A zillion dollars?

It's all over the blogosphere today that the estimated value of the "bailout" is about $7.5 trillion. Sounds gigantic doesn't it? Well, yeah it is. But it's not that simple, this is a bit of double speak. I think it's meant to shock. It's a fuzzy number, and I've yet to see a real explanation of how you arrive at it. I think people hear this and think that's how much has been doled out to banks and insurance companies.

I'm just not sure where the number came from. As near as I can figure, that value actually represents a worst case scenario. It includes all the assets that the government has agreed to guarantee, and all the loans they could possibly give. So those don't cost anything unless things go south in a lot of ways. Could it happen? Yeah. Will it? No clue. As evidenced by my previous post, I'm not too happy with this whole situation. But lets not bandy about these hypothetical numbers like they're real.

I totally get that this is ridiculous and shouldn't have to be done. But that doesn't change the fact that we're in dire straights. We can't be too worried about defect spending right now. That's what got us into the Great Depression. Hoover didn't respond to the stock market crisis, instead he tried to balance the budget. We know how that ended. That being said, I certainly wouldn't be pleased if the real cost of this thing ended up at that $7.5 trillion mark. Lets just agree not to foam at the mouth quite yet.

What Citibank really meant to say was...

Oh Citi... where to start? So many things have gone wrong for you lately (all your own fault, by the way). You lost billions due to bad sub-prime loans, then you managed to botch the purchase of Wachovia. Luckily you received monetary help from the government, and got good terms too. Well, that's fine. Everyone's doing it these days. Though I'd have liked to see your managemnt fired (and possibly flogged), as long as you pay it back, it's all good. At least this way you won't have to send your customers through the ringer to fix your mistakes. Well... now that I've gotten that out of my system I'll just go check my mail... be right back...

*step* *step* *step* *step* ... *stepstepstepstepstep* What the hell, Citi!?

Okay... I'd heard this was a possibility, but really? Even though Citi was bucking for a federal bailout, they still planned to raise rate on some customers. Turns out that I am among them. I have a good credit history and a fairly low balance. So even though they got billions in bailout money, they still want more from us. So without further adieu, here is what citi meant to say in their notice (my assumptions in red):

Above: It's a wide image... I know, just maximize your window. They're just so full of shit that I couldn't make it any smaller.

It's not that I'm completely against economic recovery plans that involve bailouts. I'm fine with it if that's what needs to be done. I just don't want those companies to jack me around. I could call and complain... but I know from MPR and the consumerist that it won't do any good. This Citi card is one of my oldest cards, so I don't want to close it and make my credit history look worse. The hell with it... I'll pay off the balance soon, and leave the card in a drawer somewhere. For shame Citi, for shame.

An eventful patol for this cop.

The other night an object of some sort (probably a small asteroid) fell into the Earth's atmosphere. It broke up as it descended, producing quite the light show. Luckily for us, there were some cameras pointed at it. The best footage is from a police squad car's dashboard camera.

Above: that'll spice up your night.

Neat, huh? It apparently weighed over 7 tons. If it hadn't broken up it could have left a nifty crater. The whole asteroid impact thing has really enter the mainstream these days. It's probably one of the more popular doomsday scenarios. Wonder what the cop thought when he saw that. I'd have probably been picturing a wall of fire headed my way. Of course, now I know it wasn't big enough to cause any real havoc, but at the time it would have probably been crazy.

A new level of nerdiness?

So I was sitting here typing and realized something was amiss. As my left ring finger reached for the 'w', there was a shot of pain. It was fairly annoying, I actually had to stop typing and get an ibuprofen. This struck me as extremely odd. I am careful to avoid any physical activity that may produce soreness. Why would I bother with that? So, it becomes obvious that I've done something to my hand. I begin thinking about what I could possibly have done.

I'm right handed, and not even the tiniest bit ambidextrous. I use my right hand to mouse and to write. At work, I use my right hand to work pipettes. But my left... nothing. As I held up my hand and looked at the palm, something occurred to me. I like to read during my downtime at work. I'm reading a particularly engrossing classic scifi book right now, so I'm even reading during lunch. I use my right hand to eat, obviously. This leaves my left had to hold the book.

I remember thinking today that holding the book was a little uncomfortable. As it turns out, it was awkward enough to make my hand sore hours later. So lets just recap: while blogging about scifi, I realized that my hand hurt from reading too much. Also, I was listening to MPR online when all this happened. That's right, I'm awesome.

What's up with the anti-scifi stuff?

You may remember that recently I complained about Buzz Aldrin. Why? Was it to piss him off? Hell no:

Above: If you walk on the moon you get one free punch.

He just said some disparaging things about scifi, and I wanted to set the record straight. Buzz claimed that scifi leaves people disappointed with real science. I disagree with that, like I said before. Now the folks at Science 09 have some news on a similar front. A survey of science bloggers indicated that they feel like scifi makes people less able to understand real science. I think that's crap, frankly. I used to do some science blogging, and I work as a scientist, so maybe I come from a unique perspective here.

Maybe the issue here is that there's too much emphasis on mainstream scifi... stuff like Fringe and Sarah Connor Chronicles. A TV show is going to automatically be softer scifi than a good scifi novel. Same with movies; while they may have better science than a TV series, it can't compare to books. Yeah, a lot of these shows and movies are, well... bad. But they're bad conceptually first, and scientifically second. Most scif that is (in my opinion) good, has solid science in it. Read "A Fire Upon the Deep" and tell me it doesn't spark the imagination, doesn't make you think. Oh sure, there's some hand waving about this or that, but they don't go around ignoring the whole of science.

I can understand objections to say, CSI. I can't stand CSI. It's not really scifi, but I think it's an example of what we're talking about. They can magically reconstruct photos, extract DNA evidence from anything, and generally walk all over biological principals. The difference here is that it's not billed as scifi. People think it's based on fact, and that can be dangerous in legal settings where people expect all this crazy stuff to be possible. But that's the way CSI is presented. Not so with real scif, no matter how lame.

Science fiction is not supposed to be teaching science. I really don't think anyone watches Star Trek, and then automatically becomes unable to understand special relativity. I think people expect scifi to be fiction, it's right in the name. If there's anyone to blame about the lack of public understanding of science it's schools. When you can get through high school and only take one year of science, the systems has failed. Our society doesn't put enough emphasis on understanding science. THAT'S the problem. Not scifi, which I am on record saying I believe increases interest in science.

Technology overload

I know that technology moves fast. It's just sort of what you expect. But it seems like lately the pace has picked up. Less than a year ago I got a fairly nice video card. Now it's somehow two generations out of date. At least the new ones aren't completely over priced. More troubling, about 9 months ago I got a just released Intel E8400 CPU. Now all of a sudden the next generation Intel chips are coming out. Oh, and if I was thinking about upgrading just that one component I'd better think again. Completely new CPU socket, which means a new motherboard. All the motherboards are at least $300.

The entry level processor in the new Intel Core i7 line is selling for $320. Who would pay that much for the low end model? And why the new socket? Was it really necessary? Was is just so the early adopters could blow $300+ on a motherboard? So lets just say I felt the need to upgrade now, I wouldn't need anything else, right? Wrong! The new motherboards use DDR3 RAM. My lowly DDR2 won't work.

This happens all the time... you'd think I'd have gotten used to it by now. I haven't, it's still depressing.

The Mormon church fucked up.

I imagine this will offend some people, but I have to confess, I don't care...

The Mormon church (or LDS) threw a lot of money at the campaign to get California "prop 8" passed. This was the state constitutional amendment that made same-sex marriage illegal again. 'Cause, you know... if anyone should be telling people about marriage, it's Mormons. So, I'll overlook (for now) that the premise of the Mormon faith is perhaps even more ridiculous than regular old Christianity. I'll restrain myself... this is me not pointing out anything about magic underwear, conveniently missing golden tablets, or idiotic beliefs about Native Americans. Okay... moving on and not discussing any of that stuff...

What it comes down to is this: as a church, LDS receives tax exempt status. Due to the constitutional separation of church and state, they are not permitted to use their funds to support political causes. It's the same as using the pulpit to campaign for a particular political figure. Some churches got in trouble in that way recently by endorsing McCain. After prop 8 passed there were several protests at the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City. The church was very quick to point out that they were not happy, a church spokesperson said:

"While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process"

Well, two things wrong there. First, a church is not protected from peaceful protests being directed at it. Second, the church shouldn't have been involved in the "democratic process" at all. Do they not get this? Plain and simple, the Mormon church should be stripped of its tax exempt status. Go here, sign the petition, and send the Mormon church a message. Show them we won't have religious organizations interfering with our laws.

Apple store eavesdropping...

So I was killing time the other day while the wife did whatever women do in a mall. I decided to swing by the Apple store and look at the new macbooks. I'm not particularly keen on Apple products, but I wanted to see if the new aluminum bodies looked or felt much different. As I wandered around glancing at price tags I was reminded why I don't like Macs. I just can't bring myself to drop that kind of money on a retail computer, no matter how pretty it is. I messed around with OS X a little and was once again aggravated by the lack of a right click on the laptops. I swear, Steve Jobs would get rid of all the buttons if he could.

As I was preparing to leave I heard a sales person trying to sell a couple on a reeeeeeeealy expensive 24" iMac. There was some technobabble so I hung back and listened in. He was explaining (or attempting to explain) how data is stored on a hard drive. I couldn't decide if he was just uninformed, or trying to sell a computer at any cost. Allow me to paraphrase:

"Oh yeah, the OS X file systems is way better than PCs. You have to defrag a PC all the time because pieces of files get moved all over the hard drive and it has to search to get all the parts before you can open it. Macs don't have that problem, they never need to be defragged . "

*Customer asks about large video files, and what you do to defrag a PC*

"Nope, the OS X file system is really efficient so don't worry about it. It's pretty complicated to defrag a PC. See here, this is the home folder. All your stuff will be here. It's much nicer than a PC file system."

Bah humbug... I'm not sure if this guy realized he was equating locations in a file explorer with physical locations on a hard drive. Clearly, it's this guy's job to sell computers, but I have a problem when people claim that Macs can be all things to all people. In fact, it is recommended that you defrag a Mac if you have large files on it (like videos). And these days PCs actually defrag themselves when idle. As for the file system, it's really a matter of opinion. Claiming that everything about a Mac is better, even when you're making it up, is the kind of irritating behavior I'd expect in an Apple store.

Macs are just... lame.

America has pleased me.

Well done, everyone. We just elected Barack Obama president. I'm amazed how far we have come since the Civil Rights Act in 1964. I'm too excited to sleep... but at least I can rest now. I'll blog more about this later... I just need to revel in this victory a little more for now.

Politics is killing me.

I haven't been blogging as much lately. Why? Politics. I listen to MPR at work every day, and I think it's made me significantly more engaged in this election cycle. I listen to all the banter and analysis all day at work, then I get home and scrutinize every single poll on Real Clear Politics. I build possible electoral maps based on their "poll of polls". Then I realize that I've spent hours pouring over imaginary electoral counts. It's become an impediment to my relaxation time.

Tomorrow morning I'll be voting for Obama. There was never any question about this. I've liked him ever since the speech in 2004. I caucused for him back in February, then I donated to his campaign. Now here we are at the moment of truth. I wish I could say I'm optimistic, but it's just not in my nature. The first time I really took an interest in politics was the 2000 election... and we all know how that turned out. I always knew what I believed, but at that point I put a label on it. I'm a liberal Democrat.

So in just over 24 hours I'll hopefully be celebrating the election of Barack Obama. That's not to say I haven't worked out a contingency plan. Did you know that Canada has a nifty citizenship questionnaire that rates you on a point scale? Turns out I count as a "skilled worker". So if McCain gets elected I can put my plan into action and (if all goes to plan) be living in Canada by the time the first Supreme Court liberal is replaced by a conservative. One way or another, I'll know tomorrow... at least I damn-well better.