Author: geoff

It's a small world: The Votemaster

For some months now one of my “must read” web sites has been Electoral-Vote.COM. (Me and over half a million others every day!) I’ve watched the maps showing the aggregated results of recent opinion polls, I’ve read “the Votemaster’s” pained accounts of wrestling with different algorithms for aggregating, averaging, aging, and presenting the data. I’ve even contributed a few bucks to support the effort. Through all this, I had no idea who “the Votemaster” might be, until today. In the Votemaster FAQ , all is revealed: “My name is Andrew Tanenbaum. I am one of the 7 million U.S. citizens living abroad. I am a professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. […] I can write fairly complex software. I wrote MINIX, the precursor to Linux, for example.”

Ah, that Andy Tanenbaum! “Mister Minix.” Now where did I put my battered copy of Operating Systems: Design and Implementation?

Lucy's

We’ve lived in various places over the last 30+ years: a year in Hayes, three years in Newcastle-on-Tyne, four years in Chesham, nineteen years in Foxboro, and now four years in Brookline. In all that time we’ve never really had a “local”: a regular place to hang out and eat or drink. In England the “local” is usually a pub, but our nearest pubs in both Newcastle and Chesham were dismal places. And Foxboro was the kind of dormitory suburb without a centre, where most socializing happened at the homes of friends and neighbours. Oh yes, we’ve patronized various restaurants, but we never got to know the staff as friends.
But here in Brookline I think we’ve found our “local”: a really nice, interesting, friendly restaurant called Lucy’s. OK, it isn’t very local – it’s up at Coolidge Corner, about 4 miles away. But over the last year or so we’ve found ourselves eating there more and more often, or simply stopping in for a cocktail and a chat. The food is really good and always imaginative. This afternoon we were shopping at Coolidge Corner, and we found ourselves rearranging our schedule in order to be at the door of Lucy’s when it opened at five. We had a martini and chatted with Mitzi (the proprietor) for about half an hour before heading home to deal with the trick-or-treaters. Sure feels like a local to me.
Lucy’s. Recommended. See you there.

Halloween evening

It was one of the warmest Halloweens I can remember recently, and we’d put a carved and painted pumpkin outside, so I decided to sit outside to receive the trick-or-treaters. Although we got a lot of kids this year, they tended to come in gaggles, so I took a book out with me. I actually spent the time reading chapter 2 of Chalmers’ The Conscious Mind on Supervenience and Explanation. Supervenience is one of those cool logical/philosophical tools that leaves you wondering how you ever got by with fuzzy notions like “depends on”. Mind you, I am having difficulty working up a lot of sympathy for some of Chalmers’ ideas about consciousness – specifically, I can’t see why he finds phenomenal consciousness “surprising” and “troubling” – but as Dennett says, “explore before you deplore.”

Not your grandfather's Vatican…

With the blessing of the Vatican, two Italian theologians have just published a book on sex for Catholics, entitled It’s A Sin Not To Do It. One might be forgiven for thinking that this is just a way to get the faithful to increase the Catholic birth-rate; far from it. It’s much more expansive in scope. For example, as the Telegraph reports, the book “unearths theological justification for post-coital masturbation for women who fail to achieve orgasm during intercourse”. How times change. Mentioning something like that in the Catholic school I attended back in the early 1960s would have meant six of the best. (But I thought Catholic teaching was supposed to be inerrant and eternal….smile6.gif)

Eminem's "Mosh"

eminemI finally got a chance to watch the politically-charged video for Eminem’s “Mosh”. I’m not a big rap fan, although I really like Maxie Jazz and Faithless, and I’ve never gone for Eminem (even if Elton John has exonerated him). However Mosh really worked for me. It’s powerful, and absolutely spot-on. A precision-guided musical weapon headed for the White House. Crank up the volume, check it out, get angry, and VOTE.

Celtics… then Pats… now the Red Sox

So finally, incredibly, the Red Sox have done it.
When I came to the USA 23 years ago, Boston sports was all about the Celtics. Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, and all the rest of them: although there were various pretenders (Philly? LA?) the Celtics were the natural champions.
Then came a drought. Occasionally the Red Sox would tease their fans, but everybody knew better than to take them seriously.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the star-less Patriots started winning; grinding out victories with a frightening implacability.
And now, from the depths of despair after three games of the ALCS, the Red Sox have swept to victory, under a total eclipse of the moon. Sweet. Stay safe, everybody.

Mobility

Tim wrote: “Bluetooth? I think it hits the sweet spot for me. I’d totally love one of the hot new phones with high-speed flat-rate data that I can leave in my bag. Then I stick a Bluetooth headset over one ear, and then have my computer connect through it so I’m really on the Net all the time.
But… iPod? Blackberry? Texting? Not for me, thanks; at the moment anyhow. Are there others like me?”

Today I use a Nokia 3650 phone and my PowerBook. Both support Bluetooth. The phone has a (primitive) camera, and I can easily transfer the photos to my PowerBook and into iPhoto. I also use Romeo and Veta Universal to use my phone as a wireless mouse for the PowerBook. I sometimes use my phone to display speaker notes during presentations, which I transfer from the PowerBook. I’d like to sync my PowrBook’s iCal calendar into my phone, but I haven’t yet taken the time to sync Sun’s EdgeCal service with iCal. I don’t use my phone as a modem, not because I can’t but because people tell me it’s far to easy to run up enormous phone bills. (I don’t have an “unlimited data” plan.) All of these features use BlueTooth.
iPod? Yes, I have one: I love it for long flights, or walks; I also play it through my car stereo. Texting? Not outbound, but absolutely inbound. I have EdgeCal set up to send a text message to my phone 10 minutes before every appointment, including location and phone number (for phone conferences). Not only does this work when I’m not online; the discreet “beep” is a great way of initiating a graceful end to my previous meeting, so that I can actually get to the next one on time! (An alien concept to many, I know.) And I definitely use the browser on my phone for ad hoc information – headlines, stock prices, sports scores (GO SOX!!!), flight schedules. (Oh, yes: I use text messaging to get flight and upgrade notices.)
Having said all this, I’m probably going to switch to the Treo 650 when AT&T Wireless starts shipping the GSM version. Better screen, cleaner browsing, more apps, usable games…. I’ve tried games on the Nokia 3650, but it’s really not quite usable – partly because of the quirky circular keypad. I figure that the Treo 650 should be almost as usable as my GameBoy Advanced.

Hitchens vs. Hitchens

ChristopherHitchens.jpgOK, this is priceless. The mercurial expat Brit writer Christopher Hitchens (note my restrained description) has seen fit to endorse both Kerry and Bush!! Maybe another bottle of port will cure his double vision. Or perhaps he should stick to writing about Henry Kissinger and George Orwell.
(Thanks to Atrios.)