February 29, 2008

Life Of Crime

When I was eight or nine, I had aspirations of being a hacker. I had just seen the movie WarGames, which gave the impression that hacking into top-secret government computers required little more than a computer, a phone line, and an idle afternoon. If Matthew Broderick could come this close to igniting global thermonuclear war, then surely I could cause some mischief with the Apple IIe in my parents' basement. Maybe people would finally take me seriously if they learned that I was the one responsible for bringing down the entire Northeastern Wisconsin power grid.

My criminal ambitions were frustrated by the fact that my parents wouldn't let me have a modem until several years later. But I always wondered what might have happened if I had gained notoriety as a hacker. Would my disability have softened any legal consequences that I might have faced? That strategy doesn't seem to have worked out for Li'l Hacker, a teenaged phone phreaker who happens to be blind. The kid has made prank hostage calls to the police and has harassed hundreds of people across the country. He's the target of an FBI investigation and may be prosecuted. Let this be a lesson to all of us gimps. We can get away with a lot, but we shouldn't push our luck.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)

February 28, 2008

Now Hiring

I'm looking to bring another nurse on to my team. Here's the Craigslist version of the ad. It's very part-time, but someone could do worse than get paid to spend a couple Saturday evenings with me each month. I've gotten a few responses from the Craigslist ad and absolutely no responses from the ad I ran in the local paper. I should know better than to expect anything from old media.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2008

Atypical

Wired Magazine is running a feature on Amanda Baggs, author of the Ballastexistenz blog. Amanda has autism and, through her writings and short videos, is working to change popular perceptions of people like herself. Here's how Amanda sums up the message she hopes to spread:

We're here. We're weird. Get used to it.

The article goes on to suggest that our current view of autism as a disease might one day seem as misguided as the scientific community's historical classification of homosexuality as a mental illness.

Without the Internet, Amanda would never have been able to spread that message and gain the attention of researchers and journalists. The disability activists of past decades could only dream of having that kind of metaphorical loudspeaker. Twenty years from now, someone should write a book about digital culture and its influence on the disability rights movement.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2008

Don't Read This On A Full Stomach

Stuff happens. Today is a good example. I was doing some repositioning when my g-tube (the short peg in my stomach through which I eat) popped out like a champagne cork. Of course, I had just eaten and so the entire contents of my stomach gushed out, making it look I had puked on the carpet. And, of course, I didn't have a spare with me (hey, it's never happened before), so I rushed home after giving a hurried and slightly embarrassed explanation to my supervisor. Fortunately, my colleagues are not the kind of people who are easily fazed. Anyway, I'm fine. Slightly annoyed, perhaps. My internal accoutrements are usually pretty reliable, but when they fail, they really fail.

On the way home, someone on the radio was saying that nursing is a hot career. "Yup," I said to my nurse, "dealing with my effluvia is really hot."

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2008

Getting Things Done

The Minnesota Legislature demonstrated uncommon good sense and overrode Governor Pawlenty's veto of a comprehensive and long-overdue transportation bill. Overrides of gubernatorial vetoes are a rare thing and the six House Republicans who voted with the majority deserve special recognition. Their collective act of political courage has put Minnesota on the path to a more sustainable and prosperous future. The state's roads and bridges will now receive the attention they so badly need and the metro area could finally get a modern public transit system.

Minnesota has long had a reputation as a state that understood the need to invest in public services to maintain a high quality of life. Over the last few years, our political leadership succumbed to the influence of anti-tax forces that showed nothing but contempt for the kind of public stewardship that has served Minnesota so well over the last several decades. It's too soon to tell, but I like to think that this veto override serves as a rebuke to those who value having a few more dollars in their pockets rather than any kind of vision for the future.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:39 PM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2008

Tilting At Windmills

A reputation takes years to build, but it can be demolished in short order. Ralph Nader, already considered a pariah by many, risks making a mockery of whatever remains of his legacy as he mounts yet another presidential bid. It's sad to see him spend his life's final chapters on vanity projects like this. If he's serious about bringing attention to corporate greed and malfeasance, there are plenty of other ways he could get his message out. I'm baffled as to why Nader hasn't made better use of the Internet and joined forces with other consumer advocates. Why hasn't he written more books, produced documentaries, or funneled more resources into grass-roots organizations that might actually be better positioned to achieve some of the changes for which he claims to be fighting? In the present political climate, Nader's campaign won't even be a sideshow. It will be a joke.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:16 PM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2008

Couch Potato

If you have no other plans this weekend, you have the option of sitting in front of your computer and streaming every episode of the original Star Trek. CBS has also made the first couple seasons of The Twilight Zone and Hawaii Five-Oh available. Before long, I may not have a reason to ever get away from my computer again. The Internet: creating a nation of shut-ins since 1993.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2008

Poorly Chosen Words

The Clinton staffer who came up with the "change you can xerox" line for last night's debate must be feeling pretty sheepish right about now. It had the canned, unfunny quality of something written in committee on too little sleep and too much Diet Coke. Even Hillary knew it was a lame thing to say. If her campaign is on its last legs, it would be a shame if she goes out on cheap jibes like this.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)

February 21, 2008

Thinking Happy Thoughts

A company called Emotiv will be releasing a headset that allows games to be played with only the brain as the interface. It will cost around $200, which leads me to believe that this will be little more than a biofeedback device with a USB connection. Until products like these include marketing language that says something like "100% compatible with Bioshock", I'm not opening my wallet. Still, I hope the company sells enough of them to demonstrate market potential and warrant future R&D investments. And while you're at it, please create me a brain interface that lets me bang out these blog entries even when my fingers are still thawing out. On the plus side, my current setup lets me give my neck muscles a daily workout. Women love a well-defined neck.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:19 PM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2008

True Love

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:55 PM | Comments (4)

February 19, 2008

Downturn

Another sign that we're in for rough economic times ahead: my employer implemented a hiring freeze today. The last time state government imposed a hiring freeze was in 2003, when Minnesota was confronting a four billion dollar budget deficit. But the bad news doesn't end there. Mortgage foreclosures hit a record high here in Hennepin County for the month of January. With more subprime mortgages scheduled to reset in the coming months, the sheriff's office is going to be busy for the foreseeable future. I probably picked a turbulent time to start putting money in my retirement account, but I can afford to take on some risk. The people losing their homes didn't have that luxury.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2008

Put Through The Paces

The computer I built last fall has been operational for four months now and the thing runs like a champ. I don't think I've asked my nurse to press Ctrl-Alt-Del once since I first powered it up. It's amazing how stable Windows can be if you throw enough memory and processing power at it. How nice to have a system that does what I want without freezing, generating error messages, or slowing to a crawl. If anything, I'm not pushing the computer anywhere close to its limits.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:53 PM | Comments (4)

February 17, 2008

Critic At Large: Cloverfield

I went into Cloverfield not sure what to expect. The New-York-City-getting-fucked-up-by-a-Big-Bad is a plot device that is beginning to show its age. I was also wary of the Handicam-style of filmmaking. Sitting through ninety minutes of jerky home video footage could quickly become a test of patience. And the cast had the bland, generic good looks typical of teen soap operas. But I actually had a lot of fun at this movie. It has the reassuring predictable elements of most monster movies: the destruction of a famous landmark or two, the epic throwdowns between the monster and the military, and terrified citizenry running and screaming through streets strewn with rubble. Yet it also includes a few elements that invigorate and propel the story forward. A movie is doing something right when it elicits surprised yelps from me. The script is also funny in its self-awareness. When one character first catches a glimpse of the monster and asks what is, another character gives a hurried reply: "I dunno. Something terrible." Minutes later, after encountering something equally horrific, he responds to the same question with "Something else. Also terrible."

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:02 PM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2008

A Start, But Not An End

We gimps in the developed world sometimes forget how good we have it. Most of us have relatively ready access to the basic pieces of equipment that we need to get by. Not so in Iraq, where kids with disabilities often go without wheelchairs and must depend on family members to carry them. Some charities are attempting to supply chairs to families in need. American prisoners construct the wheelchairs which are then distributed to Iraqis with the assistance of the U.S. Army.

As Iraq embarks on the slow process of rebuilding, I hope some attention is being given to making the built environment more accessible to people with disabilities. Since we bear responsibility for tearing down much of the country, we owe it to Iraqis to teach them principles of universal design. Giving out wheelchairs is great, but it's meaningless if these kids and adults are confined to their homes because the schools, stores, and mosques are inaccessible to them.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:05 PM | Comments (1)

February 15, 2008

Debut

Warren Ellis, a comics writer whose work I admire, is now posting installments of a web-only serial called FreakAngels. The first issue doesn't give many hints about the plot, but it appears to be a fusion of dystopia and steampunk. Reading comics on a screen feels clunky to me, but I'll check out the next few issues and give the story a chance to grab me.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2008

Feel The Love

I received Valentine cards from a couple co-workers as well as a phone call from my mom. Oh, and one of my Facebook friends sent me some virtual chocolate. Some might call that a rather lame Valentine's Day. I call it better than average.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:11 PM | Comments (3)

February 13, 2008

Crimes Against Humanity

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Baghdad bombing that appeared to involve women with mental disabilities as perpetrators. Now comes news that the administrator of a Baghdad mental hospital was arrested under suspicion of supplying mental patients to insurgents for use as suicide bombers. I really should stop letting the depths of human depravity surprise me. And in this case, I think it's appropriate for the American authorities to conduct the investigation. I'm not confident Iraqi officials would show much interest investigating complicity in these women's deaths.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

Guilty Pleasure

I know some of you will probably think much less of me after reading this, but I'm really digging the new Terminator series on Fox. I thought it would be a shameless attempt to exploit the franchise, but the writing and acting isn't half-bad. Like the movies (at least the first two...the third is best forgotten), the show plays with the simultaneous fear and fascination that our technology provokes. Better yet, it has really hot women punching and kicking people. Knowing Fox's proclivity for killing scripted dramas in favor of more reality programming featuring the beautiful and the feckless, I'd better enjoy the show while I can.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:06 PM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2008

Workplace Shenanigans

The universe seems to be having some fun with me as of late. Last week, I got locked out of my office. This morning, my office flooded after the sprinkler system malfunctioned (I wasn't there at the time). I'm a little nervous to venture back in there. What happens when my office decides to quit screwing around and really lays down the smack on me?

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:16 PM | Comments (1)

February 10, 2008

Collective Bargaining

Members of the Writers Guild of America look set to return to work after negotiators struck a tentative deal with the studios, bringing a likely end to a three-month strike. As a regular viewer of the fake news programs, both Colbert and Stewart have impressed me with their improvisational kung foo. Colbert has been particularly good. This interview with anti-immigration demagogue Lou Dobbs, conducted entirely in Spanish by alter-ego Esteban Colberto, had me in tears:

Still, both shows will only get better once the writers return. I'm no Hollywood lawyer, but the proposed deal ending the strike establishes an important precedent by giving writers a cut of the digital media pie. And while this strike's effects were limited to the entertainment industry, it demonstrates that unions still matter in this country.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2008

Can't Be Bought

I've been thinking about what I should do with the stimulus check I'll be getting from the government in a few months. I'm getting too old and responsible to blow the whole thing on frivolities. In fact, I think i'll put the entire amount in my savings account as an act of protest against rampant consumerism. Take that, ruling elite.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:50 PM | Comments (1)

February 08, 2008

Change Is Good

Earlier this week, I accepted an offer to be the policy lead on a new Medicaid service option for people with disabilities. Some of you know that for the past several years, I've served as the policy lead for the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment. Now that the DMIE is operational, I figured it was time to try my hand at something else. This new consumer-directed option (colloquially known as the "J" because of its federal statutory citation) will give people with disabilities more control over their funding for personal assistance services. It essentially puts a cash allowance in the individual's hands to use for purchasing human or technological assistance with their personal care needs.

I'm looking forward to developing another cutting-edge initiative as well as the exposure I'll get to new areas of policy. If I ever want to be a disability policy guru, I need opportunities that will give me a fresh perspective on the intersection between theory and practice.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:12 PM | Comments (3)

February 07, 2008

Mission From God

I was on an errand through the skyways last night when some guy stopped me near the Government Center and awkwardly asked my nurse if he could pray for my healing. In GimpWorld, this kind of thing is like a solar eclipse: not exactly rare, but infrequent enough that it catches you off-guard. I declined the man's offer and shortly afterwards my nurse (herself an evangelical) said to me something like, "There are some freaky Christians out there." The guy probably said a prayer for me anyway, which is fine. I just hope he's from out of town. I wouldn't want him to see me again and be all disappointed that I'm still a gimp.

A disability is not an open invitation for strangers to indulge their messianic urges, but I do appreciate the blog material.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:44 PM | Comments (5)

February 06, 2008

There Must Be A Better Way

I'll say it again: caucuses (cauci?) are an odd method for encouraging participation in the presidential nomination process. To compress voting into a ninety-minute window is to exclude thousands of people who want to vote but have to work. My own caucus site was overwhelmed with voters and the poor volunteers could barely keep up with the flood. I saw a few people get turned away because they showed up a few minutes after the caucusing was over. It's a confusing, disorganized process and I hope that talk of switching to primary voting gains some traction. Meeting one's neighbors is great, but that's what block parties are for.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2008

Endorsement

I'm leaving shortly for my caucus, where I'll be supporting Barack Obama. I like and respect Hillary, but Obama is the kind of candidate who comes along once in a generation. He has the capacity, more than any other political leader I've seen in my lifetime, to restore our faith in ourselves and our country. He personifies all the best qualities of the American civic character: intelligence, vision, passion, and humility. Clinton would make a fine president and I will gladly support her if she is the nominee. But tonight, I'm feeling like I can play a small part in ushering in an age of transformation that finally slams the door shut on the twentieth century and carries us into a future we've imagined for far too long.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:02 PM | Comments (1)

February 04, 2008

Animal Testing

Scientists have figured out how to infect mice with the virus responsible for the common cold. They claim that this could lead to a more complete understanding of the virus' behavior and the development of possible treatments. This is not great news if you're a lab mouse, but it probably beats grislier fates like having your spine severed or being forced to digest carcinogenic substances.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:02 PM | Comments (2)

February 03, 2008

Critic At Large: The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

During one of my frequent hospitalizations as a kid, the nursing staff in the ICU created a laminated spelling board for me to use as a communication tool until the respirator could be removed from my throat. The cumbersome process of pointing at letters to express myself caused me to lose my patience on several occasions. My words trickled out at a maddeningly slow pace, crude approximations of the thoughts racing through my head. But my own brief experience with losing my speech faculties pales in comparison to that of Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on his book of the same name.

Bauby, the editor of Elle magazine, had a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, able to blink only his left eye. He learns to communicate again by having the alphabet recited to him and blinking to indicate the letter he desires, slowly spelling out words and sentences. Through this method, he eventually writes a book about his life with locked-in syndrome. Aiding him in his endeavor are several beautiful and compassionate women: therapists, assistants, and former girlfriends. Never has the alphabet sounded so alluring. But the film really shines in conveying how Bauby's universe has shrunk after his stroke, encompassing little more than the confines of his room and the hospital grounds.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:59 PM | Comments (1)

February 02, 2008

Hey, Jealousy

I check out Mac-related assistive technology sites from time to time and I'm beginning to think that all the interesting developments in gimp-centric technology are taking place on that side of the fence. Mac users have great-looking on-screen keyboards that are frequently updated, while my OSK is essentially unchanged from the version I first bought in the early Nineties--jaundiced color scheme and all. I don't necessarily want to give up my Windows box, but I wouldn't mind having a Mac share my desk space. I'd need a bigger desk, though.

Someday, I will actually give in to my Mac lust. You'll see.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:14 PM | Comments (1)

February 01, 2008

What War Does To Us

Two women with mental disabilities were sent into Baghdad markets today with explosives strapped to their bodies, which were then detonated remotely (although the last fact seems to be disputed by American authorities). We'll probably never get the complete story, but I'm sure people with disabilities have been used like this in other conflicts. My friend Rose best summed the appropriate reaction to this event in one word: ick.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:18 PM | Comments (2)