Random: May 2004 Archives

The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran an essay by a Muslim woman in which she muses on the parallels between her religion and her computing platform.

The Mac operating system was created from scratch with the goal of being simple. When you turn a Mac on, the desktop is not an artificial environment created to navigate through DOS but is, in fact, the actual environment. Muslims are encouraged by the Koran to look at the world with curiosity and wonder, not to be afraid of scientific discovery. God's creations are "signs" to us of his design, which God wants us to explore and theorize about. The Koran liberates us to ask, "Why?" This accessibility to God is a major attraction for many Muslim converts. Being Muslim, and also being a Mac user, is empowering because both put me in control.

Somewhat related: she was apparently considering law school at the same time I was in graduate school, and tells a story about how the professor was distributing class materials on disk and asked who would need this in Mac format. When a quarter of the class raised their hands, he gave a surprised chuckle. This was "a time before downloading off the Internet became easy," she says.

Well, at my school in 1997, downloading off the Internet was quite easy! In fact, wasn't 1997 the year of the dot-com takeoff? We kept being told to order our books on Amazon.com (which, of course, kept running out of the somewhat obscure texts because nobody had told them they'd be needed — and that's why campus bookstores still exist, people!) and our course syllabi were all put on the web (as well as some of our reading assignments).

What we didn't have was Mac support. The high-tech computer lab came courtesy of some Silicon Valley company, but it wasn't Apple, and the lab staff hated having to support the token Macintosh or two that were there. So that's how I learned to use (though not love) Windows... I wonder if things have changed now that Apple upgraded to OS X.

Saw this on a walk along Grand Avenue in Oakland a few weeks ago, and was understandably amused:

The shopowners are aware of the humor in the situation as well. The tiny rectangle on the chocolate shop is an article they posted from a local paper — apparently the Weight Watchers was there first, but they've been accepting of their new neighbor. The chocolate shop has also marketed itself carefully ("Two pieces of candy = 3 points!" or something like that.)

One customer reportedly walked into the shop, sniffed, "Well, this is one helluva location!" and ordered a gelato.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to get Anakin to embrace the Dark Side as quickly as possible, perhaps by forcing him to confront some terrible disappointment that will haunt him for the rest of his days. We suggest this two-line scene set in a Coruscant restaurant:

WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

Anakin puts on his black helmet and storms off to his local county clerk’s office and fills out the paperwork to have his name legally changed to “Darth Annie Vader.” (He later quietly drops the middle name, realizing it doesn’t help his macho image.) And then for the next two hours, it’s all special-effects spaceship battles, which is the real reason most of us will go to the theater anyway. Fade to black.

From an article on how the third Star Wars movie, which is coming out next year, could be salvaged (or at least, not as bad as the first two were), on MSNBC's website.

Slashdot has a story today about the family of one Professor Edward Kasner, the man who coined the mathematical concept of "Googol" ... it seems that they are considering a lawsuit because Google is using the word without drawing attention to Professor Kasner's achievements.

This (rather silly) story reminded me that I had read about the Googol (a one followed by 100 zeroes) someplace when I was in grade school. When I proudly tried to share my newfound knowledge with one of my teachers, he laughed at me and accused me of having made it up. I was really mad at him.

I assume by now he's heard of Google? Ha. How you like me now? Punk.

(Actually, other than that, he was a pretty cool teacher and it was a nice school. They just weren't ahead of the curve like I was. Yeah, that's it.)

Google News displayed the Washington Times story on legalized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts like so:

It's nice to hear some good news!

O.K., Is this really necessary? Am I just being grouchy because I haven't had enough coffee or sleep? I will admit to mocking my share of submitted resumes in my day. (My favorite was the applicant with "experience in pubic relations." But it's one thing to be snide in the privacy of your office with only your equally snide coworkers to bear witness. It's another thing to display your snideness to the world and would-be applicants. (Though perhaps it also warns them what they're getting into)

Please note: If you send a resume, we won’t read it. We won’t even open it. We will file your application under ‘can’t follow simple instructions’. In order to apply, please send an e-mail without any attachments, that answers these questions:

Name and phone number deleted to protect the guilty (though you can find it on Craigslist today):

Author more than half-way done completing a book on the secret causes of deliberate mass unemploymnet. Looking for an assistant or co-author for 10 or more hrs/week. Author is offering between 1/3-1/2 of royalties depending upon contribution made. Especially needed is someone to write letters asking for permission to use copyright material; write & organize end notes; and compile index. Due to the intense public debate on mass unemployment, the book has great promise for financial reward. Call XXXX at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

He didn't say he needed a proofreader, though! But I'm guessing that wouldn't hurt.

Also, the "Friends" finale might have distracted some... but there's a lot going on!

• FDA rulls against over-the-counter "morning-after" pill due to religious-right pressure, despite recommendations from its own advisory panel
• Bush flip-flops, backs away from previous concessions to Sharon, and mideast talks are back on
• UN missions finds "reign of terror" going on in Darfur region of Sudan as Arab militias are trying to drive black Africans out of their homes
• Alan Greenspan says "rising federal deficits may be the biggest threat to the nation's longterm economic stability"
• Plans are underway for a possible revival of the military draft in 2005 which would include women, and extend to age 34

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems like suddenly, walking has become hip! At the least, it's getting some positive attention. The Chronicle is running a series of articles by a guy whose goal is to walk every street in San Francisco, and the first installment brought in a small flood of letters from readers who confessed their own pedestrian activity.

And Alternet ran an article last week pointing out that:

All across the land, people are speaking up, organizing meetings, fighting city hall and, in some cases, working with city hall to make streets safer and more pleasant for pedestrians. They've gotten crosswalks painted in some places, streets narrowed in others, stop signs and speed bumps installed, zoning ordinances changed to promote pedestrian-friendly development, and plans created to help kids walk or bike to school.

These issues reach deep into the heart of people's lives. Two neighbors bump into one another on the sidewalk and start talking about planting more flowers along the street, turning an empty storefront into a coffee shop or lobbying the city council to add bike lanes to that busy road. In small but important ways, these people are changing the face of America block by block.

I love walking, especially this time of year in California, where it's sunny most days, and each day the sunlight lasts a little longer. It's a great form of exercise that almost doesn't seem like exercise. When I was in graduate school, I walked to campus most days, and often, I'd walk back as well. It was three miles each way. Without changing my diet, I started losing weight. People kept asking me what was going on, and when I explained, they'd look startled. "You walk all that way?" As the Alternet article says,

Walking, in many ways, is still viewed as an exotic and slightly odd habit. Try this experiment some time at a party or other gathering: Announce that you are walking home. I'll bet you, two-to-one odds, that someone will offer a ride, even if you live just three blocks away and it's a sunny 80 degrees outside. This is a generous gesture, of course, seen by most folks as similar to giving a glass of water to someone who says they're thirsty. Why walk if you could go in a car?

Because walking is a lot nicer, that's why! You put one foot in front of the other, you look at stuff around you, you space out a bit, and sooner than you expected, you're at your destination. It beats the gym any day. (Especially this gym)