:: Life of Dave ::

:: Thursday, May 31 2007 ::

There was a really interesting show on race, class, and marriage in America as I was driving home from Japanese class this evening. It's on the radio show 'On Point', and you can read about this particular episode, and listen to it, on the website. Some really interesting, even shocking, facts came out, and while the host had a little trouble deriving causality, the raw facts stated during the show paint a grim picture.

When headlines this month announced divorce rates were down to their lowest point in decades that was true, sort of.

They're down for the college-educated and affluent. Up for the poor. And marriage itself is becoming the custom of the well-placed in society, a kind of luxury item.

As the host pointed out early on, none of the trends are new, but for some reason it's been under the radar (certainly under mine).
:: David (21:26 in Michigan, 3:26 in Paris) - Comment

So, I'm not going to rant and rave about the supreme court decision, because others have done it better. So head over to Bitch, PhD and read her entry titled the supreme court hates women.
:: David (10:57 in Michigan, 16:57 in Paris) - Comment

This is one of the funniest things I've seen for a while. A guy decided to compare two computers - a PC and a Mac - to see which one offered the best user experience. The funny? The comparison was between a 1986 Mac Plus (you know, the square box that you can turn into a fish tank) versus a modern windows box (in fact, one very much like the computer I just built). The even funnier is that the Mac won. Now, to be fair the test was intentionally biased to keep things even. But even so the absolute times were about equal, and isn't the whole point of a computer to save time? I mean, when it's not being used to waste time, of course!
:: David (8:16 in Michigan, 14:16 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[1]

:: Wednesday, May 30 2007 ::

Our friend Taymiya got her PhD yesterday, pseudo-officially (she got a piece of paper that says she will get a PhD, and it had a gold seal and everything), and so we all headed out to dinner, and after to a coffee house near the university which also serves as a hookah bar. This was my first time to use a hookah, and it's actually a lot of fun.
:: David (10:26 in Michigan, 16:26 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Tuesday, May 29 2007 ::

We had a final class with our Japanese teacher yesterday, before she heads off for Oz. It's sad, because now we have to work out what we're doing next. I'm enjoying the fact that my Japanese is ever so slowly getting better, so something must be found. In the meantime, I'll continue my Thursday night classes, and look for another tutor. Craigslist worked very well for us last time - we'll see if it can work further miracles....
:: David (10:07 in Michigan, 16:07 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Sunday, May 27 2007 ::

What a wonderful weekend of troubleshooting! The pain is made better knowing the problem has been fixed. So on Friday I had a root canal, and now my mouth is happy, and today I pulled one of the RAM modules from my gaming computer, and now it is happy. So there's loss, but there's gain. Isn't life wonderful?

Outside of that, we had two barbequeues in a row, last night here with fish, tonight... somewhere else with fish.

As I was typing this, I realized how useful the spell checker built in to Firefox is. I really can't live without it. Really!
:: David (18:57 in Michigan, 0:57 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[3]

:: Thursday, May 24 2007 ::

Anyone here an iTunes user? I seem to have two free songs to give away. So if you want free music, leave a comment.
:: David (16:49 in Michigan, 22:49 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[3]

:: Wednesday, May 23 2007 ::

The ugly American mythos got a whole new definition recently:

A naked American tourist raised eyebrows when he went for a walk through a German city and told police he thought this was acceptable behavior in Germany.

I wonder if the tourist board here in the states will try to dispel this idea now - I can't wait to see the posters!

There aren't too many details, but you can see the funny police quote at Reuters.
:: David (9:58 in Michigan, 15:58 in Paris) - Comment

:: Tuesday, May 22 2007 ::

One of my teeth has decided that it can no longer call my mouth 'home', and has let me know in no uncertain terms that it wants out. I'm hoping this will settle down between now and Friday (the day I have scheduled a nice early morning root canal / déménagement, because otherwise I'm likely to be useless between now and then.

And don't get me started on how bloomin' expensive root canals are, either!
:: David (13:23 in Michigan, 19:23 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Monday, May 21 2007 ::

Proof that some people, admittedly people who clearly come from a world which is now passed, aren't hip to the new media:

Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.

From a piece in the LA Times, written by Richard Schickel, "a film critic for Time magazine and a frequent book reviewer for The [LA?] Times."

What the author clearly missed is that the most important thing about reading a review is that the reviewer and you see things the same way. Now, don't get me wrong - there is space for erudite interpretation of works, but that isn't really what we think of when we think of 'review'. Generally, what we want to know is 'should we read X' or 'should we watch Y'. A review by Schickel would clearly not help people much if they think, for example, that the way he looks at the world is total bullocks.
:: David (15:15 in Michigan, 21:15 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

Sasha and I have discovered in ourselves a possibly unhealthy interest in the things that happen in front of our house. To be fair, since we sit next to the large picture window while eating, it's hard not to notice what's happening outside.

All of that is intended as a preface to the story I am about to tell, which drags you all in to our dirty little world. Yesterday, about nine in the evening, a lawnmower started briefly. We looked outside and saw, across the street, our new(ish) neighbours standing in their waist-deep lawn, with a lawnmower which was exhaling blue smoke.

Now, it probably goes without saying that if your lawn is waist deep, a little push lawn mower isn't the correct way to start. But they kept trying. About three more times we heard it start, choke, and die.

This morning, Sasha informed me they must have come to their senses, because there was some sort of lawn service doing the job.

There. Now you can't pick on us for amusing ourselves with the neighbours, as you, too, are implicated, having vicariously experienced the failed 'first mow of spring'.
:: David (13:46 in Michigan, 19:46 in Paris) - Comment

Honestly, is there a better side A to any record than Rush's 2112? No matter how many times I listen to it, I still love the idea of a 20 minute song that tells a story. But then, I've always been a sucker for prog rock and the concept album.
:: David (12:46 in Michigan, 18:46 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Sunday, May 20 2007 ::

Whole lotta quiet weekend, with not nearly as much World of Warcraft as you might think. We started to catch up on our Battlestar Galactica (lord only knows why we stopped watching - it's such a good show). Yesterday we met up with Nikki to buy tomato plants, today we headed over to a picnic hosted by my French speaking group, and then bought our wine for the summer (well, a case should last at least a part of the summer. Maybe a small part, but still...). So we have left the house, despite what you might have expected.

By the way, the WoW link is quite fun, if you haven't already seen it.
:: David (19:01 in Michigan, 1:01 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Friday, May 18 2007 ::

Well, I have finally gone over to the dark side. This morning I paid $20 to get a full copy of World of Warcraft and a 30 day subscription. I'm going to put it on prepaid cards so that I can turn it on and off whenever I want, but that won't stop it from eating my money - merely slow it down.

On the upside, it is beautiful. Amazing colors, lots and lots of detail, etc. Of course, all that has really done has made me want to find even more complex games so I can max out the video card. Hopefully I'll get in to one of the betas I applied to (Conan and Pirates of the Burning Sea) so I can push the machine even harder.
:: David (10:46 in Michigan, 16:46 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[1]

:: Thursday, May 17 2007 ::

I built the gaming computer last night. It was smooth as silk. Frighteningly easy, in fact. This morning I installed Civ IV on it to test. Sadly, I installed the wrong OS - it seems Windows XP x64 and my motherboard won't play nicely together. But when you consider what I expected was to spend a week debugging errors, reinstalling the operating system isn't all that bad.
:: David (16:53 in Michigan, 22:53 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[1]

In a very funny story today, one of the tech sites I read, engadget, temporarily knocked 4 billion off Apple's company valuation this morning after reporting the iphone and OS would be delayed... again. As it turns out, it was false - someone managed to spoof an all-staff letter inside apple - but the reactions were anything but amused. Except me. I'm amused.
:: David (13:20 in Michigan, 19:20 in Paris) - Comment

Farewell, Dominique de Villepin. Hello, Francois Fillon. France has a new prime minister to go with its new president (apparently he's also a jogging partner of the incoming president, according to the BBC). To be honest, I liked de Villepin, but he wasn't very effective (or perhaps it was Chirac). Regardless, with this guy, Sarkozy, and if rumours pan out a UMP majority in the senate as well, France could be looking at big changes. Or at the very least, big strikes.
:: David (10:12 in Michigan, 16:12 in Paris) - Comment

:: Wednesday, May 16 2007 ::

So due to the totally weird way the University of Michigan does health insurance (which, to be fair, is probably the way all universities do health insurance), Sasha has been without health coverage since May 1st. Sort of.

In the US, when someone would lose their health care coverage, a federal program called COBRA kicks in, which allows the person to pay for health insurance under the group plan they were previously covered under. Given all the recent articles about how much non-group health care costs, this can be a much better deal than it may sound.

This coverage is also retroactive to the date of loss of benefits. So, we'll be doing that. Now here's where it gets really fun: in addition to paying for my own health care through my employer, I am eligible to add my spouse. But her COBRA is cheaper. So I can also set up a health account which stores my pretax dollars for use paying that.

But the thing about these pre-tax accounts (which exist for all employed Americans - you can always set pre-tax dollars aside for health care and dental costs) is that you have to know how much to set aside. Exactly. If I'm not mistaken, any overage simply goes away. And, because you are effectively avoiding the taxman, they tax you in personal time instead, because every payment has to be carefully documented, coming out of your own pocket, and only then can it be reimbursed from the pre-tax money you've set aside. As you can imagine, this can be quite an onerous business, and if you don't have fixed costs becomes quite a gamble.
:: David (15:02 in Michigan, 21:02 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[3] - View Comments

The rest of my computer arrived today. Now it's just a matter of hooking the dozen or so cables up, and screwing all the parts into the (much larger than expected) case. I'm excited! Of course, I have a million things to do before I can play with the parts, but whatever. Tomorrow should be interesting - I have both French and Japanese things to do. We'll see if my brain can contain them both!
:: David (23:36 in Michigan, 5:36 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

Ah Kyushu. It's where I used to live, while I was working in Japan. It's where the cherry blossoms first bloom. And it's where a hospital set up a 'baby hatch' where people could drop off their unwanted children.

The idea, of course, was newborns. But it seems on the first day the hatch was open, a four-year-old was left. This has disquieted some. According to the BBC, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, said: "Parents have the obligation to raise their children. We find this extremely regrettable".
:: David (9:35 in Michigan, 15:35 in Paris) - Comment

:: Monday, May 14 2007 ::

Oh boy! The first few parts of my new computer arrived in the mail today! Now all I need is a case to put them all inside, a power supply to give them electricity, and a motherboard and processor to do the actual 'computing' part. But we'll get there soon!
:: David (23:34 in Michigan, 5:34 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[1]

Some of you may remember the Code Monkey music video I was so amused by a while back. Today my colleague Becca pointed out that the New York Times had done a major article on the singer, and the phenomenon of the B-list musician in our new, wired world. It discusses some of the challenges (at what point do you stop responding to -every- fan mail?) and new opportunities (now you can play concerts where you -know- you have fans, instead of wandering around trying to find them).
:: David (12:24 in Michigan, 18:24 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[3]

Quite a busy weekend. I went to a Magic: the Gathering tournament Friday night, then drove over to Kalamazoo to see my folks and friends, then back to Ann Arbor Sunday for various this 'n thats.

I started my new Japanese class last Thursday, and it is going to kick my butt - I thought a community education class would be a little less hard-core than it is. So I need to get with the serious studying sooner, rather than later. Sadly, finding the book is proving more difficult than expected. It seems everyone wants book one, but nobody makes it to book two.
:: David (9:42 in Michigan, 15:42 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Friday, May 11 2007 ::

I don't know if you all have heard about this or not, but there was a student teacher who was about to get her certificate when a picture of her was found on myspace with an alcoholic beverage, and she was therefore denied the cert. Or at least that's the most common version of the story. What I hadn't realized, but just discovered while reading a roundup of the story, was that this was an anti-pirate move by those who would keep the pastafarians down. It seems her pic was captioned 'drunken pirate'.
:: David (12:42 in Michigan, 18:42 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[5]

There's something you don't see every day:

A fistfight in the balcony stopped the music on opening night at the Boston Pops, drawing gasps from hundreds of well-heeled guests at one of the country's oldest and best-known city orchestras.

Reuters reported the story, and you can read the rest at MSNBC.
:: David (12:29 in Michigan, 18:29 in Paris) - Comment

All kinds of exciting blog work this evening - lots of fixing bugs, archiving content, changing layout, etc. I think the lines between posts are a little cleaner now, and are also happily under the control of the style sheets now. I've also created a goofy Life of Dave 2006 which goes along with the 2005, 2004, and 2003 edition.
:: David (2:13 in Michigan, 8:13 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Thursday, May 10 2007 ::

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was looking at getting a new system for gaming. In the end, I decided to build my own, and the wiki now lists the details of my system (and will be updated if things go awry).
:: David (13:05 in Michigan, 19:05 in Paris) - Comment

It looks like Joost has opened their beta a bit more, so if you'd like to try out some online television, drop me a note and I'll send you an invite. Of course, it's also rumoured to be opening to the public in a few days, so you could just wait, and then you wouldn't have to deal with constant system updates....
:: David (7:40 in Michigan, 13:40 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[4]

Some things catch your eye in the morning, no matter how tired you may be. The Le Monde email this morning telling me Tony Blair has announced his departure as the Prime Minister of Britain was definitely one of those. Obviously, the BBC has more, including a bio with some really awful school photos.
:: David (7:22 in Michigan, 13:22 in Paris) - Comment

:: Wednesday, May 9 2007 ::

I've decided I like PC games enough to buy a system to handle them, which means I have to do my usual 'research it to death' process. I've been keeping notes in the wiki, and if you really want to know too much about how my thought process works, you can go take a look. As you can see, I'm trying to keep it under one thousand dollars, without skimping on power. But it's difficult to do, as there are so many ways to spend extra....
:: David (0:05 in Michigan, 6:05 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[8]

:: Tuesday, May 8 2007 ::

I submitted my final paper this evening to my online class. Thank goodness it's over! It was interesting taking a 'real' online class, as I learned a great deal about how other people work (and how I work). It was a lot like when I was contracting for the OECD - I discovered a lot of things about my own work habits, some of which were not what I would have hoped to discover. But now I shall return to the realm of classes taken in person, with two (count 'em! Two!) Japanese courses each week. Fun for the whole family (as long as they like Japanese).
:: David (22:23 in Michigan, 4:23 in Paris) - Comment

I had about the funniest conversation ever today. A recruiter contacted me, wondering if I wanted a project management job. Why is this funny, you ask? Because the job was at Ford Motor Company. Which, I happen to know, just let a highly skilled project manager walk out the door (paid her to go, in fact). And now they want to pay a contracting agency to pay me to take her place. Corporations are silly beasts indeed. It's impossible to describe how creepy I would find going back to a place I left a decade ago (it was even in the same building!)
:: David (14:15 in Michigan, 20:15 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[2]

:: Monday, May 7 2007 ::

The beauty of technology is that it always surprises you, even when you know it's coming, it can still blindside you. I've been aware for some time of so-called 3-D printers - devices that could build a three dimensional object on the fly. Now the New York Times is reporting that they are about to become affordable to everyone. And they point out why you would want one: to replace that thingamajig you broke on your (coffeemaker, toaster, flatpack furniture, whatever). I had all the pieces, but the killer app never occurred to me. And now the way I expect the future to work has shifted. Really - it's that big.
:: David (23:19 in Michigan, 5:19 in Paris) - Comment

We spent a nice relaxing morning in Sharon Springs, then headed to the airport in the early afternoon. Seven hours later, we're home. The kitten was happy to see us, and we were happy to see our nice, hard bed, as we discovered that soft beds do not agree with us overmuch. Now it's back to the grind, and quite a grindy week it is, too, as I have a paper due for my online class, Sasha presents a paper this week at the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo (and have I ever mentioned how completely bewildered I was when I found out one of the largest scholarly conferences on the Middle Ages was held in Kalamazoo, Michigan?), and I start my Japanese class (a different one than the one I've been attending) on the same day as her paper. A busy week!
:: David (22:02 in Michigan, 4:02 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[4]

:: Sunday, May 6 2007 ::

Le Monde is reporting that Sarkozy is the new president of France, with 53 percent of the vote. He and Royale apparently split the Beyrou vote down the middle, which wasn't enough for the socialist candidate. Reportedly, police were out in force in the event Sarko won, due to fear of rioting in the suburbs.
:: David (14:25 in Michigan, 20:25 in Paris) - Comment

We had a little too much excitement yesterday, as Sasha's great uncle, who is 89, took a tumble at the local gas station and banged himself up a bit. He's home now, and other than the obvious seems to have suffered no long term ill effects. The gas station may not be so lucky, as they had not really done a very good job of marking the parking lot off during a big construction job.
:: David (10:33 in Michigan, 16:33 in Paris) - Comment

:: Saturday, May 5 2007 ::

We flew down to North Carolina Thursday, and then drove up to Danville, Virginia, where Sasha's folks had rented a U-Haul. We loaded it with stuff, and then Friday drove from Southern Virginia to central New York. 14 hours later, we collapsed into bed. Now the truck is unloaded, there's Ommegang in the fridge, and we have a couple of days to relax before the return flight. Busy, but diverting. My class on online teaching wraps up this Wednesday, so it will be a busy Tuesday and Wednesday night!
:: David (9:52 in Michigan, 15:52 in Paris) - Comment

:: Thursday, May 3 2007 ::

We're off to help Sasha's folks move a bunch of stuff up to the house in New York, so blogging may be slow. You can watch the Mina food bowl cam instead.
:: David (7:34 in Michigan, 13:34 in Paris) - Comment

:: Wednesday, May 2 2007 ::

Mental note: if you run a tech magazine, especially one that compares backing up your computer to flossing, check your backup servers, or else the first time you have a problem it will become news, and everyone will make the same stupid flossing joke.
:: David (10:01 in Michigan, 16:01 in Paris) - Comment

OK, so say I want to carry around a Prada purse, but the price seems a bit steep to me, for something that will soon be obsolete. I know, I know - me and Prada, not a good fit. Ignore that for the moment. So, here I am, wishing I had a designer bag. Enter Bag, Borrow, or Steal, which will allow me to rent that swanky couture by the month. Seriously. And next month, I can get a different one. Etc.
:: David (8:56 in Michigan, 14:56 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[3]

Would you believe simply putting up a series of numbers can earn you a cease-and-desist order? Apparently the sequence 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 is some sort of combination that allows people to decode the new high-definition DVDs. So therefore, again theoretically, I'm not allowed to post it. You can read more here. Notice the article doesn't show the numbers, merely links them.
:: David (7:38 in Michigan, 13:38 in Paris) - Comment - View Comments[8]

:: Tuesday, May 1 2007 ::

It's like Christmas morning around the office today, as another office closed, and all the equipment was shipped back here. Everyone is replacing monitors, printers, etc.
:: David (12:20 in Michigan, 18:20 in Paris) - Comment