Two interesting articles about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick

This

... from which I learned that the incident at Chappaquiddick occurred two days before the first moon landing! The writer is entirely correct in that today's cable news and talk radio would have engaged in wall-to-wall coverage of the former, completely ignoring the latter.

And

This

... from which I learned that Mary Jo Kopechne did not die of drowning, but of asphyxiation, trapped in a car only mostly filled with water, over the course of several hours. My assumption for however many years I've known about this incident is that it was one of those things that happened rather quickly, and while wholly avoidable, could simply be described as one of life's horrible accidents. This new knowledge really brings the moral implications of the act to an entirely new low in my opinion.

But having said that, the second article does also bring up an interesting ethical point, which is that if one thinks of the good/bad that a person's life brings to the world in arithmetical accounting terms, his life is squarely in the black. Fair enough, but I couldn't help comparing this evaluation to the life of another icon which died recently, whose life was considered to be one of monumental contributions to the world, save for one specific act... Could one argue that Michael Jackson's life, in the balance, was one of good, even if the accusations of his being a child molester were to be confirmed? Does that mean that a child molester can be "a good person"? Does this mean that I can be both a thief and a patron, as long as the former is monetarily outweighed by the latter? Most of our lives are a mass of gray-area actions, some not so good, some slightly better than average, but not usually in the extreme one way or another. What can be said of a person who, at a specific time and place, was as horrible as anything that ever was, but otherwise was admirable? What does this mean in the context of law and order? I'm confused.

What do cat owners and 14-year-old anorexics have in common?

What's wrong with me?

I see this banner ad on some web site and I immediately think "gee, that's an odd dating service..."

Skating with Prometheus

Something we did a couple of weeks ago:



The ice really was all fucked up and I was worried about dropping the camera otherwise I would have gotten more "action" footage. (it's surprisingly affordable for the what / where it is.. something like $10 admission + $10 skates rental each person.... I highly recommend it as one of those new york things one absolutely must do, such as fall in love and lose all hope).

(click to skate)

"Fine" ?

So I went to the Obama Inaugural in DC....

It was a madhouse. Glad I went (if only because I will never have to do this again in my life, nor will I get to I think).

Some photos of the thing:
http://public.fotki.com/juanolator/obama-inaugural-09/

Some videos of the thing:
http://www.youtube.com/juanolator

My favorite part of the swearing-in ceremony, which actually didn't hit me until well after the fact, is that since the new president automatically takes office at noon, no matter what, and the ceremony was running a few minutes late, it means that the presidential transfer of power actually happened while that lovely, aetherial John Williams piece was playing, and everybody was just sort of silently listening to it in calm and peace. I managed to get some apropos footage (it was called "Air and Simple Gifts") of some birds flying around the Washington Monument while it played and Obama became president. You can see it at the 4:50 point in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StF__T8ho8I&feature=channel_page


Rather zen I think.

Do you have yours?

Something I got in the mail the other day:

Planet Earth gets an owie

Bang!

A question of style for the masses

Should we put Truck Nuts on our Prius?

And, there this out-of-context blip:

A hunter could still throw a freshly killed and uncovered deer in the back of his pickup, though, because the deer's body parts would be real, Myers said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/22/AR2007022201426.html

This is going to be a hell of a mess

(Link goes to a NYT article giving, I fear, a too-rosy yet pssimistic prognostication of what the end-user experience will be like on Feb 18)

While not likely to cause as much economic upheaval as the sub-prime lending meltdown, say, or World War II, the switchover on February 18, 2009 to a digital-only television broadcast (making traditional over-the-air reception of television signals obsolete) is likely to be the first case of the general population having a piece of technology that they have had "forever" simply being taken away on a single day, never to come back. Even the next most sophisticated piece of electronics to be found in nearly 100% of homes over the last half decade (the telephone) has changed almost 0% in how users relate to the service.

"Forever", of course, in the sense that you would have to be older than 65 years old to have a clear memory of what it was like not to have it; ironically it is this group who is most likely to be affected by this forced transition since they are the ones who usually need to have any new technology rammed down their throats. And rammed it will be.

It is not hard at all to imagine Black Friday-like crowds rushing electronics stores on February 18-19 filled, not with the mindless cheerfulness of the Christmas shopping season, but with the mindless rage and frustration the only having something that they never paid for to begin with being taken away can engender.

From the article:

Those who have their converter boxes have discovered the “cliff effect.” If the over-the-air signal is not strong, the viewer does not receive a fuzzy picture as he might get with a weak analog signal; the viewer gets no picture at all because digital reception is all or nothing. In addition, depending on area, the rabbit ears intended to receive only VHF broadcast channels may need to be replaced with new digital units.
[...]
And on the day of the conversion, consumers will also need to direct their converter box to scan for channels. (If they want an up-to-date electronic program guide, they will need to have the box rescan the channels regularly.)
[...]
“We’re asking the elderly to go out in the snow to buy a converter box?” Mr. Kelsey said. “All we need on Feb. 18 is to have someone slip off their roof and get injured as they try to set up a new digital antenna.”

The fact that they could have avoided being without service had they redeemed a government issued coupon for a converter box can only be considered a sizable cherry on top. Nothing fires up the average American's joie de vivre like combining the simple everyday act of watching television with the bureucratic equivalent entanglements of filing one's taxes.