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Six hospital staff including nurses, doctors and administrators on a smoking break outside the Nessel Cancer Services building.

In an article by James Maguire, Robert Dewar rebuts criticism to his claim that Java is the root of all evil…I mean, is a symptom of the complacency exhibited by universities when it comes to training intelligent and skilled computer scientists (some of whom become quality programmers and software engineers). I’ll grant he may have some conceptual troubles understanding causality (note that I said symptom of where he says responsible for). Semantics aside, Dr. Dewar comes close to yet does not explicitly state the core problem. Good engineers enjoy solving systems problems (as opposed to social problems). Instead of designing courses to be generally appealing, universities should be optimizing for attracting and training problem solvers. This may mean adopting more esoteric approaches that do not readily make sense to companies looking for “java developers” and instead training problem solvers who can learn the tactical skills necessary to solve industry problems.

For those of you a late to the game there’s still time to catch the latest “Wonder Years” like saga of a voice over narrator and his anecdotic youth. Though surprised they didn’t cast Fred Savage for the part of Ted Mosbey, our generation is comforted still by the endearing words of Bob Saget, former loving father of three (ok, four) blondes. A show that if it succeeds in its quest to work its way into the vernacular could be a contender for the “Seinfeld” of our generation, “How I Met your Mother” has gone well beyond the plateau created by shows such as “Scrubs” in integrating the burgeoning community of HMYMites. While it maintains culturally relevant music, self-referential clichés, and a facebook profile, HIMYM has a clear grasp on the fundamental experiences that defined us as the grunge generation. Far from being “a show about nothing,” while on eternal quest for that singular story identified by its namesake HIMYM continues to assemble a collection of non-sequiturs and idioms that may yet propel it to the level of “Double Dipping” and “Festivus” whose origins we in all likelyhood first caught in re-runs on TBS (sadly not in HD). The mix of characters (a “normal” guy, a “crazy” guy and two incorrigible accessories) closely mirrors the chemistry that gave Seinfeld nine long years resulting in everyone going to jail (hope I didn’t ruin that for anyone). As the normal guy, Ted Mosbey mostly has things happening to him and regularly discovers that the situation usually gets worse when he tries to actually do something. The show seems to be held back by the driving need for Ted to find his future wife. While the quest was a useful crutch to kick off the series, HIMYM is at risk of being plagued by the same matchmaking syndrome that doomed “Scrubs” to mediocrity in season four. Here’s hoping HIMYM can drop the albatross of plot devices that is relationships and continue to concoct shenanigans that are the stuffs of watercooler conversation.

Dial tone

“Standard” phone ring

Records

Cassette Tapes

CDs

Desktop computer

Live TV

Roaming

Being without a phone

Ethernet

Floppy Disk

Non-hybrid car

$1/gallon gasoline

The evening news

A regular commute

CRTs

Film

VCRs

Rewind to start

Commercial interruptions

Long Distance phone call

Manual car door locks

Turn-key ignition

Spitting watermelon seeds

“Stop wasting film”

7 digit phone numbers

They say sales is all about telling a story. Some stories are too long.

May is a treacherous time in Harvard Sq. The Harvard Seniors, confident with their new diplomas and more careless than the day they were accepted roam the streets of the Square with complete disregard for the commercial and residential traffic that has not miraculously paused in awe of the revelation that they have successfully navigated the halls of Cambridge’s westerly college.

Coincidentally I noticed for the first time on my way home a sign posted: “Caution Seniors.” As any fan of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” will quickly point out, what the fine city of Cambridge intended to do was warn motorists of elderly that may also be roaming the streets of the square. But it is always amusing to take signs at their word, and so without hesitating to appreciate the timing I Caution all newly graduated Harvard College Seniors: “Watch out for that truck!”

On United Airlines flights an inch is apparently worth about $12. For the low price of $60 you can chose a seat with 5″ more leg room. I’m not sure what’s a bigger rip off - this or that Northwest charges $15 for a guaranteed isle seat. I should just fly JetBlue.

The Guardian reports that UK Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald is speaking out against the absurd notion that one can wage war against terrorism.  Some choice points:

“…there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.”

“The fight against terrorism…is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.”

Over the past few years, several political scientists have found that the way the GOP managed to get the Kansans of the country to vote against their own economic self interest is by talking up wedge issues (or as the media and GOP like to call them, value issues).  These are issues to which traditional Republicans pay lip service but often do nothing about (often because they are actually socially liberal).  One stand-out issue that has garnred Republicans a lot of headway during the rein of George W. Bush is gay marriage.  Interestingly, as reported by Frontline, gay marriage is Karl Rove’s favorite wedge issue.  Though with the recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling (pdf) the New York times speculates that the GOP, in moving to energize voters over a fundamental values issue, have run out of steam.

I was up late with some old West Wing in the background when a phrase caught my ear.  Season 4, Episode 17 while Sam Seaborn is running for Congress he is sparring verbally with Toby Ziegler who has just taken over running his campaign:

SAM: I can just cut any change I have for victory.

TOBY: No. The story’s going to be that you actually stuck up for what you believed in, you didn’t cut and run.  And people are gonna remember that, I’m gonna make sure of it.

This thought crossed my mind: does Karl Rove watch West Wing?

This wired article should put our priorities in perspective.

Thanks to popular culture most people are familiar with parts of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.  If my post on due process piqued your interest then you may have done some research and read about grand juries or eminent domain.  An article on findlaw from May of 2004 higlights the importance of the final right guaranteed in the subsequent amendment - the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right “to have the Assitance of Counsel for his defence (sic).”

I started this post several months ago and never had a chance to elaborate.  I’m flying on business tomorrow for the first time since the liquid scare and in checking the TSA website found the following disclaimer: “Bringing a prohibited item to a security checkpoint - even accidentally - is illegal.“

I guess I should bring my lawyer with me to the airport.

The next President of the United States will be the first person to come out and say that while Iraq is a mess, pulling out would be admitting defeat and the current strategy is not working.  Our next President will be the first person to stand up and say that we need to stop the partisan rhetoric and start working together on what we want to accomplish in Iraq and how we are going to to succeed because right now we do not know.

Another day, another false alarm?  We don’t know yet, but the more planes get turned around for seemingly innocuous reasons the sooner passengers will get tired of it.  At that point we will have taken a step back in security, just as the boy who cried wolf tried the villagers once too many times.  Security is difficult and it is not clear that being overly cautions is effective at stopping terrorists from accomplishing their goals.

McCain also pitched the part line argument that setting a date for withdrawal would encourage the militias in Iraq to lay low and wait for the date before erupting even more violence.  I wonder sometimes how many civilian deaths per day it will take for people to realize that we have no such influence in the region.  If the militias wanted us to leave wouldn’t they just pause the violence long enough for Bush to save face and withdraw?  Before you ask, yes, they are that smart.  The truth is that they do not want us to leave.  The presence of US Armed Forces are a much better recruitment tool for the insurgents in Iraq than they have been here at home.  Maybe if we set a date the insurgents will fear that they will not longer be able to blame us for their suffering and 26 million Iraqis will kick them out.  I wouldn’t count on it though - date or not, the vacuum left in Iraq when we removed Saddam will take years if not decades of violence to fill and will require much more than 100,000 troops to win.

I have been wondering recently about the FISA court (overlooking the fact that the Bush administration usually goes around it) and the method by which warrants are issued and executed ex parte (with the defendant not present or notified).  If one were to frame this as a deprivation of liberty without due process, possibly violating the Fifth Amendment, a reasonable rebuttal (one championed by the Bush administration) is that Article II Section 2 in combination with various laws passed by Congress (the Patriot Act being one often cited) give the President the power to deprive people of their liberty without due process in order to ensure the security of the United States.  Put another way, one may conclude that the President has the power to take a way a little bit of your liberty to attempt to preserve someone else’s based on a perceived threat.

Put in this context, here’s my question: do we want to give our government unchecked power to decide how much liberty we get or give up?

Update: The Bush Administration cites the Joint Resolution Authorizing the Use of Military Force, which authorizes the “use of all necessary and appropriate force” - not the Patriot Act.

in an article by Peter Hirschfeld we can observe the kinds of paranoia when people think that their flight is the one that is going to be blown up by a hysterical white woman in the front row.  If we dispatched F-15s every time someone thought they saw something suspicious or drew some far fetched conclusion based on something they saw or said we’d rapidly run out of jets.  There are significantly more suspicious and strange occurrences - especially when everyone is on edge - than actual dangerous activities.  Are we going to overreact to every one just because the consequences may be dire?  Or are we going to realize that sometimes when someone buys 1000 cellphones they’re just trying to make a living.

Drawing a lesson (intended or not) from Bruce Schneier’s recent post on Human/Bear Security Trade-Off, our largest fault in how we go about protecting ourselves from terrorism is that we are impatient.  Meanwhile the terrorists are infinitely patient.  This is the same problem we are experiencing in Iraq.  This is not a statement of support for “staying the course” rather an admission that when Bush says his successor will have to deal with withdrawing troops he understands that it is going to take a long time to achieve a period of stability in Iraq.

Three links to people who get it:

James Fallows Declares Victory

Rex Hammock knows The Only Thing we Have to Fear

and Steven Berlin Johnson assesses The Risk

Reading the evening headlines about the turmoil that a few people have caused I started thinking about how the threat of terrorism alone has caused our society to self-impose onerous surveillance and invasion of privacy to our own economic detriment.  Hundreds of millions of us are choosing (through our elected officials) to suffer untold inconveniences due to the mere possibility that a dozen people might kill a few thousand.  Terrorists no longer have to carry out their plots in order to terrorize.  So long as they are discovered and we react disproportionately they have succeeded.