Rump Session

I just got back from this conference's rump session. I'm not sure how widespread the "rump session" is in the scientific and technical world, but it consists of all the presentations too trivial, too bad, too new, or just too silly to make it into the regular program of the conference.

In my mind, it has two very important innovations which should give it an edge over the rest of the conference: very short talks and alcohol. The two achieved a very nice synergy in the first talk tonight, "AES Update," a 4-minute talk. The speaker started by giving a history of the AES process (don't ask). Someone shouted out, "We're all cryptographers; we know what AES is." Finally, he was heckled into sticking to the "update" part.

At its best, rump session talks consist of someone madly dashing through a quick, but interesting result -- like breaking a cryptosystem presented at one of yesterday's regular talks. Madly dashing through a boring result also works...the comic effect is still enjoyable. Unfortunately, there was too much plodding through really, really boring stuff. People reading from their slides in a monotone and not being cut off by the moderator when their time is up. Even 5 minutes of that can be deadly.

So I've come up with an idea I think can improve these rump sessions. I think they should be modeled after one of modern entertainment's greatest triumphs -- the Gong Show. Get a panel of noted cryptographers -- and Jaye P. Morgan -- give them gongs, stand back, and watch the fun begin. This would have a number of advantages. One, anything exceptionally boring would be cut off by the dreaded gong. Two, speakers would have even more incentive to entertain the audience for fear of getting cut off. Three, those particularly interesting talks -- the ones that leave the audience wanting more -- could continue on as long as they kept the judges amused. But most importantly, we could all go home earlier.

Viewer Mail

Martin writes

"Enjoyable as ever, but I'd like to ask that if I'm mentioned again in the near future, I be refered to as 'the guy who wrote in to say he'd pay that much for a daily [Lewinsky]'."

Details, Details

"A photo caption in one edition Aug. 21 incorrectly identified former baseball star Henry Aaron as Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings."

From a Washington Post correction today.

I Miss The Ocean

During my departure from California in the Great Retreat of '93, I left a number of things behind...restaurants, bookstores... But I realize, being back here, that the thing I miss most is the Pacific. I used to sit on the 10th floor of Evans Hall at Berkeley, in the Math Commons, and watch the sun set over the San Francisco Bay. A lot of things weren't going well for me at that point in my life, but that was one thing I had going for me. I'll have to try that again when I'm up there later this week, and see what emotions result...

Because of the weird geography of this place (Santa Barbara), the nearest bit of the Pacific is actually east of here. So nuts to the idea of the traditional Pacific sunset. Still, last night I wandered down to the beach and dipped my toes in the Pacific Ocean. Don't think I've done that since '93...the only times I've been back to California ('97 and January of this year), I didn't make it to the water. Anyway, it felt good.

Tonight I tried rounding the corner of land UCSB is on in order to see the sunset. There were two glitches. First, the sun was almost down by the time I made it into position. Second, there was still a spit of land sticking out to the west blocking my view. Still, it was a nice picture. Tomorrow I'll have to break out the camera.

Personal Space

Greetings from sunny Santa Barbara, California, where I am until Thursday for a conference. Despite United's recent woes, today wasn't all that bad in terms of what the airline provided. They didn't cancel either of my flights! OK, sure, they delayed the second one without telling us what's going on. (Uh, there are people getting off our plane which is supposed to leave in 10 minutes, and it's going to be on time? Right.) But only 30-45 minutes, and I wasn't in a hurry.

The main annoyances today came, not surprisingly, from my fellow passengers. On the leg from BWI to Denver, I was seated next to a large (not fat, just up-sized) gentleman, who for some reason chose the middle seat while letting his wife have the window. Awfully gallant, fellow, but have a little consideration for the fact that you're spilling into a large portion of my seat. I eventually stuck my newspaper between myself and the armrest just so he'd stop bumping me. It cut the size of the seat down even more, but it seemed worth it.

But the worst part was the kids sitting behind me. Kicking the seat, banging on the trays, even once in a while reaching around to grab me. I heard the parents talking to them, and there seemed to be only token efforts at control. Look, I accept that in this country you can name your kids whatever you want, but if you name them "Madison" and "Sidney," they're probably going to turn out like that. Sigh.

The next leg was the opposite: two seats to stretch out in. Luxury.

Footnote about BWI. I watched Goldfinger last night. They referred to it as "Friendship" airport. A much better name; pity they changed it. I'm sure at the time, "BWI" seemed more modern. But now, "Friendship" seems nice and retro, and retro is, of course, now modern.

Gamera is Really Neat

Best quote out of context I've seen in a news article lately:

"AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato said the company is still looking into how Gamera escaped."

--from an article in yesterday's Washington Post.

Runner-up:

"Following his death, Ware re-joined the organization."

--from an AP obituary of one of Mensa's co-founders.

Gold Diggers

Last night I went to a co-workers house for an attempt to win a bunch of bucks from goldpocket.com. Well, mostly to watch an attempt.

The idea behind goldpocket.com is that you're asked three trivia questions at a time. You compete against one of the thousands of other players. Winners advance; losers go into some sort of lame consolation round. (Ties are broken by a lightning round, where speed counts.) The final winner gets $100K with a chance to win...one million dollars. I have no idea how they hope to turn a profit.

The idea behind last night's gathering is that if we got several people playing in the same place, they could help each other out while still having several people playing. So, after much furious networking, 4 systems were set up. There were about 8 of us, so I and others merely observed.

The first sign of trouble came in the first round, when two of the computers sitting right next to each other were paired off. The odds of that seem pretty slim, but we can't figure out any explanation. One was connected via a modem, so it's not like they were matching up IP addresses. Anyway, that knocked 1 out, and the questions were so easy that others were forced into lightning rounds and knocked out pretty quickly. The last remaining one lost in about round 6. (Out of 13 or more.)

We watched the rest of the questions. Then things degenerated into a discussion of how to network Windows 98 machines, and I hit the road.

A Day at the Races

I went to Laurel Racetrack yesterday with Mensa. I'm sure that sounds like we figured we could beat the system, or makes people wonder what smart people are doing throwing their money away on the ponies. But, really, it was just a social event.

I had never been to the track before, so it was an interesting experience for me. I had to ask a lot of questions before starting to get how the whole betting thing works. It's neat; the final odds are not determined by a handicapper, but by what bets get placed on which horses. So if lots of people bet on a longshot, the odds come down. It take a little getting used to, but it's really a "free market" type of system, and those things are pretty darn efficient most of the time.

I decided I was willing to lose $20 (we figured to stay for less than 10 races, so that would allow at least a $2 bet in each race). I announced this fact, to everyone's great amusement. My strategy was simple -- pick the horses with the most interesting names (e.g., Party Guy, so I could yell "Party! Party!" during the race). The strategy worked for my first two bets -- but I kept letting things ride and lost $10 on the third bet. On my fourth bet, I wanted to bet the favorite but at 1-5 odds (or 2-5; it kept fluctuating), it hardly seemed worth it. So I went for the exacta. Voila, now I had another $10 to bet. But I lost that bet, and the next one. We decided to leave early, and I was only down $10. So on the last race, I put 2 $5 bets on the longshots, one to show and one to win. The 40-1 longshot I had to win was leading pretty late into the race, which was exciting, but he ended up fading to 7th. Such is the way of longshots. The other horse ended up 9th. Anyway, all in all it was pretty fun, and a fairly slow way to lose money.

Hail To The Redskins

While I was in the midst of figuring out yesterday where to watch the second Redskins pre-season game, Ben called me up and said he had his parents' tickets. Did I want to go? Of course!

Ben's parents have season tickets, and from time to time they find a reason not to go. Especially to pre-season games. As a life-long Redskins fan, it's a joy to see the team under any circumstances. And it was nice to see Smith, Sanders and the other new additions out on the field.

I must admit we ducked out partway through the fourth quarter. I love the team, but the fans can sometimes get tiresome. Here I'm thinking of the woman next to me who kept putting her elbow into my seat space, the guy behind me who was telling his buddy about his vasectomy, and the drunken yahoos a few rows back who kept yelling out obscenities that had nothing to do with the game. C'mon guys, at least keep 'em relevant.

Oh, and if you want to hear about on the field action, take a look at the article Redskins' running game roughs up Patriots. Go team!

It's Always Nice to Be Appreciated

Especially by Bryan J. Busch.

Campin' Pictures

Enjoy these pictures from my recent camping trip (mentioned in an earlier episode).

Teddy

Sorry, nothing funny today. I'm tired. Teddy has been through a series of health crises over the past month or so. The first two, which struck at right around the same time were scrapes on his head and pain when walking. The pain when walking was probably due to a slipped disc in his neck. That was treated fairly easily through anti-inflammatory drugs and switching from attaching his leash to a collar to attaching it to a harness. The scrapes were more of a pain...they involved a long routine of antibiotics, some sort of cream, and special shampoo. Also, there was a brief ringworm scare, which caused me to keep everyone away from Teddy for fear he was contagious. Finally, last week, I was told that Teddy was A-OK and could resume his normal life.

Then, Monday night, when people were over for D&D, Teddy started running around in a most disturbing way. He would tilt to the right. Sometimes only a little bit, but sometimes he'd pull a Dick Cheney and run into things he'd be so far over to the right. I called the vet's after-hours number and was told it was probably just an ear infection.

Not so. When I took Teddy in the next day, the vet noticed one of the pupils was dilated. Blood tests ruled out an infection, so the most likely choices remain that he suffered a minor stroke or that he has a tumor (or some other degenerative condition). I'm convincing myself it's a stroke, 'cause with a stroke, he gradually gets better. And he has been. This morning, his eyes were closer to looking the same. And he's been walking in straight lines, although I haven't gotten him excited (which causes the condition to worsen).

Sigh. Anyway, we're seeing the vet again next Tuesday, at which point we get to decide if it's off to the doggie neurologist. Keep him in your thoughts.

"He's Become More Powerful Than We Could Ever Imagine"

Martin made that remark after passing along the sad news that British Actor Sir Alec Guinness Dies at 86. We discussed whether this meant that our generational icons were beginning to pass on. I argued that Alec Guiness belonged more to our parents' generation. He pointed out that "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Bridge on the River Kwai" made him a good actor to our parents, but Obi-Wan was a legend. Good point, but as long as we have Han Solo, I'll still feel young.

I'm posting this via NewsBlogger, a new site letting me post news articles in Blogger. It's powered by Moreover, which has a pretty darn good selection of headlines. As something of a news fan, I may start using this to generate more weblog posts.

Unfortunately, Newsblogger is no more; the link doesn't work. Moreover is also no more -- I changed the home page link to point to the Wayback Machine version of it, but the Alec Guiness article can't be reached. 25 Mar 2005

Pseudoprime.com

Well, I went and registered pseudoprime.com at register.com today. (It'll take a few days for the link to become active.) I've been going back and forth between the idea of using jgrantham.com for my web pages, too, or keeping it for my e-mail only. But I'm content enough with my current e-mail setup that I don't want to change it around -- so I'm going to eventually put the web pages on pseudoprime.com. That'll set me up to ditch clark.net eventually.

This was partially inspired by a re-design of my web site. I've used cascading style sheets and a sidebar to give a common feel to many of the pages. I've also cleaned up the home page considerably.

Why pseudoprime.com? My dissertation title was Frobenius Pseudoprimes, and it's the subject on which I've done most of my research.

Campin'

Ben, Mickey, George and I went camping last weekend at Cunningham Falls State Park. It was a lot of fun. We went hiking, played D&D, drank beer, and ate a bunch of unhealthy food.

It was interesting watching all of the families with kids at the campground. Apparently a lot of parents see it as a good idea to bring their kids' bikes and let their kids ride around the camp site loop. Around and around and around. There was one girl who rode her pink bike around the loop, wore her pink helmet, and would ding her bell every time she got to the top of the loop. Another boy had some seriously squeaky brakes. So for a while it was, "Ding ding. (Pause.) Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak. (Pause.) Ding ding." Repeat.

I never went camping with my folks growing up, so I don't really have a set of expectations for what it's like to be a kid camping. But somehow I'd hope that it would be more exciting than riding a bike around and around in circles. I mean, c'mon, that's what I did at home.

Douglas Coupland's Miss Wyoming, p. 247

"She tried joining Mensa but was turned off by the bunch of balding men who wanted to discuss nudism, and women who refused to stop punning or laughing at their own spoonerisms."

The Incomprehensible X-Men

I saw the X-Men movie on Monday. Wolverine kicks ass. 'Nuff said.

The movie inspired me to want to start reading comics again. And where better to start than with the X-Men comic book? But which one? I remember enough from my comic book reading days to know that Marvel produces a number of different versions of its most popular titles. So where could I see some of the complex battle of wills I had fun with in the movie? I eventually found a web site giving a guide to the X-Titles. Well, it was clear I'd need to be careful to pick the right title to avoid things such as a time-traveling X-Man from the future -- I was looking for basic, vanilla X-Men.

Further searching turned up the X-Axis, where some Scottish guy publishes weekly reviews of the various issues. Pretty entertaining, even for someone who doesn't read them. But it just confirmed one thing. There are no basic, vanilla X-Men anymore! It's all alternative universe this and space alien that. It's all fiendishly complicated to maintain continuity for some 45-year old guy who lives with his parents and will have a complete fit if something doesn't fit with one little piece of his 20-year collection of X-Men comics. ("But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills, you're from two different worlds.") I don't know, maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking there's somewhere I can go to get interesting superhero comic books without having to become an obsessive reader to understand what the h-e-double-hockeysticks is going on. But it apparently doesn't involve the X-Men.

Tennis Ball Madness

My friend Dave was in town last weekend. Dave is a big baseball fan. When we're at conferences together, we try to take in a game. We went to Fenway at the Fermat conference in '95, we caught the Ottawa Lynx at CNTA '96, and we tried to catch a minor league game in Winnipeg in '99, but it was rained out. So when he came for a visit, it was natural we'd go see a Bowie Baysox. It was a pretty cool game. The Baysox ended up winning in the bottom of the 10th. Cool.

And there were even fireworks after the game. In some ways, they were even better than the fireworks on the Mall on the 4th. They were closer, so we could hear them being fired, and there was a greater variety.

But that wasn't the best part. The best part was...Tennis Ball Madness! For $1, you could buy a tennis ball and throw it on the field after the game. The object was ostensibly to get the balls into some hula hoops which would win various prizes...a dozen bagels, $10 off a lube job... But really, the cool thing was we got to chuck stuff on the field and not get arrested.

Harry Potter and the Goblin of Fire

With 734 pages, it's filled with a story of magic, a fictional world, and so many other things that will make you never want to put this book down. READ HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLIN OF FIRE TODAY!

This review at Amazon.com says it all about J. K. Rowling's new Harry Potter book. Er...what do you mean it's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Oh, yeah, that book.

Anyhoo, I just stayed up late last night to finish it. It was an enjoyable read, although I feel that the ending was a little muddled, but I think I could say that of most of her books.

One thing I've noticed as a recurring theme through the books is people being wrongly accused of things they didn't do. There are lots of examples from earlier books -- Hagrid, Buckbeak, Harry, Snape, etc. -- so I won't spoil anything about this book by giving examples here. I don't even think this book does so more than the others -- it's just something I noticed more this time.

Maybe that's because it's something I've been thinking about myself recently. I'm a very judgemental person. I tend to try to form opinions rather quickly. A silly example follows.

After the TV show Friends came out, Martin called me up and asked me what I thought about it. I started going off on a rant about how it was clearly a slickly packaged attempt to market a certain image of Generation X. Martin said, "You know, with anyone else, I would have just asked, 'How about that great new show, Friends?'"

You know, I was right about the show. But it's also pretty funny (most of the time), a fact I had overlooked in my initial recoil to the way the show was "targeted". It's since become one of my favorite shows. So I do give things (and people) second chances. But I sort of wonder how much I may have overlooked due to unfavorable first impressions. So I'm trying to do better. So if somebody seems like a jerk at first, maybe I give them a chance to prove me wrong. Or prove that they really are a jerk. Which would have me hanging around with jerks more often. Hmm, is it worth it?

Emo

When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me.

The other day a woman came up to me and said, "Didn't I see you on television?"
I said, "I don't know. You can't see out the other way."

I went to see Emo Philips a couple of weeks ago. We sat at a table right near the stage. I was sitting in a chair up against the stage, so close I rested my elbow on stage. So I got to be in one of these:

• "What's your name?"
  
• "Jon."
  
• "What do you do?"
  
• "I'm a mathematician."
  

Emo then told a joke about Stephen Hawking. What I should have said is, "Dude, he's a physicist." Unfortunately, all I could think of to say was, "He's a physicist." At least I was clever enough to realize that wasn't funny enough to say. But while everyone else is sitting there enjoying the joke, I was just sitting there thinking, "I can't believe he's telling a physicist joke. I'm a mathematician." I mean, really.

You Say You Want a Revolution

I went to see The Patriot with George last weekend.

You know that old cliche, "If you only see one movie this year..."? Well, for George it isn't a cliche. He sees one movie a year. Last year it was The Phantom Menace, a few years ago it was Braveheart, and a couple of years before that it was Multiplicity (he had to kill time while getting his truck fixed, and that was what was playing). Anyway, since George does Revolutionary War re-enactment, and since he really enjoyed Braveheart, this seemed like an appropriate choice.

We had settled in for the (long series of) trailers, when one came on for the movie Pearl Harbor. It opened with some kids playing ball, then all of a sudden Japanese planes started streaking across the sky. Scenes from the attack on Pearl Harbor ran while FDR's "Date Which Will LIve in Infamy" speech played. At the end, "Memorial Day 2001" flashed onto the screen. George turned to me and said, "I was afraid I was going to get screwed up."

Back to this year's movie. I found it somewhat enjoyable, although towards the end, it got to be too much, "You Klingon bastard, you killed my son." And this Salon article raises some disturbing questions about certain of the movie's historical inaccuracies. And really, I would have so much preferred a historically accurate movie. George pointed out that the exploding shells in the movie were also anachronistic.

But, still, it was nice going into the 4th to be reminded that Independence Day is not just about fireworks. It honors a sacrifices made in the birth of this nation, too. And I'm sure "Pearl Harbor" will be a good reminder of other sacrifices.

The Big Schtick

When I was in high school, some friends of mine and I started writing a chain story. We would pass it around Mr. Snyder's AP Modern European History class, and each of us would write a paragraph or so before passing it along.

Some time during college, somebody typed it up. I recently pulled it off disk, where it had been compressed with the ZOO archiver and formatted in WordPerfect 4.2. I eventually uncompressed it, converted it to HTML, and fixed some typos.

Ladies and gentleman, I present The Big Schtick. Warning: it is long and weird.

I have recently tried to get some of the same authors to work on a web-based chain story. So far, it's off to a slow start (I blame Paul), but I hope it will pick up.

We All Want to Change the World

I was driving to work yesterday listening to a Beatles album when "Revolution" came on. This ranks right up there with "The One I Love" in the misunderstood songs of all time.

A few years back, when Nike decided to use the song in an add campaign, much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. I remember in particular an op-ed in the Washington Post bemoaning how a song the author associated with protesting the status quo had turned into a tool of commercialism.

Hint: just because a song has a word in (or as) its title, doesn't mean it's a song in favor of that word. The Beatles could be "conservative," after a fashion. Ever listen to "Taxman"? More to the point, ever listen to these lyrics?

You say you'll change the constitution
Well you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead

I remember being in high school and writing a paper on Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange. I needed to incorporate literary criticism into my paper, so I went to the library and found some big honkin' books full of criticism. Wow -- this was exciting. And there was criticism of everything -- even Beatles songs.

One in particular that stuck out was a screed on "Revolution" writted for some socialist worker's magazine. This guy got it -- mostly. He railed against the Beatles as tools of capitalist oppression. Out there, yes, but at least he had a clue (about music). Of course, like a good Red, he wasn't above distorting things to make a point. He took the lyrics

You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

and blasted the Beatles for equating "contribution" with "money". In fact, I think that's explicitly not true. They equate "contribution" with "doing what we can." The person they're talking to, by contrast, just wants "money for people with minds that hate." Ah, well.

Anyway, I think this illustrates one of the great lessons of life.

Pay attention!

Redesign!

I re-designed my weblog today to use cascading style sheets. How does it look?

Let me know if you have any problems with it.

The Pragmatist

Last weekend, I went to see a collection of photographs by Glen E. Friedman. He took a number of photographs of skateboarding, hardcore, and rap scenes, and the amazing thing (as mentioned several places in the exhibit), is that he started taking these pictures early -- before these scenes hit the mainstream radar. OK, interesting enough.

But one thing that interested me was the political message underneath the photographs. Friedman seems to feel that each group of people was comprised of idealists; indeed his latest book is entitled "The Idealist". Flipping through a copy of that book, I was treated to an idolization of the idealist over the pragmatist. There, as other places in the exhibit, Ronald Reagan was specifically mentioned as the enemy of the idealist.

Later that evening, I went hope and watched CNN's Cold War documentary on the '80s and "Star Wars" (SDI). One of the things that struck me was how passionately Reagan believed in a missle defense system, and how he risked various arms control agreements that he was interested in, just for the sake of preserving SDI. In fact, the agreements were only signed after the Soviets realized that SDI would never be built as conceived.

So maybe Reagan wasn't a pragmatist (is that what people call idealists they don't agree with?). And I doubt everybody Friedman photographed was really an idealist; in the preface to one of his books, someone noted that the idealism of the skateboarders sounds more like "adolescent dickishness" in retrospect.

But what of this dichotomy between idealism and pragmatism in general? Is it real or is it false? To me, idealism and pragmatism are two balancing forces that need to exist in harmony. If you're an unrelenting pacifist, you may see your entire town slaughtered because you refused to compromise. If you believe that your example will achieve the cause of pacifism, that's one thing. But if you're trying to prevent violence from occuring, well, you lost. Similarly, the pure pragmatist is willing to do anything to achieve...what goals?

In my view, we have a responsibility to be idealists when we choose our goals -- world peace, freedom, etc. But then we have to be pragmatists when trying to figure out how to realize them.

I Can't Dance, But I Can Type

During my recent excursion at Mensa happy hour, the conversation turned to the subject of dance. Swing dancing, contra dancing -- it seemed like everyone sitting near me did some form of dancing. Not me. I am very...uncoordinated? Klutzy? Arhythmic? My last attempt to go out and dance was a very traumatic experience -- for both my dance partner and myself. I just couldn't seem to learn the steps.

So part of what I need to learn to do is accept that I can't dance; there are many other wonderful aspects to my personality. And hopefully the subject of dancing won't come up every time I hang out with Mensans.

And yet, and yet...do I need to accept myself as who I am, or do I need to improve myself? Or both? Always forward I say, so I have strapped on my in-line skates (Rollerblades^TM, for those less trademark-averse) and vowed to do battle against my inherent tendency to fall down.

Skating is easy. It must be. I went to a free skating clinic recently and after minimal instruction, everybody was skating smoothly around the parking lot. Except me (OK, and somebody else, but we'll ignore her since she complicates my point). I sucked. I don't like sucking; I like being really good at things.

So here's my plan: stop sucking. Then transfer my newly found coordination skills to other things that I've hitherto avoided due to my klutziness. Skiing? Roller disco? The possibilities are endless.

Can I pull this off? I don't know. It's been a while since I tried to add a new skill like this. But I remember in 10th grade when I took typing class. I sucked. Partway through the first quarter of it, I was failing the class. So I bought a typing book (the typing teacher was useless), and practiced, practiced, practiced. I brought my grade up to a C for the quarter, a B for the next quarter, and I got an A on the final exam, for a semester grade of "B". Only non-A I got during my Senior High years. But boy was I proud of it. And I spend all day using the typing skills on the computer keyboard (except for the ones involving "correction tape").

So I can type. But I can't dance. Yet. Give me a year. Or two.

Mensa and Transportation

I got my "Offer of Membership" from Mensa today. On the enclosed envelope, do they really need to say "First-Class Postage Required Post Office will not deliver without proper postage." Hel-lo. I qualify for Mensa, remember? I think I could have figured that out on my own. It annoys me when the power company does this; it's just ridiculous that Mensa does.

The letter accompanying the offer encourages me to "contact your local group and begin participating in some of the activities in your area." Actually, I already have. Friday night, I went to Mensa Happy Hour at Zorba's. Following that, the Singles SIG went for dessert and Xando, and afterwards three of us went over to someone's apartment building to chat. At around 12:45, I announced that I had to leave to attempt to catch the last Metro train back home. As I was riding the escalator down into the Dupont Circle station, I heard the announcement that the last Red Line train for Glenmont was now on the platform. Ouch. Too late. I hailed a cab, and as I was riding, wondered how much he was going to charge me. After all, in DC, they have that silly zone system. I didn't know what they did for DC to Maryland trips. Oh, well, I figured, I'd pay whatever it was and next time be more careful, if it was ridiculous. But he checked the trip counter, looked on a chart, and the total came to $20 with a (generous) tip. Not bad.

The next evening I went to a birthday party of a Mensan I had met the previous evening. The party was in Northern Virginia, and I had a choice between driving and Metro. Plus for Metro: I wouldn't have to watch my alcohol intake as closely. Plus for Driving: I wouldn't have to try to catch the last train again. Plus for Metro: The invitation said I had to get a visitor permit, or my car would get towed. Plus for Driving: I'd have to catch a Metrobus. Advantage: Driving.

And when I got there, the advantage seemed to tip even more in favor of Driving, as the birthday girl informed me that since her apartment building was out of permits, they had canceled towing for the night. And, since I stayed until 2, I would have had to take an even more expensive cab ride home. But when I left the building, my car was not where I had parked it. The same thing had happened to a fellow party-goer. Oh, crap. As we walked back into the building, we heard the maintenance guy telling someone on the phone, "I canceled towing for the evening!" He turned out to be very nice; he gave us a ride to the impound lot, and signed to have the apartment building charged for the towing fee until the "misunderstanding" was cleared up. And I made my way home eventually, although not before getting lost and touring parts of DC and PG County I hadn't planned to see (ever).

So despite my problems getting home both nights, I had a good time. As with any group, some people annoyed me, but I found some interesting people to talk to. So I'm accepting the offer of membership. I just hope I don't forget to put a stamp on my reply.

Teevee

Raspberry-flavored wine. It sounds like something Prince would sing about drinking right before he got his freak on.

The latest of one of many pieces at teevee.org that have amused me is Philip Michaels' piece Red, Red Whine. I haven't seen the commercial; let me know if you have.

Trivia

I went out last night with friends to play NTN trivia. On the way home, I thought about coming back and writing about NTN, but I ended up in a traffic jam. (At 11 PM! What's up with that?) When I got home, I was too tired to write about it. Martin wasn't.

Sadly, Themestream is no more, so that link no longer works. -- 24 Mar 2005

Uncle Petros

On my plane ride back from Belgium, I read Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture. For those of you not mathematical, Goldbach's Conjecture is that ever even number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes. So, for example, 28=23+5. 100=3+97.

Those of you who know me know that I am a number theorist, so it's hard for me to read this book as anything other than a story about number theory. But I'll try. The narrator's Uncle Petros devotes his life to trying to prove Goldbach's Conjecture. Goldbach's Conjecture is one of the oldest unsolved problems in number theory (since though it has been confirmed for every number tried, it has never been proven true of all numbers). Though it isn't a central question in mathematics, its proof would undoubtedly be a work requiring many interesting advances; in fact, many interesting advances have already resulted from proof attempts.

There I go, making it about the number theory. The point is, Goldbach's Conjecture is a hard problem. Anyone who solved it would likely be known throughout the ages. And that's part of what attracts Uncle Petros -- the chance for "immortality". But the flip side is that anyone who attacks the problem -- no matter how brilliant -- is unlikely to solve it. So Uncle Petros tries, and fails, and is perceived never to solve anything because he can't prove the one thing he is trying to prove. That, says the narrator's father, is Uncle Petro's problem -- his failure to set "attainable goals".

So in a very simple sense, the book is a cautionary tale...set your sights too high, and you're doomed to failure. I have actually seen this happen far too often in mathematics, and it's one reason I'm a little glad to be out of the academic world. "Oh, he only got a partial result." "Oh, his theorems are just generalizations of others' work." "Oh, he has a tenure-track position, but it's not at Princeton." Sometimes mathematicians act as if anything less than transcendant genius is to be derided.

But it's really not that. After all, if nobody ever tries to prove Goldbach's Conjecture, nobody ever will. Clearly Uncle Petros is unbalanced -- having one impossible goal and being tormented by failing to meet it. So maybe what is need is both unattainable goals and accepting an inability to meet them. Reach for the stars, but be happy with the moon.

D&D Update

In the latest installment, we go deep into the earth to rescue some lost miners.

US 4, South Africa 0

Ben, George and I went to RFK yesterday to watch the US play South Africa in soccer. When George went to get the tickets, he asked for the cheapest 3 seats together you could get. Even though there were $18 tickets, they sold him $25 tickets...which turned out to be great seats. Best seats I've ever had to a soccer game. 10 rows from the pitch, on about the 45-yard-line (if you'll excuse the American football reference). So the extra $7 was definitely worth it.

I figured with the US playing South Africa, the American fans would be the loudest. That's not always the case; when we went to see the US play Jamaica a couple of years ago, the Jamaicans out-cheered the Americans even if they didn't number them. I figure that most Americans aren't interested in coming to a soccer game. But if you're a Jamaican or South African living within driving distance of DC, you're going to show up when your team comes to play. Since there aren't as many South Africans as Jamaicans, US fans did dominate, but there still were a fair number of South Africans. One woman came by waving her South African flag and hit Ben and me with it. I was indignant until a guy dressed in red, white and blue came by with a drum and hit me in the head with that. Yeah, I guess Americans can be even more obnoxious. There were some South Africans sitting behind us yelling all the time in Zulu or some South African language. They'd switch into English every once in a while for obscenities. Or maybe they were swearing in both languages.

The game itself was a lot of fun to watch. I love watching soccer games in person, and it was a nice day to do so. The constant action is hypnotic, and a contrast to most American sports. Most of the game was spent with the US on offense, though both teams had a number of chances to score. The US just had more, and took advantage of them. Cobi Jones was amazing, scoring 2 goals and assisting on the other 2. So we came out of it a winner, and hopefully we'll win the (essentially meaningless) US Cup. I'm really excited about the World Cup qualifying, though. I read that the US may play Cuba at RFK in September; that's definitely a match I want to be there for.

Look here for a summary of the game.

Kevin Smith Chat

"The UPN pitch meeting was classic. We didn't have to pitch. They said, 'Look, we don't care what the show's about. Just bring it here. We need programs.'

We could've 'xeroxed' our asses for a half hour and they would've let it run for at least two seasons. ABC wouldn't let us 'xerox' our asses, so I regret going with that particular network."

If only the 'Clerks' TV show last night had been as funny as this Kevin Smith interview on cnn.com.

Superstar!

I watched Superstar tonight. It is, of course, based on Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher character. If you like the sketches on SNL, then this movie is worth your while. It doesn't feel like a sketch gone on too long, but it's instead an absurd gag of a movie. Beforehand, I felt like I had probably seen the funniest parts in the trailer, which showed Mary Katherine french-kissing a tree. But what the trailer didn't show, which was even funnier, was Mary Katherine talking dirty to the tree. 3 stars, but keep in mind there was no way this movie was getting any more than 3 stars. So it played well above expectations.

By contrast, Clerks the TV show was fairly disappointing. I like Kevin Smith, but the TV show just was flat until the end -- the dream sequence and Korean animation really made me laugh. Maybe things will pick up next week.

Time Code

I saw "Time Code" yesterday. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see a movie where four different camera shots are displayed simulatenously in the four corners of the screen? If you have, then see this movie. If you haven't...well, now that I've mentioned it, doesn't it pique your curiosity?

"Time Code" was shot with four digital cameras in one continuous take. Neat trick. That's what it is -- a trick -- and the movie makes fun of those who would ascribe more pretentious motives to this sort of filmmaking. But I did say neat trick. After a while it becomes sort of hypnotic as your gaze passes from scene to scene, and then all of a sudden two scenes overlap, but from different angles... For some reason, I never could concentrate too much on what was going on in the upper right.

The story itself is enough to fill the hour and a half, but nothing more. In the setting of a production company, x has an affair with y, y has an affair with z, movies are pitched. The comedy is the best part of it; particularly memorable is the description of an imaginary Trey Parker/Matt Stone concept called "Time Toilet".

Worth the price of admission. 3 1/2 stars.

Completely Mental, I Must Say

I went to a Mensa "New Members Reception" over the weekend. I approached it with some trepidation. I mean, what kind of people join an organization whose only entrance criterion is scoring well on an intelligence test? I mean, really. Stop for a second and get a mental image.

There. I have no idea what your mental image is, but wasn't that fun? One of the mental images I formed was of a bunch of complete geeks. Now far be it from me to get high-and-mighty on this subject, but I prefer the company of self-aware, ironic geeks. Anyway, another image that I got was of my friends from CTY, a program for academically talented kids I attended as a youth. They were a blast, and the only standard to get in there was scoring well on the SAT in middle school. So...I decided to roll the dice and take a chance. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? If I didn't feel like joining, I'd have material for a weblog entry.

About an hour into the party, I was composing a weblog entry in my mind. Not for the total-geek reason I imagined, but well...the first title that sprung to mind was "Older and Wiser." 90% of the people there were over 40. Don't get me wrong, I like people over-40, but it wasn't exactly the social scene I was looking for. I was wondering what happened...is this a manifestation of the Baby Boomer dominance of our population? Is Mensa an idea that has come and gone, and these are the aging remnants of a once-thriving group?

But I stuck around for the announcements, after wading through a lot of polite chatter and trying to explain to people where I work. A woman belonging to the younger 10% stood up and introduced herself as the co-ordinator of the Singles SIG. She explained that Singles did not mean that she was "here to introduce you to your soulmate" or that you weren't in a couple; it rather meant you were there by yourself to do things "targeted at the 21-to-35 age range". (So why the name? I'm new here; I haven't asked such questions yet.)

Anyway, the "21-to-35" comment caught my attention, so I went up to ask her some questions and instead found myself being bombarded by them. "Why are you here?" "What did you hope to get out of this?" "Why would you think anyone my age would want to come to one of these events?" It turned out that she was really annoyed by Metropolitan Washington Mensa's means of introducing new members to the group, and wanted to use me to prove a point.

Cool. Bitter is interesting. Bitter I like better than cocktail party chit-chat. Anyway, after the party, some members (including a couple of the 10%) went out to dinner at "EatZi's" and I joined them. It was a better setting to get to know people, and I had a good time. I was convinced that the Singles SIG might provide a more entertaining way to mingle with these Mensans. And...well, I'm sitting here with my application and my GRE scores, and thinkin' about sending them in...

Beer Snob

I'm a beer snob. I admit it. Unlike many of my peers whose introduction to beer was sneaking their dad's Coors Light, I started drinking beer at age 22. After visiting my parents in England, I realized that the only thing I'd get when ordering a soda in a pub was a warm thimbleful of Coke. That wasn't going to do, so I had to learn how to drink beer. Real beer. English beer.

I enlisted the assistance of my friends, some of whom were more helpful than others. Some said that it was best to start with bad beer, since that has less taste, and as you're starting, you don't like the taste of beer. Bah. I didn't get into this to drink bad beer; I wanted to drink good beer. With the help of The Globe, I started to drink Bass. Where my parents lived in Yorkshire, Old Peculier was the local drink. Most outsiders thought it was too dark and too strong, so of course I had to adopt it. It remains a favorite to this date.

Last night, four of us went out to The Brickskeller in DC. They claim to have 800 beers, and I believe them. It was a real beer snob's delight. I had a bottle of Straffe Hendrik to remind me of my recent trip to Belgium. Actually, since the bottle is 750 ml and 8.5% alcohol, my memory was sort of fuzzy at the end. Then a bottle of Keo to remind me of my '94 trip to Cyprus. Then a bottle of Old Peculier, of course, to remind me of England. Then a bottle of Dock Street Illuminator to...well, it's beer and it tastes good, damn it. I won't refuse the occasional Budweiser, but it's nice to go to a place where "we have all kinds of beers" doesn't mean "Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Michelob, Michelob Light..."

Primary Colors

"Governor Jack Stanton seduced me..."

The novel by Joe Klein ("Anonymous") is a thinly disguised re-telling of the 1992 Democratic Presidential primary...at least the first part of it. This book gave me the most insight into the Clintons' behavior since I learned that they once claimed a tax deduction for used underwear donated to the Salvation Army. Governor Jack Stanton (aka Bill Clinton) stumbles his way through the primary campaign with a combination of dumb luck, bad behavior, policy smarts and, above all, overwhelming sincerity.

I think some on the right see the sincerity as "fake", but in my opinion, one of the maddening things about the Clintons is that they think they're right. Every dodge they take, every time they seem to be shoveling another load of horse manure on the American public...I really think they believe that what's best for them is best for the country.

Anyway, like I said, the book gets a little odd at the end with some dramatic turns that unfortunately never happened in real life (well, it would have been more entertaining that way). I had earlier seen the movie, which is very faithful to the book. I recommend experiencing one of them.

Images of Brugge

I've posted pictures from my trip. Enjoy.

More Martin

"I was also conscious of being white, and of having bettered my lot in life considerably. Would this lady, with whom I'd worked as equals, now think I was gloating in some way?"

Martin has written a thought-provoking article on race relations. Check it out.

Unfortunately, Themestream is gone, so the above link doesn't work any more. 24 Mar 2005

Priceline

Slate has an article about Priceline. Only read it if you are interested in the economic theory behind Priceline.

But definitely do read this article it mentions in eCompany about two staffers' experiences with Priceline and Expedia. Very funny.

JOSH: 8:55 a.m. Skywest propeller plane takes off from Salt Lake City. Notice loose plastic airplane panel skittering about on floor.

Out in the Rain

I had a pretty good afternoon. I skipped out on lunch a little bit early to take advantage of the conference's offer of a free boat trip. Good timing, too, as when the trip was over, conference-goers were lined up pretty deep to get on a boat. I found it interesting that the guide found English to be the most appropriate language for the tour, but it seems like the largest contingent of tourists is from the UK, and others are just as likely to speak English as any other language. The trip was very relaxing, especially since the weather has been very warm here. It's a very attractive town, but the trip just confirmed my belief that the "sights" aren't as interesting as the overall medieval ambiance.

One "sight" that I was particularly interested in seeing was the Belfort (or Belfry). It towers over the Markt, and for 100 BF you can climb it. Sounded cool. So I did. Apparently this is where they kept the important city documents of Brugge after the previous place to do so burned down in the 13th century (oops). The views of the city, and the canal heading north to the Black Sea were quite nice. I hope my pictures captured some of the feeling.

After that exertion, I decided to head back to the hotel to cool off. I felt much better after a couple of hours of rest and decided to head out again. As I was leaving, I noticed a few sprinkles of rain. "Good," I thought, "that'll cool everything off." A few blocks later the rain was coming down harder than anything I had been out in in years, and the water running down my glasses had helped me get lost (OK, and my general knack for getting lost was the main culprit). I was going to duck into the first cafe I saw, but a few minutes later, I was soaked from head to toe, and no cafe was in sight. I pulled out my map, which was disintegrating by the minute, and with the help of my trusty compass made my way back to the hotel.

Half an hour and a complete change of clothes later, I headed back out. I did some present shopping, then decided since I'm getting some form of food at tonight's "rump session" (can't tell you what kind of food, since the rain got to that piece of paper, too), I'd have a light dinner. So I got a small order of fries from a street vendor. I've heard many people say good things about Belgian fries, and let me tell you that they're all true. I even decided to go all the way and get mayonnaise on them (I don't like mayonnaise). It was good! I don't think I could do that at home, unless I became a mayonnaise snob ("Oh, American mayonnaise, yuck!"). So I decided that coming here to Bruges Online was a better diversion than going to the poster session -- I'll have a chance to see the posters in between the two parts of the rump session. But I better head out and see what food and alcohol they're offering before I have to sit through the first part...

If It's Tuesday...

Sorry, but I couldn't resist a quick post just so I could make this reference. I'm continuing to enjoy Brugge. Last night I went out to dinner with 3 other people, including an authentic Dutchman. Since we had said Dutchman with us, we thought we'd be adventurous and try to find a restaurant that didn't have "menus in four languages". No such luck, but it was still an enjoyable dinner. I think we had no luck getting off the tourist path because Brugge is just one big tourist town. Hey, given that I'm a tourist, I won't object. Most of the time. But I did read last week that Belgian linen was very nice, so I thought I'd get myself a linen shirt while I was here. No dice. All I found was overpriced tourist stuff; I think I even passed "The Gap." Nothing wrong with that, but why would I come to Brugge to shop there?

I'm learning my way around town -- one of the things about a medieval city is that there seems to be no direct route from one place to another. We have the afternoon off from the conference, so I'm going to try to climb the Belfort and take advantage of the free boat tour they're offering free w/ the conference. They're closing the comptuer center for lunch, so I'll post this and see what conference food is like today...

Sunday In Brugge

I got to the Brugge train station at around 10:30 yesterday morning. I dragged my suitcase around the cobblestone streets of the town and arrived at my hotel about an hour later. Memo to the authors of Cadogan Bruges: the statement "The maps in this book will provide all the detail you need for this small and compact city" might be true if you labeled the side streets. Thank goodness for my compass, but will this push me over to buying a GPS receiver?

When I arrived at my hotel, my room wasn't going to be ready for another 45 minutes, but they provided me with a place to store my luggage and a map with the side-streets labeled. I used the latter to stroll down to the Markt and have lunch. I chose a restaurant that the Cadogan people derisively refer to as one of "the kinds of restaurants that offer menus in four languages." No matter. I was sitting in an outdoor cafe on a glorious sunny day. I had a view of the Markt square, I was reading a book and enjoying Stella Artois beer, mussels and Staffe Hendrik beer. If I had to die, I thought, forget Las Vegas; I wanted to go like this.

Ater a couple of hours, I wandered back to my hotel. My room was ready, thankfully. And it was gloriously luxurious -- huge bathroom, high ceilings and beautiful furnishings. I took an incredibly relaxing bath. Despite my understanding that it's better for avoiding jetlag to stay up until the next night, I couldn't resist crawling into bed and falling peacefully to sleep.

I woke up a few hours later and thought, "If I have to die, please let it be now." I had one of the worst hangovers I can remember having. Only the time I made the mistake of drinking a "Skullsplitter" right before going to be really compares. I noticed that registration still had a couple of hours to go, so I tried to sleep it off. Marginally better. I got dressed and made my way through town to registration. Having done that, I made my way back through the city to the reception, which was being held in the town hall. I didn't manage to eat very much at the reception, although I'm sure everything was good. I chatted with a colleague, excused myself, browsed the proceedings, and headed back to the hotel. I bought a Coke on the way back, and that pretty much settled my head and stomach back to normal. I watched some CNN and, exhausted, fell asleep. I woke up this morning, nicely on Belgium time. So my new method of adjusting yourself to a new timezone: a hangover. I probably won't try that on the way back, though.

Greetings from Belgium

Hi from Brugge, where I'm on a coffee break between talks at the conference. Since I don't drink coffee, well, this seemed like an appopriate use of my time. (Y'know, instead of actually talking to people.)

The flight over was the smoothest transatlantic flight I can remember. These direct flights are really cool. The only new things for me were the 2-3-2 seating arrangement (yay, no center seat for me) and the video monitor on the back of the seat in front of me. I dropped my headphones pretty early into the flight, so I set the monitor to show the map/airspeed/time display the whole trip. I really love that display.

The train ride from Brussels to Brugge was also uneventful. I was suprised that I managed to make the connections without screwing things up somehow. My impressions of the entire country of Belgium based on that one little trip...It seems very generically European. I mean, if you were going to make a movie set in "Europe", I think Belgium would be a great choice. It has no national character instantly identifiable to Americans, like England, France or Germany would. But it has the old buildings, the new, ugly-looking buildings, the signs, the people...the same intangibles that I've come to associate with Europe. The fact that I heard a wide variety of languages...French, Dutch, German, English, only adds to that impression.

Incidentally, I like wandering around in a country where I don't speak the language. I have that same vague sense of not knowing what's going on that I get when I'm in any unfamiliar place. Only I have an excuse...I don't know what the heck anyone's saying. In Brugge, there's the advantage that when I need to communicate, most people actually do speak English. Whoops, time for the next talk. More later.

Android on the Moon

"It is our goal, to land a robot on the moon, and bring it back safely, by the end of this decade."

How sad is this? For someone my age, too young to remember the Apollo missions, what does NASA have in store for the return to the moon? A freakin' robot. C'mon, can't they do any better than that? What about this idea?

And for something really strange, read this "review" of Man on the Moon.

Egyptian Rat Screw

I've been playing a fair amount of Yahoo! Hearts lately. Pretty fun, although my skills are a bit rusty (and I may be playing against people better than I'm used to.) I mentioned that I was doing this to Ben, and we started discussing the disadvantages of playing card games on-line. For one thing, he pointed out, you can't play Egyptian Rat Screw on-line.
Egyptian Rat-Screw. Now there's something I hadn't though about in a long time. For a good description of the rules, check out the above link. For a bad description, read on.
The goal of Egyptian Rat Screw is to get all the cards. Players take turns placing cards face-up in a pile, without looking at them first. There are two ways to win the pile. One involves face cards, and I won't bore you with it. The other is that if two cards of the same rank (e.g., two sixes) come up, the first player to slap the pile wins it. This game is a great deal of fun.
I first learned it at a CTY summer program, and eventually taught it to my friends in Maryland. One thing I never learned at CTY was the advantages and hazards of playing with drunk people.
There are two main advantages. One is that drunk people may not be able to concentrate enough to remember to slap when appropriate. The other is that, in their enthusiasm, they often slap for no apparent reason.
Their enthusiasm, however, creates the hazard that when they slap, they slap hard. As in, you may not want your hand on the bottom of the pile. The most memorable example of this was when George slapped in without removing the beer from his hand. Ouch. Plus, it was pretty messy.
Anyway, it's a fun game. Unfortunately, I don't think I've played it again since that incident...

More Harry Potter

I finished the 3rd Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was very enjoyable, like the first two. So far I'd have to say that I liked the first the most, followed by this one, then the second one. Can't really justify it, though. This one was a lot about death. Someone's trying to kill Harry, Ron's rat seems in danger of dying, Harry's parents are of course...already dead. And several other items (that I won't spoil) play into this theme. It seemed awfully dark for a kid's book; I mentioned this to my friend Melissa, who teaches 3rd grade. She said, "Kids are thinking about death anyway." I guess this book gives parents a way to talk to their kids about death. And it deals with death in what seems to me to be a healthy way...not sugarcoating it, while not turning into the bloodbath that might seem appropriate in an adult fantasy novel. Anyway, I'm eagerly anticipating Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament. Thankfully, I'm 28, not 8, so I'm doing a pretty good job containing my enthusiasm.

West Coast Girl

Have a look at the on-line journal West Coast Girl - East Coast World for a peek inside the life of one of my fellow-Gladiator-sufferers. I even rate a mention. :-)

Lisa Gibbs Recruiting

I've started playing Sissyfight lately. My nom du sissy is "Lisa Gibbs". I started thinking about the origins of that name...(you Wayne's World fans start waving your hands, going do-diddle-do, and playing "Dream Weaver")...One day in college, I was walking down South University in Ann Arbor, when my eye spotted a plastic nametag on the sidewalk. I picked it up and looked at it. It said:

Lisa Gibbs

Recruiting

Cool, I thought. (I'm not sure why.) It was one of those rectangular plastic pins, and furthermore it was in maize and blue. So I pinned it on to my jacket, and from now on that was my nom du bowl -- whenever we went bowling, that's what I'd enter into the computer (LGR).
Then one day, as I was wont to do when I was young and irresponsible, I left the jacket in a classroom. I figured I'd never see it again, but I got a call from Campus Security saying they had found it, and would I like to come down and pick it up?
When I got down there, I was asked if Lisa Gibbs was my girlfriend. When I explained, I got a rather stern lecture from a kampus kop who had spent some time trying to track down Lisa Gibbs before finding my name on a library copy card in the jacket pocket. She explained to me in no uncertain terms that if I was ever to find anything lying on the street I was to turn it in to campus security.
So I asked her if she wanted the "Eat at Joe's" button I had found. She said "I'll let you decide that."
And that was the last I ever saw of Lisa Gibbs...

Gladiator

What can I say about this movie that hasn't been said by Slate: "Crapus Maximus" or by Salon: "We who are about to be bored to death salute you!". You might think...you might think that at the very least you'd have kick-ass gladiatorial scenes. You might think that. But the fight scenes were all blurry and camera moving around and everything. At first I thought it was the beers and the bourbon I had at Bertucci's beforehand, but Steve pointed it out too. And the plot...well, at least the plot was comprehensible. Simple, boring and comprehensible. I mean, it had your standard badder-than-bad bad guy (ooh, he's into incest) and your noble, self-sacrificing hero. Fine movie elements, but you have to do something with them. 2 stars, but only for the comprehensible plot. Sigh.

Whoa

I finally got around to seeing The Matrix this weekend. It had been heavily recommended to me, but I successfully fought my contrarian streak and enjoyed the heck out of it. It was a little tough the first 1/2 an hour or so, as I had no idea what the heck was going on. I was afraid that it was going to be one of these "too cool for a plot" movies that was all style, and if I wanted to know what was going on, I'd have to check a web site later on.
Silly me. As it turned out, there was quite a bit of explanation. And maybe I've read too many SF novels, but it made a lot of sense. Despite my general anti-cyberpunk bias (I wasn't too thrilled with Neuromancer, frankly), the movie was a blast. The special effects were fantastic. Everybody in the movie just dripped cool, even the baddie "Agents". Very enjoyable. 4 stars.

Boy in the Bubble Update

CNN, among others, is running an article about the apparent cure of "severe combined immunodeficiency disease" by gene therapy. This totally knocks my socks off. Basically, these scientists found a bug in the DNA program of these kids -- and fixed it! (Unless they didn't really, in which case, never mind.) This is the same disease that the "Boy in the Bubble" had, so instead of living that sort of life, they're apparently as healthy and normal as you or I. Well, in reference to my previous "Boy in the Bubble" article, score one for the 20th century and progress.

The Kid with the Calculator

I never got picked on much in high school. This fact has always surprised me a bit, given that I seemed to fit the profile for bullying...bright, not very athletic, not a lot of friends...

I remember one kid in our high school who did get picked on a great deal. He was significantly more awkward than me, and he did a number of things that brought unfavorable attention on himself.
One of these was that he always walked around clutching a calculator. He was teased mercilessly over his calculator. Now, they say that people who are comfortable with who themselves turn out to be the most popular, so maybe it was a healthy behavior for him to be proud of his calculator. On the other hand, he never really seemed very comfortable. And I, who didn't wear my love of math on my sleeve (see, I even wince a little bit typing the phrase "love of math") certainly got hassled a lot less.

But the thing that really got to me was this: it just wasn't a very good calculator. I knew my calculators...the entire TI series, or if you were a real connoisseur, an HP (my coveted HP 28-C was soon obsoleted by the HP 28-S). It just seems to me as if he had proudly driven his new K-Car into the parking lot and spent half an hour polishing it. Dude, if you're going to be an obsessive, do it right. Study up on the subject. I would have felt so much more sorry for him if he actually had a decent calculator.

We're Not in College Anymore...

Slate has a diary entry from a 30-year old who teaches college. He looks at the students he teaches and realizes he's not one of them any more. I thought it was fairly poignant, and it did a good job of capturing the type of transformation some of us go through in our twenties. I can't relate to everything, but it was interesting reading.

More D&D!

I've updated my weblog for Ben's Campaign. This time, we fought a boar, and...uh, while the boar didn't win, neither did I.

The Cult of Harry Potter

While in Grand Rapids this weekend, Melissa lent me Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in the series. It's hard to say much that hasn't been said by others about this book (witness the 1304 customer reviews at Amazon). I decided I wasn't going to miss out on this cultural phenomenon just because I wasn't a kid and didn't have any. So I started reading the series, and I was very glad. Rowling takes many of the best elements of fantasy fiction and adapts them for a younger audience without dumbing them down. Very, very enjoyable.

One of the things that struck me about the 2nd book was the consistent disparagement of hero worship. Of course there was the insufferable Gilderoy Lockhart, who was derided and punished for the crime of being too full of himself and holding himself out for others' undeserving admiration. But there was also a lot of mention of Harry Potter dealing with his fame, as he acquired his first two groupies. And their groupie-ness didn't seem to bring them much luck, I think I can say without giving too much away. Someone once said that all good literature is subversive, and it's nice to see the Harry Potter books tweak the pop cultural worship of idols. It's nice to think that kids will be reading this and get the idea that just because someone is famous, they don't deserve blind devotion. At the same time, the books stress the earned respect Harry Potter has for Dumbledore and others, so it's not exactly anarchist. (I didn't see any of the World Bank protestors with these books under their arms.) Anyway, I liked it, but not quite as much as the first book. Looking forward to getting my hands on the 3rd. 4 stars.

Keep The Faith

I just got back from spending the weekend in Grand Rapids. Last night, we went to see Keeping The Faith, the Edward Norton-Ben Stiller-Jenna Elfman love triangle movie. You know the joke, "A priest, a rabbi, and...uh, Jenna Elfman...walk into a bar." OK, so every reviewer makes a similar joke; they even make one in the movie.

Anyway, it was a cute romantic comedy that got serious towards the middle of the second half. It really buzzed along and never made me check my watch. It touched on issues of faith without getting too ponderous, and it portrayed the priest and the rabbi as real human beings while still taking organized religion seriously. Not what you always get out of Hollywood. Jenna Elfman shows she can play someone other than Dharma. Her husband, Bodhi, has a bit part as "Casanova." Did you know his father, along with uncle Danny Elfman, founded Oingo Boingo? Also making appearances are Anne Bancroft as Ben's mom, Man on the Moon director Milos Forman as a priest, and even Brian George -- Babu! -- as a bartender. As they say, a star-studded cast.

How helpful am I?

I have collected some of my reviews and posted them to Amazon.com on my Amazon.com member page. Unfortunately, a couple of people have found my movie reviews unhelpful. :-(

If you find any of my reviews helpful (and who doesn't?), feel free to go there and let Amazon.com know. Your karma will thank you.

Ask and ye shall...

Slashdot posted a link to a FNwire story called Interview with the Search Engine. It involves an "interview" with "Jeeves" of Ask Jeeves. It really, really cracked me up.

Martin on Linux

Martin has written an article called Installing Linux, Part 1. Anyone interested in, well, installing Linux should check it out. Hey, this weblog is called "The Android's Dungeon," so I'm obligated to have geeky links. You can also check out more by Martin. Extra geek points for the Magic: The Gathering article.

Sadly, Themestream is no more, so those links no longer work.

Heart of Glass

I went to happy hour at Haydee's last Wednesday night. Haydee's is in Mt. Pleasant, which while not the worst part of DC, isn't exactly the toniest, either. Since I had to park on a side street, I decided to be smart and use The Club to protect my car. I originally got this club for the minivan, and it's never really fit well on the Honda's airbag-enhanced steering wheel. But after a bit of fussing, I managed to jam it in there, and it looked like the steering wheel could not be turned.

When I got back to my car a couple of hours later, I had a little trouble getting The Club off. When I finished, I looked up at the windshield and noticed a huge crack where The Club had been pressed against the windshield. I'm not sure whether it had happened while I was gone, or while I was having trouble getting The Club off. I felt like a complete yutz for causing a couple hundred bucks worth of damage to the windshield while just trying to protect the car from being stolen.

Anyway, I found out that my insurance covers it with $100 deductible. Furthermore, I found a place that would come to work and replace the glass in the parking lot. Unfortunately, they ended up canceling because of the weather, but I was able to go in and get it replaced in about an hour. And they had some special where I only had to pay $50 for the deductible. So now I don't have to drive around any more being constantly reminded of my own incompetence by the crack. There's just the bright blue tape on the windshield that I get to take off tomorrow.

Very Limited

I just returned from Blacksburg, Virginia where I attended the SERMON conference at Virginia Tech. I got in Friday afternoon, enjoyed a colloquium talk by my advisor, and set out to find my hotel, the Ramada Limited.

Finding it was not easy. It was very foggy, but I was able to find the sign. I drove around and around the sign, but couldn't find the hotel. I eventually asked someone who explained that the hotel was across the road...the road having been built after the hotel, and the sign.

I checked in. When I got to the room, I noticed that the bed had not been made, and the trash cans were filled with fast food refuse. I called the front desk and said, "I don't think housekeeping has been to my room. The bed hasn't been made, and the trash hasn't been emptied." They replied, "Are there any other problems with the room?" Somewhat nonplussed, I asked, "Like what?" "Well, is the bathroom clean?" "I don't know; would you like me to check?" They did, so I put down the phone and checked. "There's a washcloth in the shower; it doesn't look like the towels have been changed." "OK,;come down to the front desk, and we'll give you a different room." Whew. I guess they figured dirty sheets and full trash cans were one thing, but they prided themselves on offering clean towels.

20th Century go to sleep...

I was listening to "The Boy in the Bubble" last night from Paul Simon's Graceland. (Click on the preceding link to go to Amazon.com and listen to a clip. Click here to read the lyrics.) To me, the song is a beautiful distillation of the essential contradiction of the 20th century (whew, am I getting pretentious?) -- how so much progress could be accompanied by so much brutality?

As the century draws to a close (I refuse to get into arguments about when it really ends), I'm often jolted by its characterization as the most violent century in the history of humanity. Of course, that's true, but is that how we define the 20th century? Is it the century of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Franco? Is it defined by the Katyn Forest, Hiroshima, Armenian genocide, Kosovo, and above all the Holocaust? Or is it the century of FDR, Churchill, Thurgood Marshall, Albert Einstein and Mandela? Is this the time of the rise of democracy, the defeat of polio and smallpox, suffrage, the birth of numerous art forms (cinema, jazz, rock, the weblog...) and the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem? "The bomb in the baby carriage" or "lasers in the jungle"?

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think we come out of the 20th century better than the way we entered it. For example, look at Paul Simon's Graceland album. When it came out, his use of South African artists drew attention because of the issue of apartheid. Today, apartheid is...well, a memory. The situation that replaced it -- the crime and uncertainty -- is not ideal, but it is hard to argue that good has not been done. I think history will judge the 20th century as one where humanity took important steps in fundamental rights, revolutionized our technology, and started to use that technology in ways that underscored those rights.

But don't cry, baby, don't cry.

Back in the USSR

Going through my old e-mail last night was an interesting experience. One that particularly struck me was an e-mail from Moscow I received in 1991. It really made me feel the passage of time. First of all, it was from the Soviet Union. Maybe you heard about that one in school, kiddies. Secondly, I loved the "non-commercial nets like Internet" part.

I remember that the request for information was disconcerting enough that I reported it to our security officer at work, who I think just filed it away. Anyway, these days when every speck of land on the globe seems to be wired makes it hard to believe that my co-workers thought that this was a fake, because "the Soviet Union isn't on the Internet."

An Innocent Abroad

I was going through some old files tonight, and I came across a series of letters I sent to my friend Melissa during my first real trip overseas -- to visit my parents in England in December 1993. The letters were purposefully more of a trip journal than personal communications. I cleaned it up, converted it HTML, added a few links and
put it on my web site. It's kind of funny to look back at the 21-year-old kid who wrote that stuff. I'd sure love to have an entire month in the UK again, though...

Poor Old Johnnie Ray...

Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
He moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried and sang along and who'd blame them

I was watching the Come On Eileen video the other day and started to get a little choked up. (Now don't laugh.) It's not '80s nostalgia that got to me, it's '50s nostalgia, in a sense. The video showed footage of girls going crazy for the singer Johnnie Ray. Until that point, I thought "Johnny Ray" was a made-up name, but he's very real. And I had never heard of him. His song "Cry" spent 11 weeks at Number 1, but now...poof, he's gone, likely unremembered by many under 50. As far as I can tell, he was either very, very early rock-n-roll, or just pre-rock, and his popularity never survived into the late '50s. The one notable thing about him is that he wore a hearing aid (although that's apparently not the motivation for "moved a million hearts in mono"). As with everything else on the Internet, there's a web site devoted to him -- johnnieray.com. So listen to Dexy's Midnight Runners sing "Come On Eileen" or the Save Ferris version, and remember poor old Johnnie Ray...

Bears Discover Fire

OK, I admit it; I bought this book in large part for the title, and the cover (sadly not available at Amazon), which shows bears with torches.

Wallace was the first to speak. "Looks like bears have discovered fire," he said.

Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories by Terry Bisson is a collection of short (often very) stories. Many, like the title story are based on a single conceit -- everything else is the same, except, well, bears discover fire. And instead of hibernating, they're camping out in the medians of interstates. Or in "England Underway," England starts moving around Ireland, swings past Bermuda and comes to rest off the East Coast of the U.S. The best comparison I can make is to Steven Wright jokes. "Press Ann" can't really be described here, but is now one of my all-time favorites.
Bisson admits he sometimes writes "odd mainstream works" that get passed of as fantasy and SF. While only a handful of his works "count" as true fantasy or SF, they are no less enjoyable. 5 stars.

Future Perfect...

The premise of the anthology How to Save the World, edited by Charles Sheffield is jokingly put forward that science fiction writers have the best ideas; they just never get to implement them. This collection is a mixed bag; some, like "Raw Terra," weren't interesting enough for me to finish. A major theme of this collection is the law of unintended consequences -- "Choice," "The Meetings of the Secret World Masters," "Souls on Ice," "The Product of the Extremes," and others all show less than utopian outcomes when the solutions are implemented. But for near-future SF, this is a pretty good collection of short stories. 3 1/2 stars.

Kartchner Caverns

We toured Kartchner Caverns Thursday. Kartchner just opened up in November, but it's already really popular. Tours are sold out into June. The Caverns were discovered in 1974 by a couple of guys who kept them a secret. In 1978, they clued in the Kartchners, who own the land, and in the 1980s, they brought the state of Arizona in. The neat thing is that since the caves were kept a secret until the state took over, they've never suffered from any vandalism and are in pristine condition. It's a "wet" cave, which leads to some very interesting formations. Unfortunately, they didn't let us take any pictures, but I have a feeling pictures wouldn't capture these amazing formations. Some looked like Cthulhu, but the "cave bacon" was especially neat. It really looks like bacon. Anybody who's in southern AZ should have a look at some really impressive caves...but make your reservations months in advance.

It's No Hitchhiker's...

Well, today in Arizona was spent looking for the ghost towns of Gleeson, Courtland and Pearce. It actually snowed, so the weather wasn't really up for poking around in the ruins. And to the extent it was, well...the ruins weren't so exciting.

But the car trip did give me a chance to finish Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Take a computer game written by hilarious author Douglas Adams, get Monty Python's Terry Jones to write the novel (naked), and you get...a novel that reads like it was based on a computer game. Some talent shines through, but not worth a full review. Sigh. 2 stars.

Rocket Boys

Greetings from Arizona, where I'm kicking back, relaxing and getting some reading done. My latest read is Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys, the based-on-a-true-story tale of the author's childhood growing up in a coal town of West Virginia and making his dreams of building rockets come true. (This book was the basis for the movie October Sky.) One of the more enjoyable books I've read in a while. 4 1/2 stars. Read my review. Also check out homerhickam.com.

Dungeons and Dragons

I started a new weblog for Ben's D&D campaign. Check it out for my tale of adventure.

The Last Days of Disco

"Disco will never be over. It will always live on in our minds and hearts. Disco was too great and too much fun to be gone forever"

We rented The Last Days of Disco last night. Read my review. 2 1/2 stars.

Y2K@CNN

Marlee was working on New Year's Eve, so we rang in the new year (and millennium, depending on whom you believe) at CNN's Washington bureau. Check out the photos.

Martian Race

I just finished reading the book Martian Race by Gregory Benford. This book is the latest in my series of "Mars books". 3 1/2 stars. Read my review.

Reindeer Games

I saw Reindeer Games this afternoon. Fairly entertaining, though it won't go down on my all time favorites list. 2 1/2 stars. Read my review.

Brick

I went to Atlanta last weekend for a dinner party my sister-in-law had. Yeah, I know, it's a long way to go for a dinner party, but...well, that's not the point of this. Four years ago, before the Olympics, my friend Ben graduated from George Mason. Since he was coming down to visit Georgia for the Olympics, I thought it would be cool to buy him a brick in Centennial Olympic Park.

The only problem was, the bozos running the operation didn't get all the bricks laid in time for the Olympics, or the other few visits Ben made to Georgia before I moved up to Maryland. So while Marlee was visiting CNN, I went to Centennial Park, and, well, anyway, Ben, here you go...

Freaks and Geeks

I found this photo essay entitled "Convention Freaks" in a random comment on Slashdot. I know I shouldn't enjoy making fun of people, but...well, this is a good way to do it.

From a Boob to a Dweeb

Bush was on Letterman last night, and sadly I missed it. CBS has an article on it, though. It sounds like he came across like a dolt who has no idea of what's appropriate. I don't know what's scarier -- the idea that he wrote these jokes himself, or that he had someone else write them.