National Security Must Not Cost Our Core Values

"I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney -- not surprisingly," Obama said. "I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history."

It remains to be seen, of course, whether this is merely political rhetoric. I hope he really means it.

-- from this CNN article

What Am I Missing?

I recently received an invitation to solo with our local community orchestra. While this is by no means an opportunity to "make it big time," it's still exciting because it gives me a reason to study and practice, perhaps to learn a new piece of music or dust off an old familiar one, and to do something that's high on the list of things that I'm able to do skillfully.

In traditional Vulcan fashion, I'm trying to manage the excitement, fight it, repress it. ("Come and see the violence inherent in the system!") Excitement gets in the way. It distracts from the other things I need to do (and I don't need any more distraction, thank you very much), and it creates a huge opportunity for disappointment. Excitement is not pragmatic.

As I over-analyze my internal workings, I find myself wondering just what I'm missing by refusing to revel in excitement, to bask in it briefly. Surely God gave us this emotion for a purpose. And what physiological effect does excitement-management render on my body? Am I damaging something by suppressing this form of eustress?

Brass at Westminster

Our brass group will be playing at the Westminster SDA church tomorrow morning, with prelude starting at 10:45. See you there?

320 Crest Lane
Westminster, MD 21157

Recycling Electrons

I'm sure this has been done to death in high-school and college physics classrooms and labs around the world, and I'm showing my naivete by bringing it up again. But it strikes me that we're set up to use our electric potential very inefficiently.

To look at it one way, you could say that electrons flow from the ground into our houses, through our appliances and down the wire to whatever utility generates electrical potential for us. What bothers me is the perception that a stream of electrons will generally flow through only one appliance of mine on the way from ground to utility.

Many of my appliances have no need for the full potential available on the wire. Shouldn't there be some way to reuse the available current?

What I'm imagining is some kind of master router that would replace my circuit-breaker box. Rather than the hard-wired (literally) division of current between the various circuits in my house, this master router would manage the provision of potential among the various circuits, taking what comes back down the black wire and augmenting it to provided the needed current for the next circuit.

At its simplest, I think this would be like wiring lamps in series, instead of having all the circuits of my house wired essentially in parallel. And I'm not remembering if wiring in series would make the electric meter spin any more slowly.

If you could do this, would there be any reduction in my demands on the power company? Would it help if you could do something similar at each electric socket or switch?

Sleepy ThinkPad

For the past several weeks I've been living with a ThinkPad annoyance: my T61 puts itself into stand-by mode whenever it gets too warm. Suggestions on keeping it cooler?

A Different Kind of Memory Problem

As I look back on brass rehearsal last night, I notice something unfamiliar: with two different topics, I had something in my mind, but not in my mental schedule.

In conversation, I mentioned that I would need to leave quickly (because I had another rehearsal to attend). But that need didn't "click" with me until nearly half an hour after rehearsal should have ended, when I suddenly "remembered" that I needed to be rushing out the door.

And on the way out the door, I mentioned to someone that we had brought three new, still-in-the-box music stands with us, but didn't remember until this morning that we needed to unbox and assemble them.

With two different topics, my "autopilot" was working with respect to having critical knowledge available for conversation, but it was broken as far as getting me to understand that I needed to act on that knowledge. I've never noticed this kind of discrepancy before.

Why Today is So Exciting!

OK, I give up. I really can't explain it! Just know that it has to do with four french horns, a piano and this incredible piece of music. And my parents. All happening at six o'clock this evening.

Sweet Dreams!

This sounds too fun to be legal: http://www.umbrianserenades.com/about/index.html

Gmail 2 for Treo 700p - Don't Do It!

I downloaded the new version 2 Gmail midlet to my Treo 700p today, and found that it refused to do anything, and pretty much locked up the phone in the process of doing it. I tried a few different work-arounds, and reinstalled once or twice, but to no avail.

To my great relief, I found that Evan Brewer has a copy of the previous 1.5.0 version on his server, as mentioned in his article here. Thank you Evan!

What Will They Say About You?

It has been suggested by some that a useful way to find out what's important to you, in the process of trying to set life goals and make plans, is to imagine your funeral. What do you hope will be listed as your most significant accomplishments and lasting achievements? What will your family, friends and acquaintances be saying over dinner as they remember you?

Certainly, this type of analysis was critical in the conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge. It seems reasonable that it could prove useful for less fictional characters as well.

It occurs to me that a similar exercise is to imagine yourself leaving your place of employment. This is something that each of us may have the chance to actually do more than once in a career.

We had a farewell luncheon today for a team member who is leaving both the project and the company, and I just found myself wondering what kind of speeches would have been made if I had been the dearly departing.