Dems Refuse to Decide

Well, not exactly. The black folks are clear. They want Obama. The North Carolina election shows that. The white folks seem to not want him (but that's another post). I think they know that he can't beat McCain. The problem seems to be that they don't Hillary can beat him either.

If Indiana ever decides which they lean, maybe it will be over. Maybe not. The fun may just continue...

Never Overlook the Obvious

The title is one of my favorite catch phrases. I find over and over again even really smart people just plain overlook the obvious. Here's one.

There is a story today over at CNN about how men need a space of their own. They are saying that sure guys let the women in their life decorate the house, but they need to have one room that's their own. That guys (and the women for that matter) need to be able to get away. To have time together and time apart. Is this really news? Is anyone surprised? Who thought this was surprising/news worthy?

I love my wife. I spend large amounts of time with her. We both have "quiet" time away from each regularly. It only makes sense. Same thing applies to our children. Love 'em. Love having time away from them too.

The story also reminded me of what happened when we moved a friend into his new house (and began co-habitating with the lady he ended up marrying - Let's call them Chuck and Mary). Every time one of his things came off the truck, Mary would say "that goes in the garage". Somehow this had happened dozens of times, and yet Chuck hadn't heard it once. Then the inevitable happened. Chuck was there, something of his came off the truck, he said, "that's mine". We all said as one "in the garage". He said "no, put it in the living room". Just then Mary came out and said "oh, put that in the garage". I doubt I've ever seen anyone look more crest fallen than Chuck... But once he came to grips with the fact he was now living in her house, it all worked. That and the fact that his garage was used for him, not his car.

Roger Clemens, Hall of Fame / Hall of Shame

I have tried not to spend too much of my blog on Baseball and other sports topics. But here's one that seems too good not to at least mention.

First a recap... Roger Clemens got accused of using steriods by his former trainer. Mr Clemens denys this. The same accusation named Clemens good friend and team mate, Andy Pettite. Mr. Pettite says essentially, 'yes I did take HGH. I talked to Roger about it, and he says he did, too. I'm telling the truth because someday I'm gonna have to talk to God about what I say'. So Mr Clemens then says 'no, no, no. My friend is confused. I talked to him about my wife [a non-athlete] taking HGH'. That's right, the big strong athlete threw his wife under the bus and Mrs Clemens stands firm and quiet.

Now the story gets rich... A country singer says she's had a "long term affair" with Clemens, who she's known "since she was 15", with rumors that the affair started then.

I wonder how Mrs. Clemens is gonna take to this development. I can only imagine how my dear wife would react to such news (hint: I would be better off swimming with sharks or teasing hungry polar bears).

Wow. The Padres Are Really Bad...

I guess it's obvious that I'm a baseball nut. I love the game. But I hate it when it is played badly (this is my problem with the "for fun" softball team I'm on... too many of the folks aren't playing the game, they are playing at playing the game... ah well... it's for fun... it's for fun... it's for fun.) Back to the Padres.

These guys are professionals. They are paid to play. They stink. Sometimes teams just aren't very good. I really think this team is better than their miserable 10-17 record.

But they keep failing at simple stuff like moving runners with outs. Getting runners in from third with less than two outs. Little stuff that makes a big difference. They complain about the home park being too big, but they refuse to play little ball. Pick one guys.

They play in a huge ball park, but have slow old outfielders. What is the front office thinking? They claim to be focusing on pitching and defense, but why then the old outfielders? They seem to recognize that the park is bigger and plays much bigger to right field than left, but all the "power hitters" are left handed batters. Now this time to the front office... Pick one guys.

Nice to get this all out... I feel better. I just wish the Padres would play like they care about the game as much as I do.

HDTV...

First, let's start with the fact that I'm a confirmed Luddite (don't let the blogging fool you, I'm a Luddite). Second, that as a Luddite I am among those very few Americans that refuse to send a check every month to some cable/dish company to get TV, when I can receive it for free through the air.

So with the impending switch from analog to digital broadcast, and being cheap enough that I didn't want to go buy an HD TV, I did what any self-respecting Conservative would do... I stuck my hand out and got one (actually two) of those HD converter box $40 coupons from the government. They arrived last Saturday. So off I went to a local electronics store and bought a converter box (again actually two).

Saturday night I sat down and installed the darn thing. OK first problem... How do I configure the rabbit ears? I mean when you use analog rabbit ears, you can see how strong the signal (how good the reception) is by simply pointing them and looking at the screen. This does not work for digital. With a digital signal you have no picture or a perfect picture (in special directions you can get random oscillations between these). So how to find the best direction? This web site will tell you which direction and distance the HD broadcasters are in your area and the type of (outside) antenna to use. If you use rabbit ears, they "point" in the direction perpendicularly to the plane defined by the two antennas.

Anyways, after fudging around for about 10 minutes (which included the unbox and cabling time) I now have over the air digital TV on an old 27" analog TV set. The picture is terrific (except for those every now and again block artifacts). I did lose the local ABC affiliate, which broadcasts from the same mountain top as the CBS affiliate which comes in great, so I'm stumped on this one, but still experimenting.

One last thing... When I was at the store, a clerk told me that I need to replace my analog rabbit ears with an HD set. Huh? Rabbit ears are two long wires. Both analog and digital TV are broadcast at RF frequencies. How can the rabbit ears be "digital"? There is a built in amplifier, maybe, MAYBE, that matters. But I sure couldn't figure how why. Since I was buying two converter boxes, one for our main TV and a spare TV in the back that I thought I'd get going for when my In-Laws visit, and only had one pair of rabbit ears at home, I figured, OK I'll buy one HD rabbit ear set and test the thing. No Difference! Now I won't tell you that this was a scam, but I'd suggest you try your old "analog" set before you plunk down cash on a "digital" set.

This Is More Important Than The Story Indicates

There has been some recent press about how kids today are letting their text messaging shorthand creep into homework.

Why do I think this is important? First a short regression...

I am of the last generation that learned how to use trig tables, log tables, slide rules, and the like. Literally my eighth grade class was the last to learn how to use slide rules. The next year everyone was required to get a four function calculator. At the time I figured they were the lucky ones. Later I learned otherwise.

Eventually I got to college and then grad school as a scientist. What I discovered was that because I'd learned those things the hard way, I really did learn them. The younger kids who'd learn by punching calculator keys never really learned the mathematics behind them. This isn't just some old curmudgeon talking. I have hard data to support it. In grad school, while trying to teach freshman Chemistry, it wasn't that unusual to start explaining how to do a problem and have the "student" say 'just tell me which buttons to push'. True. Sad.

OK, with that background, why am I so concerned about OMG, NBD, LOL, and the like creeping into homework? Because it allows students to not really learn. It rewards the short cut. But real learning is NEVER the result of short cuts. (One might also look at the recent story about how people do and don't learn math.)

The bottom line is that if we want our children, our posterity, to be prepared for the future, when they must be the leaders, we must lead today and ensure that they really learn.

Hubble PIctures

Just a short note to point to a page with lots of great pictures from the Hubble Space telescope. Here's one to wet your appetite.

Dumb and Dumber

Today was an odd day for "news" stories (I use that word loosely). First there is this story about Louisiana deciding not to ban "baggy" clothes. OK, I am not exactly thrilled with all the kids sagging and showing their underwear (and even a bit more at times). But then I'm an old curmudgeon. Even so surely they have more important things to do than this.

Then there is this story about people using a high pitched siren to chase teenagers away (the sound is pitched at high enough frequencies that only the young can hear it). Again, I'm a curmudgeon, but even I see no reason to chase these kids away, unless they are really doing something wrong.

So what's in common that made me think of these as linked in some way? Well I couldn't help but think of this

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"

That's attributed to Hesiod in the 8th century BC.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.