joel's thoughts

…At least, that’s what SelectSmart.com says. I came across a link today (already forgotten where) to their Presidential Candidate Selector (epileptic ad alert), and figured I’d give it a go. The idea is similar to any of the myriad online quizzes that purport to help you figure out which Star Wars character/Sopranos character/operating system/celebrity/philosopher/rock/tree/fruit you happen to “be”. It was only 17 questions, so I figured I’d give it a go. These were my results:

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Bush, President George W. – Republican (67%)
3. Badnarik, Michael – Libertarian (46%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA – Democrat (45%)
5. Cobb, David – Green Party (36%)
6. Nader, Ralph – Independent (36%)
7. Peroutka, Michael – Constitution Party (31%)
8. Brown, Walt – Socialist Party (23%)

This was surprisingly accurate, believe it or not. Of course I didn’t expect to find anyone agree with me 100% except perhaps myself, and last I checked I’m not on the ballot (for which we can all be thankful). And while my thoughts on many issues match or are mostly compatible with those of Bush, there are some issues on which he and I see differently. For example, I’m fairly opposed to some of the provisions of the Patriot Act, particularly those which seem to run counter to well-established constitutionally-protected civil liberties. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, if you give up liberty to gain security you’ll lose both. And I’m somewhat concerned about the current approach to the problems in Iraq, although I’d probably agree more with the John McCain more-boots-on-the-ground position than the John Kerry pull-out-and-leave-em-hanging approach. I confess that when I hear of Michael Moore’s Minutemen setting off car bombs on kids waiting in line for candy, I get the urge to sign up myself. But I digress…

That Libertarian Michael Badnarik came in above Kerry, if only slightly, sounds about right as well. There are elements of the Libertarian approach to things that I agree with very much. The Advocates for Self-Government, a Libertarian website, has a fairly well-regarded, brief political quiz that breaks down the differences between political persuasions in a fairly concise way. The basic idea is that there are really just two areas of government activity that influence your political leanings: your personal life and the economy. Think the government should stay out of your personal life but take responsibility for your economic well-being? You’ll probably agree with the liberal side of things. Want the government to maintain a certain moral standard but keep out of your finances? You’ll feel more at home with conservative viewpoints. Centrists want to sit back and talk it over, authoritarians (both socialists and fascists) want more government control in both areas, to varying degrees of course, and libertarians will happily tell Uncle Sam to take a hike, thank you very much.

I tend to agree with the libertarian positions when it comes to economic issues. For example, I have a pretty serious problem with “corporate welfare”-type situations, where the government dumps loads of money into an industry just to keep it going. Take the railroads, for instance. Or the airlines. There is no constitutional guarantee that every citizen will have affordable access to an airplane (hey Delta, if you can’t figure out a way to keep flying and stay in business, maybe it’s time to move over and make room for someone who can). And on a more personal economic level, if I’m too lazy to get off my rear and earn an honest buck, why does the government owe me anything? However, I tend not to agree with Libertarians (or Democrats, for that matter) on personal/social issues, like gay marriage and abortion. Which probably explains why Badnarik is only slightly ahead of Kerry.

The weather and computers and education are all well and good, but I haven’t said much about politics. I tend to be a peacemaker, sometimes to a fault, and I tend to prefer engaging, ongoing discussion rather than polarizing polemics. So in politically mixed company I generally hesitate to clearly state my positions or thoughts on a given issue for fear of being either pigeonholed and dismissed or attacked and forced to back down, as I don’t think very well on my feet (I’d make a terrible politician — I’d always be saying, “Let me get back to you on that…”). Even here in my blog I’ve hesitated to say what I think for fear of alienating someone, silly though that sounds.

Well, that’s enough of that. I have to say something today, because a guy named Arthur Caplan really got to me. He holds a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science and is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, so in theory he knows a thing or two about biology and medicine and ethics. Apparently he’s also very skilled in missing the point. In his commentary he lambasts the Bush administration for its position on federally-funded stem-cell research as dishonest, morally obtuse, and full of “chutzpah”. Chutzpah I’ll grant, if only for having the guts to take a moral stand on a very morally and politically controversial issue. Morally obtuse I might grant as valid from the perspective of someone coming from a different ethical worldview, although Caplan’s support of this claim is itself rather politically obtuse if not blatantly deceptive.

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I’m starting to wonder if it’s time to start thinking about beginning to ponder considering taking a look at maybe exploring the possibility of making some changes around here. I know that sounds rash, though, so I promise I won’t rush into anything.

I’ve noticed the particular server we’re running on at our webhost hasn’t had the best track record of late, particularly concerning mail traffic. I think it’s one of their older servers, running an older version of virtual hosting/control panel software. For a while now all their new customers have gotten a newer control panel package, and they’re willing to help older customers transition to a newer server if desired, so that’s an option. My biggest problem so far is that the newer package doesn’t (so far) support direct shell access via SSH. SSH access isn’t technically required for the small kinds of stuff we do with our site, but it’s a personal requirement for me for various reasons involving flexibility and mostly preference :).

So the only other option there is to look for another webhost. I know of quite a few out there, since I recently got involved with the we-want-an-official-website committee of the HOA in our community and voluteered to look into hosting solutions. It’s actually a business I’ve considered going into myself, if only on a reseller basis, since I have a good bit of the requisite knowledge. Only problem is, you’re not much more than a face in the crowd in that business. Everybody and their brother gets a reseller account and hangs out a shingle, and unless you’ve got the money for a good bit of advertising it’s hard to stand out. Just like every other business, I guess, only this one’s attractive because startup and overhead are ridiculously cheap.

Anyway, as I was saying, I know there are lots of options out there should I decide to move. But moving is such a pain in the rear (funny…just like real life) that I’d rather not if I don’t have to.

Then there’s the question of blog software. So far (as you can see to the right) we’ve been using Movable Type, and I’ve been happy with its functionality. But then they threw me (and a lot of other people) off and started charging for new versions. I had mistakenly assumed it was Free/Open Source Software, but either my assumption was off or they changed the license. In any case, their current free version limits you to 1 author (we have two), and the lowest paid license gives you five authors and costs $69.95. Seventy bucks!! When there are true free/open source projects out there (like WordPress) that are just as functional? I don’t think so. Incidentally, I just came across this post on Movable Type and WordPress, and it sums up my thoughts nicely.

I also just found opensourceCMS, a site which has all manner of open source CMSs, blogs, wikis and such installed and available for poking at. Don’t want to download something and figure out installation just to try it out? Go try it out on their site. Admin access is provided; all installations are deleted and rebuilt every two hours. Mambo, PHP-Nuke, Postnuke, XOOPS, WordPress, b2evolution, you name it. If it’s PHP/MySQL based (as most open source web-based projects seem to be these days), they probably have it. They have some ecommerce and bulletin board stuff, too. Great idea; I’m really impressed. I’ll probably spend a bit of time there checking a few things out before I decide in which direction to head. From what I’ve seen so far WordPress looks pretty good, so it’s got an edge going in, but I’ll see what I can find. Stay tuned…

As in the former hurricane, not my cousin… 🙂
Glancing through the Weather Channel’s slide show of images from Hurricane Jeanne’s effects on Florida and Georgia, I came across this picture of a guy checking out a damaged house. The caption reads:

Sun., Sept. 26: Braving high winds, Troy Taynton, of Satellite Beach, Fla, checks the remains of his neighbors home.

High winds, my rear end. How about the fact that YOU’RE NOT STANDING ON ANYTHING!!

Bonehead.

Anyway, Jeanne’s dregs are getting us wet now. As far as I know they aren’t worried about tornadoes in our area this time, although there have been watches in effect for southern Maryland, where my in-laws live. Have to keep an eye on that…

This is the third beautiful day we’ve had in a row, with a few more reportedly on the way. A bit chilly in the morning, but the sky is just the right shade of blue with only a few wispy clouds; they weren’t even there yesterday. Just incredible.

Not to mention, a stark contrast to this past Friday. The remnants of Ivan came through and brought us our second tornado scare in a couple of weeks. The previous one was with the remnants of Francis, and there were only one or two in our area. This time it was pretty severe, with somewhere between 30 and 40 sightings, and various scattered damage throughout Northern Virginia and Maryland. Don’t think any actually went through the District, but they were under warnings, too. The Post had a couple of articles in the Sunday paper (here and here, but you’ll need to register first), and a pretty decent picture here (might not need registration for that one).

That picture is of the one that went through Chantilly, which is where I work. Another one was reported just west of Haymarket, which is much closer to my house than I tend to be comfortable with. The warning a couple of weeks ago gave us a chance to figure out what the heck to do (tornado shelters aren’t exactly common in No. VA), so this time we had the pantry floor cleared out (just enough room for the two of us and the girls), the cats in the carrier under the kitchen table (on reflection, under Andi’s desk might have been a better call — the only window there is blocked by the loveseat), and had Alexis practice dropping everything and running to the pantry when we said so :).

It didn’t help the tension any that the main news radio station, WTOP, had both of its FM frequencies out in our area. Only one of its two AM frequencies came in, and that barely, with lots of static. We usually have the computer off during storms, but we ended up turning it back on and relying on their online audio feed to know what was going on.

But that’s over and we’re unaffected, short of being a little more prepared for the next time. For now, I can relax and enjoy the perfect sky…

Came across this article on different types of worship in today’s church, and something about it bothers me. Not that I disagree with much of the article — he’s just describing and categorizing the various styles of worship found in various churches. Granted, there was a bit of editorializing mixed in that I didn’t always agree with, but I could see where he was coming from. And I could go into how “worship” is — or should be — more than just a designated time slot on Sunday mornings, but I’ll leave that aside for now. I suspect he would agree with me on that anyway if given the chance.

What I most take issue with was in his closing:

No matter what type of worship a church uses, one thing is important: People must experience the transforming presence of God. Anything less isn’t worship, no matter what the style.

Excuse me? Since when is worship about us? Since when do we tell God how incredible he is because it makes us feel good? When you send someone a thank-you note for a gift, should you do it in such a way that you derive the most personal satisfaction from the experience, or in such a way that you most effectively communicate your appreciation to the giver?

Of course we can have a positive experience when we worship, but that should never be why we worship. Our worship should be to God, for God. Anything else isn’t worship, no matter how good it makes us feel.

Here’s a post I’d half-written back in May. Thought I’d at least get it off my figurative desk…

In one of my first posts, I pointed out an article by Todd Oppenheimer in the San Francisco Chronicle about the drive to put computers in classrooms, and the possible negative effects of that drive. And while largely agreeing with him, I said, “if this were a book I would hope to see some specific hard data to back up some of his claims.”

Five months later I see this review on Slashdot of a book called The Flickering Mind by Todd Oppenheimer. “Hey!” I think, “he went and wrote a book about it after all, with lots of research and such. Cool!”

Dope. Had I paid attention when I read the Chronicle column, I would have seen the postscript:

Todd Oppenheimer is author of “The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved”. His Web site is www.flickeringmind.net.

Duh. The book had been out a month already when he wrote the column. Well, anyway, there you have it. Check it out, and be sure to read the excerpt on the right side of the page. Frightening stuff, and odds are pretty good you’re footing the bill. Chew on that for a minute.

MSNBC had an article up today called “What’s to blame for the rise in ADHD?” It talks about a recent study that draws a possible link between the increase in ADHD and the changes in children’s TV programming over the past decade or two. Naturally, it waits to give the opposing viewpoints until later in the article, so if you don’t read the whole thing (confession: I skimmed) you come away with the feeling that the link is a no-brainer. Of course it isn’t; still, it raises some (more) interesting questions.

Wow. Three and a half months without a post. I think part of the problem was something Jenn noticed too: it felt like the longer I went between postings, the more…I don’t know, impressive my post would have to be once I actually made one.

Whatever. Here I am, still alive and having all manner of interesting thoughts I intend to share and usually forget. Such is life. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually post something about who I am, since my net traffic logs would suggest that not everyone who comes here knows me personally. I’d also like to put up some links to other blogs and such you may or may not find interesting. But not today, as it’s almost 4 and I feel the need to accomplish something else productive at work before I leave for the day.

Back in the 30’s, Bugatti made some of the finest, super-high-class performance touring and race cars. Ettore Bugatti died in ’47, and for some strange reason in postwar France, the company didn’t find the economy conducive to building high-end sports cars and was forced to shut down.

A little more recently, back in ’98, Volkswagen bought the name. Yes, Volkswagen, but stop thinking cute beetle and think huge auto conglomerate — they also own Audi, Lamborghini, and Bentley. They’ve since tossed out a few one-off concepts that weren’t very remarkable (other than an 18-cylinder engine), but in general haven’t been heard from much.

Until now. It’s still not out, but the up-and-coming Bugatti is called the Veyron, and it is very impressive. When I first saw some of the specs, particularly the 1001 horsepower engine, I was reminded of the Cadillac Sixteen, introduced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last year. But that’s still just a concept — the Veyron is nearing production, and it looks better ;).

I could go more into specs, but I’d just be repeating what I’ve read elsewhere. Bugatti’s site is light on details and heavy on flash animation, but it’s worth a look if you want to see their previous concepts. Instead, I’d recommend this in-depth review at Howstuffworks.com — good explanations of the engineering accomplishments and some great photos. Popular Science also has an article, with less technical detail and more on the history and creation of the car.

And it’s only going to cost a little over $1 million. I’d better start saving my pennies…