August 2007 Archive
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August 28, 2007
Lyric of the Day
I seem to be spending my evenings with the iMac after dinner and chores. Too funny. It's only been a few days -- maybe the excellentness will wear off after awhile. And the Nats are on the west coast, so baseball (which we'd usually have on in the background while doing other stuff) doesn't start until late, anyway. Putter, putter with snazzy computer. And I just uploaded a bunch more pictures to Flickr. There was a complaint (heh) that there weren't enough Myszka pictures, so I dug up a few more of her.Anyway, lots of iTunes tonight. Today's lyric of the day is from Cohen's "Everybody Knows":
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
<=> | in: Journaling
August 25, 2007
New iMac
In 1990, I encountered my first desktop Macintosh computer. Having only used Windows (DOS and 3.0 or whatever it was way back then) previously, that Mac was a revelation. It had purty fonts and an easy to understand interface. It was the first computer I ever used a mouse with! It looked something like this.Ever since, I've been dying to have my own desktop Mac. But, after college (during which I just used computers in the labs) neither my research nor my work really required it. I should note that 1990 was also when I was introduced to UNIX (another amazing technology.) I bought an iBook back in the early 2000's when OS X arrived (terminal windows? emacs? on a Mac? Oh bliss..) But still no desktop. In 2004 I bought a sexy little Powerbook G4 to travel with and to carry around the house. Still no desktop.
Yesterday, 17 years after that first exposure, I finally acquired my very first Mac desktop. My new computer looks something like this:
This is really the most fun I've had with a computer in years, if not ever. The new iMacs are SWEET. Highly recommended. Two thumbs up!
<=> | in: Personal Organization / Technology
1 Comments --
August 23, 2007
Flickr Madness
I'm still going wild at Flickr. There are now more than 120 of my photos there (some of which are only visible to friends and family who have Flickr accounts, so go sign up). AND I ordered my first batch of Moo MiniCards, which I am inordinately tickled about.Did I mention I'm going to be getting one of those shiny new iMacs? Probably in September. The (self-made) rule is that I need to finish the transition to the new PC (which started in March; uggghhh, PCs are so annoying) and then I can get the new Mac. I was thinking Mac Pro, but those new iMacs are niiiice. And cheaper. And come with a display. And a camera. So there you go. Once I have that, my photography setup will be vastly improved and I'll probably be dumping even more on Flickr than I am already.
Everyone needs a new obsession now and then. I was planning to resist Flickr until I get the desktop Mac and all of my photos transferred to it, but that planned order of things seems to have reversed itself. It was the Minicards -- they are so cute!
<=> | in: Photography
August 21, 2007
Flickr Fun
Ok, I have now completely succumbed and will be posting my photos at Flickr from now on. I'm going to be backfilling some of my favorites over the next little while, too.I'm making some of my photos public (right now just a bunch of the ocean and beach at Virginia Beach), but many will be visible only to friends and family, so if you want to see those, you'll have to get an account at Flickr. As enticement, one of the current private photos is titled "My Iowa Boy Meets Atlantic Ocean." Public photos are viewable here.
I can't wait to have enough of my faves uploaded that I can order a batch of these Moo Cards that I've been drooling over since I first heard about them months ago...
Mmmmm.... Flickry Fun!
<=> | in: Photography
3 Comments --
what was keeping you from jumping sooner? Flickr seems like a fantastic service, and, aside from the inevitable background paranoia about when the fee structure will hit, I've never had anything but good experiences there... whee!! :)
Posted by: acm on August 27, 2007
(actually, I should revise: I used them free for a long time, and then I guess I ponied up the $20/year (?) to go "pro," mainly so I could keep more sets...
Posted by: acm on August 27, 2007
It's mostly resistance to handing over still more of my data. And to succumbing to yet another social networking phenom -- there are just too many of them.
But ease of use and convenience finally won out.
That I got tired of thinking about all the hundreds or thousands of photos sitting in my hard drive unseen by even me, much less anyone else...
Posted by: Medley on August 28, 2007
August 19, 2007
"Chilled" Red Wine? Old News, Mr. Wine Columnist.
I've seen a few links to this piece at slate which talks about "chilled" red wine as some sort of revelation.In fact, though, a chilled red offers all the thirst-quenching qualities of a good rosé and a lot more substance. It will also pair better with a cheeseburger, which is no minor consideration this time of year.I don't know - maybe the French only do that in the summer. But I've encountered it right here in these United States and everything I've ever heard or read about red wine says that the best temperature to serve it at is around 55-60. (That's cooler than room temperature, but warmer than your fridge.) Now, I don't know too many people who keep their house that cool, so, logically, if you want to serve red at a good temp, it should chill a little bit.
Like many Americans, I first encountered this seemingly heretical practice in France. As soon as the temperatures in Paris turn balmy, the bistros, brasseries, and cafes start putting a little chill into the carafes of vin rouge, at which point the wines assume a dual purpose: They complement your food and they refresh you.
I don't follow this logic myself frequently enough, but red wines that I just pull of the shelf in the house do have that "flabby" taste that the guy mentions in the article. And yes, he does go on and talk about the ideal serving temperature.
Chilling wines does not mean freezing them. The ideal serving temperature is somewhere between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit—which, as it happens, is the ideal storage temperature for wines (both reds and whites). Fifteen minutes in an ice bucket, or 15 to 30 minutes in the fridge, is usually all it takes to get a red wine to the optimal temperature and to put a strangely attractive sheen of condensation on the bottle. Anything longer is going to mute the fruit and accentuate the structure.Here's another source for optimal serving temperatures - nothing higher than 60. There's a reason people store wine in cellars after all. I don't think the guy really needed to go to France to learn this. Talking to his local sommelier would probably have sufficed.
<=> | in: Health & Food
August 18, 2007
Hate Must be Taught, After All
Hate must be taught, as the saying goes, and it's not just children who can be taught to hate. A little while ago Rick Perlstein wrote an all-too-familiar lament about his older relatives being fed a diet of viciousness and hate through avenues such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and being taught to hate ... people like him.She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.A little while ago I was sharing a related lament with one of my relatives and something occurred to me. Not only do we live in one of most prosperous nation-states in one of the most prosperous times that has ever been, with luxuries inconceivable just a century or two ago, we also live in a time where the most sophisticated and most effective propaganda machines ever to be constructed are at work every minute of every day. Most of the time these machines are aimed at reinforcing capitalist myths and emptying wallets, but a significant sliver of this newly-developed propaganda capacity is in the service of an ideology focused on fostering divisiveness and contempt for others. So, while I am appalled at the unthinking repetition of insidious wingnut memes that I hear all too often, I'm also sympathetic. It is very difficult to resist the propaganda even when it's transparent ("buy this beer and beautiful blonde women will have sex with you"), and much more so when it is meant to fly under the radar (see Frank Luntz's entire life's work, for example) and masked in a veneer of patriotism.
I'd look out of [my grandmother's] eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
Sara over at Orcinus had more to say about the grandma-snatchers and a proposed solution:
Perlstein's article has prompted a flood of comments, here and elsewhere, from anguished progressives whose mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents once instilled them with their liberal values -- but are now estranged from their families and lost to the right-wing airwaves. It's as though, while we weren't looking, the body-snatchers snuck in through the pipe and made off with their votes, their brains, and (occasionally) their money.
[...] America's elderly have been frightened by media fearmongers for as long as there's been TV -- and possibly (for those familiar with Father Coughlin), for as long as there's been radio. This is a fine old tradition, the natural outcome when the elderly are left alone too many hours each day with only a box for company. But it's not inevitable. There are things we can do about it.
[...] Most of us are very cautious and circumspect about leaving our children's developing minds to the tender mercies of the media. Those of us who care about the elders in our families might be equally vigilant about their media diets as well. We do not have to take the political hijacking of our seniors lying down, or assume that's just the way it is. We just have to do what we do with our kids: make sure they've got consistent access to appealing, age-appropriate media that gives them hope, confidence, and truly balanced ways of seeing the world.
<=> | in: Federal Politics / General Musings / Media Dysfunction / Religion & Politics / Republicans / Technology
August 15, 2007
Drought
I've been peering at my poor thirsty shrubs, lavender, and rosebushes all summer thinking that we simply must be in a drought and wondering why there's not more coverage of it. It has barely rained for 2 months - a couple of anemic thundershowers now and then. I water the shrubs and flowers in our new backyard, but I also don't want to be one of those people who wastes a lot of water on my yard. I've been totally ignoring the front of the townhouse, so that patch of grass is now a little sandbox, but I would like to at least keep the roses and lavender and ficus alive. So I water them by hand but don't use sprinklers. Anyway, liberal middle-class guilt aside, we are in a pretty major drought right now. And the Washington Post has finally decided to put it on the front page. Turns out it's gotten so bad that some wells are running dry on the Eastern Shore.Since the spring, rain has fallen at half its usual levels. The entire Washington region, from Loudoun County to the Chesapeake Bay, is suffering a severe drought. And no immediate relief is in sight. At Reagan National Airport, 4.19 inches of rain have fallen since June 1. Normal for that period: 8.22 inches. "The weather has been in a rut," said Douglas Le Comte, a drought specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. "We started a dry trend in mid-April and never really caught up."I wish we had a good spot for a rain barrel at our house - I wonder if we could tuck one in on the front behind the bushes. Hmmm...
<=> | in: Energy & Environment
1 Comments --
I have read your article about the possibility of a drought in your area.
I was wondering if you have the same problems with Water thieves that we have here in Australia ?
They are a new breed of water bandits that deprive people and stock of life saving water in rural areas.
It has become a serious problem in our area and the local farmers are guarding their water tanks used for drinking water.
Water thieves with portable pumps are draining dams and vital drinking water from storage tanks.
I have included a link referring to this practice website Romsey AustraliaPosted by: john on August 17, 2007
August 13, 2007
Housing Panics and Such
I don't pretend to understand at all what is going on in the real estate sector and associated hedge funds and over-leveraged banks and so on and so forth. I do, though, understand that a whole mess of ARM rate resets are coming, and that this is likely to wreak havoc well beyond the subprime mortgage market. This comment at MeFi seems informed.We were offered an ARM when we first bought our house and we said, "hell no" even then. We've refinanced twice since and are at a nice low 30-year-fixed.
And here we will sit and sit and sit. Because even though we're talking to our real estate agents about selling/buying, given what I'm reading right now, that is just not going to happen anytime soon. Sitting tight seems to be the order of the day - and perhaps the order of the next couple of years.
What I don't know, though, is how bad it is or how bad it's going to get. And reading too many blogs such as Housing Panic and The Housing Bubble Blog really mess with one's peace of mind. I suspect things could get very ugly out there.
Add in peak oil and the lunatics running the U.S. asylum like it's the last days of the Roman Empire, and ... hmmm.... I think I need to go run a nice warm bath and crawl under the covers...
3 Comments --
What I actually did was play around with ARM's (three or four) from 2000 to 2005, getting lower and lower rates. At the end of 2005, I found a ridiculously low 30 year fixed and jumped, no, pounced on it and here I remain. I have absolutely no plans to budge at this point.
The long term problems, aside from people who are hammered by their ARM's, is going to be an overall credit crunch. Want to borrow money for anything, from school, to cars, to anything else? Good luck. The massive debt being racketed up by our horrendously spendy administration isn't helping matters either.
At this point, if you're a renter, stay that way. If you have a fixed mortgage, stay put. If you have an ARM, march over to your bank and negotiate with them, intead of allowing a foreclosure. There will be too many people in the same boat for the banks to just "let" everyone default, but you'll have to get out there and pound some countertops to get it. (In any case, it's always better to go work with the bank instead of foreclosing -- you can very often work out something that will be less harmful to your credit than an actual foreclosure.)
Posted by: BEG on August 15, 2007
Having both lost and made money on house sales in the last 10 years, I guess I'm a little less concerned about this than most. Prices go up, they go down, you win some, you lose some. You have to live your life and should not be overly concerned about potential problems that may or may not occur. That said, I have no sympathy for those who bought huge houses that were at the fringe of what they could afford, not to mention being wasteful of land, energy, and resources. I have only a little sympathy for those who did not read all that paperwork they signed when buying a house. I would definitely recommend a renter buy now. It is a great time to buy, with interest rates still very low and plenty of houses on the market. But a few rules apply: buy what you can afford now, go with a mortgage company you trust (even if the rate is a little higher), plan to stay at least 2 years, and live where you want to live (real estate is highly localized, and the mantra "location location location" is still true).
Posted by: J on August 18, 2007
also, not all ARMs are evil -- that is, we got one 4 years ago where the initial was something absurd like 4%, with the presumption that we might well sell before the 7 years were up (for school district reasons). however, even our "balloon" is capped at something like 8%, so there's no rush to refinance at the current middling rates, at least for another couple of years, during which who-knows-what might happen...
Posted by: acm on August 27, 2007
August 12, 2007
Succumbing to Flickr
I have finally succumbed to the allure of Flickr. I was going to wait and make a big transition when I get my new desktop Mac and get all my photos organized (mebbe this decade; haha-funny-haha), but I wanted to put up a few pics of the windows installation and decided that just doing it through Flickr would be easier. So, if you are on Flickr and want to mark me as a contact, give a holler. I change my username there sometimes. Right now it's: 'NativeMainah'.If you are not on Flickr and know me and want to see the pictures of the recent windows installation, ask nicely ;-) and I can send you a guest pass link to see that set. Depending on what my usage model becomes, I don't know if I'll make those links available frequently or not; I may even post those guest pass links here (depending on the photoset) - we'll see. It's easy enough to get a Flickr account just to see other people's pictures, though - it's what I've been doing up until this past week.
2 Comments --
Hey, cool! I didn't know you could change your name on Flickr.
Also cool that you're there. :-)
Posted by: Liz on August 12, 2007
Ha ha, if you look at mine (you're friended there already), I've also been working on windows but from a slightly different angle...
Curiosity...how much did the windows cost? Cos I really should actually replace at least the current window set I'm working on, but... You can email me private if you like. They do look sharp!
Posted by: BEG on August 15, 2007
August 5, 2007
New Windows and Book Purge Progress
For those keeping track, our new windows were installed on Friday. Already, there is a significant difference in how hot the upstairs becomes. Not to mention, they look great and are wonderfully easy to use. So, yay! I took a few pictures of the installation and will post them as soon as I can find the little gadget that lets me move images from the camera to the computer.In other news, again for those keeping track, not only did I pull some more books off the shelves in my office to eventually leave the house as part of the big book purge of, uhh, 2005-20??, but a few books have actually left the house (instead of just being piled higher and higher in the closet). Shocker! We had a houseguest last weekend who got first dibs on going through the pile and taking away anything of interest. So - progress on that front, too.
<=> | in: Journaling
ooohh, iMac envy. I love those all-in-one wide screens. have had a Mac desktop for years (starting with the old doorstop you first loved), but stopped updating when I would have had to convert or replace all my peripherals to USB, so you can imagine the elderly vintage of my current model. (am a bit of a conservative when it comes to my little haiku publication, and right now everything Works Fine with the vintage setup.) have kept my Mac and PC laptops (or rather, laptop and tablet, respectively) a bit more current . . .
Posted by: acm on August 27, 2007