March 2004 Archives

Todays news included more violence in Iraq with the spectacle of dragging bodies throught the streets.

After reading quite abit about the conflict in Somalia and now Iraq I am always left wondering about how low the human condition can sink when people think that defiling dead bodies is a a way to celebrate a triumph against anyone. Is it the case that anyone of us could sink this low if given the proper stimulus and context, or is this the kind of behaviour that can only result from an upbringing in a society where hatred and de-humanization is justified from a very early age.

I don't know exactly how to answer this question as there have been some cases of similiar crimes in therecent history of the U.S. motivated by racial and sex-preference hatred. Thankfully, those perpetrators were prosecuted. I hope the perpetrators in this case come to justice as well.

It's hard to even comprehend the horror that humans sometimes visit upon each other at times.

It's melting here in Minnesota. The pond out back is almost free of ice and birds are returning en masse. The ducks and geese are busy preparing for nesting, and we seem to have a surplus of what I identify as red finches. It was so nice to eb able to go outside, last week anyway, without a jacket and be able to smell things. I am really looking forward to being able to sleep with an open window again. Deprivation really makes you appreciate the small things in life.

Last month I was in Boston for some meetings. During this time a friend and co-worker from Florida, Troy was kind enough to bring his new digital rebel along and let me test drive it. Due to our schedule we were only able to get out at night, but it was a lot of fun and we got some decent photos. My favorite is the first which was an accidental one I took while trying to figure out the myriad buttons.

I mentioned a while back that Berkeley Breathed was going to revisit Opus and theoretically parts of Bloom County in a new Sunday only comic strip. Lo and behold this happened. The intial results were somewhat uneven and didn't seem quite as funny as I had expected. However, the strip that appeared on Sunday, March 28th, where Opus considers the youthful drooping pants style and debates with his better angels of his nature.

This strip for me recaptured the pure pleasure of the 80's Bloom County. It was a funny commentary on modern life that was, for lack of a better term, naive and sweet, while still being able to keep a deft comedic edge. I sincerely hope that this is going to be the norm for this new cartoon.

I can't seem to find an on-line image, but it's posted on the cupboard at home and my office door at work.

I take quite a few digital photos. Periodically someone asks me what I do with them, so I thought I would take a minute to document my workflow.

I take all my photos at the highest jpeg resolution available. I don't use the raw setting vey much for two reasons.

1. I almost never plan on printing larger than 8x10.
2. It takes about 40 seconds to save the photo, thus preventing me from framing the next photo. (This problem will likely be solved by my next digital camera.)

The photos are then downloaded in mass to the hard drive. I store them in a folder hierarchy that is based on date.

2004
    2004-01-31
    2004-02-04

When I manipulate an image I put it into a sub-directory typically called mod.

I then use a program called Thumbs Plus to delete seriously flawed photos and to rotate photo's that are in the wrong orientation. Thumbs Plus also makes web page galleries, slide shows, and will annotate photos etc.

Then I backup on CDR, periodically taking a copy to an off site location. Offsite storage is key if you ask me.

For editing I use both Thumbs Plus and the Gimp. Usually Gimp get's pulled out for more complex fine editing, while Thumbs is for adding borders, cropping, and re-sizing. Thumbs is especially good at batching up a process and applying it to a whole folder full of pictures.

To print them, I run them through a program which is not very friendly, but is very useful called QImage. Although this program is not very friendly it does a number of things well once you figure out the quirky interface. Among the things I like, really nice upsampling of images, great print queue (although I wish you could assign the temp space to a different drive), excellent paper utilization, and easy color tweaking. On top of all that, it saves your printer preferences for you so that no matter what you do outside the program, your print drivers are set up the way you like when you run the program.

I print them on an Epson color printer. Recently, I have been trying digital output at big box retailers like Target and Sam's Club. I like the prices, archival quality and turn-a-round time, but the jury is still out on overall quality.

Most of the movies I see are strictly entertainment. Occasionally, a movie comes along that is more, Schindler's List for instance. Often these kinds of movies are harder to watch, but they are worthwhile in the end. Often I don't care to see them again.

Mel Gibson's, The Passion mostly falls into this category for me. I think I am glad I saw it, but wouldn't choose to see it again.

What did I like?

• Characters looked semitic, which is a nice change of pace.
• No English accents.
• As non-Catholic I haven't seen the suffering of Christ through Mary. This was a humanizing element to the story. (Although, Biff in the "The Lamb" gave a very better view in some ways.)
• I never before considered how freeing Barrabas was Pilate offering a very political face saving option to allow everyone to forget the whole thing.

What didn't I like?

• Jesus seemed the victim. He wasn't a full character, as you didn't have a sense of him apart from suffering.
• While it mostly simply stuck to the story (a random harmonization of the four gospels) without a lot of ornamentation, which is a plus in my opinion, in some ways it was a song with one note, the suffering and victimhood of Jesus.
• It didn't start and stop at the right places. I would have started at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (which did make a brief flashback appearance) and ended with Mary and Mary seeing the risen Christ. It seems like Mary and Mary are stuck in a bad place at the end and don't get the same relief the rest of the audience did.
• It didn't always stick to the story. The crazy looking children harassing Judas was just weird, ditto the wierd baby, and the shadow spirit figure. The whole Mary wiping up blood scene falls into this category as well. Evidently it comes from the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich a nun who wrote in the 1800's.
• I don't like to watch sadistic torture. I wish I lived in a world without this kind of behaviour, unfortunately we don't.
• I wish all the characters, even the mob, would have had more depth. I mean why were the religious elite upset? There is context to the story, but not in this movie.
• Although the flashbacks with Jesus and Mary were some of the most moving parts of the movie, in some ways I felt like I was being emotionally played.
• It seemed strange that Mary was there in almost every scene, but not Jesus' other followers. I don't understand Mary's prominence in comparison to other characters. I didn't get the towel scene at all. (Come to find out later this was from some sort of vision recorded by a nun centuries ago.) Frankly Mary plays too much of a role.
• I've always understood the powerful temple leaders were in a sort of unstated power sharing agreement with the Romans, both wanting to stay in power over the common person. That feel was missing altogether. Part of the gospel story is the powerful elite versus the crowd who were supporting Jesus.
• There is background material that would indicate Jesus' appeal to the common man versus the way how the temple leaders treated the common man. That was all missing.
• The movie can be interpreted as an essay on Sadism. I think that significantly misses the point.
• I knew how it would end.

I predict more Mary sightings in the next year.

I still have conflicts about movies displaying this level of gore. I don't often see them. How is it right to pay to see someone suffer?

On the topic of anti-semitism in the film. Frankly, I don't even know if I should broach that in public, since it's such a hot topic. I think Gibson framed the film in ways that made the Roman's overly sympathetic and made the temple leaders and "the mob" in the courtyard the villains. Since there was so little back story, depth or context the movie tends to over simplify the basic story of the motivations of each of these actors. Therefore, an uncritical thinker could easily get the wrong story. The textual gospel account give a very different story in which the temple leaders seized Jesus at night to prevent a riot of the people. This means that you can't blame a people group as they were divided or fragmented.

I have never understood how Christians have used the passion narrative to bulk up anti-semitic views, although I know it has happened. Jesus was Jewish and his followers were Jewish. Christianity cannot be understood except through the lense of Judiasm. No need for hatred or persection of anyone.

I'll stop there, since that's probably controversial enough for my tastes.

I guess it's always tough to see a movie made about a familiar story. Peter Jackson would have done it better.

Now online, figure out which neighbors are contributing to which political parties. Creepy and interesting at the same time. Seen on Dave's Picks, who is also a former LM'er.

When my company conference ended last week, my wife and I took the weekend to do some sight seeing on the Hwy 1, south of San Francisco. Here are some photos.

One highlight was eating at a restaurant named Napenthe. More later.

I heard David Patterson speak last week in San Jose, onRecovery Oriented Computing and some other stuff like RAID. Very interesting stuff.

A relative of my wife's is getting married in April. The happy couple asked us if Matthew could be the ring bearer. We agreed, although I confess I am still somewhat shocked at the price of tuxedo rentals for four year olds. We explained the resposibilities to Matthew who agreed that he could hold up his end of the bargain. Yes, I know it's not like he has to take the ring to Mordor, but I have seen pre-schoolers make scenes about this kind of thing before.

Jeannie was taking Matthew to be fitted for his tuxedo on Saturday. Matthew was very excited and asked Jeannie "Mommy, are we getting a bear suit?" "No, why would we get a bear suit," she replied. Matthew a little puzzled asked "I thought I was going to be a ring bear?" This amuses me to no end. He thought he would be the ring bear ... ha, you may have to be a parent to really laugh about this.

I read this book in transit and really enjoyed it. It's one of the best books I've read that has the "I found this book" meme in it. Books about family secrets are interesting.

Spent last week in Newton, MA, working. Usually I have very good luck traveling. This trip was a bit of an exception.

The trip featured the following mishaps.The plane I took left the ground about 40 minutes later than planned, due to maintenance paperwork and some forgotten luggage. When we arrived in Boston the jetway wouldn't stretch out to meet us. That meet that an entire planelod of people, mostly with nervous bladders had stood up, removed their luggage from the over head bin, and were standing in the aisles waiting for the doors to open. It wasn't to be. Instead we had to taxi to some far off location. Once at my destination, one of my traveling companions had to wait a very long time for his luggage, no doubt they had moved the plane before all the luggage had been removed.

Then at my hotel, the Newton Marriot, the clerk transposed my room number and price per day. So instead of thinking I was in room 179, I thought I was in room 151. Unfortunately, the hotel has no room #151. So I had to trudge all the way back to the desk. Additionally, this hotel is built into a hill so there is a mind bending converstation after they give you their key while they explain that yes you are on the ground floor, but you will need to go down the elevator to get to the first floor. Then to top it off, every dau of my stay the magnetic key was unable to open my door. Did I mention the closet door was also off the track. At least coming home wasn't so bad. I still don't know how happy I am to be paying extra for airline food.

O.K., I know it's not like I was stranded in Antarctica, with nothing but ice for toilet paper, but this is America, I'm entitled to whine a bit.