Checksum Arcanius

To Greenlake, around Greenlake, back from Greenlake with only a few minor stops for dodging a cop car and trying my hand at some pull-ups. Total time was about 50 minutes. The last mile back I picked up the pace a bit and made it back home in 8 minutes 4 seconds.

I decided to install Ubuntu Linux on my new laptop, which I recently named “Graphitica.” It did not go well.

Apparently, the D630 is not yet well supported. The main install disk failed cryptically. The alternate (text-based) install worked better, but then X failed to work. The wireless card also fails to load some part of the driver properly. Basically, its a big mess. I’m willing to do some work to get a new operating system installed, but right now the task seems a bit too large, so I probably won’t resume this battle until after school is out for the quarter (after August 17th).

Early this morning before sleep, I watched Fight Club. I thought the twist was better than the one in The Usual Suspects, and it was overall more interesting as well. I give it a 4.5/5 (A).

Before that, I caught the Simpsons with Jon and Joe & Company before heading to Applebee’s for happy hour appetizers. It was as advertised, a slightly longer, slightly more involved episode that might as well have been on TV during some special. Still, some laughs, but most of then were given away in the previews. I guess I’d give it a 2.5/5 or a C.

That brings me to today, where after a good ultimate game, we headed to Jamba Juice and then the Apple Store, where we started playing with some iPhones. Somehow, after figuring out that the iPhones were active, the four of us there got the idea to put our numbers into the phones under the name of “Steve Jobs.” We then left the store, waiting for someone else to start looking at the targeted phone, and called. It was much too hilarious to watch as a man and his wife were surprised to see that they were getting a call from Steve Jobs. When the man answered, I identified myself as Steve Jobs and asked if this was the Seattle Apple Store. He seemed surprised, but answered in the affirmative. I then asked if he could get an Apple employee on the line. He paused again, but then said, “Yes” and proceeded to look around the store for the nearest employee. At this point, I was laughing too hard to remain inconspicuous, so I had to hang up and walk away from the store. But oh my, was it fun.

All this was followed by an afternoon chilling with Dan on Alki beach and a dinner which got canceled (tear), but it was a pretty good day overall.

After no work, a Biomedical Research Integrity lecture, Networks, and a stint at Harborview to convert EEG data, I ended up at home and in need of an activity to put off actually using the EEG data for a useful purpose.

Enter Maria, who was also looking for something to do. She came over and after a nice chat we decided to hit up Scarecrow’s 2-for-1 Wednesday special. With the help of IMDB, we picked out the Usual Suspects and Fight Club, both of which we had never seen all the way through.

The movie for tonight was The Usual Suspects. It was fun, entertaining, and well-done, but not quite as completely good as I might have hoped. But then a 4/5 ain’t bad.

In the Seattle Times’ local section today there is a story titled “Cemetery shooting leaves 1 dead, 1 hurt.” But really when you think about it, wouldn’t a cemetery shooting leave thousands dead, and maybe a few dozens alive?…

This is how I parse the English language.

I am now early in the process of upgrading to WordPress 2.2. A consequence is that the old themes don’t seem to work anymore. The original Checksum Arcanius theme was getting tired anyway, so I have started work on a new one. I want to move much of the current look and feel forward, while hopefully bringing a fresh look to the table at the same time. We’ll see how it goes.

QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

COOPER: I should also point out that Stephen is in the crowd tonight. Senator Obama?

“I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them (the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea)”

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.

And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq — one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.

QUESTION: Hey, I’m Mike Green from Lexington, South Carolina. And I was wanting to ask all the nominees whether they would send their kids to public school or private school.

“We need a little bit of competition in our system of education”

GRAVEL: My children went to public school and private school, and I’m recommend that we need a little bit of competition in our system of education.

Right now, we have 30 percent of our children do not graduate from high school. That is abominable, and that is the problem of both parties.

QUESTION: Hi, I’m Stephanie. We’re in the Bay area, in my bathroom, because this is one of the places where I use compact fluorescent light bulbs. I use these to decrease my personal energy use, and I hear politicians talking about alternative energy to delay — to decrease our energy impact as a whole.

So my question for you is, how is the United States going to decrease its energy consumption in the first place? In other words, how will your policies influence Americans, rather than just using special light bulbs, to do this?

COOPER: Senator Gravel, how do you get Americans to conserve?

“A fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn… that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change”

GRAVEL: Very simple, change our tax structure. Have a fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn. And our tax system is totally corrupt right now.

And so if we now have a retail sales tax, you’ll take this nation of ours from a consuming nation to a savings nation.

And that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change.