Got the statement from my corporate credit card. It made me feel good.
ONE BILLION DOLLARS…
Of course I’d get fired and probably shot if I used it, but it’s nice to know it’s there in case of emergency. Emergency luxury yacht purchases, that is…
One of the effects of living in an apartment is that you spend a lot of time in the elevator. Of course, most of the time, you’re just in there by yourself, staring at the wall. Or, if there’s someone else in there with you, it’s an awkward experience at best. As George Carlin put it, “there’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the other guy.” But, once in a while, the elevator will be the site of a bizarre happenstance.
This morning, I was leaving to go to work. As I stood waiting for the elevator, I noticed that it was taking longer than usual to arrive at my floor. Oh well, I thought, it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get to work.
The elevator eventually arrived, and the door slid open. Standing in the middle of the elevator was a puppy. Just a puppy. With nobody else inside. He was a small little white dog, a terrier of some sort, and wearing a red knit sweater. Not able to help myself, I let out a high-pitched “Awwww…”
When I stepped into the elevator, I saw that the little guy (let’s call him “Buddy,” because what else do you call a dog you don’t know?) was feeling scared, because his limbs were all shaking. I didn’t know what to do, it’s not really wise to try to confront a frightened animal. So I ignored him. There’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the dog.
Pretty soon the elevator stopped at another floor. A lady came in with another dog. Apparently this woman knew Buddy, because she started to talk to him and bending down like she was going to pick him up. “Where’s your mommy? Where’s your mommy?” Buddy’s nervousness increased from this woman’s overexuberance, and increased further as the other dog started growling (obviously jealous of the attention that Buddy was receiving). I tried to remember whether I had ever had a rabies shot.
Fortunately, we reached the ground floor before the fur started flying. Buddy’s owner (“mommy”) was waiting. Apparently she and Buddy were about to come up the elevator when she ran into someone in the lobby and started to have a chat. Buddy had hopped into the elevator on his own before realizing that she had stayed behind. Poor Buddy. Poor, poor Buddy.
N.B.: I don’t normally post personal items on this blog, so this will be thinly disguised as a technology review article.
I’m moving into my own apartment soon, and I’m pretty excited about it. In preparation, I’ve been shopping for some furniture, as well as thinking about how I’m going to arrange the furniture in the limited space that I have. When I was at IKEA, I saw booths set up where people were using some custom software to design their furniture layouts, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to do some “interior design” of my apartment using some 3D software to better visualize the space.
I had heard good things about Google SketchUp, so I thought I would give that a shot. SketchUp is a pretty generic 3D modeling tool, but it seems like most people use it to create architectural designs. After watching some of the video tutorials on the site, and some experimentation with the interface, I was able to whip up something pretty quickly.
Voila:
This is the living room.
I’m considering maybe putting another shelf next to the TV for additional storage of books, DVDs, or whatever. On the other hand, it’s good to have some empty space so that it’s not too cluttered. There’s also a pretty large storage closet in the apartment, so anything that doesn’t need to always be conveniently available, I can just put in the closet.
Here’s the bedroom.
The bedroom seemed small to me when I first looked at the floorplan and at the empty apartment, but now I’ve seen it in 3D with the furniture models, it’s not so bad.
So in conclusion: Google SketchUp is pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. 9/10
So Radiohead announced the release of a new album called “In Rainbows”, coming out October 10th. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an album announcement so close to its release date. Usually there’s months of anticipation before a release, but this time they’ve decided to spring this on us on short notice. Like “Hey, new album next week!” Apparently, they’re able to do this because they’re no longer signed to a record contract; this is basically an “indie” release.
Because of their newly gained indie status, the band is also doing things a little differently in terms of distributing and pricing the release. The album is coming out as an online download at first. The price: “It’s up to you.” Kind of like selling it through an honour system. You can even download it for free, and they won’t mind. (I’m going to give them a couple of bucks anyway. You know, for their trouble.) This is great and very forward-thinking of them, and gives fanboys like myself ammunition when discussing the greatness of Radiohead with fans of other, more inferior bands.
BUT
They’re also selling the album as a boxset to be released later this year. The boxset will have CD and vinyl versions of the album, which makes for good collector’s items to be sure. But the thing that’s killing me is, there’s a second CD with more songs, that’s only available in the boxset. It’s like they’re selling a double album where you can download the first part for free, but you have to buy the special collector’s edition for the second part. And how much is the boxset? £40. Or about $80 CAD. (Or $80 USD, ha!) That’s a long way from “It’s up to you.”
I know I’ll probably buy the boxset anyways, and the fanboy in me wants to forgive them, but this is really a rip-off. It’s like they’re trying to trick us into thinking they’re really cool by giving away the free download, just so we’ll be happy to spend the money on the boxset. I only hope they’ll come to their senses and make the second CD available as a standalone purchase. Otherwise, I’m boycotting Radiohead forever. Oh, who am I kidding? I love you, Thom Yorke.
I was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and something occurred to me. While I worked my way through the section about the evolution vs. intelligent design debate (which any book about atheism should address), the word “Darwinism” kept popping up. Every time the word was used, I became more and more conscious of it; something about it bothered me.
The thing that struck me is this: why is Darwinism an “-ism”? The -ism suffix is generally used for names of religions (e.g. Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism), or a philosophical stance (e.g. existentialism, Marxism, even atheism itself), or a political movement (e.g. feminism, abolitionism).
Darwinism, being a scientific theory, doesn’t fit into these categories. I can’t think of any other scientific theories with the -ism suffix. Wouldn’t it be like calling the Laws of Motion “Newtonism”, or general relativity “Einsteinism”, or genetics “Watson and Crickism”? (Or maybe “Watsonism-and-Crickism” to be more fair to Watson.)
I wonder if the use of the word “Darwinism” weakens the evolution argument in the public eye, because it makes it sound like something less than an established theory. Maybe “Darwinism” has a very precise meaning that I’m unclear on, but it is commonly used when discussing evolution and natural selection. The debate between evolution and creationism (which is appropriately an -ism) is a public, cultural one; and the public, in my opinion, is not so concerned with precisely defining terms.
A word like “Darwinism” lends itself to attacks of this sort: “See? It’s just some guy’s opinion!” I’d like to see the word used less, at least for the purposes of cultural debate. Charles Darwin obviously deserves a lot of credit, but in this case, a more decisive term may be more useful.
My buddy made an interesting post about the perception of “straight acting” in the gay community. It just goes to show how every group has its own prejudices.
One thing I want to comment on, his comparison between “straight acting” and “banana”:
This is analogous to referring to an Asian person as a “banana” (which doesn’t seem to carry the same negative connotations).
This isn’t quite accurate. The term “banana” is not as neutral as my friend makes it out to be. Personally, I don’t take offense at being called a banana, but the whole concept of an Asian person acting white can be the cause of some friction. My banana status is ambiguous enough that sometimes I’ve been able to listen in at conversations between parents of more full-fledged bananas, and I can tell, it’s really something that they have strong feelings about. They sincerely wish that their kids were “more Chinese.” In my own family, there’s never been outright unhappiness about the issue, but I can occasionally sense an air of passive disapproval. (We don’t call it “banana” in Cantonese, there’s another term for it that I won’t even attempt a translation of… it’s some shit about bamboo or something.)
And I can only guess what FOBs think about bananas. I wouldn’t know, because I stay away from those people as much as I can…
Those who know me know that I don’t like The Da Vinci Code. I’ve always maintained that I find the subject matter interesting, but the ridiculous plot and poor writing completely cancel that out. After recently seeing the movie, I have been able to better crystallize my criticisms of the story; i.e. it’s much easier to see the crap when it’s all condensed together in a short time frame.
One major annoyance that I had with the plot was the abundance of deus ex machina moments. These are moments in a story where the characters seem to be in a hopeless situation, but then something completely unexpected or unrealistic comes along to bail them out of it. This kind of plot device is okay if used in moderation, but it happens way too many times in Da Vinci Code. To wit:
(Spoilers ahead… although the spoilers basically amount to: they don’t die.)
-
Robert and Sophie are trapped in an armoured truck. A villain is pointing a gun at them. Instead of just shooting them, the villain decides to close the door of the truck, right onto a bullet shell casing that Robert had just happened to kick into the doorway. The door bounces back and the villain comically bangs his head on it. Yes, yes, I know in the book some explanation is given as to why he pushed the shell casing into the doorway… but really, I’m not going to go and read it again.
-
Robert and Sophie are standing in some church. A villain is pointing a gun at them. Suddenly, a dove flies by and distracts the villain, who then proceeds to forget how to shoot a gun. He fires and misses. A dove flies by! What is this, a John Woo movie?
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Ian McKellan is sitting in his house. A villain (Silas the crazy monk) is pointing a gun at him. He grabs his crutches and swings. Incredibly, Silas, who we have just seen killing a nun with a single, well-timed and ruthless strike, fails to react fast enough to shoot Ian McKellan at point blank range. I would expect Jackie Chan to be able to pull a move like that off, but Ian McKellan? And this isn’t Gandalf Ian McKellan. Or Magneto Ian McKellan. It’s crippled scholar Ian McKellan!
And that’s all I have to say about that.
During my recent trip to Cuba, I had the opportunity to observe the mysterious culture of the British people… actually, it’s more like, I had the opportunity to be completely confused by what they were talking about.
I was sitting on a catamaran at the time, on a boat tour around some of the coral reefs near the island. A small boat is the perfect place for eavesdropping, as you can’t help but overhear conversations in such a small space. Most of the other tourists on the boat were British, and one particular retirement-age couple were talking to the captain of the boat, a local Cuban man. They said to him, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like baba skins?”
Baba skins?? Some sort of English culinary item? Like potato skins? I don’t care how delicious it is, but I wouldn’t want anyone telling me I look like a plate of food.
”I’m not familiar with him. I like Rowan Atkinson, though, he is also British,” said the boat captain.
Okay, so it must be a British comedian or entertainer of some sort, as yet unknown in North America. Maybe “Baba Skins” is a goofy stage name, like Carrot Top. (Still thinking food, here.)
The British couple tried to clarify. “He was in that Jennifer Lopez movie… Maid In Manhattan.”
Hmm… haven’t seen that one.
”He was also in that cartoon… what was it called? Roger Rabbit!”
Ah! BOB HOSKINS! Amazingly, the boat captain actually agreed: “Oh, yes, I do look like him!”
The funny thing is, he didn’t even look like Bob Hoskins… he looked more like Phil Collins.
