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Last week I upgraded my laptop to the latest and greatest version of Linux, Kubuntu 8.04 (code-named the Hardy Heron; each new version of Ubuntu alphabetically increments an alliterative adjective and animal).

The only issue was that when resuming from hibernation, the screen resolution would change. I filed a bug report and asked a question on a Ubuntu support page. The response was pretty quick... if I had been checking my email! The simple fix was removing a package obsoleted by the new version of X Windows.

I'm not brave enough to try the new KDE (and, apparently, neither are the Kubuntu developers, it's still optional). KDE 3.5 with a few tweaks is just about perfect IMHO, and still leagues ahead of OS X or Vista, at least in terms of functionality. The screencap shows a feature that has yet to be built into other OS's, the ability to drag-n-drop with sftp:// locations, which I find vital for website management.

There's cool and useful features like this all over the place. It's a near perfect OS!

Nostradamus is the new album from hard rock pioneers Judas Priest. Leave it to JP to try something that has been anathema in popular music for a few decades: the double-length concept album!

Thankfully, it's all straight-up rock without the baroque excesses that could doom such a project to ridiculousness. Taking a medieval theme in keeping with many of their songs from the 70's, it presents a first-person narrative of the eponymous mythical seer. Needless to say, it's not trying to be historically accurate in the least bit, confabulating Nostradamus to be a heretic, misunderstood genius, and anti-hero.

As a skeptic, I would have been a little annoyed if they had tried to present the story as anything other than a work of fiction. Even in our own time the myth-making continues: new versions of his work have been published, with bits altered to make unmistakable references to 9/11!

Halford's singing is quite a bit more subdued than usual, but it fits. It's great to hear the Priest rocking once again!

I'm pretty disappointed over Congress giving Bush & Co. a free pass on warrantless wiretapping; it's an end-run around the Bill of Rights. Obama voted for it and (in the House) so did our (AZ District 30) representative, Gabrielle Giffords. [Side note: how freaking great is it to be able to get RSS feeds on your rep's?!!]

Not that I really need to, but starting now every email I send will be signed with a digital certificate. That gives everyone I write to the option to encrypt our communication. Modern email clients and browsers such as Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird make this really easy.

Two certificate providers make this really easy (and free). InstantSSL makes it quite simple, while Thawte gives a few more options. I've had a little trouble with Thawte in that there service never sends the verification email to some of my addresses, with no error message. So I went with the former.

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

Uh, yeah, it's pretty clear that was exactly their choice. I don't get where Justice Stevens is coming from on this one... left field? The D.C. gun ban was pretty blatantly unconstitutional. While I'm personally no big fan of guns, I appreciate that there is at least some recourse should it become necessary to form a new Union.

Do more guns equal less crime? Well, as a friend of mine said with devilish humor, now we shall see, as D.C. is about to "run the experiment." (Oh, snap!) I believe that the relation between gun ownership and safety is very subjective, not only dependent on what type of environment you live in, but on what type of person you are. But below are some compelling statistics showing a fairly linear trend between increased gun ownership and increased deaths due to firearms. There is some spread; for instance the Swiss do have a slightly higher percent of gun ownership and much lower percent of gun-related deaths (than the U.S.), but over the 18 countries plotted, the trend is unmistakable. This is from a report called "The Global Gun Epidemic". I don't know over what time period the stats were collected.

So, nevertheless, while I personally could not imagine feeling safer having guns around (in the circles I currently travel in), I don't want to take away that right from anyone else, and am pleased to see a reasonable ruling on the issue from the Supreme Court.

Not terribly interesting, but I was curious since the presidential contenders are both U.S. Senators, what will happen to their senate seats if they win. If Obama wins, the Illinois gover-nator will fill the vacancy with a Democrat. Here in Arizona, the governor is also a Democrat, but if McCain wins, the state constitution requires her to fill the vacancy with a Republicrat (since McCain is a Republicrat).

Clinton has a couple of years left in her Senate term. The governor of New York is still a Democrat, after the recent scandal. Under New York law, a Democrat could be appointed, if she was the veep nominee, and the Obama-Clinton ticket won. Interestingly, there has been speculation about appointing Bill to her seat, if she needed to vacate it. I wonder if that would keep him busy enough to avoid interfering with an Obama administration. Nah... I still don't see her on the ticket anyway.

So, ultimately, whatever happens, the balance of the Senate will not be effected by the outcome of the presidential election. Shucks.

Quite a number Saturday afternoons in my youth were spent watching ABC's Wide World of Sports, hosted by gentleman sportscaster Jim McKay. I've never been a hard-code sports fan, but Wide World made sports interesting. I don't know why they would ditch that format. There was a surprising variety of sporting activities and competitions, both traditional and unusual. You might go from Olympic trial weightlifting to an overview of the latest prize fight (so popular in the 70's, they were like the Super Bowl is today, only more frequent) to tobogganing to a lumberjack competition. And it would be completely different the next week. Sadly, a link to that vibrant era passed on Saturday, with the passing of Jim McKay.

"Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality". This is funniest Onion piece in years....

And don't miss the opening sequence of Naked Gun recreated in GTA IV!

"Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality". This is funniest Onion piece in years....

And don't miss the opening sequence of Naked Gun recreated in GTA IV!

Michael Anissimov, in his incredible blog Accelerating Future, collected these seven definitions of transhumanism in an entry last year.

Transhumanism shares roots with secular humanism in the Enlightenment-era ideas of Progress, a movement that brought us concepts like democracy and equal rights, concepts that are yet to be fully realized. But it specifically promotes the use of technology to achieve a better world, a world where our potential is greatly expanded. It is true that the technologies we are now embarking upon, such as nanotechnology and genetic engineering, could be incredibly dangerous. Transhumanists seem to be more cognizant of the risks as well as the rewards, and advocate proceeding with great care.

Dorian Sagan, in his book Biospheres, makes a compelling argument that technology is a natural development. Furthermore, he proposes that it is the mechanism by which the biosphere reproduces. At some point in the future, we will be able to form closed-loop biospheres in other places.

One might ask, what utility is there in life expanding and evolving to new niches? Here are some possible answers.

• A livelier universe is a more beautiful universe.
• Greater amounts of awareness/consciousness are inherently good.
• Maximizing thought & creativity fulfills our potential.
• Richer thought ecosystems provide for the next level of life, whatever that might be.

I particularly like the open-ended nature of the last idea, that consciousness itself might ultimately provide a substrate for some type of virtual entities that take a life of their own. It's waaay out there, but fun to think about. Memes are like the atomic level in this virtual world, riding from host to host, transmitted by language and expression. Sets of connected memes form meta-organic structures. A branch of science for instance, could be seen as life-like, but only connected to physical reality through our thought processes. Or imagine a distributed simulation that uses small parts of our brain power as a computational grid. Could that simulation itself become aware? Would you mind being the host for such a process, if you were barely aware of it, or derived some benefit from being aware of it? What would it, having access to all knowledge, think about? Would creatures such as this use memes to attract our attention to capture our spare thought cycles? Ultimately, will our "branches of thought" become more alive than we?

That's neo-con pack dog Bill Kristol saying, "if it's a contest of speeches, Obama's gonna win." Hey, guess what, it is a contest of speeches!

Well, I thought it would never happen in America, but I guess I was wrong.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, [Washington D.C.] police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest....

Welcome to D.C. township. Because having to prove your residency to get in and out to work or find a job would do wonders for their economy....

Southland Tales, the latest movie from Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly, was savagely trashed by movie critics. I had to check it out to see if there were any redeeming qualities.

It's set in 2008, but in a world very different than ours. A massive terrorist strike on U.S. soil has shocked the nation, and catalyzed dramatic changes in American society. Republicans have used the tragedy to crack down on civil liberties. New branches of government have been created to monitor citizens. In Southern California, left-wing celebrities form a sort of unorganized resistance movement. Oil is in short supply, adding strain to the economy and leading to urgent searches for new energy sources. Media outlets alternate fear-mongering news with sex-obsessed coverage of Hollywood stars. Porn has become mainstream.

Oh wait; that's exactly like our world.

Southland Tales is a complex film, with a plot so opaque it could not be followed, even if it did make sense. It reminded me of certain films from the 1970's like Tommy or A Clockwork Orange that are sprawling, seemingly drug-induced, and non-linear. The characters are well drawn and, for the most part, well acted. Kelly uses a great many comedic actors in dramatic roles (including 4 or 5 SNL alums), and it works.

If I had half a day to spare, I'd read the plot synopsis and figure out what it all was about. But it probably still wouldn't make sense. There are some similarities with Donnie Darko particularly the apocalyptic focus, time travel, strange loops, wounded eyes.

Many of the quotes from this movie are hilarious. My favorite is from Sarah Michelle Gellar's character, who hosts a TV show like The View except with porn stars: "Join us for an in-depth discussion of the penetrating issues facing society today. Issues like abortion, terrorism, crime, poverty, social reform, quantum teleportation, teen horniness and war..." And one of the main characters, a police officer, wears a vest with the letters UPU2 (Unified Police Unit 2?)

Good stuff. I'd stop short of calling Southland Tales a misunderstood masterpiece, but it is worth seeing, especially if you liked Donnie Darko. Just don't expect it to make sense.

Mary is making another mosaic mirror, this one maybe to sell....

Now that the primaries are finally over, I feel it's time for another political brain-dump.

First, to paraphrase: someone set us up Obama. All her base are belong to us!

Next, does anyone else feel that Hillary is basically trying to extort a place on the ticket? Here's four words why that will never happen: "Give. Me. A. Break." Yes, that's right, Bill Clinton's looming presence short-circuits any chance of that happen. On an ironic side note, her decision ten years ago to "stand by her man" was politically shrewd, given public perception (right or wrong), but ultimately may be the limiting factor to her further political advancement.

One of the most amazing facts about this race has been the amount of money spent: somewhere short of 100 million dollars by both Barack and Hillary. The Clintons dumped in eleven million of their own money. So in sheer economic terms, it sort of makes sense that she would work to get the best return on those dollars by continuing the race and building up political capital in state after state.

And hence her continued emphasis on the "popular vote", which she claims to have won (depending on how Michigan, Florida and caucus states are counted). This was certainly an argument meant to sway superdelegates looking forward to the fall, because otherwise it makes no sense in a contest that is decided entirely by delegate count. Why repeat it now that she's lost? Ultimately, I think it's evidence that the Clintons are driven by an absolute lust for power, and are willing to risk fracturing the Party in their continued quest for it.

The most disturbing development to my mind, is the non-trivial fraction of Hillary supporters who claim that they will never support Obama [according to one figure I heard, something like 20%]. Why? WTF? It makes no sense to me. I've very happy that Obama has won the nomination, but if it were Hillary instead, I cannot imagine not supporting her. The differences in their policy positions and their experience are just not that great. What is the reason that so many of her supporters are fixated on her, so far beyond mere preference? Like the Clintons themselves, do they assume that the mantle is theirs to take, and how dare anyone challenge that right?

I'd love to see Gen. Wesley Clark instead, as Barack Obama's running mate.

Finally, one constant criticism of Obama has been that he's a great orator, but short on actual ideas. A dig around his campaign website will disprove that notion. But consider if being a great orator is actually a useful metric in determining who would be a good president? Historically that seems to have been the case, and of course there's the anti-pattern: President Bush can barely string together two words even with a teleprompter and directions from his puppet masters, and he's the worst president in history. Besides, as chief executive, the president is not the source of new ideas and legislation, but is the implementor of them. Obama's speeches have shown his inspirational vision, clear judgement and keen insight. All of which will be indispendible in restoring America's prominence, after the the years of unfettered Republican dominance frakked it up so far beyond what even we said it would.

Over at the New Yorker, a wonderful biographical synopsis of Buckminster Fuller. Now that guy had balls!