Frozen Transparency

The new iPhone (the second generation one, which can handle third generation cellular networks) launched a week ago. As someone who keeps up with tech (and therefore Apple) news, I paid attention to things going on that day. I just have a few thoughts on the whole thing:

• The number of people who got up early to wait in the AT&T line who didn’t seem to know anything about what they were planning on purchasing was staggering. From what I saw, there were several people who weren’t even aware that there were multiple SKUs.
• When Halo 3 launched for the XBox 360, the XBox Live servers had so much load they couldn’t handle new registration for a few days. It’s rare that a massive launch event happens that doesn’t cause servers to have a meltdown.
• Apple should have waited a day or two before releasing the firmware 2.0 update for first-generation iPhones. Having not only all second-generation iPhone purchasers but also all first-generation iPhone owners hit the store at the same time was not the smartest move. If they had staggered it a little, it might have helped.
• I am utterly shocked at the number of business people who were mad because they didn’t have a working phone for the course of the day. While you certainly can expect the best, you should prepare for the worst. I am not particularly convinced that business people who buy a new phone on its launch day are particularly good at business, seeing as businesses are typically slow to upgrade for a reason.
• Opening on a Friday morning at 8 is a great way to kill productivity that day. I wonder if the lost productivity from an Apple product launch is anywhere near the lost productivity from the NCAA tournament?
• I realize AT&T wants to maximize profits, but the different prices based on eligibility things are confusing, to say the least. Dealing with Family Plans and Account Holders and so on is even more so.
• Despite rising gas prices and economic worries, a million people were willing to drop at least two hundred dollars (more in other countries) on a collection of plastic and metal that allows them to stalk their friends from anywhere. Either the economy isn’t as bad as people think, or people are just that bad at making economic decisions.

I recently had dinner with a group of friends and while there, talked with an elderly gentleman. He was the sort of person who said what was on his mind, and never pulled punches about his true thoughts on matters. It’s one of the stock characters: the old grandfather who has an opinion on everything (usually outdated) and is willing to express it (loudly).

As things are wont to do these days, talk turned to politics and especially the presidential election. He loudly proclaimed himself as a Democrat with some decent reasoning, and loudly complained about McCain. Curious fellow that I am, I then asked about Barack Obama, since I figured he would be an ardent supporter.

On the contrary, he said he didn’t like Obama, either. A bit confused (since Obama seemed to encapsulate what he liked about Democrats over Republicans), I pressed him on the issue, wondering where he disagreed with Obama. Eventually, the response I got back was simply “I’m just not comfortable with him.”

I thought about this a while, somewhat confused. This was not the sort of person who normally said such things, so I had to divine what his true meaning was. I’m also not the sort of person who likes to look at everything through the lens of race (as some people do, even when completely unwarranted). Yet as I thought about it and interacted with him on other things, I came to a tentative conclusion that bothered me.

I think what he meant was “I don’t want to vote for a black person”. I can’t verify this, and I hate coming to race-based conclusions, but I couldn’t think of a better explanation, especially in context of the rest of the evening. I think if we had a closer relationship or we weren’t in public, he might have been willing to admit it. But there was this spectre of not being able to admit something racist in public.

Racism is still a disease plaguing this county. But like file-sharing, the attempts of the government to shut it down and stop it has only driven it farther and farther underground. We dare not talk of it in public, for we know the consequences, but that has not actually changed people’s minds on the issue.

I have no grand solution for solving the epidemic of racism. I know of no way to just change people’s minds when they’re so set in their ways. But what I see is a racism that we now cannot talk about openly and cannot discuss, and instead gets relegated to the back rooms, where it becomes far more violent and far more dangerous than when it is seen openly.

I have no real conclusion. It is but an anecdote of life, and of how far we still have to go.

Today is the day Americans celebrate their independence from Britain. The choice of date is a little odd, seeing as the actual resolution declaring independence (the Lee Resolution) was passed on July 2nd, and the Declaration of Independence was signed on August 2nd. (Although in all fairness, the declaration was adopted on July 4th).

That document now has absolutely no legal bearing. Some people like to cite sections of it as rails against our government, ignorant of this fact. But it still has importance as a document in history—much as the Mayflower Compact does—and is worth studying, especially in our history. Its opening is one of excellence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

What I find most interesting about the document, though, is that while it has no legal bearing, it in a sense proclaims the basic political philosophy of the country:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But furthermore:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

History classes (rightly) talk very much about how revolutionary the document was—no pun intended. And philosophically speaking, the very idea that a group of guys would openly declare this was astounding—although not as surprising as some people like to think, seeing as many of the ideas of the document had been floated around Europe for the century prior.

But a lot of people today seem to miss the fundamental philosophical basis for this proclamation. If you go back and read that very famous line:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

You’ll notice something very odd. It says “they are endowed by their Creator” (emphasis added). Capitalized. As in, God. That Judeo-Christian “I Am” God. Alpha and Omega. Creator of heaven and Earth.

Whoa, hold on. What about separation of church and state (a phrase that never actually occurs in the Constitution, no matter how much some people claim it does)? What about tolerance and religious understanding? Hey wait a moment, what about atheists, Buddhists, Hindu, Aztec, or any of the other five sixths of the world?

Yeah, about that…

See, when you look at the philosophical underpinning of the American Revolution, it comes down to the radical idea that when God created humans, He endowed them with something more than just a body, but a soul with dignity. Because God created all humans like this, all humans should be treated equally by law. That they have inalienable rights. None of this “king is more important than peasant” bullshit.

It all flows from a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world. I can think of no other religion that has this basic philosophical notion. It is explicitly stated in Galations:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is, of course, quibbling to be done here on several accounts. Judiasm and Christianity have different views of sin and the rights of humans, for instance. Plus, there is that fun topic of slavery. And likely a host of other things.

Yet, as I consider what I know of the world’s religions (which is admittedly limited), I cannot think of another religion that has such a core tenet in its faith: that all men are endowed by a creator with certain inescapable rights, that the abrogation of such is sufficient to overthrow a government. It’s possible that it’s out there, and I would be interested to learn of other religions that have this ideal.

Even if there are, it’s still worth noting that the entire philosophical basis for the American Revolution (and subsequently the American governments) is very Christian in nature and ideal. It’s difficult to escape the religious underpinnings of our country, and it saddens me when people deny the obvious so vehemently. So I shall finish with the last of the Declaration, in which they once again cite a religious influence:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

And the torrents of liberty should flow like a mighty river, engulfing all in their wake.

Any statement that inspires anger in those who hear it is worth investigating. If the statement were actually True, then the cold weight of facts should be sufficient to demonstrate its verity.

I imagine that statement is autological.

I recently stumbled upon this YouTube video, which is of Steve Jobs first presentation at MacWorld after having been hired back into Apple. It’s been eleven years since then, and it’s interesting to watch it purely in terms of history.

Just a few thoughts:

• I hear it in his voice, and I see it in his smile, but it’s hard for me to imagine that as Steve Jobs. He looks so young!
• We often forget that it was Microsoft that bailed Apple out back then. The stock was later sold, but it forms an interesting dynamic in the history between the two companies. Has the student now become the master—or does Microsoft actually want Apple around?
• I thought Powerpoint presentations made today often looked bad. Those slides are horrendous.
• He was a smooth performer then, but he’s gotten even better as the years have gone by.
• Apple really hasn’t changed since Steve Jobs took the helm again. They’ve just gotten popular.

I want to have a personal calendar in the cloud. I want to be able to view it easily at work (bonus points if I can do it in Outlook), and be able to make modifications. I want it to sync with my mobile phone, so I can see my schedule anywhere—and change it, if need be. I would like to allow friends to view my schedule, to varying degrees of transparency, but not give them the ability to modify it.

I want to have one set of contacts that I can access from any computer, therefore on the cloud. I want that list to sync with my mobile phone, so I can edit phone numbers from anywhere and have that information accessible anywhere. That contact information should also contain birthdays (and hook into my calendar for reminders) and addresses, accessible on any computer and my mobile phone.

Since I have one set of contacts, I want it to also be linked with my e-mail. I want one singular e-mail account that all of my e-mail addresses feed to: both free-service addresses and my-domains addresses. I have one primary account that I use to send e-mail, but I want to be able to send e-mail from different addresses in some circumstances. Across my domains, I have an infinite incredibly large yet still finite number of e-mail addresses to siphon into one location—preferably avoiding forwarding chains of any kind, because of the lag induced. While I would like to check my e-mail from my mobile phone, it’s not that big of a deal, and being able to respond to it even less so. However, I want access to all my outgoing addresses from any computer I’m on.

Any other nifty online tools that might have data useful to me on my mobile (such as map locations) should also be in this sync. An RSS reader that synced between mobile and any computer would be nice. Getting all of this under one account with one sign-on in the cloud would be sublime.

Price is not as much an issue for me, although I want to keep costs reasonable. I want to have this implemented by September first (an arbitrary date) if at all possible.

Anyone have any good ideas on how to go about doing it?

Whenever I’ve experienced “training” in the past on how to respect differences in culture, it’s always Europe-descended American culture that must make allowances to the other culture. In literature, it’s always the white American who learns to appreciate black/Asian/Indian/whatever culture, and never the other way around.

Shouldn’t the other culture have to make allowances back, if we’re going to truly respect differences in culture? Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about that?

I’m sorry, Microsoft, but you’ve failed me once again. You are a company filled with a great many intelligent people, and yet, I find the following to be the case:

Required to run Windows Vista smoothly:

Required to make OS X (Leopard) run smoothly:

I think the difference is pretty clear.

Interestingly enough, the cost in both cases is approximately the same, being a reasonably high amount of money. To be fair, the Vista machine also has two expensive hard drives in it (instead of one cheap one), and I got extra software for the Mac.

The Vista machine is known as Atalanta. She is, of course, my main computer, and indeed, in everyday life, she looks much like this:

(You can tell the general date when this was taken). The reason you don’t see the huge case is because it’s hidden in the desk—and in usual operation, you can’t hear it, either. Which I think is pretty cool, for such a powerful machine to be virtually undetectable (unless you look in the desk).

After putting her together, I had collected a fair amount of excess cardboard, plastic, and other strange materials:

Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up the new MacBook case and found this:

Simply minimalistic. Reduction of trash, reduction of waste—in fact, the box is so nice, I plan on keeping it in case I happen to need a MacBook-sized box hanging around. It is simply beautiful, to over-use the term. When I think about it, though, the word I would ascribe to this is simply elegant. As a programmer, I appreciate elegance.

In either case, I named the MacBook Echo, because I seem to have this thing where I name my computers after Greek women (Artemis, Atalanta, Echo, Athena (which is actually a hard drive), Apollo (err, wait…)).
Actually, I also use Greek mythology in general: Apollo (my Zune), Hermes (an external hard drive), Aether (my network), Mnemosyne (my backup hard drive)…Echo fits right in.

I admit, though, as a person who has been a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user and general Microsoft fan—and, admittedly, as someone who has bashed Apple a lot in the past—I have been suitably impressed by Echo. She’s mostly nothing more than an experiment; a purchase (actually made several weeks before this is posted) because I like the sleek, plastic look of the MacBook line more than the sleek, aluminum look that’s constantly rumored to take over. Also, Artemis was having problems, I wanted a good laptop for giving presentations, and I’d been saying for a long time that I needed a Mac just to have one. A Linux box is next!

The shopping experience was halfway very pleasant, halfway not. The employees were all helpful, although almost too helpful, and one of the girls failed my most important question: what is the worst thing about a Mac? She said “Nothing”, and it didn’t take me long at all before I found several simple flaws. But I let it slide. Really, had the store not been filled with a bunch of other people (many of them there for tech support, amusingly enough), it would have been much nicer: a quiet location where I could think things through. Thankfully, I had essentially made the decision before-hand and acted like I was browsing to confirm with myself, check out the MacBook Air, and not make it look like I was some fanboy out to just immediately buy. The downside is that I still missed the Mini-DVI-to-VGA cable in all the rush.

The difference between setting up a Mac and setting up a Windows box is not actually as large as I’d been made to think it would be. I was impressed that Leopard got my wireless network settings out of the way early and with much less hassle than Vista. On the other hand, I like how Vista asks you to name the computer early on; I really think “Keith’s Computer” is a stupid name. And anyways, I have a naming scheme going on!

The ability to immediately use the camera to take my self-picture was nice—once I figured out how to use it. I was annoyed that the preview went away after the first picture, which made subsequent attempts at not having the screenlight glare against my glasses an exercise in frustration. It is something I can fix later, but it could have been easier. On the other hand, Vista’s bland offering is less than stellar.

One thing I found interesting was that the world of serial numbers and software keys also rears its head on Macs. And there is absolutely one thing that Microsoft totally has right that Apple screwed up on: they automatically insert the hyphens for you. I typed out my entire iWork serial number and wondered why it didn’t recognize it; I had to go and manually add the hyphens to make it work. With Office, it added the hyphens for me, and when I had to go back and add a letter, it automatically re-adjusted them. It’s a little touch, but that’s supposed to be what Apple is good at.

Another minor frustration was that I was under the impression that I could get a discount on my .Mac account because I bought a new computer (and am a new .Mac user to boot)—however, I saw no such way of getting it, and ended up paying full price. And I figure that if I’m going to give Macs a fair trial and a full shake, I should do the whole thing.

The control panel on OS X, however, is superior to that on Vista.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I had my gripes with getting Echo, much as I have my gripes about Vista’s installation. But I was greatly impressed, and to an extent enlightened. I had spent so much time vilifying it that I hadn’t thought of it even having good parts.

Mind, I still don’t like the dock. I’m not particularly fond of the mile-high menu bar, but I can appreciate Fitts’s Law, and suspect that I’ll get used to it. I’m again not fond of clicking the button I expect to close a program not actually closing the program—this is cited by some Mac enthusiasts as a “feature”, so I assume it’s deliberate; it still feels unintuitive to me. The lack of maximize might work on a large screen (as I rarely use maximize on Atalanta for this reason; it just makes it too big), but on my tiny MacBook screen, I could really use the entire real estate. The auto-sizer just doesn’t seem right to me. The icon-similarity problem oft-cited for Leopard I also agree with.

The real point is, though, that I shouldn’t have been relegated to a MacBook, especially as there are some serious gripes I have (as opposed to simply bashing Apple). But Windows computer seem fragile, physically. I have a computer with eight gigabytes of RAM and a 2.33 GHz Dual-Core processor; and yet, there are times when Vista still gives me slowdowns (to be fair, they are incredibly infrequent and seem to very often have to do with Firefox). My Zune has a tendency to spontaneously reboot itself, much to my annoyance (possibly caused because I have subjected it to lots of temperature extremes). I understand that Vista’s UAC was a choice made between a rock and a hard place, but I can see where it gets in the way (my annoyance has more to do with how it utterly disrupts my workflow). Things don’t communicate with each other as well as one might hope. The much-touted Start Menu Search is really awesome for running programs, but I constantly have problems with it and files.

It’s not fair to entirely hold it against Microsoft, though, but I chose the 64-bit Vista option, to access all eight gigabytes of memory. However, thumbnails have issues in 64-bit explorer (because other companies haven’t written the right plugins). Some programs don’t even function. Little things crop up, on top of the random Vista compatibility issues.

On the MacBook side, I still abhor touchpads. But I’m getting used to the one-button interface. However, I tried the Mighty Mouse at the store and was utterly repulsed. And the fact that I have to buy a special cable to be able to use my MacBook with any external display is, frankly, kind of stupid. I wouldn’t mind if it were possible to find in places that sell other common computer cables; but to have to only get it from Apple is frustrating to no end.

In either case, I paid a lot of money for Atalanta, and I intend on using her to that full end. She is still my main home PC, powerhouse that she is (apparently I like strong, athletic women). I like Windows, and I’m still a Microsoft cheerleader. I also paid a lot of money for Echo, and I intend on using her to test out OS X and to be a good, portable laptop.

One of my friends likes to use the term “Apple Fag” to describe the people who—almost cult-like—are major fans of Apple and Macs. I’m not particularly fond of the term, partly because the association of homosexuality with “bad” is distasteful to me (not to mention my dislike of how the term for a bundle of sticks or a cigarette turned into a word describing homosexuality), but also because I’ve met a large number of people who are Apple fans for good reason. I have not turned into one of these so-called “Apple Fags”. I’m still in Microsoft’s camp, and I’m still skeptical of Apple. I haven’t joined the cult, and I have no intentions about switching anytime soon (especially because, as noted, I want to get good use out of Atalanta).

However, when I sit back and take stock of the computing landscape and its future, I cannot help but loose some of my firm footing with Microsoft, especially since they seem to be having so many problems. I’m not yet an “Apple Fag”, but if Microsoft can’t catch up sometime soon, my next desktop computer may very well be a Mac.

My pastor recently said something in a sermon that resonated with me. He said:

You are still a parent even if you do not have any children.

It took me a while to understand the wisdom of this statement. While the actual etymology of the word “parent” comes from the Latin word meaning “to give birth”, when I studied Latin, I found myself intrigued that it could also be interpreted to mean “they obey”. Perhaps a better choice would be “they mimic”.

As adults, we are the role models that children look up to. They mimic us in thought and deed, and their experience with us shapes their lives. Every interaction with a child slowly builds their character, and from their character all things flow.

The next time you interact with a child, consider that you—even if for only a brief moment—are their model for adulthood. You are their parent.

When I was young, around nine or ten, my usual breakfast at my mother’s house was instant oatmeal. You poured the oatmeal into a bowl, added some water, then put it in the microwave for ninety seconds. Being the age we were, I and my siblings were tremendously impatient for even those ninety seconds. At one point, though, my step-father explained to us that we should actually put it in for seven seconds less. If we put it in for ninety seconds and watched, during those last seven seconds it would get super-hot or something like that. Inevitably, what happened was we kids sat and watched the microwave heat up the oatmeal—and in the process, shut up.

It took me a number of years before I realized it was a lie. Though I’ve never confirmed it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was concocted just to get us kids to be quiet for a while (since we tended to be quiet once we got food anyways). It’s interesting what parents will say, however false, just to get their children to do things.

I recently read a very interesting book called Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers. The book’s primary purpose is to debunk a large number of the myths about gender that are being perpetrated by modern feminists. She goes back to the original studies (when she can obtain them; a surprising number were never published in peer-reviewed journals and were instead simply reported on by the media) and examines the data. She finds alternate studies. And she delves into the rhetoric paraded by politicians and feminists and exposes it for what it is.

Now, one could argue that her bias is just as bad as what she is trying to combat. It’s possible, and as a skeptic, I would like more investigation. But I was struck by her chapter on rape statistics, and how blatantly overblown they tend to be.

There was a point in college when I attended the Vagina Monologues with some friends. During the performance, they wanted to call attention to sexual abuse and how it needs to stop (a goal I agree with). To further this, they asked everyone in the audience to stand if they had been sexually abused or knew someone who had. I stood, as one of my friends in college had been raped when she was younger. I looked around, and I would say about one tenth of the audience had stood up.

One of the standard statistics that Sommers quotes is that “one in four women” has been raped. If that statistic were true, I would have expected half of the audience to stand. Not one-tenth. There may have been some who sat for fear of being exposed, but the caveat of “someone you know” largely dismissed that. And such shame does not explain the massive disparity between that statistic and what I saw.

The sample was, admittedly, skewed due to the audience being all in college—although most people in college know people who are poor (rape being inversely correlated with income, in general). There are possibly other explanations for the disparity, but let me suggest one (which Sommers also proposes): the statistic is wrong. Sommers explains how they derived that statistic and exposes their flawed methodology. And at a certain point, a quote she includes from another skeptic resonates with me: if one in four women were raped, why haven’t I heard more about it from my friends?

Now let me be clear: I do not condone rape. It is wrong. It can be a massive traumatic experience, and people who have been raped should get the therapy and support they need (though I don’t think the government should pay for it). I am not in any way trying to suggest that we should trivialize the impact it has on people.

What I am instead saying is that people (in the media, government, and schools) are lying.

When I pointed out this disparity to an acquaintance who is a rather hardcore feminist, she glibly replied, “It’s okay, because it raises awareness of the problem and gets those people the support they need.”

To rephrase: it is okay to lie because it gets the results we want.

This leads me to the Holocaust. I am not a Holocaust denier; on the contrary, I am quite convinced it happened. I am quite convinced that it was horrible. But I am not convinced that the statistics I hear about it are true.

Why? Because anyone who contests them is labeled as a denier. So we are willing to accept the statistics we are given, because it emphasizes the horror and tragedy of what happened.

I think there can be honest quibbles with official figures. I think historians should be allowed to go through the evidence in an attempt to learn more. It may be the case that we over-estimate the number of people slaughtered. If it is, we should adjust the statistic. It does not de-emphasize the horror of what happened. It does not reduce its enormity. It brings us closer to the truth.

And I would say that an over-inflated figure trivializes it.Edit for clarity:And I would say that if we have an over-inflated figure, than doing so would trivialize the event.End Edit I would say that it shows disrespect to those who survived it, because we are essentially telling them that the truth of their suffering does not matter. Likewise, claiming such a high rate of rape in society shows disrespect to those who have actually been raped. To have such a high number requires such a liberal definition of rape (a teenager reluctant to kiss can be classified as ‘raped’ according to some cited studies) that it trivializes those who actually were truly raped by all definitions.

It is okay to proclaim a false statistic in order to advance a point. To question the statistic is to be insulted, shouted at, and to be a horrible person.

Which leads me to another anecdote. Some time ago, one of my friends was at my apartment, and had brought her three-year-old daughter. Being a child of that age, she was inordinately curious about the world, and especially about all the fun things I had around my apartment. She would go around pointing at things and asking me what they were, and in good humor I would tell her. In time, she made her way to my printer (a Kodak All-in-one) and started inquiring about the various buttons. As she explored the printer, she stuck her fingers into where the paper comes out—clearly potentially dangerous, due to the moving gears and other things that are unkind to child fingers.

I admonished her not to do it, and in an attempt to quickly explain why it was bad, I told her that it would eat her hand. It was mostly for a metaphorical sense, as I wasn’t entirely sure what it could really do, but I was aware of its danger. Her mother then embellished the story, explaining how a monster was in the printer. It had the desired effect: the child stopped playing with the printer.

Yet I worried about the lie. Even my small exaggeration about eating her hand; was it right for me to deliberately tell her something false in order to have a good result (in this case, to not stick her hand in a dangerous place. I didn’t mind her otherwise playing with the printer)?

Another anecdote along the same lines: an acquaintance of mine was once convinced by his father that he (the son) was under consideration for inclusion in a spy agency or some such. At one point, during a several-hour car trip, the father explained to the son that the lines on the back window (the defrosters) were actually a secret cloaking device, and he had to sit absolutely still for it to work. The trip was a test or something along those lines. And sure enough, the child sat in the back perfectly silent and still for the entire trip.

My acquaintance laughed about it as he told me about it, because he realizes now that it was a lie, but it had the right result: it made the drive far more peaceful.

In fact, telling children deliberate lies to get them to do something seems to be a very popular parenting technique. Clearly, given its prevalence and especially through history (consider Santa Claus as the lie to induce good behavior), it is not that harmful. But I still worry.

If, when our children are young, we lie to them to get an effect, are we not essentially telling them, then, that it is okay to lie to get the results you want? To quote knowingly false statistics in order to siphon more government funding?

That the ends justify the means?

Is that what we really want our children to learn? Is that what we really want our culture to be?