Henry Harvey’s campaign for President of the United States

August 19th, 2008


Here’s what started all the hubbub.

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James Kim is no more

December 7th, 2006

James Kim, a Senior Editor with CNet, died after being lost in the cold Oregon wilderness for more than ten days.

Here is the obituary

He got lost with his wife Katy and their two daughters Penelope and Sabine as they were headed for the Oregon coast. They ran their heater until they ran out of gas, and then resorted to burning their tires. Eventually James set out by himself to look for help, but in the meantime his wife and daughters were rescued.

James was found floating in a stream, only about a mile from where he had started.

This story is so sad on a number of levels. I am a husband and father, and I know that I would try whatever I could to save my family. I’m not sure I could have done a better job than James Kim did. I don’t know anything about wilderness survival. I don’t always make great decisions. I think that James should have stayed with his family, but I guess I admire his courage in going out there to try to find civilization.

It’s also very ironic that Kim, someone whose whole career revolved around evaluating gadgets, didn’t have more electronic devices with him that could have saved his life. Shouldn’t he have had a GPS navigation system with him? It turns out that his make of car, Saab, sometimes has Onstar, but not the particular model he had. It’s been reported the Kim family was navigating off of Mapquest printouts, which are notoriously inaccurate. They had a cell phone but were apparently not able to make calls.
I never knew the man, but he strikes me as someone who was very likeable, fun to be with, good to work with.

Here’s to a brave man.

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A call from nobody

November 8th, 2006

I watched a Dateline program tonight about the murder of a woman from South Carolina named Mary Lynn Witherspoon.

She had been stalked by a man from her neighborhood and he was eventually jailed for breaking into her house and stealing her clothes.  There was a warning system in place that was meant to alert victims if their perpetrators were going to be released from prison.  The victims were to receive a letter and a phone call.

The problem was the phone call was from an autodialer.

Nobody was on the other line.

So how could anyone know if the victim had been notified?

The problem was compounded by a clerical error which listed the stalker as “transferred” instead of released.

Technology is a great thing sometimes, but not when it is used to take over someone’s job or vital function.  The more we rely on computers and other technology to run our lives, the more we put ourselves at risk.  Human understanding is still superior to machine logic.

I worry myself about the subways in New York as they move more and more towards machine control.  I fear that someone will get dragged and killed.

In this culture, we don’t face as much brutishness as in times past.  But there are numerous small barbaritarities lurking everywhere.

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Making your vote count - maybe

November 6th, 2006

There was a good HBO special called “Hacking Democracy” that chronicled the fight by some concerned citizens to try to uncover the problems with digital voting as implemented by vendors such as Diebold.

I don’t have HBO but I found it on the web on Youtube.

Many of the machines do not have any kind of printed receipt, the kind you might get at an ATM machine, and some of them have proven to be hackable.

I have signed up to make calls on behalf of my political party of choice, but I now have doubts about whether my efforts will even make a difference.

We’ve deen subcontracting out our freedom to private companies with profit motives. We should be verifying the security and robustness of these voting platforms before we deploy them.

It’s just too important to leave it to chance.


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Less than Genius - Houston, we’ve got a problem.

October 25th, 2006

So I continue to have issues with Apple over my MacBook.

I took it in to the Apple Store in Soho here in New York because the display suddenly went black. Or I should say dark gray, because I could see some things on the screen dimly.

They agreed to fix the display, and also to replace the SuperDrive, which was not writing DVDs reliably.

I dropped it off, they sent it in and mailed it back to me. End of story, right?

Wrong. Turns out they did not replace the SuperDrive as they promised they would do. They could not reproduce the error so they just sent it back.

I called up Apple and they said they would send me a shipping box so that I could send the machine in to be repaired. But when the box came it was too small for the computer. So off I went to the Soho store to deal with more “Geniuses.” They sent it off for repair, but this time they failed to include my street address (maybe a problem with a database field?) and so it never got to me.

My computer is now floating around a Houston warehouse and I can only hope I receive it in a couple of days. I’m making do with my old G4 which can barely run my applications.

I’ve been a Mac guy for years but all this makes me want to switch back to Windows for good. And it’s too bad because I like OS X and if it weren’t for the MacBook having so many defects I would recommend it to people instead of dissuading them from buying it.

Good support is so crucial for tech companies. Why can’t Apple get it right?


Posted in Technology | 2 Comments »

I Yam What I Yam

September 17th, 2006

Authorities have finally discovered the cause of the E. Coli outbreak that has affected the nation’s producers of bagged spinach and caused one death and more than 100 illnesses.

Popeye in custody
There was no immediate indication why the reclusive sailor had contaminated the spinach supply, although he was heard to chuckle and say “I’m strong to the finish cause I eats me spinach, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man” at which point he tooted twice on the small corncob pipe clenched perpetually between his teeth.

Posted in Social | 2 Comments »

Looking where there’s lots of light…

September 11th, 2006

So here it is five years after 9/11.

I was affected by the attacks of September 11, 2001. Although I do not live in Manhattan, I was only a few miles away across the water. I remember the smoke and the smell — a kind of horrible burning plastic smell. And I remember a feeling of wanting to do something but not reallying knowing what to do.

I ended up hunkered down in front of the TV, mesmerized, calling people who were doing the same thing. Reporters chronicled people who had showed up from around the country to rescue people in the hours following the towers’ collapse, as if untrained civilians would be called upon to help perform one of the most catastrophic and delicate rescue efforts this country had ever known.

But the urge to do something in a moment of crisis is a little like the joke of the man who is looking for his lost keys under a street lamp. A passerby asked him if he lost something under the lamp and he replies, “No, I lost my keys in the alley, but the light is so much better here.”

The current administration’s war in Iraq is a little like the man searching under the street lamp. We can’t find the mastermind of 9/11, but we can fight another madman instead. He’s probably in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but we’re unwilling to fully follow those avenues, so will undertake a more conventional war with a more conventional enemy.

I was not a fan of the Iraq regime, but I think it’s clear that this war has been a deversion from the war on terror.


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Cluster Bombs - Bad or Good?

August 25th, 2006

“This does not mean cluster bombs are “bad” any more than any other physical object can be “good” or “bad,” but knowing the characteristics of such weapons prescribes how they should be used.”

This from a blog entitled “Confederate Yankee” http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/193995.php

These weapons, which Israel has been dropping in civilian areas of Lebanon are bad objects.  Man-made objects are created with intent, and the intent in this case is to kill or wound as many people as possible.  This is a cowardly weapon, the type that is well suited to imperial wars, where the consideration of protecting soldiers outweighs any thought of preventing injury to  civilians.
That Israel would use this kind of “shotgun” weapon in civilian areas shows how little regard it has for innocent life.  And to justify it by saying Hezbollah is using civilians as “human shields”  suggests even that civilians are being directly targeted.  Shouldn’t a “rifle” approach be used instead of “shotgun” if you truly care about the civilian population?

And how ironic that you are trying to avenge suicide bombings which use shrapnel by killing other innocent civilians with shrapnel bombs.

Oh yes, these are bad objects and the blood is partially on our hands.

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M*A*S*H

July 9th, 2006

Mash is definitely one of the most accurate TV programs I have ever watched.

My uncle fought in the Korean War, and I remember him often telling me about the fun that they used to have playing with the Korean children and old men in the camp.

None of his friends ever got killed, either.

Posted in Social | 1 Comment »

The 5 to 9 Lifestyle

July 1st, 2006

So here’s the new paradigm:  instead of working 9 to 5, in order to get ahead we must work 5 to 9.

Of course , we may not be in the office all that time, but when we are not there we are worrying about the job, checking email, surfing the Internet trying to solve some problem.  You may think you have it pretty good, earning your $40 an hour, but when you add up all the extra hours you put in, you may be really earning closer to $20 an hour.  So much for that 40K per year slob you may laugh about.  Thinking about that suddenly being part of a union doesn’t seem to be so bad.

We’re all trying hard to make more money for rich folks, hoping to grab some tumbling crumbs of apple pie.  The “work hard, party hard” lifestyle seems cool when you’re around twenty, but try it when your forty and have kids that you want to spend time with.

If you’re really well off, you should be able to buy back your time whenever you want.  For example, “Gee I’d really like to spend the day with my daughter, so here’s 300 bucks.  See you later.”  Even if you wanted to you couldn’t pull something like that off.  For fear of missing something at work.  That important meeting.  Or call.  Or document.  Somebody else will be going into work and all will be lost.

I once had a job at an Internet startup.  I have to say I worked my butt off for them, doing what was basically three jobs in the hopes of being a part of something special, if not the next Microsoft or Google, at least the next New York social networking site.

I’d get up early, stay late at the office to try to stay on top of web development, content management and other things, and when I’d come home to my wife she’d have the remains of some long eaten meal and some sympathy but also hatred of my bosses.

I can imagine the life of some hard laborer, probably glorified and imaginary, but still real.  Someone how works hard all day, comes home to his wife and family, eats, drinks, swears, holds his child for a while and passes out in the arms of his wife only to repeat the same exact ritual the next day.  How much better his life is than mine.

And why does it have to be this way?  Is it because the pace of life is so much faster?   Is it because we can work when there is no daylight?  Because we desire to be “plugged in” to the amazing technicolor dream?  Or is it because we face the hordes of offshore workers who threaten our jobs.  “I’ve got some guy in India who will do your job for nine bucks an hour, so chop chop, my hearties!”

I think I’d rather be digging ditches somewher than working in the “information age” here and now.

Posted in Social | 6 Comments »

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