I am going to an OKC Thunder v. Dallas Mavericks game tomorrow night.

Does anyone know who, other than Kevin Durant, I should be watching and/or rooting for? This is my first NBA experience, other than when I went to an NBADL game two years ago (ouch!).

I hope that Dallas-OKC becomes a good rivalry. The match up shows promise since they are both in the same conference and people from both states don’t like each other, even though we are basically the same.

I’ll let you know how it goes…and how many times this classic Garth Brooks song plays over the loudspeakers.

I’ll be in Fayetteville from now until December 1st. Then I’ll be back on the afternoon of the 19th and leave again on the 26th.

Also a little bird told me it might be worth being in Denver to ring in the new year.

Anybody else gonna be in/near Fayetteville?

So you’ve seen all the rumors floating around the interwebs that baby Trig might not really be Sarah Palin’s, but her daughter’s. Admittedly, they are mostly rumors, but they do make sense. For a concise rundown of “the facts” check out this blog post.

Now I don’t know for sure that Palin’s daughter missed school for 4-5 months leading up to Trig’s birth. I don’t know if when her water broke, Palin flew all the way to Alaska to give birth to her premature, down-syndrome child. No reputable news source is reporting those rumors. Yet, nobody seems to be denying them either.

I don’t know if these rumors are true, but they are certainly plausible. So here are my questions:
1. How likely do you think it is that Trig is really Bristol’s baby (I can’t wait for this made for TV movie)?
2. Why aren’t we hearing about this in the mainstream media?

I just wanted to post and say thanks to Joel for keeping this thing rolling for all these years. Here’s a newly-discovered ginger brew to you!

Also, I wanted to post because I was getting sad when I looked at the gadget on my netvibes page and saw no highlighted post titles.

One bit of tech news I’d like to throw up to the crowd is the arrival of the netbook.

About two months ago, my trusty Powerbook G4’s logic board went bad. I had already replaced the HD myself (out of Apple Care warranty), so I thought I’d just buy a logic board and try to DIY again. I found out that boards cost ~$500. A used PBG4 runs about $600 on eBay. That’s when I started looking at purchasing another machine. I’ve determined that I would want another Powerb…err…Macbook Pro, but I don’t have the extra $2000 just lying around to purchase some alumized sweetness. That put me searching for a Windows or Linux machine.

In my search, I struck upon a new-to-me market segment of notebook computers-netbooks. The first machine that caught my interest is put out by Asustek. It’s the Asus EEE pc. It was popularized after Asus tried to offer a viable entry in the OLPC project, but was unable to do so for the target price of $200, but they were able to do it for $300. These little dudes were made for internetting and basic operations, most of which running Linux Xandros.

Asus was putting out the only 9″ computer, then companies like Samsung, Acer, HP and now even Dell have jumped on the bandwagon. MSI, Asus, and Lenovo all offer 10″ versions, which were the ones I was looking at. The 9″-er’s keyboard is just too cramped for any long-term writing work, but not as bad as you would think. Standard specs is a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom chip designed specifically for this market, 1 GB RAM, either a smallish SSD or largish standard spinning platter, and most are shipping with Windows XP, but some are also coming with Linux distros like Xandros, SUSE, or Ubuntu (although rarer). Most have 3 USB ports, a multi-card reader, some sort of video out, Ethernet port and audio jacks. Most also include a 1.3 Megapixel built-in camera. No optical drive.

In the end, I went with a much larger Lenovo machine that has full-sized keyboard, DVD burner and various mulit-media options like 5.1 “surround” sound on-board speakers-largely because I do not own a TV and use my computer for all video entertainment. I’m only experiencing slight buyer’s remorse because this baby is a behemoth compared to my Powerbook, and just plain doesn’t feel as solid. It’s not a ThinkPad, it’s from Lenovo’s new consumer line, IdeaPad. I know that’s why the thing feels a little Dell-sy and only cost me $550 on TigerDirect. Oh, and I think some of the frustration is Windows-related. Yes, it runs Vista, which I firmly do not hate.

All this is to say/ask, do you guys have any experience with (1) netbooks, and which one or (2) Vista, and what do you think apart from it being bloated and requiring a minimum of 2GB of RAM.

Lastly, do you guys have any experience with more recent distros of Linux? I am considering Dual booting for simple tasks like web browsing.

Finally for real, are you guys aware of how awesome Open Office is?

I’ve been putting it off for way to long, but I finally got around to upgrading to the newest version of WordPress.

The site may not seem much different, but the inner workings should be much improved, and hopefully this will help us get the comment spam under control.

If you see something broken or if you are missing a feature that was there before, let me know

I just saw this frightening post over at Downloadsquad

Basically, the bill allows the DOJ to sue copyright infringers on behalf of the content owners (i.e. movie studios and record companies). JttM Legal Experts, is there any precedent for this? Seems crazy/scary to me.

More on bill S.3325 here

Ever since I finished the wire, I’ve needed a new show to steal from the internet. I’ve been watching 30 Rock, which is good, but just doesn’t draw me in like a good drama, So I’m asking you, our readership, for recommendations. I don’t want to get into Lost or 24, and for some reasons The Sopranos doesn’t appeal to me (but I know it’s probably good, so I could be convinced). Breaking Bad has already been recommended to me so there’s the first nominee.
here are some shows I liked a lot (enough to watch every episode):

• Deadwood
• Battlestar Galactica
• The Wire
• Twin Peaks

Until I read this article by William Saletan for Slate, I would have said yes with no reservations, but it’s probably not that simple.

The article describes a new theory that there may be genes, not for homosexuality, but for “androphilia” that affect both sexes. By making their owners more attracted to men, “… the importance of the genes lies in what they do not to men but to women, by increasing reproductive output so powerfully that these women compensate for the reduced output among their male relatives.” The theory has testable predictions: most notably that the female relatives of gay men should have above average reproductive success. So far these predictions have been confirmed by existing data.

A genetic explanation of homosexuality could go a long way to help it’s perception in society. Homosexuality could come to be seen as part of a natural process that benefits the species as a whole, the theory could calm fears that “gay teachers or television characters will “convert” hordes of boys,” etc. Also, it seems to me that it would be much harder to think of homosexuality a sin if it’s inherited rather than chosen.

The article raises another possible effect that wouldn’t have occurred to me:

…the word consequence suggests a … less happy implication: How would gay men see themselves and be regarded in a society that understood their condition as a side effect of female evolution? Would male androphilia be treated like sickle-cell anemia—the unfortunate cost of a genetic mutation that’s beneficial in other people? We medicate sickle-cell anemia. Would we medicate homosexuality?

I always thought a genetic understanding of homosexuality would do a lot to help it’s acceptance, but maybe a theory like this would leave enough room for people to persist in the beliefs they already hold. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Apple users:

I had to replace the hard drive in my Powerbook G4. I did it myself, and I believe the hardware install went fine. The problem I’m now having is installing Leopard on a blank drive. I know that sounds fishy, but each time I try to install, it either freezes up or says that the “Essentials” package from the installation DVD can’t be accessed. I’ve already formatted the drive with no problem using the built-in Disc Utility application. I’m also reading, when not working, the articles I find online.

If any of you have advice other than making sure the DVD is clean, etc, I’d appreciate it. If all else fails, I suppose I’ll have to go to the Apple store :(

I would like to propose we set a date to hang out at Daniel’s cabin or Las Vegas even if its just for a long weekend. Joel suggested Vegas and I think that is a solid idea. We can make this happen.

So what dates are good for everyone? Post in the comments so we can figure this out, I’ll update the thread as they come in.

Ben: I’m fine with either location and pretty easy on dates, maybe late summer or fall sometime?

Also, if this happens and it is at Daniel dad’s cabin maybe ahead of time we can order a Foosball table to be delivered? If we split it would be not too bad.

Thoughts? Ideas?

PS. I’m still in Cairo Egypt and will get back to the states in late June..

Slate has a pretty interesting article that uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to analyze the personalities of the three remaining viable candidates (sorry Mike, you get no love…). The article says a lot about each candidate, but not a lot you probably didn’t already know. What makes it interesting is that most of what it says is not based on observations of the candidates. It comes from directly from stock descriptions of each candidates personality type.

In general, I’m no big fan of psychology as a discipline. A lot of it feels like pseudo-science to me, and I’m hesitant to put much stock in its assertions. Nevertheless I’m sort of fascinated by Myers-Briggs tests; once you’ve ascertained someone’s type, the descriptions of their type are often uncanny in their accuracy. The author points out, for instance, that some of what Bush’s type indicates could have forewarned us about some of his problems.

So here are my questions:

• To what extent do you feel these tests/type-indicators are a reliable way to understand a person (or in this case, candidate)?
• What’s your Myers-Briggs personality type, and do you feel like your type description(s) are accurate?

here are a couple links:

• a shortish Myers-Briggs test
• the wikipedia page for MBTI

and here are my answers:

• Although I don’t like to admit it, I feel a lot more justified in my assessments of each candidates personality after reading this article. In general I suppose that, along with finding out where candidates agree and disagree with you on policy issues, using this stuff to analyze a candidates personality is probably pretty reliable.
• I’m an INTP (strongly T, fairly strongly I, and closer to the middle on N and P). The descriptions I’ve read seem very accurate.

So, I found a cool site today that I wanted to share, but I don’t really have much to say about it so I decided not to make a blog post about it. Instead, I did what i normally do in these cases: I added it to my del.icio.us bookmarks.

Since I’m pretty sure nobody ever looks at those (and I never look at anybody else’s) I was wondering if you guys would like to put our respective del.icio.us (or other social bookmarking service, i suppose) feeds where the current list of links is (which I’m pretty sure nobody uses).

would you guys like to (a) see that happen? or (b) see my mostly content free link suggestions as posts? or (c) stick with the status quo?

Those quotes were great! I like that guy too, so much that I could hear his guitar in the background as I read the quotes. The last one, about “sort-of” touched on a post I thought about writing this weekend.

Have you guys noticed that “sort-of” is the academia/intellectual/elitist version of “um” or “y’know”? I first noticed it while in law school, but now it’s becoming as ubiquitous on NPR as “chipotle” (the seasoning, not the restaurant ) is to the food industry. Instead of being used in the sense I always understood it–as in “almost” or “of the same sort”, it’s often used as a filler for smarter people to not say “like”.

Am I crazy on this, or right on the money?

Riptide Rush is the best gatorade flavor. I also really like the Rain flavors (especially lime). These seem to be a little more salty and a little less sweet. what about you? what’s your favorite gatorade flavor (also (but hopefully not instead of) what other sports drinks/flavors do you like?)

Hey Zach, Pablo, and other runners, what is your opinion on running and needing to drink water? Do you guys prefer the hydration backpacks, holding water bottles in your hands, or the little holsters on your wast? Looking for some input on what you prefer for long runs.

Personal update…
Lizzie and me are moving to Hawaii in a few weeks for the summer. We already found a small place to stay at on the Kona side of the big island. Everyone is welcome to visit and crash at our apartment. Going to be there until late July and then going to Chicago for some work stuff for a week. And then moving to Egypt in August with Lizzie. She is studying at AUC for a year hopefully, still waiting to make sure she got in but I’m sure she did.

I think I’m like most males (please let me know if I’m wrong) - the last thing on my mind right after sex is sex… and it takes me a good full day, sometimes two or three, before I’m raring to go again. It seems that if a man did not need recovery time (like women) then he would have a serious evolutionary advantage over slowpokes like me, since he could spread his genes significantly faster.

Are we evolving towards Mr. No-recovery? If women made it why are we so far behind?

The biology teacher at my school thought that maybe we were like women not too long ago but something about our modern situation (perhaps stress) has us needing recovery time (but aren’t women also stressed?).

Am I not seeing something important about needing recovery time? Maybe this - after sex I’ve got about 24-48 to think clearly about non-sex things, and then my thoughts get increasingly clogged with images I couldn’t see on the big screen until I was 17. I can imagine that this pattern is better for survival than Mr. No-Recovery’s monotone horny-vision.

What do you think?

Anybody going to be in F-town for Thanksgiving?

I’ll be in the Arklahoma region f/m 11/22-11/25. I might be moving there permanently…more on that in a blog post much later.

Who posted about myspace and similar networking sites? I really can’t remember, but here’s a Wiredarticle discussing some “tech-gens” who are going back to face-to-face communication.

It feels very Brave-New-Worldish to read this column. Not so much from the technological advancement standpoint, but more from the idea that things which are innate and natural (face-to-face communication) are becoming more of a choice instead of the natural revert.

Sure, people won’t start communicating with each other via gizmos entirely, but the idea that choosing a more basic mode of communication, or even that you are forcing yourself to do it, is interesting to me.

I hope you all have great weekends!

Whilst perusing the website of one roaster, I happened upon this gadget.

ZJohnso, can you ’splain to me how this is worth 23.75 more hours waiting than the traditional brewing then icing?

Other than the dilution, of course.

I’m sorry Ben — I never signed the net neutrality petition you sent out a month or so back. I meant to. But I’m a lazy bastard. And I almost never sign petitions unless they’re for legalizing marijuana. I read the following Reason editorials (here then here) hoping they would convince me that I was right not to have signed it. I like Reason. It is the Slate of the right. It is conservative, but for different reasons than most conservatives — ultimately it is contrarian.

I came away not wholly convinced by the articles by any means. But now I’m more neutral on net neutrality than anything else. The point of the articles can be summed up by the following quotes:

The sort of preemptive regulation at the heart of proposed legislation rarely works out well, especially in fields where technological change is the rule and not the exception.

Even in areas currently served by a DSL/cable broadband duopoly, consumers accustomed to a smorgasbord of online options will check to some extent the ability of ISPs to restrict user access to innovative content and applications.

As professor Lawrence Lessig observes in his Congressional testimony, nobody objects to “consumer tiering,” wherein someone who only needs to send a few e-mails and occasionally read Reason Online buys a cheap dialup package, while those who want their Net full of bells and whistles spring for high-speed cable. And, for that matter, nobody seems to see a problem with an equally common kind of content tiering, where the consumer pays one price for Internet access, and another for high-quality video programming, perhaps even coming in over the same pipes. Mandatory net-neutrality removes from the basket of options another way of mixing funding, where the user pays for most of his Internet access at one speed, but content providers subsidize a faster pipe for their own bandwidth-intensive content. That kind of funding mix could help make existing broadband cheaper for those who remain on the wrong side of the “digital divide,” or it could help make the business models of alternative wireless providers viable faster. But we won’t know if we forbid experimentation now.

…in some cases, “discrimination” may allow ISPs to add faster lanes than they currently offer, at least for content companies willing to subsidize them.

Hasty regulation that responds to hypothetical abuses may also prevent us from discovering benefits we haven’t yet hypothesized.

I wonder what you lawyers and internet professionals think of these arguments (essentially that preemptive regulation is wrong in principle and may end up stifling innovation in practice). These anti-”Net Neutrality” arguments seem to be getting more popular as we approach the Senate vote. See CNet (which thinks Ted Stevens is a Senator from Arkansas), Washington Post, and the Tribune.