Fiat Lux

It's not an issue I'm very vocal about, but I definitely think that the presidential primary system needs some serious reworking. Shakes today has a pointer to some interesting facts on this issue and how the current system may be skewing the results in unexpected ways; it's definitely worth a read.

I hate it that we have to start thinking about this stuff 2+ years before the next presidential elections, but I suppose we need to.

Oh, and if you're talking about things that skew the system, you cannot ignore the fact that running for President is a multi-year enterprise costing hundreds of millions of dollars. I'd really love to see public financing of elections, but nobody in power would ever vote for that particular change; it's too threatening to the status quo.

Tommy grooming Bear as they hang out on top of the office couch. I did a quick pass at cleaning the shot up but I probably need to do a full workup in Photoshop to really bring Bear's face out.

Unfortunately, I know jack about Photoshop beyond resizing and other basics. Maybe I ought to learn.

Apropos of my comments on the last photo I posted, I need to find a good graphics editing application. I already have at least three of them on my hard drive (not including whatever graphics apps came as part of Windows XP or MS Office): Photoshop 7, ImageReady and Picasa. And of those three, none quite meets my needs.

Photoshop, is, of course, the gold standard when it comes to graphics manipulation applications. It can be made to do just about anything, if you know how to do it (and can stand waiting for the program to load -- it takes forever, and I have a pretty good system here). And really, that's the problem. Even after a number of years, I have no clue how to use 80% of what Photoshop has to offer. There are a lot of books and classes out there for Photoshop, so it's not like I can't fill in the gap. And I may end up doing that if I can't find a better alternative. But still, using Photoshop for my personal photo editing feels like I'm using a Formula 1 race car to go buy the groceries. It's nice to have all that power, but I'd really prefer to have a daily driver for just puttering around town.

I also have Adobe's ImageReady program. It's more or less a junior version of Photoshop, with some of the high-powered editing taken out and some new features added to make resizing photos for the Web easier. And you'd think that would be exactly what I was looking for, given my complaints about Photoshop? Well, it is, but it's not. I hate the selection of filters that come in ImageReady. Adobe left all the cutesy filters -- like the ones that will make your image look like a charcoal drawing or a mosaic -- and took out the few Photoshop filters I actually knew how to use and liked using. I can crop and resize photos with ease, but editing them is still a hassle.

Finally, I have Picasa. And I don't like it either. It's reasonably intuitive to use, and does about 90% of what I need it to as far as photo editing goes, but unfortunately it also doubes as a photo management system. I've been keeping photos on my hard drive for a long time. I have a system in place for organizing them, and I really do not need Picasa trying to impose its own methodology onto my system. Even more annoying is the fact that you have to go through a series of steps and export photos into a new folder if you want to actually view the changes you have made to your photos in any application other than Picasa. More than anything else, this is a dealbreaker. It's a huge pain in the butt. If I open a photo for editing, I want to keep the edits! I don't want to have to export the editied photo to a new directory to have an edited version of my original photo. Finally, since Google owns Picasa, the interface is geared towards Gmail and Blogger, with no interface at all for Flickr.

On the OSS side of the house, I tried The Gimp on my Mac at work. Meh. It's powerful but the UI was kind of a pain.

There are probably hundreds of alternative applications out there. Scott has already suggested a couple for me to try, and try them I shall. But I'd like to hear from you, too. What's your favorite photo editor? If it's Photoshop, how did you learn to get the most out of it?

No, really. It might help my blogging.

I wrote three different blog entries in my head today while doing various things, but since I wasn't in front of my computer at the time, none of them made it onto my blog. And now, as I sit in the living room watching CSPAN and waiting for the Lieberman / Lamont primary results to come in, I can't really summon the enthusiasm to type out the posts I'd composed in my head.

On a private web board I belong to, one of the members said about the Lieberman / Lamont primary results tonight:

"i'm undecided on whether this is a great example of being a sore loser.
surely three viable choices is better than two? question, not a statement."

It's an interesting question. But ultimately, I think the answer is yes, this IS a good example of someone being a sore loser.

If an incumbent officeholder is defeated in his/her primary by a challenger, it sends a strong message that the members of that party do not want said person to hold that office anymore. The question then becomes, does that mean the incumbent should not have any opportunity to represent the entire electorate, based on the decision of the members of one party?

Of course not.

But that's not what's happening in Connecticut. Lieberman is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants the privileges of being an incumbent Democrat, with the attendant seniority and benefits that confers on him, but he also wants the freedom to blow off the will of the members of the Democratic party when it suits him.

That pisses me off.

The way I see it, if you're a Democrat, then you should accept the judgment of Democratic voters. If you're not a Democrat, then say so, and accept the consequences (no financial support from the party, no endorsements from high-profile Democrats, no access to other Democrats' fund-raising lists, etc). But to reject the will of Democratic voters while simultaneously expecting to be treated like any other Democrat is arrogant, gutless, and just plain wrong.

Kevin Drum has a new law (a la Godwin):

If you're forced to rely on random blog commenters to make a point about the prevalence of some form or another of disagreeable behavior, you've pretty much made exactly the opposite point.

Today seems to be one of those days where I spend more time admiring what other people wrote instead of coming up with something of my own to say. Bad me. But still, this paragraph of Digby's is too good to pass up:

But when it came to the war there is one blindingly obvious fact that nobody seems to think is significant: the Vietnam War split the Democrats because it was run by Democrats. The Pentagon papers didn't indict a bunch of Republicans, after all. It was Lieberman-Lamont writ very, very large and with much bigger consequences.

The fact is that most Democrats, not being natural authoritarians, don't put up with this crap from their leaders, of either party. They hold them accountable. Now I realize that for some twisted illogical reason that means they are seen as unserious and irresponsible in American politics, but it doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do. When your country is engaged in dangerous wars based on lies and obscure reasoning, it is immoral to say nothing simply because you are afraid it will make you look bad.

Read the rest. To the people who stop by this corner of the Internet, it's preaching to the choir, but a well-written sermon is worth it.

Apparently, despite this week's unpleasantness, the Bush administration has its security priorities in order .... NOT:

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the
Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

And this is not an isolated incident:

For more than four years, officials inside Homeland Security also have debated whether to deploy smaller trace explosive detectors — already in most American airports — to foreign airports to help stop any bomb chemicals or devices from making it onto U.S.-destined flights.

A 2002 Homeland report recommended "immediate deployment" of the trace units to key European airports, highlighting their low cost, $40,000 per unit, and their detection capabilities. The report said one such unit was able, 25 days later, to detect explosives residue inside the airplane where convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid was foiled in his attack in December 2001.

A 2005 report to Congress similarly urged that the trace detectors be used more aggressively, and strongly warned the continuing failure to distribute such detectors to foreign airports "may be an invitation to terrorist to ply their trade, using techniques that they have already used on a number of occasions."

Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.

So what exactly is DHS doing that is making us safer?

Sometimes you just need to hold on to something.

Really good Doonesbury today.

When I was younger, I would sometimes wonder how it was that some older people would seem to get ‘stuck’ on certain points of time. Relatives who would continue to dress as if it were still 30 years ago. Teachers whose music collection consisted of the same groups they had been listening to since high school. I just didn’t get it. Why didn’t they want to change with the times, try news things, and stay with the flow? Wasn’t the new stuff better?

I might understand it a bit more now, because I just don’t get one of the new Web 2.0 technology trends these days: browser-based software. What exactly makes it so much better than the current solutions?

For example, take Meebo. If you haven’t heard of them, Meebo is a company that has created a website which allows you to log into various IM clients - AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc - all on the same web page. More recently, they’ve added a “Meebo Me” web widget that you can put onto any website, and then have live real-time chats with anyone who visits that web page, no additional software required.

At any rate, I just don’t get what is so hot about this. I can see where if you’re traveling or on a public computer it might occasionally be useful to be able to log into an IM client via a web page, but I do not see how having to keep a web page open all day to use an application is so vastly superior to having a chat client installed on your hard drive. And I definitely don’t see the long-term business model, unless their plan is to have their technology acquired by someone like MySpace and cash out fast.

I can, however, see that if there were a way to connect Meebo into Trillian, or Adium, or even some kind of standalone desktop app or widget, then I’d be really loving MeeboMe. And so would many companies. Being able to do real-time chat on your webpage, without forcing your visitor to have to log into anything or install extra software, is a big plus. If Meebo launches something like this, I’ll be a big fan.

But for now, I feel like I am missing something here. Am I getting old and being left behind? Do I just not “get” the Web 2.0 models? Is it just that Meebo’s still in alpha and hasn’t launched its full set of features yet? Or is this a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

So a co-worked passed this link to me today -- a group is trying to shame McDonald's into not giving out toy Hummers with their Happy Meals. If you're so inclined, you can also make your own McDonald's road sign there.

Like this:

But oddly, after I was done checking the site out, I started thinking "wouldn't a hamburger for lunch be a good idea?"

Not that I would have gotten said burger at McD's, but still, it got me thinking. Maybe that Ronald McHummer site is in fact an evil marketing ploy designed to get people going to McDonald's!

Oh, and for the record, I ended up having schwarma for lunch. Yum yum.

This is what we went to war for?

Nearly five years after the ouster of the fundamentalist Taliban regime, President Hamid Karzai plans to breathe new life into a strict Islamic institution that many Afghans were happy to see die: the Amr Bilmaruf va Nahi az Mankar, or literally, "Do the good, don't do the bad."

Last month, Karzai's Cabinet approved a proposal to re-establish the agency also known as the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, whose police under the Taliban beat and imprisoned Afghans for violating Shariah law. For many, the revival of religious cops raises painful memories of ruffians zipping around Kabul in Datsun pickups mainly in search of women and girls who refused to wear the head-to-toe burqa, donned high heels, wore nail polish or walked down city streets without a male relative. Men were cited for sporting short beards, drinking alcohol, working during prayer time, playing chess or listening to nonreligious music.

Update 6:55PM:

Lest it be thought that I am suggesting that idiocy is confined to just one part of the world, how's this for stupid?

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action.

It's bad enough that we're all treated like potential terrorists every time we get onto an airplane, but now racist passengers also get a say in who gets to fly?

Maha has a great followup to the Flight 613 inanity.

Also, I've been meme-tagged. I'll work on it.

So, Sour Duck tagged me with the following meme:

Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe.

It's a huge list, especially if you add in some of the auxiliary collections available in the random generator. I found 5 quotes, but for all I know there might be others that are even better; I didn't have time to page through them all.

So, here we go. Here are five random quotes that resonate with me:

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
Kahlil Gibran

To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Benjamin Disraeli

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams

Stupid people always think they are right. Wise people listen to advice.
Proverbs 12:15

There's a right way and a wrong way to do things. If you make a chair, you want to make a nice chair. You want people to admire it. I think doing something well is a form of respect for humanity in general. I have found that all incompetence comes from not paying attention, which comes from people doing something that they don't want to do. And doing what you don't want to do means either you have no choice, or you don't think that the moments of your life are worth fighting for.
Hal Hartley

I would tag the Flabbergasted Time Lord, but he is on vacation right now. So I'll tag Seamus instead.

Because with a kitty as cute as this, why wait for Friday?

I need to figure out how to fix the 'glow' in Bear's right eye. Red-eye reduce doesn't seem to work when the glow is not red.

Grrr. First, Forbes.com posts a massively sexist article about how men should steer clear of marrying "career women", but I was at work & couldn't blog about it.

Then I get home & found that Forbes.com had gotten smart (or perhaps their female staff members & subscribers objected loudly enough) and pulled the article offline. I started to blog about it alyway, but somehow Movable Type ate my first version of this blog entry.

So just go read Echinde's summary and takedown.

UPDATE: this Opinionistas piece is really good too.

For whatever reason, I'm a little sad to hear this.

I have many fond memories of going to the Hayden Planetarium in NYC when I was growing up. It's undergone a massive renovation since I was last there, but I vividly remember the old permanent exhibits there and all the information about the planets. Will they will have to renovate again now that Pluto's been demoted?

Although this did make me smile a bit:

"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," [astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell] said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

This caught my eye while browsing through some blogs with my morning coffee:

If you're not sure what that is, you're looking at no fewer that twenty-five links to different social tagging / bookmarking services gracing the bottom of a blog post.

Can anyone say "lessons of the last boom not learned?" Social bookmarking as a market has not crossed the chasm. It may never do so. Why any entrepreneur (or VC for that matter) would think that yet another "me too!" del.icio.us copycat is the idea that will make them millions is just beyond me.

18 months from now, my bet is that no more than nine of those links will still work, and of those nine, three will be basically ghost sites. Even that sounds more generous than it actually is, because another three of those slots have in all liklihood already been filled -- by Fark, Yahoo, and the Yahoo-owned del.icio.us.

If it sounds like I'm hating on startups, I am not. I've worked for several and even had one of my own back in the Dark Ages. I'm just a little frustrated at the rampant lack of creativity. No matter what Dharmesh Shah says about trendspotting versus trendsetting, only so many people can jump onto any given bandwagon before the wagon is too full.

When I think about startups that I'd like to see, I tend to think more about video than I do geek toys like social bookmarking. Why? Video has long since crossed over into mainstream America, but despite the plethora of video uploading services, the potential of video has not even begun to be fully tapped. As Michael Mace pointed out a month or so ago, home video is very popular, but despite its having gone mainstream well over a decade ago, video still has some significant unsolved issues.

What are some of the possibilities out there? What about the ability to tag not just an entire video, but parts of a video, for more efficient searching? Or the ability to embed text within a video and make the whole thing searchable? How about more / better video editing tools for consumers? Maybe even some kind of online classroom to teach video camera owners how to shoot more interesting home videos so that less editing is actually needed in the first place?

Perhaps some of those startups are out there & I just haven't noticed them, or possibly all of these solutions have been thought up already and they're all off in stealth mode. If I had even half a clue about video technology I might even try to do a startup in the field myself.

At any rate, those are my Saturday morning coffee thoughts.

Some ... person ... decided that completely breaking my driver's side mirror would be a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon, so tomorrow morning at 7:30AM I get to go to the dealership and have a new mirror put in.

No note from the [expletive deleted] person who did it, of course, and the cost is lower than my deductible, so it's all on me. Very annoying. I had some plans for that $300 or so this is going to cost me.

On the bright side, I am glad that I could get an appointment so quickly, and that I don't really have to drive anywhere today. I feel naked driving without being able to use that mirror.

There's a lot of blogging going on this week about the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's taking down New Orleans and the surrounding communities. I haven't weighed in yet, in large part because I feel like I don't have all that much new or original to add to the vast pile of emotions, reactions, observations and condemnations swirling through the blogosphere (although Shakespeare's Sister did a great job of rounding up relevent links here).

There is one thing that I'd like to call a bit of attention to, though. Some bloggers either overtly or covertly pat themselves on the back when it comes to racial issues. "It's those nasty Republicans who are racists, not us!" the thought goes. Yes, there's a lot of racist Republicans out there, and many of them are not as obvious about it as George 'Macaca' Allen. But you know something? When you point a finger at someone else, three fingers point back at you. Even in the bluest of blue states, racism still rears its ugly head.

Last month, before I left for Barcelona, I met a friend from school for a lunch and some shopping at a high end mall near her new apartment. We had a great time & I got what I needed to get for the trip. But as we rested and sipped lemonade late in the afternoon, she started telling me about how annoying it was for her to shop at times. Clerks would follow her around the store, stop her and ask to see her receipts, or not be willing to help her out. Her mother (a VP at a publicly-traded tech company, by the way) had the same problem, although she'd found that a different mall was overall better than the one we were currently sitting in.

What could I say? I sympathized and agreed that the mall workers were jerks. But inside, I was shocked. I had honestly believed that kind of thing didn't happen in places like California, and I was wrong. Right here in the deep-blue, massively multi-ethnic SF Bay Area, my friend is being singled out by shop clerks as being more likely to shoplift because she's black. And I am shamed by that, not only because it happens, but because I had no clue it was going on.

That's something to think about as we point fingers at racist Republicans this week.

6:00AM: Wake up with massive, somewhat irrational stress-out related to school. Be completely unable to fall back asleep. Eventually get up and decide to mess around on computer until I relax enough to back to sleep.

7:00AM: Realize I'm still wide awake but am feeling chilly, put on sweats.

8:00AM: Finally sleepy, but hubby's alarm clock is about to go off. Decide the hell with sleep and make strong coffee.

Way to go, Oslo police!

"The Scream" and another stolen masterpiece by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were recovered by police on Thursday, two years after gunmen seized the paintings from an Oslo museum.

"'The Scream' and 'Madonna' are now in police possession," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage is much less than we could have feared."