What Cheer, Netop?

I happened across this little quotation from the head of NASA a little while ago:

In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep airing May 31, 2007 on NPR News' Morning Edition, Griffin said the following: "I have no doubt that global -- that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.

"First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings - where and when - are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

The attitude displayed here reminds me of one I have seen elsewhere, too. For instance, a member of a university department consisting almost entirely of white men reacted to the suggestion that, among her other good qualities, a female candidate might bring some balance to the department with, "Yes, because gender is the only important thing to consider in hiring" -- the unintended implication being that you can tell which departments don't have sexist hiring practices, because they're the ones that are entirely male.

In other words, there are processes in place which have as (sometimes intentional but often unintended) unfortunate byproducts -- global warming is at least in part due to human activity, and the continued dominance of men in positions of power is because of various societal biases (not all of which are explicitly sexist). Measures to counterbalance these forces are then criticized because they explicitly are taking steps in the opposite direction -- we want to change human activity so that global warming slows down, and we want to enact policies explicitly to give women easier access to positions of power -- but the people who criticize these practices don't seem to spend much time worrying about the existing institutional problems. (Usually the people in question benefit from the existing institutional biases, of course. This may or may not be something that they explicitly consider in coming to their conclusion, though; I think a lot of people just have never noticed the institutional problems because they aren't adversely affected by them, and they seem like the natural order of things.)

So causing or reinforcing the original problem is basically OK as long as it's not intentional (or if the intention can be plausibly denied), but trying to fix it is problematic.

I don't say that various solutions to global warming, or to bias in the workplace and elsewhere, aren't problematic, or that discussions of their possible problems is bad, but it would be nice if people who oppose, say, global warming solutions because they try to change the environment would acknowledge that human activity is already changing the environment and that that, also, is a bad thing.

Every so often it becomes necessary for me to work someplace that isn't my house. These days I like to go to a Borders to do this. Border's is a relatively nice working place because it tends to be clean, quiet, and if I get frustrated with a customer and have to get up and walk around for a little while to cool off I can go look at books and stuff.

But Internet access at Borders isn't free; their access is via T-Mobile, so you either have to sign up for one of their packages (but I don't have to do this often enough to make that be cost-effective) or pay $10 for a day's access.

So that's what I do. However, there are two annoying things about this.

(1) You need to have an account on http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/ to buy the Internet access, and they require that the user name of the account be six characters or greater. This means that my usual account name, jwgh, isn't acceptable. (In situations like this I just double it to jwghjwgh. But I don't see why a policy like this makes sense.)

(2) If you don't use the account for a while -- which I generally don't, because I usually just use my home Internet connection -- then your account gets disabled. Unfortunately, there is no obvious way to re-enable an account once it has been disabled, and also when an account has been disabled its account name can't be reused on a new account. This is a pain in the butt.

I decided to go to the Hi-Hat tonight to see the Superchief Trio. When I got there I noticed some signs in the window that I don't think were there the last time I was there. Here is one of them:



Another sign also forbade tee shirts. One of which I was wearing. However, as it happens, I actually have something which I thought should pass muster: the suit I got so I would have something to wear at last Saturday's wedding.



After a while, the waitress came around and put one of these oddly-worded notices on my table:



$10 turns out to be four smallish Diet Cokes (which is what I was drinking), but I was there with other people who had more expensive beverages so I only ended up drinking two.

The service was OK, which is a change from the last time when the servers ignored me for 45 minutes. I think this is probably because I was dressed up fancy this time, whereas last time I was wearing what I usually wear. (If wearing a tux is being dressed to the nines, I think normally I am dressed to the ones or maybe on a good day to the twos.)

The Superchief Trio were fun as always, though.

Is My Child Becoming Homosexual? If he doesn't want to grow up to be something macho, like a police officer, an Indian chief, a construction worker, a soldier, a leatherman, or a cowboy, then maybe so! Also, note that hanging out with girls is really gay.

But if so, don't worry. Professional help is available. To help your child:

1. Reassure him that you love him very much just the way he is.

2. For God's sake, try to fix him as quickly as possible.

This public service announcement is brought to you by stupid people.

( Coming in to the home stretch, hopefully )

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'4-6 hours' is a time period which now has special meaning to me.

Here's what they say:

It appears your email address has changed. If we should use this new address, please update your contact information here.

I click on the link and it asks for my email address. I type in my email address and am informed:

Login Failed
The login ID and password combination you provided is invalid.
If you believe you may have mistyped either value, use the browser Back button to return to the login page and try again.

If you believe you have forgotten your password, use the browser Back button to return to the login page and request that your password be emailed to you.

Of course the original screen didn't ask for a password and also it doesn't have any instructions for getting the password emailed to me.

I typed in a different email address and it worked. This is pretty outstanding.

Suitcase & guitar: Still missing.
Headache: Persisting.
US Airways baggage status form: Amusingly useless.

I just took four Advil so hopefully problem #2 will be less pressing soon, anyway.

(Despite all this, my mood isn't too bad.)

Also, remind me to tell you about the meeting when I get back. Hilarity abounds!

OK, I guess I should get back to paying attention to the training I'm in.

What is it with this sudden profusion of email programs that use something other than CRLF to end lines?

Oh, wait, it's not a profusion of email programs. It's Microsoft Exchange.

I went to a public high school that had a somewhat unusual (and, in my opinion, stupid) way of calculating grade point averages.

I think the standard way that GPAs are supposed to work in the US is that for each course a student takes he or she is given four points for each A, three points for each B, two points for each C, and one point for each D. Then the total is divided by the number of courses taken, yielding a score somewhere between 0 and 4.

Not so at my high school. There there were three categories of classes: 'Honors' level (which were supposed to be the hardest), 'College' level (which were supposed to be of 'normal' difficulty), and 'Standard' level (which were supposed to be particularly easy). When calculating GPAs, honors courses were worth an extra point and standard courses were worth one point less.

I checked my high school's website and they have the student handbook online, which allowed me to verify that this stupid policy is still in place. It contains the following table. (Note also that unlike the classic GPA-calculating method given above extra points were given for a + and points were subtracted for - grades.)

CALCULATING YOUR GPA (GRADE POINT AVERAGE)
GRADE  COLLEGE  HONORS  STANDARD
A+     4.3      5.3     3.3
A      4.0      5.0     3.0
A-     3.7      4.7     2.7
B+     3.3      4.3     2.3
B      3.0      4.0     2.0
B-     2.7      3.7     1.7
C+     2.3      3.3     1.3
C      2.0      3.0     1.0
C-     1.7      2.7     0.7
D+     1.3      2.3     0.3
D      1.0      2.0     0.0
D-     0.7      1.7     0.0
F      0.0      0.0     0.0

The result of this was that if you wanted to be valedictorian you would avoid college-level courses like the plague, and the thought of taking a standard-level course would never cross your mind, even if the courses in question were about things you were interested in. (I think psychology was only available as a college-level course, for instance. I actually took psych my senior year and I think I got some sort of C, but I still managed to graduate with a 5.05 GPA. I was valedictorian that year, but only because my class was full of slackers, relatively speaking -- in the years before and after me the valedictorian would typically have a GPA in the 5.2+ range, and usually there would be one or two other students hot on his or her heels.)

Anyway, even though I benefitted from these stupid policies, they still annoy me.

I believe that some years after I graduated my calculus teacher succeeded in convincing the administration that if the top two students' GPAs different by .01 points or less that there was no meaningful distinction to be made between them and they should both be given the honor of valedictorian, a feat which I think is pretty impressive.

I see that Elizabeth Dole noted yesterday that the Constitution guarantees 'freedom of religion, not freedom from religion'.

Whenever I read something like that I feel like the person is standing in front of me, pointing a finger right in my face, and saying, 'You suck, and you and everyone like you belong in jail.'

Anyway, I suppose that by parallel construction we are also guaranteed:

Freedom of speech, not freedom from speech!
Freedom of the press, not freedom from the press!
Freedom to assemble peaceably, not from assembling peaceably!
Freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, not from petitioning the government for a redress of grievances!