Twenty-Twenty Insight

The NASA

2011-04-26T21:07:00.001-07:00

I find it odd that people refer to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as simply "NASA," without the article "the" in front of it. Other federal agencies that come to mind are always given the article. "The FBI," and "the NSA," and "the FDA," and so on. The second paragraph of the wikipedia article on NASA starts "NASA was established..." The second paragraphs of the wikipedia articles for the other agencies start, "The FBI's headquarters," "The NSA is directed by," and "The FDA also enforces."

Perhaps the NASA has achieved a level of personification in the public mind that the other departments have not. This personification may be related to its widely-known and widely-celebrated milestones such as putting a man on the moon, landing a shuttle, and a roving on Mars. By comparison, the other agencies just sort of muddle along. What was the FDA's man-on-the-moon moment? Declaring genetically modified food to be substantially equivalent to unmodified food comes to mind, actually.

But the big-milestones theory doesn't explain the DoD. That department has certainly had its share of milestones: from the Korea quagmire to the Libya quagmire and all the quagmires in-between. But people still call it "the DoD." Perhaps it is not enough to have big milestones for an agency to be thought of as a person; perhaps success is also needed.

Companies do not have their names preceeded by the word "the." There is obviously a high degree of personification when it comes to companies. Indeed, this personification forms the basis of corporations as legal entities. Yet, the USPS - something like a government-run company - is "the USPS" while UPS is just, "UPS."

Another factor besides personification (probably related to it) is that the NASA is commonly pronounced as a name, "Nasa" rather than "N-A-S-A." This is true of HUD as well and the wikipedia article starts a sentence, "HUD is administered by". Yet, PBS is never pronounced "pibs" nor is ever called "the PBS." Interestingly, Indian Health Service goes both ways. The wikipedia article refers to it as both "IHS" and "the IHS".

Within a company, you might find acronyms naming different teams. A common one I hear is CAB for "Change Approval Board." Here you have an acronym, very often pronounced as the word "cab" and yet always preceeded with "the" as in "the CAB approved my request to deploy Windows 7 this weekend."

If you read into the definite article as a gramatical entity, its purpose is to idicate "that its noun is a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener." This compares to the indefinite article "a" indicating a non-particular noun as in "a house."

You do not need an article in front of proper nouns as in "the Matt." So from a grammer standpoint it may be the case that "NASA" is a proper noun while "FBI" is not. However, there is no apparent reason beyond the onese proposed above why this might be. In general, I believe the designation of most government agencies defies grammar.

The Lenovo Website is Designed by Marketing Geniouses, Clearly

2011-03-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Question: how many processor cores does the 15" Apple MacBook Pro have? Now another: how many processor cores does the 15" Lenovo T520 have?

Go to Apple.com and Lenovo.com and see if you can find out. Here's what it involves.

At Apple.com, you click "Mac", then "MacBook Pro" and in the middle of the page, under "State-of-the-art Intel processors" it says "...now features quad-core...". That answers that.

Now over at Lenovo.com, you roll over "Products" then click "Professional-grade" (not to be confused with "Lifestyle", "Essential", or "New Product Showcase". Then, you click ThinkPad. Then you click "T-series" and then "View Series" (not to be confused with "Edge", "X Series", "SL Series", "L Series", or "W Series"). Then, you search the page top-to bottom with some mention of how many cores various models have. Nothing.

You do see "2nd generation Intel Core i series processors" and the extended description even tells you this: "Select T Series models are powered by up to 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processors with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, which features smart performance and built-in visuals for a visibly better PC experience. Learn More." But how many cores? So click "Learn More". You'll watch a stupid flash video that tells you nothing. Close the flash video.

Back on the T-series page, roll over "T-520" and click "View Models". Scan the page. Still nothing -- just mention of 2nd generation i7 again. Click "T420/T520 tech specs" and wait while your PDF plug-in loads. Read through the entire PDF. You will get detailed model numbers and extended specifications such as "2.30GHz, 8MB L3, 1333MHz FSB" but still AMAZINGLY you are not told how many cores these things have. Close the PDF.

Click "Buy Now". The next page doesn't tell you how many cores the laptops contain. Click "Customize and Buy". In selecting your processor you still will not be told how many cores the laptop has.

I have not gone all the way through to checkout, but I am fairly certain that Lenovo never tells you whether the T520 is a dual or quad-core laptop or if it has the option of either.

And don't even get me started on "Professional-grade" vs. "Essential". Maybe this evokes all sorts of philosophical insight by marketing geniuses and the dread Product Managers of Lenovo into their own product line and convinces them of their own brilliance in how they've segmented their market, but it means nothing to a consumer. And, finally, what is the difference between the L and SL series? I can tell the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro apart easily because the products are well-differentiated in the first place and because the site shows me plenty of pictures that clearly communicate the Air is about portability and lightness while the MacBook Pro is about screen size and performance.

Update: Out of concern for someone stumbling on this post in hopes of finding an answer to the question I pose, only some T510s are quad-core. None of the Core i3 or i5 processors available with the T520i or T520 are quad-core. For the T520i, there is the option of the i7 2720QM, which is quad-core. For the T520, there are the options of the same i7 2720QM or the i7 2820QM, also quad-core. But beware the i7 2720QM, that is only dual-core.

The Sorry State of AV Receivers

2011-03-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here are what I would consider to be 4 basic features any AV receiver should have:

Play audio through speakers and TV simultaneously. Important for people like myself that find TV speakers do a good job producing mid-range voice and therefor compliment other speakers nicely.
When receiver is off, last-used source is still passed thru to TV. When you get home from work and want to flip on CNN, the receiver should not need to be involved.
If unit supports A and B speakers, they should be easy to toggle. This has to do with receivers that lack A and B speaker ports officially, but allow you through convoluted menu selections to use suround rear speakers as just another set of stereo main speakers. Expose this feature with simple front-panel switches.
Phono jack for turntables. This has been a feature of receivers since the beginning. I guess I could understand abandoning the senior citizens. But this feature is also useful for the new crowd of LP enthusiasts. Today, vinyl record sales are growing faster than digital and many entry-level turntables require the phono jack.

Recently, I purchased the 4-star rated Pioneer VSX-520-K receiver from Amazon. Everyone seems to love it. I thought it was a piece of junk. It lacked every single one of the features above. I didn't even realize the above were "features." Now I know. I guess wheels are features of cars, too.

I bought the receiver because it was one of the few that includes 3 HDMI inputs for less than $200. The reason for posting about it, rather than just returning it (which I did) is because it was one of those rare purchases that actually angers you by how stupidly it was designed. The thing has eighteen different surround modes from "Concert Hall" to "Laundromat" (none of which I would ever use), it has bluetooth connectivity (as if iPods have bluetooth), and of course the super-important Pioneer "room calibration technology." But when it comes to the basic operating features it is completely incapable. The anger also comes from the fact that I believe the designers know darn well the above items are basic features and have purposely withheld them from the entry level model.

I would be willing to bet this is Pioneer's new strategy. My guess is that many of these electronics vendors are having a harder and harder time enticing consumers to the mid and high-end receivers with fancy surround modes, new types of jacks, and sound-shaping algorithms. So what do they do? They just flip the feature list on its head, giving away the bells and whistles with the cheap units and making you pay up if you want to do basic operations. The geniouses at HP should do this with laptops. Put fancy graphics cards in the low end laptops, but take out the battery. You have to buy a $1500 laptop if you want to be able to use it without a powercord. It's brilliant!

Well we'll do just fine without a new receiver for now. I won't buy one unless it has the features above for less than $150.

Big doin's in Madison

2011-03-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

Good riddance to public unions. I suppose I probably take a harder line than most on the issue; I actually believe you should give up way more rights than just collective bargaining when you choose to work for the state. I'd like to see the conditions of working for the state become so awful that basically no one wants to do it anymore. Far too many bright, hard-working friends of mine have gotten sucked into non-productive government positions. They could be helping to create wealth and prosperity in our economy but instead they're helping the military kill more efficiently or pushing paper in Washington or teaching government history classes. I can't convince them to leave the public sector, but maybe if the public sector were made into hell, they'd chose to leave on their own.

Not that there aren't good points on both sides of the issue. Mike Konczal for one points out that with everything that's been happening over the last 3 years, and all the bad actors truly responsible for the mess we're in, to pick on unions is kind of ridiculous:

I’m proud to see Wisconsin be the place where people draw the line and call BS on the attack on public workers, state budgets, and austerity amidst a financial, foreclosure and economic crisis where the government’s response has had the protection of banks, bondholders, creditors, Wall Street and the top 1% at all costs as the driving tenant, a class war driven by the rich.

I desperately want to agree with Mike and just leave it at that. But I take so much pleasure in seeing the Republicans ignore the protests and just calmly pass their union-busting bill. Why? Why do I take pleasure in it? I'm no partisan.

Ultimately, I think it's because what Mike said about the class war is so true. Everyone knows the top 1% has us by the balls and that they've been taking whatever they want from the treasury for the last 3 years. But that's not what aroused these energetic activists with their special-made orange t-shirts and their posters with fancy logos on them and their cheater doctors' notes. No, for the last three years these people have just been sittin' around watching treasury get robbed and doing nothing about it like the rest of us. The bailouts and handouts, the back-room deals, the looking-the-other-way has done nothing to stir these people. But all of sudden their untouchable job security is threatened, their daily guaranteed work routine so unimaginable to those of us privately employed is called into question and they think they need to turn Madison into the next Cairo? Give me a break.

We're all losers for not fighting what's going on in this country, but that goes for these losers in Madison, too. These people aren't fighting in a class war against the top 1%. They're not fighting for the middle class or workers everywhere and certainly they're not fighting for me. They're fighting for themselves, pure and simple. Sure people are getting bussed in, but the real protesters, the teachers ditching classes, don't give a crap about the big fight. They just want their guaranteed paycheck (even a smaller one will do) and to hell with whatever's left in the treasury.

They'll say its about drawing a line, that it is about the bigger picture, but it's not. If these people really cared about the big picture, the so-called class war, they'd be sleeping in Washington or New York, not Madison.

So the pleasure comes from welcoming the protesters back into the fold. Welcoming them back into the larger 99% of the country that's getting raped and pillaged and hasn't figured out yet how to respond. We in the 99% don't go rampaging around state capitals demanding guaranteed paychecks. We wait and we ponder and try not to steal from one another in the meantime. Our time will come, but by then we won't need orange t-shirts and fancy posters. That's not how we in the 99% like to role anyway.

War for All Time

2009-12-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

"I am talking about genuine peace... not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."
- Kennedy, 1963

"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth. We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."
- Obama, 2009

How sad to have the later man in office. How sad we haven't had a real peace president in the last 46 years. How sad to see the Nobel Peace Prize go to a man who's too weak to defy the war machine.

Impossible Trek

2009-05-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

I HAVE WATCHED so much damn Star Trek in my life I really have to step back and think about what ties it all together. Why was Deep Space Nine considered Star Trek when any other series about a remote space outpost could just as easily have been produced by Fox or Universal? Why was Voyager a Star Trek but Lost in Space not a Star Trek? The Star Trek universe represents varied characters, varied time periods, varied ships. Even the enemies change from series to series and movie to movie. In 1966, Klingons were bad, but by 1987 they were trusted at tactical.

There's an idea that ties together all of Star Trek, for sure. The idea transcends characters, star dates, and ship designs. The idea endures whether it’s the Romulans attacking or the Cardasians or the Borg.

No, I'm not referring to Star Trek's Big Idea, which is that humanity achieves global peace, eliminates poverty, and sets out to explore the galaxy. True, all of Star Trek tells that story, one way or another. But there's other sci-fi based on that same story, too. So, no, the Big Idea doesn't really define Trekdom.

Instead, what makes a series, a movie, or a book belong to Star Trek is the prominent role of an institution known as Starfleet. Every series has its own captain, but they all wear the Starfleet insignia. They take place at different times, but Starfleet endures. The huge variety of ships literally makes up Starfleet. Star Trek Enterprise, in its stories about the Temporal Cold War, hints at a Starfleet of the 28th or 29th century. So, Star Trek writers have it in mind that Starfleet becomes something like the second most enduring institution in the history of mankind, after the Catholic Church.

Now this central role of Starfleet is interesting. I like Star Trek very much; I like its Big Idea and I find the idea of Starfleet entertaining. But, honestly, there's no way we have in our futures both the Big Idea AND Starfleet. We get either peace, prosperity, and exploration or we get Starfleet. We don't get both.

Why not? Well, look at Starfleet. It is completely, utterly oppressive. Oh, they try to hide it, sure. Star Trek fans cut Starfleet a lot of slack. So, Star Trek XI managed to take Starfleet to new heights of absurdity. It's great. So here's peace and prosperity, according to the illustrious writers of that action flick:

No doubt Starfleet leans heavily on this bunch of liberty-dispensers to keep things quiet on the home front while they are busy expanding Federation borders. This is, after all, how narrow sci-fi writers understand the Big Idea. If only we could some day perfect the police force, some day make them invincible, capable of overpowering any feeble citizen that makes trouble. Then, we will have lasting peace (submissiveness) on our streets.

Of course nothing rivals the command and control you find within Starfleet itself. It starts in the Academy, of course, where apparently by the 23rd century, we've finally gotten where we've been going with military uniforms. In Starfleet Academy, your opinion either matters (you may wear all black) or it doesn't (wear red.)

But Starfleet has gone way beyond conquering academia. The militarization of education is surely old news by the 23rd century. By then, it has gone on to conquer the family, that mysterious, troubling, final frontier for collectivists everywhere. Now, I've got to give Starfleet props for its handling of the family problem. Rather than undermine families slowly through standardized education or dismantle them by seizing children, Starfleet takes the approach of simply annexing the family to the military structure. The Kirks of Star Trek XI are of course an early prototype for this approach. Uninterrupted attachment is demanded of them, even in battle. A great leftist dream is finally realized as the men and women aboard the Kelvin and later, the Enterprise-D, simultaneously serve their families and the fleet. Indeed, they can not defend their families without defending Starfleet. To endanger Starfleet would mean to endanger one's family.

Besides the Kirks, the only other family given any attention in Star Trek XI is Spock's family. Now here you have something resembling royalty. A Human female is wedded to a Vulcan male, thus solidifying an alliance for generations to come. This involvement of family in 23rd century politics oddly smacks of old world conservatism. It is hard to believe Starfleet and the Vulcan High Command would expose their alliance to such flimsy family virtues as trust, sacrifice, and honor. What a relief, then, that we find out by the end of the movie that indeed political wisdom had nothing whatsoever to do with the marriage. It was just love. Not good, old fashioned love, but undoubtedly that modern feels-good kind of love.

But really the kind of love there was in the Spock household is irrelevant. By the 23rd century, ethics has finally been reduced to its mechanical essence, anyway. The great dream of materialist philosophy is realized as Vulcans coldly calculate which actions can be considered "morally praiseworthy" and which are "morally obligatory". The very same gear work of atoms and chemicals that determines what is physically possible can now be analyzed to determine what is right. Vulcans can safely proceed to suppress any thoughts not needed in logical calculation. And yet, Vulcans don't hold a candle to the specimen Starfleet enlists in the 24th century. This is of course Commander Data, a computer who's ethical and moral subroutines keep it on the straight and narrow. Compassion is finally replaced by causation.

It is unsurprising that Vulcans and robots should prosper in Starfleet. Spock becomes ambassador; Data goes on to command Sutherland. Neither of these characters has a free will, of course. Well, Spock does have moments where he frees himself from logically-deduced commitments, but he's imperfect, a half-human weirdo. Spock's shortcomings notwithstanding, Starfleet would surely fill its ranks with legions of Vulcans and robots if it could. So long as Starfleet's actions are mechanically justifiable, they would forever have agents that are obedient, capable, predictable.

This lack of free will, the undeniable essence of collectivism, of materialism, is also the essence of Starfleet. It can answer this great calling because it is born of a unified planet. And unity here means exactly what unity means today: the destinies of a multitude brought under the crushing control of an elite few. But unlike now, where free will still escapes the grasp of competing nations and corporations, Starfleet is the final manifestation of the leftist utopia: one world government. No doubt the ravages of economic competition have been eliminated, too. Kirk says in Star Trek IV that money has been eliminated in the 23rd century. Never mind that money is probably the single greatest invention in the history of mankind.

Even on inter-planetary terms, Starfleet and its political arm, the United Federation of Planets, is well on its way to establishing a single galactic order. The piddly will of an individual to escape the dictates of the President of the U.F.P. is continually boxed-in, as more and more once-sovereign planets come under security and trade agreements with 23rd century leviathan.

It is actually comical that Star Trek writers are so confused about something so basic as the source of peace and prosperity that they have managed, over 40 years, to create probably the most elaborate mistake in the history of the human race.

Everyone in the 23rd century supposedly enjoys political freedom, yet majority rule is the cemented political order, protected as it is by the unquestioned authority of Starfleet. An imaginative writer might ask whether majority rule, the invention of primitive man, practiced by aboriginal tribes and warring nation-states alike, can truly carry us to the stars.

Everyone supposedly enjoys a lasting peace, but apparently, it's a highly militarized peace. The presence of a single, supreme authority on the planet somehow manages not to bother anyone. (I guess my breed is by then extinct or exterminated.) There are no uprisings, no factions; there is no underground. If there are qualms, then presumably the miracle of democracy ameliorates everyone.

Starfleet merely explores the galaxy and somehow one alien race after another is so moved by the egalitarian principles humans espouse that they can't help but add their planet to the growing list of U.F.P. protectorates. In Star Trek XI, Pike describes Starfleet at a "peacekeeping and humanitarian armada." So, we've ridded ourselves of greed, pettiness, and violence, and the debate about that tired old Orwellian concept of peace through war has been settled. It works.

The fact that peace and prosperity in human history is rooted in individual freedom, in classical liberalism, matters little to the writers of Star Trek. To them, such an achievement of human thought, manifesting only for brief, delicate pockets of time in the last couple centuries, is already too old fashioned and boring to be given serious credence in mainstream science fiction. The writers must instead catch that new wave of socialist thought. They cling to the idea that equality, common good, and benevolent authority will usher in a new era of peace. Of course, the only new era those ideals have ever ushered in is that new era of trenches, gas chambers, and mass extermination known as the twentieth century. But hey, one can always hope it will turn out differently next time!

And so against this backdrop of crushed individualism and free will, of militarism and subservience that is Starfleet, Star Trek's writers have little hope for redeeming their horrific franchise. Yet, surprisingly, those writers have been doing exactly that for over 40 years. And redemption always takes the form of characters that are refreshingly individualistic; they are opinionated, rebellious, principled.

This is what makes Star Trek so endearing. The New World Order it reveals comes across as sort of meek and helpless in the face of confident, capable individuals. One movie after another portrays Starfleet overlords that can't help but hand it to that likeable Kirk guy, even after he blatantly ignores their authority. The series goes to so much trouble to build up this authoritarian nightmare, only to constantly have it humiliated by individuals working against it.

Ultimately then, Star Trek portrays an impossible leftist utopia that is constantly being reshaped by larger-than-life individuals. Of course, the writers have no idea that this is the formula they're following. To them, these great characters somehow fit into a broad framework of collectivism. You can almost hear the writers debating time and time again, "would Starfleet really just let Kirk off the hook?" But whatever the writers realize about what they're writing, I find it entertaining. I also suspect Paramount doesn't care whether I like Star Trek for the reasons their writers think I will, so long as I like it.