steveblock.com

I was browsing the iTunes music store tonight when I came across music sample that I enjoyed. I thought I would view the album and listen to the other song samples on it. I clicked on the little arrow, but instead of an album I got a pop up window telling me “The item you’ve requested is not currently available in the US store.”

Talk about bullshit. There is no good reason that they can’t let me view the album or buy tracks off of it other than stupid restrictions set in place because someone doesn’t seem to understand that the economy is global these days. If someone from England or Europe or wherever the album is available can see it, and listen to it, and buy it, then I should be able to as well. It is after all an _internet store_.

It’s utterly ridiculous, but I can still hear the samples.

steve :: Jan.31.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 4 Comments »

I just figured out that I have been misusing Mail.app for a long, long time. I never could get it to properly save drafts, sent messages, etc. on an IMAP server. It was something I figured that Mail just didn’t do well, and was willing to leave it at that.

Well damn me if I didn’t just find the *Mailbox -> Use This Mailbox For* menu. I selected my respective Drafts, Sent, Trash and Junk folders for each of my three IMAP accounts using that menu. Now my sent messages are where I want them. My drafts get stored on the server, and I don’t have local and non-local copies of my Junk folders (which was really annoying).

The real question is, how did I miss this for all that time? This fixes the only real gripes I have about the program, other than its inability to effectively handle my 10,000 mail debian-user mailing list mailbox.

steve :: Jan.24.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

bq. The advances of science have not been accepted gracefully. They have been denounced by the church and resisted by the populace. The leaders of scientific discovery have been vilified, harassed, persecuted, tortured, imprisoned and executed. But the weight of evidence and practical results piled up by science is invincible — something that many of today’s fundamentalists still haven’t learned.

— C. W. Dalton, “The Right Brain and Religion”

bq. The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.

— Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_

steve :: Jan.21.2005 :: Religion and Politics, Uncategorized :: 5 Comments »

bq.. Telegraph: “For God to create the universe he would have to be hyper-intelligent. But intelligence only evolves over time. Is that about the strength of it?”

Dawkins: “It’s worse than that, the argument for God starts by assuming what it is attempting to explain — intelligence, complexity, it comes to the same thing — and so it explains nothing. God is a non-explanation. Whereas evolution by natural selection _is_ an explanation. It really does start simply and become complex.”

p. — Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999

steve :: Jan.19.2005 :: Religion and Politics, Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

bq. The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.

— Adolf Hitler, Berlin, February 1, 1933

bq. The so-called religious right of the Republican Party — the Christian right, they call themselves, although in my view they are neither Christian nor right — is after a totalitarian state.

— Edward Albee, interview in Progressive August 1996 issue

steve :: Jan.18.2005 :: Religion and Politics, Uncategorized :: 4 Comments »

bq. However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

— Barry Goldwater

steve :: Jan.17.2005 :: Religion and Politics, Uncategorized :: 6 Comments »

On Friday I caught a ride to Minneapolis with fellow Red-staters Alex and Victoria for a weekend with Ben in his Blue-state home. The great white north is less white than I have been led to believe, but it’s plenty cold.

This was only the second trip I have taken in the Landrover, and the first with Alex’s “aircraft headset system”:http://www.adventioneering.com/gear/intercom/. It seems like a silly idea at first, but the Rover, especially with the new tires, is loud at highway speeds. The headsets let us talk to each other at a reasonable volume, rather than yell back and forth across the cabin.

Ben seems to be doing well in his new home, but he really needs _something_ on his walls. White walls, off white couch, off-er white carpet, light woodwork, etc. There is no color (aside from the little Christmas tree).

After getting breakfast/lunch at the fantastic St. Clair Broiler, we spent most of Saturday at the Mall of America. The gravitational pull is just too great to escape. We managed to miss IKEA though, somehow. After several hours of shopping we went off to find the AMC Theater in the mall.

We bought our tickets for House of Flying Daggers and found our way into the theater. There were only two other people there when we walked in, and I noticed only that they looked Asian. We sat down and talked a bit, and then I heard “Steve?” behind me. The two Asian people were in fact John and Elton Wong! The amount of luck and coincidence there is amazing.

After the movie we hit the Herkimer brew pub downtown for some food and drinks. The place is a bit small, but the food was good and the beer better.

On Sunday we went to the science center in St. Paul, which had a lot of exhibits, and a good amount of interactive stuff. It was mostly oriented towards kids, but there was plenty to keep me interested. My favorite things were the people slices (yes, thin slices of actual dead people preserved in plastic), the fluid mechanics and heat transfer demonstrations, and the steam engine. Sadly, their demonstrations of fluid flow past various bodies are better than the ones we use when I teach lab. You could actually see boundary layer separation visually, rather than just observe its effects.

After that and the Omni IMAX film about Kilimanjaro, we had to head back to Ben’s place and pack up to go home. As always the trip was too short.

steve :: Jan.17.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

Quick update: The current report for Ames is around 12″ (1 foot) of snow.

steve :: Jan.06.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 15 Comments »

Oh man, do we ever have snow. I drove over to Ross’ place around 8, just a few hours later there was about 8 inches of snow on my car, and snow drifts up to the doorframe. I kicked my way out, got out of the parking lot, and followed Ben down Kellog. He turned left onto another side street, trying to beat the light. I kept going straight and got super lucky. The light turned green and I managed to roll through a huge pile of snow onto Lincoln Way, which was plowed. After about half a mile of driving I called to see if Ben had made it out, but he was stuck, so I drove another half mile, narrowly avoided a snowplow, and made an ugly U-turn to go help Ben.

We got him out with more kicking and some burnt rubber. Ben drove off one way and I made another ugly U-turn and headed back towards home. Lincoln Way was great, but Elwood heading north hadn’t been plowed since the afternoon, so I was just pushing my way along through other people’s tracks.

Luckily I hit most of the lights and didn’t have to stop, since none of the streets past Lincoln had been plowed. When I got to Stange and Ontario though I did run the red light (the other way was yellow and there were no cars), barely made the turn, and plowed down Ontario.

I don’t think my circle has been plowed since the storms started yesterday, but I plowed through, going the wrong way round and hit the driveway at about 10 MPH, throwing snow everywhere. 25 MPH on the speedometer and I’m barely crawling. I made it into the carport though, no worse for the weather (other than the stench of burning rubber). The walk I shoveled just before leaving was completely snowed in again. Maybe I’ll get to that tomorrow.

On the bright side, the snow is a beautiful feather soft powder. I bet it would be fun to sled or ski in. On another bright side, I got to see John Grant again. He is back from his Brazil adventure, by way of a plane and Grayhound. Yay John.

I hope Ben got home OK.

steve :: Jan.06.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

This took me forever, I know, but “here are the pictures”:/photos/pg0066 from the second roll of film I took at Kansas Rocks.

steve :: Jan.03.2005 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »