Author: Don

I really want to like Linux, but…

… every time I’ve installed it on a machine, it’s been a let-down.

I have an “old” (4-5 years) laptop (Athlon XP 2500 with 3 gig s of RAM, using the nVidia 440 series display, if that makes any difference) that’s been running its original Windows XP install since I bought it. For the most part it sits next the monitor for my main desktop PC and is used these days to watch DVDs or streaming video from Netflix or Hulu, or for some light web surfing now & then – tasks that it has always been adequate to perform.

So for whatever reason I got it into my head that it would be a good idea to take this perfectly functional machine and wipe it to install Linux. Though my success with various Linux incarnations of this open-source OS in the past has been, shall we say, limited – there always seemed to be some piece of hardware for which I couldn’t find adequate support, or some piece of software I wanted to be able to run, but couldn’t – I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take the plunge, because I could always re-install XP if it didn’t work.

So I grabbed the latest Ubuntu 9.04 release and it installed flawlessly. Installed a utility called Synergy to allow me to share mouse & keyboard across multiple machines, and it worked flawlessly once I set all the machines involved to fixed IP addresses, because the Linux and Windows boxes didn’t seem to want to recognize each others’ presence any other way.

Next I downloaded the Boxee media center, which I remembered reading on LifeHacker had support for streaming Netflix movies… what I didn’t remember, though, was that it only had this support on non-Linux platforms, and in fact there’s currently no way to view netflix streams on Linux at all except possibly through some kind of Windows virtual machine setup – which kind of defeats the purpose. Boxee crashed out to the desktop most of the time anyway.

Next I tried to watch Hulu, and it worked fine, except that with headphones plugged in, sound was coming through both the speakers and the headphones. I had to Google for a solution to this (ticking a checkbox in the sound control panel to enable automatic headphone detection), and this is a minor quibble, but it seems like something that should be set by default.

Sound problem resolved, I clicked “view full screen” on the Hulu page – and bye-bye browser window. So Hulu only works if I keep it running in a small window.

“Surely they’ve gotten DVD playback right,” I thought.

Not quite.

In order to watch pretty much any commercial DVD, I had to track down a quasi-legal driver to decrypt the contents. This is, of course, not at all the fault of the open source community, but rather of the greed of the film industry, but it’s still a stumbling block in the acceptance of an alternative desktop OS.

Decryption installed, I popped in a commercial CD, and was able to watch it right up to the FBI warning – at which point the player locked up. Several other DVDs did better – I didn’t watch them all the way through, but at least I could get into the movie itself and navigate around.

So, as has happened every time I’ve installed Linux, it’s just not up to the task for which I’d hoped to use it. I suppose it would be ideal if I needed an Apache server, but, for the moment, I don’t.

For my next trick, I’m going to grab the Windows 7 RTM through my employer’s MSDN subscription and see how that works on the old laptop. Most likely I’ll end up back on XP.

If the public health care option is too expensive…

… it might be due at least in part to the need to cover the rising incidence of teen pregnancy and STDs under the auspices of the Bush/Republican/right-wing/holier-than-thou “abstinence only” sex education programs.

Yes, it seems that in 2005, just about the time when effects of the Bush-era policies of enforced ignorance might start to be seen, there was a sharp reversal of a long downward trend in the very kinds of teen issues that sex ed classes are supposed to help prevent:

According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

The report becomes more interesting when we take a look at where in the country the biggest upswings in these statistics have happened:

The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.

Now of course correlation is not proof of causation. Just because teens seem more likely to have unprotected nookie in communities where “sex before marriage makes the baby Jesus cry” is deemed a superior alternative to… oh, let’s call it… “reality” – doesn’t mean they’re boinking in large numbers simply because they’re uninformed. But those who might tout the effectiveness or righteousness or whatever of the ignorance-only plan need to give us some evidence that it actually works, and based on this study, that’s clearly not the case.

“Oh”, one might argue, if one was an evangelical nutcase, “the problem is that our abstinence-only efforts aren’t widespread enough to counter the effects of our sinful society!” And, in fact, that’s exactly the argument being made against these statistics:

Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, which describes itself as a supporter of traditional marriage and “against liberal education and cultural forces”, said the abstinence message is overwhelmed by a culture obsessed with sex.

If there was some truth to this statement, wouldn’t we expect to see significantly higher pregnancy and STD numbers outside Sarah Palin’s “real America”? You know, all those cities packed with them thar commie-lovin’ godless islamo-fascist America-hatin’ inneleck’shul libruls, those places where Christianity is illegal and gay sex is mandated by law and the president isn’t really a Kenyan spy bent on dictatorship?

Aren’t those the folks God is supposed to be punishing with AIDS?

It’s Christmas in July!

One wingnut far-right radio personality/blogger has suggested that Sarah Palin may plan to form an independent conservative political party to “take this nation back from the liberals which now control both parties” (no, I’m not making that up), and the article has been linked to by Palin’s Facebook page and the web site of her political action committee.

If true, this is the first action Palin has taken on the public stage of which I wholeheartedly approve. Go for it, Sarah! The best thing you could possibly do for this country is to split off the batshit insane portion of the Republican party from the (considerably smaller) straitjacket-optional faction and let the BIP and the GOP bludgeon each other into political oblivion to give the rest of us more time to try to elect leaders with both brains and spines (a rare combination).

Right ways and wrong ways

Right way to express disapproval of a culture, tradtion, religion, etc:
Orally or in writing in an appropriate venue, inviting discussion and criticism, and using the interplay as means to refine or revise your argument.

Wrong way:
Murder practitioners of the offending creed. Human beings can sink to some very low depths in the name of glorified tribalism, and the deliberate murder of a pregnant woman and her husband simply because you don’t like the implications of her clothing is a few fathoms down on that scale. (Not so bad as, for instance, killing and/or displacing millions through a misguided invasion of an entire country, just to pick a theoretical example, but a horrible crime nonetheless.)

Muslims are justified in their outrage, in this case, both over the crime itself and the tepid media response to it. They are correct in saying that had a Muslim attacked a member of some other ethnic or religious group, news tickers on every TV news network would have reported the killing over and over at the bottom of the screen during the 24 hour Michael Jackson coverage.

Based on recent history, though, it should be pointed out to the more radical among the Muslim community: justifiable outrage is not an excuse to riot in the streets. Do that and you’re just lending credence to the lunatic fringe that might be inclined to support this man’s actions. Do that and you continue to perpetuate a justifiable-outrage circle-jerk that will keep on begetting violence and distrust on both sides long after you’ve gone off to meet your version of the invisible sky wizard. (Besides, it’s not as if the guy drew a picture of Mohammed or something…)

I should also point out that this man’s vile actions and the seeming lack of western interest in said actions are in no way a repudiation or validation of your repressive, misogynistic traditions. Your head scarves and burqas are the symptoms of a belief system in which women are little more than property, subject to beatings and execution if they, willingly or not, step outside the narrow, puritanical set of behaviors you have defined for them.

Do as I say, not who I do

Ensign and Sanford are the latest in the GOP (your) Family (not mine) Values crowd to be embroiled in sex scandals. (Who will be next? These things always happen in threes, you know!) These latest are particularly interesting – in Ensign’s case, because it appears he may have used his position to arrange for financial reward and punishment for his mistress, and in Sanford’s case, because he apparently spontaneously abdicated his duties in pursuit of his South American love interest.

Maybe Sanford is smarter than we think – he left the country to have his affair, so he probably can’t be charged under South Carolina’s archaic anti-adultery law. However, that alleged higher law he brought up during his speech reserves a harsher punishment for him than the fine and/or prison time prescribed by state legislation:

The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Leviticus 10:20)

Governor, are you sure it’s a good idea to be bringing up “God’s Law” right now, in a state that’s part of the literalist-leaning Bible Belt?

The Terrible Threes

I’ve lost track of the number of times in the last 24 hours I’ve heard or seen some variation of the phrase “these things always happen in threes” in relation to the recent spate of celebrity deaths, usually referring to Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

NO, people, these things do not happen in threes. They only seem to happen in threes because you keep resetting the counter when it reaches three! If the saying was “these things always happen in sevens”, everyone would be counting a few deaths further back and wondering who number 7 would be, and then when someone famous passes away, you’d shout, “Aha! Seven again!” and reset the counter.

Now there is, perhaps, something interesting in the common choice of three as the number in which groups of related “things” happen. Two is just coincidence, but three makes a pattern, which might just fire off a few extra neurons in the pattern-matching hardware we call our minds…

The celebrities, they’re a-droppin’ like flies

First Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson – apparently today was a bad day to be a famous white female. While MJ will get the most attention, of course, it seems to me that Farrah’s fight against cancer makes for a much more compelling story than Michael’s fight to become a species unto himself. I’m sure negotiations are already underway over the rights to turn both stories into TV movies.

No, I’m not what you’d call a fan of his – I’ve been largely indifferent to his music, and found his later behavior (alleged and otherwise) to be creepy and sad at best. Fifty’s not a half bad run, but still, there’s a little pang of sadness for him in my cold, cold godless heathen heart. My condolences go out to his friends and loved ones, and to Farrah’s as well; those are the people who will have a missing place in their lives that will be remembered long after the rest of us have moved on to the next news cycle.

We lost Ed McMahon a few days ago, too, something I wouldn’t have mentioned except that I was reminded today of a story about him:

The navy sent my father to training outside Chicago in the year when the first Superbowl took place. He and a friend went into the city on leave on the night of the game and the first bar they found was a little more upscale than they might otherwise visit, but they settled on it because it had several TVs and wasn’t too crowded, so they could hear and see the game. Ed McMahon walked in just as things got started and sat down right next to them; they ended up watching Superbowl 1 with him, and he bought them drinks and sat and talked to them late into the night.

Blog Against Theocracy

Well, it’s that time of year again: the annual Easter weekend Blog Against Theocracy, to which I’ve intended to contribute for the past two years, but for which my record of actual participation has been… limited.

I had grandiose ideas this year about doing some actual research on current or past theocratic societies – pointing out some of the abuses of power that came with, say, the Church’s domination of European life through the middle ages, or perhaps a cautionary tale of what life is like under the theo-tyranny of Kim Jong Il today.

But time passed, other business took precedence, and it became clear there wasn’t going to be time for research. So, I thought to myself, why don’t I do something a little more light-hearted? I could find one of those fear-mongering “what if atheists ruled the world” type screeds that are not uncommon on theistic web sites, and write a parody of it (as if those things aren’t self-parodies by their very nature).

But now, as I sit here during the brief lull after the morning egg hunt and traditional devouring of candy and before the afternoon dash to visit a bunch of relatives, I’m guessing even that intention will have to be put aside.

I felt obligated to post something, though, however short and pointless it might be. I felt this way because I think the Blog Against Theo is a great idea that deserves that extra little bit of linkage I can give it. More importantly, though: I had to get that naked picture of Christopher Hitchens scrolled down off the screen.