All posts by jasonian

Thank you, America

[I expect I’ll have a more coherent response to this at some point but for now I just need to get this out.]

Every day we live through history. Every day we see things which haven’t happened before and which may never happen again. Things which simply haven’t happened for a long time. And we’ve never been alive as long as we have right now.

But that history is fleeting. Local. Personal. While some of it may end up in a drab textbook our grandkids must read , most of it will disappear into the vast maw of the mundane.

Not tonight.

This moment will live on for generations. It will affect how we see the world, and how the world sees us. We will remember it like we do the Challenger explosion; or the way our parents remember the Kennedy and King assassinations; the way we now remember the September 11 attacks: We lived through it together, and it immediately became part of our collective history. All of us recognized the moments as important. A few saw them as historical. Either way, we knew those moments would be talked about forever as cultural touchstones: “Where were you when…?”

But this moment has one huge difference: As I recognize the impact of it, I realize that for the first time in my life, I’m experiencing history that is positive. History I’ll recall with joy, not sorrow. History that makes me swell with pride, not cringe in sadness.

President Obama.

In just eleven weeks, I will be saying those words.

One day, my great grandkids will be reading those words, as part of this country’s new history.

They won’t recognize the meaning of it. He will be just another president—and this will be just another moment—they have to learn about, along with Washington and Lincoln; King and September 11. And they won’t understand why it meant so much to this country.

But I will.

Thank you, America.

People care about Science?

The California Aademy of Sciences reopened today in their brand new facility in Golden Gate Park. Thinking “hey! It’d be cool to go see the new digs!” we prepared to stroll over.

Turns out all of San Francisco had the same thought.

The radio host said free entry tickets “sold out” in an hour. Lines are hundreds of people long, looking like they might stretch a couple of miles. Without tickets, you don’t get in.

Fortunately, there are dozens of booths for food and entertainment, including the predictably bad live cover bands. There’s even a Ben & Jerry’s.

Whether people are here for the spectacle or the science I don’t know. I insist it’s the latter. Y suggests it’s the former. Either way, if it gets people thinking about science, that can only be a good thing.

March 16, 1992: Jumped on the Upper East Side

Fifteen years ago I got my ass kicked by four guys from New York’s Upper East Side. The scar from the stitches I needed above my right eye is still visible, if you look closely enough.

Back then I kept a sporadically updated journal, a habit I acquired thanks to my college english teacher. In it I scribbled a brief and slightly incoherent transcript of that attack:

March 16, 1992. 1:00 a.m.

Home, Bayonne. Can’t really sleep. Got jumped & beat up early Sunday (yesterday) morning (2:30-3am).

4 white guys thinking Tim & I were gay, jumped & beat the shit out of us.

We pulled up along side them, red light. They: making kissing motions, licking lips, etc. Us: returning same. One guy gets out motioning us to “come on,” picking a fight type thing. Before I know it, another guy pops out of the car, & smashes into Tim’s passenger side windshield, slightly shattering it.

Tim pulls off, smashing into their car. We’re flying, making a couple of turns to try & escape them. We turn into a hospital emergency room drivein type thing, & Tim stops to check his car.

As we stop, their car comes screaming through the entrance, & crashes into Tim’s car.

Again Tim takes off, I’m screaming “find a fucking precinct,” Tim is freaked & we come to a red light. Tim automatically takes right, leading us right into a dead-end.

Just like a bad fucking movie.

So we’re stuck in this cul-de-sac, & they again come flying down, again smashing into the car. I yell “unbuckle your seatbelt” to Tim, which we both do.

Suddenly the windows are being smashed, we’re being punched & kicked around the head, them yelling “get the gay; get the nigger”.

They break away, doormen come down, cops appear, ambulance appears.

I’m not sure why I ended it there. We were taken to a hospital for evaluation and treatment. I suffered a gash above my right eye which required several stitches to close. I lost one of my eye contacts, so I was half-blind for the rest of the evening. My favorite part is the cop who took my statement; in response to the “get the gay get the nigger” comment, he queried “so are you?” I presume my skin tone wasn’t in question, so he must have been asking about my sexual orientation. I have always wondered: would my answer make the attack more or less excusable?

Tim was my roommate in 1992, when he, Anton and I lived in a house in “butt-fuck Bayonne” New Jersey. We’d gone to a club of some type in lower Manhattan, and had just dropped his girlfriend off on the Upper East Side.

To this day I’m not sure why those guys engaged us in the first place. It was only after we glanced over at them and saw what they were doing in our direction did we respond in kind. I’m not sure why they did it, and I’m not sure why we did it back.

I’m also not sure why we didn’t dash into the emergency room we’d driven through. But clearly we weren’t thinking very well that evening.

Every few years this incident comes up for some reason. I was chatting with my buddy MichaelL about it, I don’t even remember why, and then a few days later found my old journal.

I’ve read a few of the entries in the journal, and while most of them are pure navel gazing, some rise to a level of passing interest to people who aren’t me. I plan to transcribe a few of those entries here.

Meanwhile, don’t go throwing kisses at strangers. Even if they’re doing it to you, you might not appreciate the end results.

Fascinated by McCain VP choice

I find myself unable to completely fathom Senator McCain’s choice of Sara Palin for Vice President. Earlier I suggested that McCain was supremely confident in his chances to win in November. After thinking this through, having the initial shock subside, and reading more about Governor Palin, I’m changing my mind.

I can’t imagine that McCain honestly believes selecting a running mate with less than two years’ experience as Governor of a state with the third lowest population in the country is the way to get elected. Palin would be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the land—and a 72-year-old heartbeat at that; is Palin really ready to be President should the unfortunate happen? 

Maybe McCain is scared witless, or throwing the election.

Perhaps he feels he can’t possibly win. The Electoral College map is breaking in Obama’s favor, and the Democratic party finally seems to have united behind their candidate. If he can’t win, he wants to at least go down in history as the presidential candidate who put the first woman on a Republican ticket.

Or perhaps McCain realizes that, at 72, he doesn’t really want to be President. He can’t just quit, so he choses someone so woefully under-qualified that no one could legitimately vote for them. After all, the very charges McCain has been leveling at Obama are can now be brought against Palin. If you shouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s “dangerously unprepared”, how do you vote for Palin?

There’s one more possibility. Palin is completely untested on the national stage. We don’t know how she’ll handle the pressure, or what skeletons might be in her closet. Could this be a total red herring? A political flea-flicker? Could they be planning to enjoy the media bounce from choosing Palin, only to have her step down just before the elections “for personal reasons”, and then bring in their “real” choice?

Of course, perhaps I give too much credit to McCain; perhaps he truly believes this selection is the way to victory. Nothing surprises me anymore.

McCain’s VP pick: Confident?

Just a day after Barack Obama accepted his historic nomination for President of the United States, John McCain shocked the world by selecting Sara Palin as his running mate.

By now, if you care you’ve already read all about her, and if you’re like me, you’re left with dueling impressions: on the one hand, wow, what a bold, out-of-the-box, dare I say maverick choice. And yet, on the other, seriously? After leveling charges of inexperience against your opponent, you select someone who has less experience on the world stage?

What this tells me is McCain is supremely confident in his chances to win the presidency. He’s basically saying that even with a complete unknown as his running mate, he can defeat Obama and Biden in November.

Either McCain believes the American people really can’t bring themselves to vote in large enough numbers for Obama, or there’s some kind of October Surprise planned that will completely derail Obama’s candidacy. Palin is certainly not the most prudent pick.

Whatever the reason (including the possibility that Palin is one of the best political minds in the country), McCain has successfully retaken the news cycle. People have already forgotten about yesterday’s historical event.

Well played Senator McCain.

What will be fascinating is to see how the Democrats choose to answer this challenge. Accusations of sexism were already leveled by the Clinton camp as one reason for her loss. Will the public, media and Democrats go easy on Palin because she’s a women, fearing such continued charges? Will Biden attack her as viciously as you would expect him to do against an established male Washington insider? Heck, does she have the experience and knowledge to effectively debate Biden on the issues?

The elections just became a bit more interesting.

An historic night in America

Tonight, for the first time in the history of this country, a Black man accepted the nomination of a major political party for the presidency of the United States of America.

I don’t have anything insightful to say, I just marvel at the achievement, one hundred and forty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and forty-three years after the Voting Rights Act.

I regret that eighteen months ago, when Barack Obama first decided to run for President, I didn’t become a citizen, because I didn’t think he would even get this far. I once said

I would love to see Obama run, and be elected, President of the United States. I’m just not sure the country’s ready to agree with me.

Regardless of what happens on Election Day, it’s clear that today, a large number of Americans are willing to put aside issues of race and vote for a man who inspires hope and appeals to our best nature.

Congratulations to Barack Obama.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

OK, I’m a dork.

I’m a dork who loves musicals.

And I’m a dork who loves Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly).

So, how in the world do I resist Whedon’s latest work, an internet-only musical called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog?

To make it even more inevitable, it stars Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and, of course, Doogie Howser, M.D.). And yes, I love NPH.

Dr. Horrible’s… is a wonderfully cheesy musical sendup of a wannabe super-villain and his arch-nemesis, with a beautiful woman and accompanying love story for good measure. If you’ve seen the Buffy musical episode Once More, With Feeling, you’ll have a good idea of the musical style (clever lyrics, hummable tunes).

Plus, it’s funny and sweet, and NPH is just about perfect.

Whedon, who’s currently preparing the very expensive-looking Dollhouse for FOX (will he ever learn?) explains the concept behind an internet-only show:

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. 

The first two Acts are available for free on the Dr. Horrible website. The third Act goes online July 19. If, like me, you find yourself humming the songs after just a single viewing (or you just want to support the idea of original, internet-only content), you may want to buy all three acts of Dr. Horrible… on iTunes; it’s just $4.00 for the season.

MotionX Poker: Fun with great touches

Heading to dinner tonight with Torrey, he mentioned how much he’s been enjoying the MotionX Poker (dice) game for his iPhone. It was also getting favorable reviews on the App Store (4 1/2 stars) so when I got home I went online and bought a copy.

Go buy this game!

I found myself saying “just one more roll!” more times than I’d like to count. The animation is fantastic, with dice bouncing around the table and colliding with each other; the sound of the dice hitting the table and the sound track are cool; shaking the iPhone to roll the dice is fun; and the overall game play and style is just darn neat. 

What really got me though were the little flourishes the developer added. Sometimes the dice come to rest sort of on their edges against each other. If you shake gently or violently, the dice get thrown the same way, and if you shake and keep shaking, the dice keep bouncing around until you stop.

But my favorite touch is the shadows beneath the dice: they shift as you move your iPhone, as if lit from an actual light source. This was so cool that at first I thought I was imagining it, but no, here are screenshots proving it (the first one is straight up vertical; the second rotated 90º counter-clockwise; the third is upside down; click on each to see it full-sized):

With 39 dice designs, 14 collectable gems, and five table designs, all of which require you to achieve certain goals and milestones to unlock, I don’t see this game getting dull anytime soon. And at just $5, it’s priced right.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just give it one more roll….

How (not) to solve technical problems

Tonight I had a problem with MobileMe’s iDisk: I kept getting an “Error -35” while trying to access it, with a dialog that my “member name or password may be invalid”. If I went to System Preferences > MobileMe, I was in fact logged in, so my credentials were indeed valid.

I searched Apple’s Support site and found an article (appropriately titled “Error code -35” when accessing your iDisk) explaining the issue and how to solve it. Unfortunately, they made a cardinal sin in providing a resolution: they started with a sledgehammer.

There are three specific things you’re asked to try:

1. Log out and log back in.

2. Restart your computer

3. Sign out of MobileMe, then sign back in

And yes, that’s the order they presented them. In fact, the third option is prefaced by something of a caveat: “if the issue persists, follow these additional steps”.

Why is the least destructive solution, one that you expect to work, given last? That should have been the very first option provided, followed by the log out/log in, then the restart.

Lest destructive to most destructive. This is basic troubleshooting. You don’t reinstall the OS until you’ve moved aside a preference file, and you don’t force me to tear down my environment if a simple option toggle might solve the problem.

A message to you iTunes: Better think of your future

A few weeks after getting a new computer, I still haven’t set it up: I continue to use a MacBook Pro borrowed from work. It hasn’t been a significant issue since a lot of what I do is in The Cloudâ„¢ and the rest is original creations. (If the stock market ever recovers, I’ll recover the previous original creations.)

One oddity though was iTunes. Since this is a new machine, it’s not authorized to play any of my DRM’d audio. This wasn’t a big deal because I don’t play much music from my laptop.

That is, until I went to lunch with my friend/realtor/recruiter Emily.

Over Panang Curry Chicken and Tofu, we talked about her love of All Things Ska. (So much does she love it that her soon-to-arrive BMW Mini will be white with black stripes, with a ska-themed license plate.) I love The Specials, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt and many others so I asked Em to send me her Ska playlist, which she did, along with a cool video on the history of Ska. 

Watching the video made me want to listen to more Ska, so I fired up iTunes, headed to the iTunes Store, sought out The Specials, clicked Add Album and prepared to spend $9.99 to relieve my youth.

D’oh! I’d already authorized my limit of computers. I could buy the album, but I’d have to de-authorize a computer to play it. Since one of my computers was no longer in my hands, I’d have to deauth them all. What to do?

Duh. Go to Amazon.com, of course.

Five minutes and an application download later, and I was happily buying The Specials and More Specials. Higher quality, DRM-free, and I saved a $1.50.

What’s not to love? (Well, a lot, but that’s for another entry.)

I’m going to slowly make my way through my iTunes Shopping Cart, where I keep the albums and songs I want to buy (c’mon Apple, add a “save for later” option already!) and see if they’re available on Amazon. Other than The Specials, I’ve picked up Whipped Cream and Other Delights (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass) and Etta James’ At Last.

iTunes continues to have the (considerable) advantage over Amazon of a broader selection (in things they share, like music, videos and TV shows, and things they don’t, like, podcasts, games and iTunes U. I’ll be buying Zero 7’s Simple Things through iTunes eventually, for example). But Amazon has earned, if not the first thought in my music searches, a second-look-before-buying position, and that’s damn impressive.

So iTunes, a message to you:

Stop your messin’ around
Better think of your future
Time you straightened right out

— Your friend, Rudy.