There’s a good article about how people are going to spend their tax rebate. Here’s a snippet:

Many consumers are using the money to finance purchases of essential goods and services that they could have ill afforded otherwise. Helen Wood, a saleswoman for an Atlanta office-supply firm, spent her $139 check on children’s bathing suits and some clothes for herself. A Pittsburgh mother of five says that she cashed her check and used it for food and household supplies—without telling her husband. Detroit Secretary Virginia Donohue is paying for dental work with her rebate. “It’s a godsend,” she exclaims.

You should read the whole article, it’s quite interesting: Spending The Tax Rebate

Every once in while Google News has some funny and/or inappropriate photos alongside its news items. Today had some interesting ones:

I love that Microsoft one, with Steve Ballmer sticking out his tougue at the EU. It’s an old photo, but funny. And how did an overturned school bus get a Cream-Nut photo? Just shows that image search has a LONG way to go before it’s accurate.

In other news, I see that Congress is focused on REALLY IMPORTANT ISSUES, like whether there is steroid use in baseball. I honestly believe that they are TRYING get get the lowest approval ratings they can. Ah, democrats, be cafeful or you’ll (once again) snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Buried behind the HORRIBLY IMPORTANT BASEBALL HEARINGS, I see that Bush is going to veto the foreclosure bill. I can’t blame him, as the existing bill includes such nuggets as billions of dollars to rehab abandonded properties. Nice. The banks will be able to rehab the homes they foreclosed on, using your dollar! I’m sure the out-of-work builders lobbied for that perk.

Hear that sound? That’s the sound of  fiscal irresponsibilty.

We live in a society filled with goals. I hear people talk about finishing school and getting that degree. Others are going for that perfect job, perhaps getting out of “dead end” work. Evelyn and I have our goals too, like owning land and running our own business.

There’s a problem, though, and I see it quite often: The “What Next?” Syndrome.

I think that people look too much at the immediate goal without looking beyond. Say you want to finish school. Fine. That’s a great goal, but then what? It’s not like things are magically going to change the minute you get that degree. Got that amazing new job? How many months will pass before you are sick of it?

Evelyn and I lived through this in a big way when we moved to Puerto Rico. That was a big goal, with lots of things needing to occur to make it happen, and we got there. After decompressing for a while we were left with that feeling of “What Next?”

I don’t have any magical solution to this Syndrome, but I do have this bit of advice: Always look beyond your immediate goals. I realize that things get hazier the further out you look, and things often feel overwhelming, but it’s an important process to go through. At the least, it will give you a sense of being prepared and less likely to feel let-down once you reach your goals.

Also, you need to realize that life is a continuous series of goals. Single events like marriage, jobs, school, kids, and so on are simply “mile markers” along the road of life. Look at life as an ongoing adventure, not some game you have to win.

I’m moving things around a bit on the sidebar. I’m bumping up the Blog links because I use them a lot and get sick of scrolling all the time.

With the rapid growth of “security” cameras, I’ve seen a number of articles discussing how to avoid them. This could go from something simple, like wearing a long-brimed baseball cap, to using lasers to wipe out the image. One of the more interesting techniques is to use powerful IR sources.

IR refers to the infrared area of the spectrum, lying outside the range of human sight. It’s light, but we can’t see it. The most common use of IR is your TV Remote Control. It flashes a sequence which is interpretated by the receiving unit (your TV). Since it’s light, it’s a line of sight technology (i.e. it can’t go through opaque objects, like walls or your hand).

The key is that most video cameras are very sensitive to IR (unless they are filtered). This allows for sensitive night vision capabilities without having any visible light source. The “night mode” on your camcorder is an example of how the camera uses IR, often with an IR light source to light the subject being filmed, without the subject seeing it. The conversion from IR to visible is done in shades of green, which is why nightvision stuff typically looks green.

This sensitivity to IR is used by jammers to wash out the picture. For example, if you point your camcorder to a bright light source you’ll notice that the picture gets washed out (at least until the auto-exposure takes over). Here’s an example:

In the above photo, the person has attached a strong IR source (a bunch of IR LEDs) to a baseball cap. This IR light floods the camera, turning their head into a bright white orb.

Obviously, this makes you stand out in a crowd, but it also means that you can’t be identified. And, if everyone dons this electronic version of a Guy Fawkes mask, then there will be nothing but bright blobs walking around. In fact, this technique has already been used during bank robberies, effectively making the security cameras useless.

The downside is that this will only work on cameras without an IR filter. If they are properly filtered, then they will probably not be affected. However, low-light / night cameras will almost always use IR, and be highly sensitive to it, so jamming under night conditions is almost guaranteed to work.

While being able to jam Big Brother is interesting, I thought of something more fun to do with this concept. For example, you could rig a baseball cap with IR LEDs and have it display a big light-up middle finger. Those around you would see nothing, but those security cam watchers would see a big F-U on their screens. You could even go one step futher and walk around with one of these:

What you see above is called “Peggy” by Evil Mad Science. It’s sort of an LED Lite-Bright, if you will. What I would do is this: Put a nice smily face design on there, in visible yellow LEDs. Then, interlaced with the visible yellow, I’d put a message made from IR LEDs. In effect, you’d have an invisible (to the human eye) message hidden in a pleasant visible icon.

I can see it now! The furious security camera guy seeing “Fuck You” on his screen and sending down the Gestapo to question you. When the Gestapo arrives, all they see is a smiley face. That would keep them guessing. You could protest security cameras without offending your neighbors.

For those who dislike the Google StreetView as much as I do, you could take one of these and make an IR sign for your living room window. Perhaps a big Mind Your Own Business or something more crude. Since it would be in IR, only the Google cameras would see it, so you can be vulgar without your neighbors knowing it (unless, of course, they point a camcorder at your house–in which case, they get what they deserve!).

This idea could also be used as a novelty. For example, you could have a hat that subtly “paints” your face in IR. So, if someone takes a camera phone photo of you, they get a picture of a goulish looking person. Perhaps you could even rig up some soft of IR halo. You’ll be the hit at parties.

I’m all for good maps, but Google Street View scares me. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s the process where Google has cars drive down every street in an area, taking 360 degree photos.

I looked up my parents house in Chicago and can see my sister’s car in the driveway. Same for my brothers, in Evergreen park. Look there! My childhood home is for sale! From what I can tell, pretty much all of Chicago is now photographed.

Now I can see some use for it, maybe when trying to find a location, but this feels really creepy to me. It seems like an ideal Big Brother combined with Criminal Element tool. Sure, in theory, anyone can drive by and “case” a location. But now you don’t even have to drive by (and potentially cause suspicion).

I realize it’s not real-time or anything, but how much longer until Google launches their Google Earth Spy Satellite network? “Do no harm” my ass.

While running some speaker wire (an annoying task) I came to think about my young niece and nephew. I thought of the photos of them with electronic toys galore and a little boy talking on a cell phone while working on his play PC. It got me to think of how so much can change within a generation.

There has always been a “generation gap”, but I think that the gap is widening in the technology-driven parts of the world. Heck, I look at developers only a few years younger than me who have never known a computer without a mouse. Never known a non-GUI operating environment. And so on. And so, here are a few things that kids take for granted, and which will alter their perceptions of the world…

• Cell phones. Everyone can talk to anyone whenever and wherever. Leading to an almost pathological need to always be in touch. It has also resulted in the growth of an almost incomprehensable texting language. Some may see this as the downfall of written language. I think it’s more interesting than that, as it provides a perfect example of a language growing (and illustrates the virtues of a dynamic language like English versus one which fears new words–I’m talking to you, French).
• The Internet. Books can be writen on its virtues and vices. I wonder how it affects intergenerational interactions. When face to face, or over the telephone, it’s easy to judge another persons age (at least generally) and frame your conversation accordingly. On the Internet, it’s next to impossible. The same goes for communication in general–it’s extremely difficult to judge and adjust a conversation through an e-mail. How many misunderstandings have occurred due to a misinterpretation! Will this be a hinderance to the next generation, or will they, like generations past, come up with a novel solution to the problem?
• Security Uber Allis. Cameras in every public place. Near strip-searches in airports. Unmonitored tapping of telephones and data connections. This driving need for security over liberty scares the living shit out of me. Not because my personal rights are getting eroded (and they are), but because children growing up today will take this idiotic security as “normal” and “necessary”. If you’ve never had something, how do you know what you’re missing?

Here are a couple of things they will able to take for granted, regardless of naysayers:

• Books. Every year I hear about how books are going away. I hear about how some new e-book or Kindle will Change Everything and destroy print. Well, come back to me in twenty years and we’ll compare my Folio edition of Culpeper’s Herbal with your e-book. Or perhaps we should dig up the 1652 edition. Print has remarkable staying power. It’s not that I don’t like the e-books (I own a Sony Reader)–they are great for holding a ton of stuff in a tiny space–but I know that my paper books will be readable when I’m old and gray. My Reader will be in a museum, long dead.
• Music. And, dare I say, LPs. Downloads will destroy music industry! Artists won’t be able to make money! Well, I guess that explains why there is more music out there than ever before. It’s remarkably easy to find new, interesting, and innovative music (thanks to the Internet). Recording equipment that could only be afforded by Big Music can now be found on a laptop computer. Heck, even our old friend the record is coming back, being fueled by nostalgia and the ability to “hold” the music in your hands.
• The World…

Let me tell you a story about The World:

During the early part of the 20th century a writer named Stefan Zweig lived in Vienna. The city was in a golden age, full of creativity and security. He wrote a number of novels and biographies thoughout the twenties and thirties. And then Hitler rose to power.

Zweig, a pacifist and a Jew, was able to flee Austria in 1934, living in England, the United States, and finally ending up in Brazil around 1941. Around that time he wrote:

Today, now that the great storm has long since smashed it [Vienna], we finally know that that world of security was naught but a castle of dreams; my parents lived in it as if it had been a house of stone.

With growing dispair, and the feeling that European culture was gone forever, Zweig and his wife committed suicide.

That was 1942. In thirty nine months Hitler and the Third Reich were destroyed.

Sometimes I can’t help but chuckle at the idiocy of our government and their attempt to mask events. Take this upcoming Satellite Of Doom adventure. The Navy, later this week, is going to shoot down a faulty spy satellite. Of course, the officials tell us, this is NOT a weapons test. This is NOT trying to show China that we, too, can destroy satellites. Instead, we need to remember that…

• IT HAS A FULL TANK OF FUEL!!!
• THAT FUEL COULD DISPENSE A CLOUD OF DEADLY FUMES!!!
• THAT CLOUD COULD COVER UP TO TWO FOOTBALL FIELDS!!!

Har-dee-har-har. What a lame-ass set of excuses. You could, at least, tell me that it’s got 100 pounds of plutonium or something. But, come on. A full tank of fuel–which will burn up during re-entry. A cloud of deady fumes–which will burn up in re-entry. Two football fields–over a planet that’s only 29% land–and of which only a dinky amount is populated. Talk about fear mongering.

Here are the odds I’m laying down:

• 60% chance of total miss, satellite mostly burns up in atmosphere, the rest lands in the ocean, the Chinese laugh their asses off.
• 30% chance of hit, satellite mostly burns up in atmosphere, the rest lands in the ocean, we look smug.
• 10% chance of hit, knocking it wildly off course, causing it to hit the space station, red-faces all-around.

On the bright side, at least they are waiting until after the space shuttle lands on Wednesday. Also, it was nice of them to make this public; I wonder who blew the whistle.

I end this with some FAMOUS LAST WORDS: “NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said there’s nothing the military can do to make the outcome worse.”

Evelyn and I were watching season 3 of Quincy M.E. the other day and noticed something interesting: They share drinks. I don’t know why this popped out at us, but we both caught on to it. In one scene Sam pours himself a cup of coffee, takes a drink, then Quincy takes it and takes a sip. In another episode, Monahan takes Quincy’s coffee cup, transfers some coffee in to his cup, and then drinks it. Not only do they love their coffee, they love to share it.

I wonder when we stopped doing this. It’s not like Quincy was ancient history; the episodes we’re watching are from 1977. Was it AIDS which caused our current panic about germs, or something else?

Also, does this tie into our general “fear of everything” mentality? For example, the other day we picked up a set of “Creative Workshop” books. These were from 1976 and contain projects like these two “yard toys”:

Click Here For Full Size Of Cable Spool

Click Here For Full Size Of Spiral Staircase

Try and find a playground in the U.S. that has those kinds of equipment! What turned us from a society of making toys out of old tires into one where everything must be hurt-proof. Why are we so afraid of pain?

I don’t have any answers today, just more questions. I’d like to hear what others are thinking.

Those who know me know that I shy away from reading fiction. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good novel and the like, but that I’ve only so much time, so want to focus on reading “meatier” things. (This is a big unfair, I know, as a good piece of fiction can illuminate more than any non-fiction can.) And so I read tomes on the history of civilizations, cookbooks that weigh as much as a large roast, and so forth.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book called The Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker. Nothing like some light reading before bed. I’m still rolling through it, so I can’t offer any great insights. However, I wanted to bring up a couple of points which I’ve encountered so far.

One of which is a mystery I’ve been working through for a while: Why is it that people are so in love with disaster? The disaster can take any shape, from a horrible day at work to a terrorist attack. We almost take pleasure in bad things happening, to the point of inventing problems where there aren’t any. Here Becker offers an interesting comment:

Early men who were the most afraid were those who were most realistic about their situation in nature, and they passed on to their offspring a realism that had a high survival value.

So, being scared shitless about your environment makes you pay attention. Paying attention is good, when the animals around you would like nothing better than to eat you. However, being on the lookout for the hungry lion doesn’t do modern man much good. Becker continues:

The result was the emergence of man as we know him: a hyperanxious animal who constantly invents reasons for anxiety even where there are none.

That line really triggered an “a-ha” moment for me. Our anxiety is based on millions of years of evolution, and taken out of a deadly environment, we have to focus that anxiety on something. Often it’s focused on all the petty things around us. Scared of our own shadow, as it were.

On the next page, Becker offers a wonderful insight for all the tired parents out there:

The child lives in a situation of utter dependence; and when his needs are met it must seem to him that he has magical powers, real omnipotence. If he experiences pain, hunger, or discomfort, all he has to do is to scream and he is relieved and lulled by gentle, loving sounds. He is a magican and a telepath who has only to mumble and to imagine and the world turns to his desires.

Isn’t that a wonderful paragraph? It clearly identifies the whys behind a child’s thought process. As a non-parent, I can’t tell you if it helps, but it does seem to offer a sound explaination as to why children are so darn fussy and perplexed, especially from ages 0 to 5.

Following the footsteps of Freud and Otto Rank, Becker covers the usual suspects. Sections on penis envy and the like can be found. However, Becker loves to add his own wry commentary:

With anal play the child is already being a philospher of the human condition.

Sentences like that make books worth reading.