Hah!
I've just discovered the Party Shuffle feature on my iTunes. I've got something like 1100 tunes loaded up by now and some I don't know really well. I bought a huge compilation recently of all the music from La Femme Nikita (one of my favorite shows and pretty cutting edge in its music selections) and so I am hearing some stuff for the first time.
For those of you who don't know iTunes, it can select music randomly from your library (or just from your list of most recently played tunes). I've used these sort of features before with players like Winamp or equivalents under Linux but the ease of use of iTunes (the interface quality) far surpasses these other players.
It's all about ease of use. My new mantra.
Say it after me boys and girls.
I'm watching CSPAN at the moment. On it are folks from the American Enterprise Institute (which is notably right wing) talking about the handover and the structure left behind.
Radek Sikorski, the former Polish Deputy Defense Minister, is very well spoken. He is discussed the negative effects of installing a system of proportional representation as left behind by Paul Bremer. He sees it as a very serious mistake as it breaks the link between the people and their representatives.
They (the Iraqi candidates for election) cannot adequately represent their people if they do not know them. The current system would introduce an element of balkanization into the election.
I didn't hear the whole discussion but I'm a little concerned that of all the various democratic systems we could have left behind we left one that is so seriously flawed. Sikorski made the point that the last nation to use such a system without checks and balances was the Weimar Republic (and that this system allowed the Nazi party to rise to power).
Hmmm.
This just totally rocks. Ran into an entrepreneur in the local Starbucks here in Coppell and he had a 15" TiBook like mine. So naturally we got to chatting. Somehow the conversation got around to VOIP and he showed me his tech. Very cool.
I went to FreeWorld and signed up for an account and got issued a phone number: 443326 for those who want to call me. Then I went and got a free softphone and installed and configured it on my OS X Powerbook.
Armed with my new virtual phone number and virtual SIP phone I can now make calls to any other SIP phone user and.. wait for it.. to real telephones.
Yep.. there is a bridging service, currently free, that lets me call real phones.
Just preface your number with a * and then the real phone number and you're off and running. Called my Mom (first thing, right) after making sure the phone actually worked.
This has got to be the wave of the future (or at least one of them).
Performance is pretty good. Better if one buys the softphone ('cause it uses better codecs) and even better (best) if one buys a hardware version of the SIP phone.
I just used my built-in laptop microphone (who would have thought it would work so well) after calibration and a standard set of headphones (useful for sound quality and to avoid feedback).
I heartily recommend it. Soft phones are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. All you need is a fast Internet connection (minimum 56k recommended for full-duplex). Give it a try and call me. I'll be leaving my phone on most days.. waiting expectantly.
No.. I don't yet know how to call an SIP phone from a landline. I have yet to investigate that.
It's a sad statement that the best reporting in Iraq comes from our allies rather than through US news channels. But so be it. Here's a very interesting article on the psyche of the American troops scattered through firebases around Baghdad.
If one was in any doubt about the danger of operating in occupied Iraq, this article dispells that doubt.
I have no faith that the Iraqis will bring democracy to their own country, even with our "help." Mark my words, within six months of serious force reduction levels we're going to be looking at another Ayatollah-driven theocratic state.
Worse off than before we went to war.
Well, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling (PDF) today that tendered a serious reverse to the Bush administration in their attempt to deny civil rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Basically, the administration had tried to pull a fast one. They claimed that the US territory in Cuba (the Guantanamo Bay naval base) wasn't really sovereign territory because it was "owned" by Cuba. Thus, US law didn't apply and US (and foreign citizens) detained there didn't have a right to protection under US law (this was just one of many claims).
Today the US Supreme Court denied that contention in a 6-3 vote (thank God). Now the detainees will have a right to have their cases heard in a US court.
I'm all for whacking terrorists but this was just a little too "1984". Any one of us could have been stuck in that camp with no recourse, no access to lawyers, no visits from family, no visits from the ICRC.
The Supreme Court hasn't always done the right thing but I think, today, it did.
This might seem a strange topic for me to address but I am doing some research today on telephony in the developing world for a contract I'm working on and I came across this article on the legacy of Agent Orange contamination that the US left behind in Vietnam.
Given that we are currently embroiled in Iraq (the "handover" notwithstanding) I think it might be fruitful to reflect on the effects of American intervention in other nations. Some 1 million Vietnamese were killed during the Vietnam War alone (and we really only lament the 50,000 American casualties) and we hear little or nothing of this.
Of course, there is also the legacy of the UXO (unexploded ordance) we left behind in that country that account for some 2000 deaths and mutilations per year.
The news on the BBC Radio these days is replete with stories of children mutilated by the ongoing conflict in Iraq. As John Kerry says (to paraphrase), "It's an elective war."
We've all known for a while of the corruption of the Bush administration (at least, that's what we non-Republicans call it). This has been typified by Cheney's relationship with Halliburton (his receiving deferred compensation is a particularly egregious form of this corruption) and his awarding of a no-bid contract to them.
I just found an interesting article detailing many of the relationships between the neo-cons in the Bush adminstration and large oil concerns.
Now the Republicans (and the rabid right) would suggest that the administration is simply drawing their staff from the most talented pool available. That those just happen to come largely from big oil companies (and defense contractors) is simply a matter of circumstance.
That may be so. Then again.. it just looks bad.
My uncle (who is an ardent Republican) asked me a few weeks ago whether I expected a terrorist attack against the United States designed to affect the US election. And how did I think it would affect the election?
I thought about it for a moment (this was in the wake of the Spanish attacks) and responded that it depended on the timing. More than a couple of weeks (two or three) in advance of the elections and I would expect such an attack to favor Kerry's chances. The reasoning being that once the initial hysteria after the attack had passed the recriminations would begin. It would become an issue to the American people that once again the Bush administration had failed to protect the United States (never mind that this is a very difficult task).
But.. if it was just before the elections, the inevitable "pulling together" in the face of adversity that so characterizes America would likely result in a Bush victory. I then suggested that this would be just what Bin Laden would want. (Which viewpoint surprised my uncle I think.)
As I reasoned it, Bush has been both terribly ineffectual (other than the initial attack on Iraq) in the "war on terrorism" and he had pissed off most of the world's Muslims with the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, most analysts in the intelligence community seem to feel that the general terror situation is much worse now than it was prior to the invasion. We have de-stabilized the entire Middle Eastern region and gained dubious access to oil (unless we get an independent Kurdistan out of this--which is unlikely).
There is an article in the Guardian on this topic.
I suppose that you are all getting bored with my obession with football by now. So be it. :>
I was quite surprised to see that France was eliminated by Greece yesterday. I think it probably has a great deal to do with the French coach rather than the team. The team certainly has enough quality (except perhaps Desailly) to have excelled in this tournament. I thought that they would be in the Final, against perhaps the Czech Republic or England. I thought the internal dissensions in the Dutch team would prevent their success (though I did put a tenner on them to win).
After the French team's collapse in the last World Cup, I shouldn't be surprised. I'm happy for Greece, because they couldn't have won without a great deal of industry. I note that Zidane was taken off late in the first half though I haven't yet read why (it had to have been an injury I think).
In any event, the rest of the tournament holds only academic interest for me at this point.
I'm sick at heart.
England lost, 6-5 on penalties this afternoon. But that's only part of the story (as Paul Harvey would say). The referee, Urs Meier, was criminally biased from my point of view. He handed out yellow cards to the English team for offences that went unpunished when the offender was Portguese. Indeed, it wasn't until very late in the match until the first Portugese player got a yellow card. And, of course, he disallowed what TV later showed to be a perfectly valid winning English goal (in the 91st minute of play). The match went to overtime and finally penalties.
All this said, the English team was, in my mind, clearly superior to the Portugese team even after the departure of their teenage star Wayne Rooney through injury. Yet Eriksson persisted in having them play negatively (ten men defending) after their goal in the 5th minute. Portugal played the better game, attacking through most of the match and deserved to win.
Had we gotten a better ref (say Collina or Nielsen) I have little doubt we would have won the match. Though I might have my doubts on whether we should have won it.
I think it may be time for Eriksson to sail off into the sunset. The team is a better team for his influence but these defensive tactics drive me up the wall and almost make me ashamed of the team's play. It's one thing to have to defend for 10-15 minutes. But for nearly 85? Absurd. Why? The Portugese have a totally suspect defence (as England showed when they had to go on the offensive a second time near the end of the match and scored rather rapidly) and the next decent team that they play that plays attacking football will beat them easily.
I don't think I can watch any more of these matches.
It's more than a little funny that I write this from within Texas. I was just trying to catch up on my reading this evening and reading LVX23 and I found this post.
Very interesting excerpt and I'm going to go and see if I can find the Maxim article in question. (I'm only buying it for the articles, understand). These sort of threads have been running through blogs and the liberal literature for a number of years. It is most interesting that a pseudo-mainstream publication has thought enough of the subject matter to publish it.
I'm waiting for the 60 Minutes show on it now (I can only hope).
Yet another shocker. Now, Germany, Italy, and Spain are all out of Euro 2004. Germany lost to the Czech Republic's largely second-string team and Holland decisively (please!) beat Latvia to advance to the quarter-finals. In spite of their internal team conflicts their quality (actually Ruud van Nistelrooy's quality) is finally showing through.
Well, many of the favorites are out of the tournament and one would have to class England as one of the three best teams left in the tournament (at least on paper) with France and Holland being the others.
That said, the Czech Republic, Portugal, or Sweden all have a decent chance of advancing to the semis as well. This should prove a fascinating quarter-finals. As with WC2002, England has a good chance of reaching the finals if they play to their potential.
Wouldn't that be cool? To see a replay of England v. France as the final? I'm not sure if that would work out in the brackets. Must check.
Well, this has to be the shocker of the tournament so far, almost the equivalent of France's early exit from WC2002. Conspiracy theories abound, as they frequently do when Italy loses. Fortunately, they seem to have a lot less credibility than they did during the World Cup (I seem to remember at least two valid Italian goals being disallowed in their last game).
It's sad to see them go out given the quality of their play against Sweden. However, I think perhaps a shakeup is needed. Trappatoni seems to be mired in the past in his tactics and there is definitely a need for the latest generation of Italian players to step foward--this can only happen if the current generation aren't selected or choose not to play.
Having seen Sweden play, I fully expected them to go through to the quarter-final stage and I do think they could be the dark horse of the tournament (along with the Czech Republic). I have money on the Netherlands making it to the final but I suspect that they will underachieve yet again.
Great match. Of course, I wouldn't be saying that if England had lost. They went a goal down within the first five minutes (our current weakness appears to be defending set pieces) but equalized after forty minutes. The final score was well-earned and England are now the top scorers (as a team) in the tournament.
Wayne Rooney scored two goals to become top individual scorer in the tournament and England will face Portugal in the quarter-finals. England looked quite a bit better in just about all phases of the game than Croatia.
If we can take anything away from this it is that Wayne Rooney has made a huge impact on the tournament and Michael Owen remains dangerous. The next game is this coming Thursday.
I'm anxious. I have to admit it. The Croatians field a darn good team. On our best, we should beat them by a couple of goal margin but I really wonder about the confidence of the team after being given such a hard time by Switzerland. They need just a draw to advance but I suspect that Sven understands that playing for a draw is a VERY bad idea.
The team has seriously underperformed until Sven's joining the ranks a couple of years ago. If they don't brainfart like they did against France this should be a win, albeit maybe not a comfortable one. But if they cannot beat Croatia what hope would they have against Italy or France?
Well, I'm off to Texas for a short couple of week contract. It's hot down there but I'll bring my golf clubs because I should be able to squeeze in some evening games. I'm off on Tuesday morning and back after July 4th.
I'm taking my PMP exam prep books with me as I need to get around to taking the exam sooner rather than later. Otherwise my refresher course will have drifted into the mists of history.
It will be interesting to read the local papers and see how Bush is doing in his "home" state.
Well, I'm up late tonight preparing for Father's Day tomorrow. I've cooked (with the help of the Best Recipes Baking cookbook) a New York cheesecake from scratch for my Dad.
A lot of work to mix everything by hand without a mixer (haven't bought a Cuisinart yet--some day).
I've going to try and convince him to go flying with me in the morning. I dug my R/C (radio control) trainer out of storage a couple of days ago and have been getting it ready to fly (new gas, new batteries, charging everything up, renewing insurance!). Yes, insurance. One must have insurance to fly at most club fields here in the US. Very sad.
I love the hobby, I've got to say. I'm a total novice with about 5-6 hours of flying under my belt. I left California before I could spend much time at it. These days one brings a plane to the field (I bought an ARF--Almost Ready to Fly) trainer. It has about a 6ft wingspan and looks a bit like a Piper Cub (sort of, if you squint).
Remote control servos (tiny motors) are connected to a radio receiver in its belly and control rudder, ailerons, elevator, nose wheel and the throttle. I typically connect my transmitter via a "trainer cord" to another transmitter held by an instructor. I run my plane through the pre-flight, taxi it out to the landing strip, and throttle up and take off. If I mess up, he can let go a single button he has been holding down and his transmitter takes over controlling my plane.
It has been found that most people leave the sport rather quickly after crashing their not-cheap plane into the ground. Typically on landing. So this instructor model allows one to make mistakes and still have a plane at the end of the day.
Some day soon I'll solo and then I can fly this puppy at my folks farm. Pictures will take place tomorrow..
I finally got to watch the Tivo'd match.
All in all, this was a cracking match. Italy really didn't miss Totti at all and I have to agree with the match commentator that some of the new players like Del Piero and Pirlo and Cassano make you forget the old guard.
This match was possibly the best I've seen in the tournament (save for England v. France) with both sides looking very dangerous at times and Italy occasionally looking sublime.
My only problem had to be with the occasional play-acting by the Italians--looking like they had been pole-axed one moment and then up and running the next. I hate that. Play the game like men. Don't dive, don't feign injury to run out the clock. I'm glad Gattuso is banned from the next match. Players like him don't deserve to be on the same pitch as players like Ibrahimovic and Pirlo. He's a disgrace to the Italian uniform.
I love the attack-minded play of the Swedes and Ibrahimovic and Larsson definitely proved to be a handful. As much as I started out rooting for Italy (a good friend is Italian and a football friend) I found myself coming to root for the Swedes. They play an exciting form of football--if not as refined as the Italians--and they don't play-act.
With this result of a well-earned draw, I believe the group remains wide open. This is proving to be a tremendously interesting tournament (my first Euro tournament).
Boy, this was a nervous game. For me and for the English team. It was quite obvious to me that they really felt that loss to the French team. Their passing was poor (couldn't seem to string together three successive passes) and they didn't chase 50-50 balls.
It wasn't until they scored the first goal that they loosened up. The Swiss were much better than I had thought they would be, with the Yakin brothers a serious threat. Frankly, the scoreline flattered England and no one will remember it unless they beat the Croatian team (and I hope convincingly). Seeing as this same team gave the French a run for their money and led most of the game, I cannot see it as being an easy game.
This group is wide open. With the French tie with Croatia, England should advance if they either win or draw against Croatia. Croatia could advance with a win (in second place). If England wins and France loses, then I believe England wins first place in the group and France takes second. A little complicated. All will be clear by Monday evening though.
It looks like I might have to spend another $20 just to watch this game too. That totally sucks. They (England) play four more games if they are to win Euro 2004. I believe they have it in them. It's all a question of how much confidence Sven can install in them (and a little luck).
I read an interesting article in the International Herald Tribune. The premise was that if Israel were to pull out of the Gaza Strip as they had pulled out of southern Lebanon they would regain the moral "high ground" and weaken Hamas.
I've thought for quite a while that the Israeli army was acting more like Nazis than I would have believed possible ten or fifteen years ago. And I can see little or no justification for these settlements in the occupied territories. To my mind, they seem to be guilty of the worst kind of racism in endorsing these settlements.
I think Israel has to withdraw from Gaza and come to terms on sharing the West Bank and Jerusalem. This whole state of affairs appears to be morally bankrupting Israel and I cannot see a positive resolution without some sort of land-sharing agreement.
But then, this is probably just moot. They are the same race of people, divided by culture and religion. At the very least, the US should threaten (and mean) removing foreign aid unless they negotiate a lasting peace. But with the NeoCons in power, and given political realities (like neither side wanting to give up either New York or Florida's votes) I don't think this is likely to happen either.
I've got to say that the Italian team only looked occasionally threatening. I would say largely tactically challenged. I was quite surprised by this. The Danes consistently looked more dangerous throughout the match, especially their very speedy winger, Rommedahl.
I would be quite surprised if he didn't get offers from a few Premier League teams after this tournament if he continues to play at such a high level. In fact, I'm a bit surprised that he hasn't moved on already.
I expect the Danes might well make the quarter finals given the quality of their performance today (though they look to need work in the set pieces).
As far as Italy, who knows? I remember that they started the World Cup equally slowly. They always seem to need the threat of elimination to play their best game. (And Totti should have been red-carded for that last minute foul!)
So I bought the game and watched at home rather than driving 70 miles to
watch it in a pub (and paying $20 for the privilege of watching it there).
Three Alaskan Ambers and 94 odd minutes of gut-wrenching football later, England are ushered out as 2-1 losers. Gutting. They led for the entire 90 minutes of regulation, defending quite brilliantly until Zinedine Zidane ("Zizou") scored on an injury-time freekick 6 yards outside the box. Stunning freekick.
So, thinks I, at least we have a draw (waving goodbye to my ill-gotten gambling gains!).
Not so, for one minute later and an errant backpass by Steven Gerrard and Thierry Henry gambols into the box to be upended by David James, giving Zidane another chance to score from a penalty kick.
And he does.
In two and a half minutes England go from likely to win the group to "hope to get out of the first round and have a chance to play France again."
Damn, and I was counting my shekels. This sucks.
But it was a great game and lived up to its billing as a very exciting one. Great quality in the French team (even if most of it seems to be concentrated in Zidane!).
Here's a privacy tip that I thought it would be useful to pass on. Most everyone knows that RealAudio has been a bit of a bad corporate citizen in collecting private data on RealPlayer users. Rather than worrying about what they are doing, go to the BBC Web site and download the version that they offer.
Because of English privacy laws and the BBC's clout they managed to get a version of RealPlayer without all the privacy-compromising features (no phoning home). So you still get the benefits of using the basic player without worrying about them tracking what you see or where you go.
The Euro 2004 Tournament starts this weekend. Saturday is the first game and sadly, we (in the United States) have to pay $20 per game to watch this. Given that I have no one I know within 100 miles who is a fellow soccer buff, I'm going to have to fork over some big bucks if I am to watch many games in this tournament.
I just get blank stares when I go into the local "sports bar" and ask them if they will be televising any of the Tournament.
There are a lot of interesting match-ups this year. I should say by way of preface that the Euro Tournaments are held ever four years and that this tournament overlaps the World Cup timing so that, in effect, we get a major tournament every two years in football. (I don't count the South American tournaments because (1) I never get to watch them, and (2) only Argentina or Brazil ever seems to win them. That may be my ignorance, who knows?)
In any event, the Euro tournaments are limited to the best national teams playing in Europe and the finals are reached by doing well in the qualifying matches (held over a course of some eighteen months I believe).
The backstory on the likely best game of the first round (England v. France) is that France is ranked either 1st or 2nd in the world currently and until the last World Cup were considered to be at least a head better than every other team in the world--given their winning of Euro 2000 and the 1998 World Cup. But a strenuous domestic season and internal friction in the team (plus questionable coaching) led to the poorest performance by a World Champion ever in WC history. And an exit from the 1st round group stage with merely a single point.
Contrast that with the performance of the British team, which managed to get out of the "Group of Death" (the colloquially-named group that is selected by the pundits as the toughest group to survive because of the quality of the teams in it) to make it to the quarter finals where they faced Brazil. The team was young (led by the new coach Sven Goran Eriksson) and missing Steve Gerard (a highly talented midfielder). David Beckham played with a not-healed broken foot and they still led 1-0 approaching half time. Then Beckham jumped out of the way of a tackle (certainly his foot an issue) and Ronaldinho sent a ball into the box that sailed over the head of aging keeper David Seaman to tie the game. The game ended as a 2-1 victory for Brazil and they went on to win the tournament.
But it was close.
But for that huge bit of luck from Ronaldinho, England might have defeated Brazil and then the rest of the tournament would have laid prostrate at their feet (they had just defeated the other finalist, Germany, 5-1 in Germany months before).
Since that tournament France has rebounded, playing much better coming into Euro 2004 (held in Portugal) and England finally has all its players healthy. Add to that that new talent has emerged on the British side in Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney and that many of the players in this match play alongside one another in the Premier League and you have a match made by the Gods.
It's this Sunday, 11:45 am, and I can only hope that both sides play well and make it a memorable match. I know that I'll have at least $20 on England to win!
What is it about Reagan? The Teflon President?
When I was in college, he was the great Satan. We thought of him as overly simplistic in his thinking, a dinosaur in geopolitical terms, and dangerous to the country in his lack of understanding of economics.
They coined several terms for his economic "theories" - Reaganomics, supply side. None of them worked. Taxes were cut on the wealthy, budgets ballooned to their highest post-war levels, interest rates went through the roof. It was really tough to find a job in most sectors of the economy.
About the only good thing he did was the nuclear weapon reduction treaties--and that was nearly derailed by the insane insistence on Star Wars. Oh yes, Reagan gave us Star Wars too.
I remain convinced that the collapse of the Soviet Union was occasioned by trying to keep up with huge defense spending by the US. I don't think it was ever suggested except by the current wave of revisionists, that Reagan intended to spend the Soviet Union into its grave.
He wanted "parity" with their armed forces and was willing to nearly bankrupt our nation to achieve it. That this led to the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union looked at the time, and even today, as a purely accidental consequence.
I think that we can give him credit for the nuclear weapons reduction talks and that is not insignificant. It might well be enough to move him into the class of "great" presidents on those merits alone.
But I really object to this lionization of a man who nearly ruined the economy of this country. Maybe I'm missing something here?
So I thought I had landed a job in England with Agency.com. But they wouldn't pay relocation, lodging or airfare and so the whole thing is off and I'm back on the job market.
Bummer. I was looking forward to living in the UK again but I've got to say that it wasn't worth it to go to a job that I was treated with disrespect before I even got there.
There look to be some good positions with Amazon, Microsoft and Paypal so I'll just have to get back on my bicycle and submit some resumes.
Stunning to think I wasted a good trip to England and something like 20hrs of interviews.
Since I returned from the UK I've been singularly unmotivated to post. First, I was burned out a bit from the stress of the lengthy interview cycle plus the uncertainty of whether I would be offered a position. Then I went to a college reunion (Reed College, in Oregon) over the weekend and it's taken a day back to recover from that as well.
All in all, I'm thinking that I'm getting back to posting and a semblance of normal life (this world travelling stuff is hard!).
On my plate is still converting the rest of the site to XML/CSS-driven pages. Not terribly difficult but I have to find the time to do that plus do some work on my very complicated car (ain't no way that I'm paying someone else $500 to install a set of sparkplugs).
I can't necessarily say I'm back in the saddle yet. I've been offered a position with Agency.com in London but I'm not yet sure that I'll take it. There are significant expenses associated with moving continents and I haven't yet decided whether it is worth it.
I'm just recovering from jet lag, having returned from London a week ago. Weird.. seems like it was pretty hard to recover this time and last time when I came back from France it wasn't a big deal. Wish I knew what I had done differently.
I know this. I don't ever want to fly British Airways again. Cramped and hot, and they are only giving 1/4 miles to frequent fliers. Total bullshit. I don't know how they justify it.