December 31, 2010
An End And A Beginning
Happy New Year to my readers. If you were all in one place, I'd throw a party. But since you're scattered all over the globe, I'm just going to have to drink this big bottle of champagne all by myself. I hope 2011 brings you plenty of sweetness and only a little sour. Perhaps this will be the year I finally achieve fame or infamy. Either would be fine with me as long as it doesn't involve an untimely death or excessive prison time.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)
December 30, 2010
Here, Amuse Yourselves
If you found yesterday's "Best Of" list lacking or reflecting poor taste, Fimoculous and Largehearted Boy have compiled plenty of other such lists that await your judgment. That should keep you busy while I finish the first volume of Unwritten and the fifth series of Doctor Who. Speaking of, here are my thoughts on Karen Gillan. Hottest. Companion. Ever. And a note to the producers of Doctor Who: more fishnets, please!
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2010
2010: The Year In Awesome
Here are the things that got me all hot and bothered in 2010:
Best Book--Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: Atwood tends to shy away from genre labels, but this novel is some fine science fiction. Set before and after a cataclysmic plague that sweeps an already troubled planet, the book focuses on the complicated friendship between two young men who each bear some responsibility for the coming apocalypse. Atwood understands that the end of the world isn't very interesting if the characters bearing witness to the events are empty vessels and she takes care to imbue her protagonists with deeply human flaws. Perhaps science fiction wouldn't have persistent credibility issues if it had more writers like Atwood who can meld the best elements of character and plot.
Best TV--Mad Men: This was a tough category for me. I really enjoyed The Walking Dead (yet another thematic variation on the ending of the world), but six episodes isn't enough to judge a series on its merits. Community is a brilliant sitcom rife with pop culture references (see the recent Christmas episode for its spot-on riffing on decades of holiday specials). But Mad Men was simply stellar this year. We finally saw the unflappable Don Draper begin to lose his shit as his world unraveled around him. Both the writers and actors are on intimate terms with their characters, which made each episode a pleasure to watch. Even the season's final episode, which could have been an eye-rolling cliché, somehow managed to be fresh and surprising.
Best Album--The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe: This supremely talented woman can do it all. Her album effortlessly transitions between playful hip-hop, earnest soul, and cinematic orchestrations without seeming showy. She also has the heart of a geek. Just look at the album cover, which is a straight-up tribute to silent film classic Metropolis. Her songs about lonely and lovelorn robots are rich with human emotion, elevating them above gimmickry to high art.
Best Film--The Social Network: Hollywood, for all its dependence on computer wizardry, has difficulty portraying technology in a realistic light in its movies. Technology is either magic or devilry, depending on the movie's point of view. The Social Network may be the first major studio film that trusts its audience's intelligence enough to tell a story about the messy process of writing software. Of course, Aaron Sorkin's sharp ear for dialog helps keep us interested. The fact that events portrayed in the film may not have actually happened is beside the point. It doesn't really matter whether the founder of Facebook got a blow job in the bathroom from a hot college co-ed. What matters is whether the movie is true to the spirit of a time and place when everything changed. The Social Network does that with with the help of a great cast and a compelling script.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2010
Let It Snow And Snow And Snow
The huge blizzards that seem to be hitting the Midwest, East Coast, and Northern Europe with increasing frequency may be a portent of climate change. The theory goes like this: a warming planet is generating more moisture that falls as snow across Siberia. The greater snowfall in Siberia creates a dome of cold air that alters the jet stream enough to push even more cold air into the northern latitudes.
Of course, more data and analysis is needed to support this theory. But it's difficult to ignore the fact that winters have become weirdly intense in recent years. And colder, snowier winters are placing a strain on the infrastructures of places that are simply unaccustomed to such weather. If this theory is borne out by additional research, it might encourage national and local leaders to regard these storms as a trend rather than fluke occurrences.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2010
Presents!
My family and friends were much too generous to me this holiday season. Among the gifts I received:
- A new leather jacket to replace my battered and tattered leather jacket that I've owned since college. The new one is black, so I guess I'll have to start riding a motorcycle and smoking cigarettes.
- Books! Like, real books with actual paper and covers and stuff. I almost forgot that they still made them like that.
- Several sweaters and shirts that will make me look very respectable at the office. I think I'm going to need a new dresser just to hold my vast sweater collection.
- The 25th anniversary Blu-Ray edition of The Goonies. I can report that while this bit of 80s cheese still has its charms, it's not quite as awesome as it was upon my first viewing at age 12.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2010
Break Out The Festivus Pole
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. I'm off to do a few last minute gift purchases and other miscellaneous tasks before downtown closes up. Tune in next week for The 19th Floor's Annual List of Cool.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2010
I'm Good, Santa
It's occurred to me that I haven't posted my annual holiday wish list. That's probably because I'm entering that phase of middle-aged adulthood where I can simply buy the things that I really want. Of course, if some anonymous benefactor wanted to give me a European vacation or new van, I wouldn't turn either down. But it feels silly to ask for a book or sweater when I can easily purchase them myself. Nobody can spoil me like I do.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2010
Winter Break
My 10-day vacation begins today. I will make various plans to finish this book or finally watch that unopened DVD. About half of those plans will go unfulfilled because I will fritter away an inordinate amount of time reading end-of-year lists on the web and downloading various wallpapers for my desktop (even though I'll go back to the original after deciding that I don't really like any of them). And I'm okay with that. Blogging should continue as scheduled because I'll need something to break up my porn-viewing sessions. Now, which cheesy movie should I stream from Netflix first?
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2010
Hulk Commit Tort!
I don't know why I didn't think of this. Law and the Multiverse is a blog focusing on legal issues that could arise in the alternate worlds of comic books. For example, how does Tony Stark get around federal arms control laws? How does insurance function in a world where frequent battles between superpowered humans results in massive property damage? One post even addresses whether the Americans with Disabilities Act could apply to those with certain mutant abilities.
The blog is authored by a couple attorneys and has been in existence for only a few weeks, but it's already been featured in the Times and geek überblog Slashdot. The Times article suggests that the site demonstrates that "in the grand Venn diagram of life, there appears to be substantial overlap between lawyers and the people Mr. Daily [one of the site's creators] lovingly refers to as 'comic book nerds.'" It also demonstrates that a legal education has some practical applications.
Best of luck to these new bloggers. If they can inspire at least one law school professor to formulate an exam question that includes Cyclops and Magneto rather than Whiteacre and Blackacre, they will have made the world a better place.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:37 PM | Comments (1)
December 20, 2010
Upgrade Complete
My computer had its makeover over the weekend and seems to be functioning smoothly. It has experienced a couple isolated crashes, but I'm hoping that's corrected after re-installing the video drivers. The performance increase isn't huge, but it's certainly noticeable. And while I used Windows 7 briefly during its beta phase, I'm really impressed at how polished and intuitive it is in its final version. I thought I might miss the familiarity of XP, but now I realize how kludgy its interface was in comparison. Even better, all of my programs seem to get along with Windows 7 just fine.
I was going to put off buying Starcraft II until I finished playing through the original, but I may have to give in just to put the new system through its paces.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in a used but perfectly fine motherboard/CPU/RAM/video card combo, send me an e-mail.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2010
It Should Be Self-Aware By Next Week
If all goes as planned, I'll be greeting you on Monday with an upgraded computer. For the geeks, here are the specs:
- Asus M488TD-V motherboard
- 4 gigs of DDR3 1600 memory
- Radeon 5770 video card
- AMD Phenom X4 955 CPU
- 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive
- Windows 7 64 bit
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2010
Privatization? Really?
I had a lot of respect for Peter Orszag when he served as Obama's budget director. He's a smart, wonkish type who strongly advocated for the health care reform law and financial reform. But I'm not sure what to make of his latest Times arguing for a rethink of Social Security Disability Insurance. Like a lot of other policymakers, Orszag thinks that too many people have become dependent on SSDI and are thus forever severed from the workforce. I don't disagree on that point, but Orzsag seems to think that the solution is to require employers to offer private disability insurance. It's an interesting idea, but it seems that it could be susceptible to the same troubles that have plagued employer-based health insurance. Large employers might be able to afford such insurance without much trouble ,but small businesses could be in a weaker position. The quality of such insurance could also very greatly, with some insurers offering a variety of supports to help workers with disabilities stay on the job while others might do little more than write a check. I'd like to see more energy focused on reforming SSDI to make it more responsive to workers who, with the right training and accommodations, could continue working.
Then again, Orszag just accepted a multimillion dollar gig with Citigroup while I'm a lowly government bureaucrat, so what do I know?
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2010
Snowbound
We're still digging out from the massive snowstorm that hit the Twin Cities over the weekend. I'm guessing that a significant number of people with disabilities and the elderly have become homebound since then. If not for the skyways and my van, I probably wouldn't be going anywhere. Many of the sidewalks are still impassable or the cut-offs are blocked by huge piles of snow. The storm's aftermath is making it difficult for everyone to get around and I know cities are struggling to clear the streets, but it might help to remind their workers that not everyone can climb over the mountains of snow and ice left behind by the plows.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2010
I'll Take Machine Uprisings For $100, Alex
Jeopardy! plans on airing a couple matches featuring two of its most dominant ubergeek contestants of the past and Watson, an artificial intelligence developed by IBM. Oh, sure, the idea seems cute now. I'm sure our robotic overseers will play it on a loop in the dismal rec rooms of the lunar labor camps, giving us ample opportunity to curse our oh-so-clever scientists. Perhaps I'm just being an alarmist and this is a harmless publicity stunt. But don't come crying to me if Watson suddenly vaporizes its human opponents and declares itself Master of Humanity.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2010
Activist Judge
All the health policy wonks are talking about the news of a federal judge ruling that the Affordable Care Act's insurance mandate is unconstitutional. For those keeping score, two federal judges (appointed by Democrats) have ruled in favor of the mandate's constitutionality while one judge (appointed by a Republican) has ruled against it. The latest ruling isn't a surprise and the issue will ultimately be decided by Justice Kennedy (the other Supreme Court justices will simply cancel out each other's votes). What is interesting about the judge's decision is that he refused to strike down the entire law or stop its implementation.
This will create an interesting set of circumstance for the Court. States and insurers will continue to prepare for a post-2013 world of insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansions. If this ruling stands, those things wouldn't go away, but it could create a lot of confusion and uncertainty for policymakers. Without a mandate, insurers will scream bloody murder about having to make insurance available to anyone who wants it. State exchanges might be made irrelevant after millions of dollars are spent on their planning and creation. How the Court does or doesn't respond to these facts on the ground will give us wonks plenty to speculate about over the next couple years.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2010
Snowmageddon!
The Twin Cities is scheduled to get hit with an epic blizzard this weekend, so I'm making a list of things to do in between glances out the window:
- Hit the Schlocky Science Fiction portion of my Netflix streaming queue (think Enemy Mine or Starship Troopers).
- Make a dent in my book club reading.
- Make a dent in my other reading.
- Download Cataclysm and get started on my worgen hunter named Mortimer.
- Eat way too many Pringles and Andes mints.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2010
The Kids Are Not All Right
NPR continues its series on the ongoing struggle for people with disabilities and the elderly to receive care in the community rather than in nursing homes. Particular attention is given to working-age adults and children who are forced to live in nursing homes because states--many in the South--provide little or nothing in the way of community-based supports to enable them to stay at home. One of the stories quotes Carol Steckel, a former Alabama Medicaid director, who explains states' continued reluctance to offer home and community-based services:
At a meeting of state Medicaid directors, in a hotel outside Washington, D.C., last month, Steckel noted many reasons states are reluctant to expand home-based care. How do you make sure people get good care at home? It's easy, she says, to send an inspector into a nursing home. It's harder to check on hundreds of individuals in their own homes.
And then there's the money question. It's a big problem for states facing all-time-high budget deficits.
"We've got people asking us to do 24/7 at-home care," she says, "which means that we'll be paying $500,000 for one individual. And then you have to debate as a society is that what we want to do versus taking that $500,000 and spending it on prenatal care for 10,000 women. I mean it's a societal question, it's a conundrum almost."
With former bureaucrats like Steckel espousing such paternalistic and alarmist bullshit, it's little wonder that people are still languishing in nursing homes. States are certainly facing significant budget deficits, but in most cases care can be delivered in the home for much less compared to a nursing home. And plenty of people already receive great care at home. Perhaps Steckel should pay a visit to Minnesota to see how it's done.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2010
We Have A Winner
Minnesotans woke up this morning to discover that we have a governor-elect. Republican Tom Emmer graciously conceded this morning and Mark Dayton will become Minnesota's first Democratic governor in twenty years. Dayton won't have much time to savor his victory as he'll soon have to develop a budget proposal that addresses a $6 billion deficit. In the short term, Dayton's victory is welcome news for health care advocates, providers, and others who have been pushing for the state to take advantage of a federal opportunity to expand Medicaid to low-income adults without children. Dayton has promised to sign an executive order authorizing such an expansion. I'll be working on some of the policy development related to the expansion, so I suspect the next few months will be busy for me.
Minnesota election officials deserve heaps of kudos for overseeing a smooth and orderly recount process. Emmer deserves kudos for putting the good of the state before his own interests or those of his party. And Dayton earns kudos for mounting one of the unlikeliest political comebacks in recent memory. A lot of people, including me, initially dismissed his run for governor as the last gasp of a fading politician. He proved us wrong. Today, I'm happy to call him my next boss.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2010
Competition Is Good
I was going to write about how one intriguing element of the new Google bookstore is that books can be read on any web browser without additional software, but then Amazon just announced that its digital books will also be available on the web. Web-based reading isn't anything revolutionary, but it's a nice feature for those of us who might like to do a bit of lunchtime reading on office computers that don't allow the installation of additional software. Both Amazon and Google will also allow independent booksellers to sell digital books through their websites and get a cut of each purchase. I'm hoping Uncle Hugo's takes advantage of this arrangement so that I don't have to feel guilty about not buying physical books from them anymore. Now, if only digital versions of the Harry Potter books would be released so that I can figure out what the hell was going on in the last movie.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2010
Special Report
I neglected to mention that last Friday was the United Nations' designated International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Fortunately, the BBC was paying attention and ran a whole week's worth of disability-related stories under the heading of All Access. The stories explore issues such as employment, technology, sports, and civil rights from a disability perspective. I haven't had a chance to review all of the pieces, but the ones that I have seen were quite good; the reporters treated their subjects without resorting to mawkishness or hero worship. I've said this before, but of all the mainstream, global news operations, the BBC is one of the best when it comes to presenting disability issues with nuance and maturity. American media outlets--yes, even NPR--could learn a thing or two from their British colleagues.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2010
For Winterfell!
The first full-length trailer for HBO's forthcoming Game of Thrones series has arrived and it looks promising. Readers of the novels will recognize several major characters including Robert Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Boromir--er, I mean Eddard Stark. Sean Bean, who plays Stark, seems to be Hollywood's go-to guy for any role involving a noble but tragic figure from fantasy literature. The trailer nicely captures the dark, foreboding tone of the first book and I'm eager to catch additional glimpses of the series when HBO airs a brief making-of documentary this Sunday. In the meantime, I'm almost done rereading the first book. Doorstop fantasy novels are much more manageable on a Kindle.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2010
Click To Move
While some researchers are trying to figure how to control a wheelchair with brain power, others are taking a different approach that doesn't involve drilling holes in one's head. One team is exploring the possibility of controlling a wheelchair via tongue clicks that are measured with sensors that resemble earbuds. The technology hasn't been tested with actual wheelchairs, but it could be a promising replacement for older (and less sanitary) sip-and-puff interfaces.
Sooner or later, wheelchairs with one of these newfangled controls will have to hit the consumer market and it will be interesting to see which one will achieve success first. The brain interface is still the holy grail, but its development seems to be proceeding in fits and starts. It's encouraging to see that researchers are still throwing other things at the wall to see what sticks.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2010
South Of The Border
The Times reports on the abysmal conditions investigators found in Mexican institutions for people with disabilities. These facilities are little more than warehouses, as documented to disturbing effect in the accompanying video. The article describes how little government funding the institutions receive for basic supplies like toilet paper. Many of the residents are neglected and overmedicated with psychotropic medications. Some are even lobotomized. It's a depressing reminder that international agreements and conventions on the rights of people with disabilities cannot improve conditions overnight in many parts of the developing world. The sad fact is that people with disabilities will continue to be victims of such medieval treatment until governments have been sufficiently shamed into doing better by their people.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)