microhone to listen to music while walking the dogs in the morning. The hybrid mic is also fun to make co-workers wonder whether I'm on the phone or listening to music. (That's a joke. They know I'm always on the phone.) For Treo650 audio in the minivan, I settled on a Belkin Tunecast. (The Tunecast II would auto-off when connected to my Treo650.) Hey, if you have to drive a minivan, you might as well figure out ways to enjoy it...like bringing a bunch of A/C appliances and large power inverter.

While I could listen to music collection my SD card, I'm not blessed with the phenomenal CD collection that Craig has. So, I typically use Pocket Tunes software to listen to Shoutcast internet radio streams, like WOXY (Bam! the future of rock 'n roll.) Now that's a good use of an unlimited data plan!

While I'm not big on using the Treo to web surf, I do occassionally use it for traffic video. (In DC, traffic is more important than politics.) I also use the Treo for for email, instant messaging, video, and remote computer access. VeriChat software keeps me in touch with my spouse and friends over IM. Pocket DVD Studio and MMPlayer for catching up on Sopranos episodes or old movies while waiting at the doctor's office. Lastly, the WebSphere palm vpn client (WECM) lets me tap onto my office LAN for telnet, VNC, and work IM.

Thanks, Bob!

Bill Gates has seen the future and apparently it looks a lot like the OQO:

A prototype of a new device - described by sources as a type of hybrid Tablet PC/eBook - has been making its way around the Microsoft Redmond campus, according to sources. The mini-Tablet, which measures about six inches by eight inches and features a digitizer, is just one of a number of new Tablet form factors expected to debut in the coming months.

Read more at Microsoft Watch.

Update: Here's a picture of a prototype. Blech!

I replaced a regular webcam with a wide-angle model -- the Creative WebCam Live! Ultra -- so I could see more of our family room (my infant daughter spends most of her day there).

The increased lens angle dramatically extends what can be seen, as the two shots below illustrate (old cam top, new cam bottom):

97X WOXY.com has upped the fidelity of their online broadcasts by employing an impressive and relatively new audio format: aacPlus. Two streams are currently offered:

Stereo aacPlus v2 48k - http://woxy.com/stream/aac48.pls
Stereo aacPlus v2 24k - http://woxy.com/stream/aac24.pls

At just 48kbps, a very modest bandwidth requirement, it sounds very, very close to what I'd consider "CD quality" audio. Impressive, indeed.

aacPlus, an MPEG-4 audio format, is the combination of three MPEG technologies comprising Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), coupled with Coding Technologies' Spectral Band Replication (SBR), and Parametric Stereo (PS) technologies. More about aacPlus can be read here.

According to an interesting article in The New York Times, data-mining and large-scale surveys are turning up interesting consistencies between the cars people drive and their political leanings.

Among their findings: buyers of American cars tend to be Republican - except, for some reason, those who buy Pontiacs, who tend to be Democrats. Foreign-brand compact cars are usually bought by Democrats - but not Mini Coopers, which are bought by almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. And Volvos may not actually represent quite what you think.

Two of the passages I found particularly interesting (possibly due to their personal relevance) are the following:

Scarborough found that Porsche owners identified themselves as Republican more often than owners of any other cars, with 59 percent calling themselves Republicans, 27 percent Democrats and the rest either calling themselves independents or declining to answer. Jaguars and Land Rovers also registered as very "Republican" vehicles.

"Volvos have become more plush and bourgeois, which is a Republican thing to be," said Mickey Kaus, a dual expert in politics and cars as the author of the Kausfiles and Gearbox columns for Slate. "Subaru is the new Volvo - that is, it is what Volvos used to be: trusty, rugged, inexpensive, unpretentious, performs well, maybe a bit ugly. You don't buy it because you want to show you have money; you buy it because you have college-professor values."

Read the full article if this piqued (not "peaked") your interest.

CNET News is reporting that a New York State Court of Appeals has granted extended protection to record companies' copyrights well beyond the federal copyright limits.

A New York State Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that protects record companies' copyrights - at least in that state - for works issued before the 1972 federal copyright statute.

EMI had sued to stop rival label Naxos from reissuing 1930s recordings originally recorded by Capitol Records, which have fallen into the public domain overseas.

This is dangerously thin ice. Since most innovation happens as a result of, or incorporates, existing ideas and works, the indefinite extension of copyrights will only serve to inhibit innovation in the long run.

Tomorrow, like Ohio and 16 other states before it, Kansas will offer its voters an option to ban gay marriage through the addition of an amendement to its state constitution. The Kansas City Star has more on the story. Here's why this action is wrong:

If marriage is a purely religious institution, which some argue, then the state has no (or very limited) right to control it by virtue of the 1st Amendment's separation of church and state. If a couple, or group, even, regardless of gender or sexuality, wants to be married religiously, all they need to do is find a consenting religious institution that will marry them. If the majority in a religion want to bar gay marriage in that religion, they are free to do so per the liberties and religious freedoms granted by the United States. Just like the state has no authority over baptisms, it would have no authority over a purely religious marriage.

However, if marriage is indeed a purely religious institution, then, because state and federal governments can show no preference for one religion over another (or over an absence of religion), religiously married couples should get no state/federal rights that unmarried couples can't receive, such as different tax specifications or medical benefits.

If, on the other hand, marriage is a purely civil institution, such as "civil unions," being incorporated, or being a registered voter, then the state has every right to control who can, and who cannot, be married. Just as the state can decide who may adopt a child and who may drive a car, it may decide that certain conditions must be met in order to be married. And, the corresponding civil benefits mentioned above could then be granted by the state as it sees fit.

However, if marriage is indeed a purely civil institution (i.e., based on secular principles), then there is no valid basis for discriminating against gays and lesbians. Some argue that homosexuals choose to be that way (a contentious argument), but if that were an acceptable basis, we would be justified in discriminating against people of certain religions (since we choose our religions...it is not an inherent part of our physiology) or particular political affiliations simply because we disagree with their beliefs/lifestyle/etc. Some argue that homosexuals cannot conceive children, the primary purpose of marriage. If that were a valid argument, then it would be appropriate to withhold marriage rights from anyone who is sterile or otherwise unable to reproduce. Obviously, both these arguments are poorly founded. Finally, some, if not most, argue that homosexuals should not marry because it goes against their religious beliefs. This is obviously of little relevance if marriage is a purely civil institution -- one person's religious beliefs should not (generally) be the basis for withholding the rights of another citizen who does not share those beliefs. If that were the case, no one in our country would be allowed to consume beef or pork, no one would have access to birth control, no one would be permitted to work on Saturday or Sunday, etc.

Clearly, neither of these two options fully explains the situation at hand. Therefore, there can be only a single explanation: that marriage in the US is a civil institution based on the dogma of a particular religion (Christianity) or religions. So, is it appropriate for a religious majority to withhold the civil rights of US citizens who do not agree with that religion's beliefs? Before you say "yes," consider this: isn't this inequity, repression, and loss of freedom precisely what we've been fighting against in the Middle East? Isn't the fact that certain religious groups have lorded over other groups, abusing that power by limiting the rights and liberties of the repressed, one of the factors that so outraged our leaders that we've sent troops or gone to war time and again? If so, why is it OK for us to repress our citizen minorities while it is not OK for other countries to repress theirs?

So, it follows that Kansas can legitimately ban the civil act of gay marriage if, and only if, it can find a rationale that (a) is not based on religion and (b) results in a significant common good unachievable by other measures. If the ban is based purely on religious doctrine, then it is at odds with the US Constitution. If the ban is not based on religion, but nor does it produce a common good unachievable by other measures, then the ban is pointless -- it merely eliminates the rights of some individuals to no benefit of others.

I hope that Kansans think about this before voting tomorrow, but I do not expect it will happen. If there is one thing this country seems to have no shortage of these days, it is religion-fueled intolerance. In that way, we're starting to look a lot like the parts of the world we've attempted to liberate.

Well, I've had to disable trackbacks here at GearBits due to an accelerating onslaught of tasteless trackback spam. When it was just "texas hold'em" and "v1agra," that was one thing, but now it's smutty listings like "gay bear sex." I don't even know what that means. :-|