Welcome to the page of Keith Alan McCall.

Yep, yet another personal web page... No, I didn't spell-check anything.

 

Here are the times around the globe, at the time this page was loaded: West Coast, USA = 02:44 PM , East Coast, USA = 05:44 PM , Denmark = 11:44 PM , China = 05:44 AM . Daylight savings time is observed in both Denmark and the US, with the time adjustments being made on dates separated by a few weeks. China does not observe daylight savings time. I need to fix things to account for the new daylight savings times, but I have not done this yet.

Random Quote

Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens.

Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain.

-Schiller

Blog text. Unfiltered mind-dump.

080510 Davis, CA
Today, I was thinking a bit about bicycle culture. There have been several articles lately in the local papers talking about how Davis is a sort of bicycle-friendly oasis in a car dominated country. It is true that Davis is very bicycle-friendly, with plenty of bike racks near all the stores and restaurants, wide bicycle lanes on all the roads, bicycle only paths and bridges over the freeway, etc. Another advantage is that Davis itself is tiny; nothing in Davis is a very long distance from everything else.

And yet, the trend even in Davis is toward more and more cars. As more people move into the area, none of the new people are from bike-dominated areas, so the new people may start biking on a regular basis, but if they need to do laundry or pick up groceries, they will drive rather than haul things on a bike. If the weather is not pleasant (too hot, too cold, too windy, etc.), then they are likely to switch back to the car. I, too, am guilty of this. It is simply because bicycle culture, that is the culture in which the bicycle is the primary mode of transportation rather than the fair weather option, is dead except for a few scattered individuals and isolated pockets like Davis.

Much like species need a critical population mass to survive, microcultural elements like what I've been calling bicycle culture need a critical number of participants to be self-reinforcing. Traffic is getting worse in Davis. It's a small town designed to encourage the use of the bicycle (relatively few public parking spaces for the population) and yet the number of cars puttering around Davis has been markedly increasing in the last few years while the number of bicycles has been slowly falling. Despite the weather becoming very nice, I have noticed that there seem to be more and more cars circling for parking spots and the radius of streets with cars parked on all available curb space has been increasing with people parking further and further from city center and then walking in.

This is not a good sign for the health of bicycle culture in this, one of the remaining pockets where it appeared to have a viable density.

080506 Davis, CA
I've been a bit grumpy lately and it took me a bit to figure out why; I've been going through withdrawal. Not for caffeine or for drugs, but for music. You see, when I sent my iPod off for repair a while back, it stayed fixed for a few weeks and then the (new) drive went and failed. The repairs were still under warranty, so I just sent the unit back and the repair service gave it another try. However, the repair service kept the unit for a long-ish burn-in and testing period to make sure the unit would continue to function, which is all well and good.

However, this means I've been without portable music for the first time in several years. I've now been feeling how much I used this to help me do boring daily tasks. Folding laundry and doing bills and such is much less dull when done to a bit of calypso music. Needing to sit down and label 500 tubes and make up a large series of reactions flies by with a bit of dance music.

I've now spent several weeks without music to shield me from the daily drudgery and I don't like it. I just got notification that the repair service is returning my (again) repaired iPod to me - it is in the mail now. And not a moment too soon; I was on the verge of buying a little iPod Shuffle to tide me over until the larger unit could return to its duty of protecting me from monotony.

080427 Davis, CA
Well, we are nearing the time when once again, our Glorious Leader is mailing us a minor pittance of our own money back in an attempt to buy our favor. I was griping about it recently, muttering "Keep the 300 bucks and give me my EPA enforcement back!" when a co-worker challenged me on it, claiming all tax cuts were good. I explained my position to him and I thought you might be interested in it as well, so here you go.

Why I'm in favor of higher taxes: For the sake of the poor and the middle class, the very same groups referenced by the people in favor of tax cuts... Let me explain; each and every one of the tax cuts passed in the last 8 years has been found to reduce the tax burden primarily on the top 10% income bracket and businesses. As tax income to the state and federal governments has gone down, the various government levels have been forced to cut budgets.

Those in favor of tax cuts claim that this has simply been "trimming the fat". Independent evaluators and internal governmental reporting agrees that this is not the case; the percent of money lost in bureaucracy has remained about the same while the total amount of money has shrunk. As the total pool of money has shrunk, several classes of governmental activities have been reduced to a larger degree than other activities. Those activities bearing the brunt of the cuts are education, infrastructure maintenance, and regulatory investigation. So, the cost of public colleges has gone up, class sizes have gone up, teachers' pay has stagnated, more roads are being designated toll roads, parks maintenance is decreased, camping fees are up, larger pollution and public health problems are occurring (since they are not caught as early), and public safety is more at risk (you have to take off your shoes before boarding the plane that hasn't been safety inspected in years).

So, in exchange for a very minor decrease in tax payments, the poor and middle classes are now paying more for worse education, paying more to drive on crappier roads, paying more to vacation cheaply (national and local parks), are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of pollution or food contamination, etc. I haven't even mentioned the slashed government R n D programs that mean there is less money being put into helping the nation have a more energy efficient, healthier, more pollution free future.

I just wish the tax cuts came with an "environmental" impact statement, listing the true historical impacts of these cuts rather than being wrapped in promises and the flag. Polls have repeatedly shown that people are willing to embrace higher taxes, if they know the funds are going to supporting education and protective agencies (public health and the EPA). And yet, giving the people the opposite of what they want is considered good (because it can be wrapped in oversimplifications) and giving people quality education and public protection is considered bad (because this is a "tax and spend" policy; never mind that it is something most people seem to want, when not made into a simplistic blurb). Sigh.

080406 Davis, CA
Someone recently asked for two things: 1) links to some of the random unusual music I've mentioned lately and 2) information on how on earth I find this stuff. So, what follows are a pile of links to the official web sites of Faun, Valravn, Asynje, Virelai, Qntal, Irfan, Corvus Corax, Estampie, and VNV Nation. Most of these web sites have music links on them and many of these groups have streaming music on either the official site or on the group's MySpace page. In answer to how on earth I find these odd groups, I do two things: 1) I purchase eclectic compilations and then hunt down complete albums by the artists I consider interesting and 2) I expand my "search space" by using tools like Tune Glue or Music Map to find other obscure artists with qualities similar to those artists I have found before. Oh, Tune Glue is not totally intuitive; typing in the artist's name just gives you a little button in the center of the screen, containing the artist's name. You have to click that button in order to show the web of related artists.

080402 Davis, CA
I picked up a new CD... Much like the last CD, the shipping cost as much as the CD itself, since it came from the Faroe Islands. The last one was a Pagan Goth CD (by Faun, sung entirely in German) and this one is the first album by Valravn. They do very old Danish folk ballads on old instruments with some modern synth and instrumentation. Interesting stuff. "Hedebys" hooks you from the first couplet: "I den første drøm jeg fik, Den døde mand han til mig gik"... Yeah, with snappy stuff like that, I'm sure you are asking yourself "Man, why doesn't Amazon carry that?".

Well, Amazon doesn't carry Valravn, but I'm happy to tell you that Amazon does carry stuff like Faun; just fire up the web browser, and go to Amazon, er, no, not www.amazon.com (they don't have Faun CDs), you want the European one, er, no, not www.amazon.dk, it doesn't exist and it just redirects you www.amazon.co.uk (they don't have Faun CDs either), try www.amazon.de. Yeah, now you're cooking! Next, just register for this site (it doesn't share information with the US Amazon site, so you'll need to navigate the registration anew, entirely in German), and you are minutes away from being able to order your own copy of a Faun CD or even a "Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix (der fünften Harry Potter-Verfilmung)" DVD. Of course, shipping costs will be very hefty and the dollar is not doing so well just now...

And that's my little story to show that the growth of the internet has not entirely ended the balkanization of the world. Even that massively successful modern marvel known as Amazon is not Amazon-World; it is divided into Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, and even an Amazon CN (called 卓越亚马逊), all with different account information, different products for sale, etc. Language remains the key needed to unlock the world. Still, technology makes that key a lot easier. I freakin' love the "Translate this page" button that Google provides for pages that come up in foreign languages.

Right. Enough of this post. I'm going back to listening to Valravn.

080331 Davis, CA
Annnd, it's gone. The local progressive talk radio station (1240 AM) has switched formats (renaming itself "Praise!") and gone over to an all-gospel music format. That was the last progressive talk radio station in this area. A recent newspaper article covering the format switch analyzed the collapse of progressive talk radio stations in northern California and found that they tended not to last very long (other than a single station in San Francisco). Interestingly enough, their listening audiences were usually of similar size to successful, long-lasting conservative talk radio stations. The difference came down to advertising money; businesses were simply not advertising on the progressive talk radio stations. The article did not discuss why advertising money stayed away from large progressive talk radio audiences and would go instead to smaller conservative talk radio audiences, but the result was the same as if there were a deliberate boycott of left-leaning stations; talk radio, even in left-leaning California, is the provence of the right wing. Sigh.

Oh, I should be clear; I don't think there is any sort of deliberate boycott. I'm guessing it's a combination of factors including assumptions from marketing folks that progressive talk radio would be a bad venue on which to attempt to sell the high-profit margin things that are often hawked on talk radio, with the context adding (unwanted) perception to the items - e.g. (gas guzzling) SUVs, (blood) diamonds, (unhealthy junk) fast food. Also, there is the fact that progressive talk radio has reporting that is critical of major shopping chains (e.g. Walmart, McDonalds). Still, I think it is unfortunate to see the diversity of opinion being expressed in broadcast decreasing.

080319 Davis, CA
Yea! I got my iPod back! And speaking about listening to things, I've been a bit schizophrenic in my radio listening: I listen both to the local conservative talk radio station (1380 AM, KTKZ) and to the local progressive talk radio station (1240 AM, KSAC). You might not be surprised to hear that there are several points of similarity, with each having at least one commentator who over-uses sound effects in an attempt to mock their opponents (Laura Ingram or Stephanie Miller), at least one who attempts a genial moderate pose despite their strong stance to one side or the other (Mike Gallagher or Mike Malloy), etc., and commentators on both stations tend to use similar rhetorical tricks to be pursuasive; repetition, quoting opponents out of context, and ad hominem attacks. Still, I listen to both as a fast, full-spectrum encapsulation of the current political buzz.

The differences (beyond politics) are also somewhat interesting. Based on the ads run, the listeners of 1380 AM are semi-funtamentalist Christian church-goers who happen to be desperate for loans and forclosure avoidance advice. Based on the ads run, the listeners of 1240 AM are outdoorsy pet owners who love clipping coupons. When listening to either station, I tend to like hearing the "moderate" commentators more. For example, the conservative station carries Dennis Miller's call-in show. I don't agree with him politically, but he tends to have thought about the issues and avoid most logically invalid cheap shots.

I also like occasionally talking politics with a fellow at work who is pretty far to the right. He dismisses Dennis Miller as "Conservative for Hollywood, but that ain't sayin' much" and rants about how this country has wandered so far to the Left over the last seven years. Here's a quote of his response when I asked for the evidence that the country had been drifting to the Left: "It has become acceptible to talk about nationalizing health care! That's Communism! Communism! The Democrats are putting Communists forward as candidates and people are taking them seriously!" I was sort of thinking the repeated rounds of tax cuts and curtailed social services, unfunded national parks, disaster relief funds left with zero budget etc., was evidence that the "caretaker government" model had been pretty well ripped to shreds, but, then again, Mike did have a point; the democrats were not being burned in effigy as they properly should be for talking about health care for the poor. It's always a lesson in perspective when I talk to Mike.

080313 Davis, CA
Lately, I really don't do anything other than work and excercise, which makes for really dull blog entries, which means I don't put anything here for long periods. Two weekends ago, I went to the CD release party by a local punk rock Star Trek tribute band, Warp 11. They played a really great set; high energy and enough songs that I was impressed by their endurance almost as much as by their playing.

Last week, the music died. I'm in an office with three other people. To shut out phone conversations, etc., I tend to put in earphones and have quiet music playing whenever I need to focus. Then, last Monday, my nice earphones (really expensive Shure earbuds) failed. They were well out of warranty and failure was not unexpected, since they had been used heavily and toted everywhere for the last three years, still it was kind of a bummer. So, I brought in my backup earphones (old ones that came with my iPod), but that day they cracked and fell apart. I glued the case back together and they worked just fine, but my iPod harddrive (which had started to show signs of trouble) finally failed. Sigh. Clearly, I was not meant to have portable music that week.

I looked at buying another iPod (they have 80GB iPods now), but I really couldn't justify an upgrade. With a 40 GB iPod, it took me two years to listen to everything on there a minimum of two times each. At 80 GB, I could fit almost all the music I own on it, but it would probably take me two years just to listen to everything once. So, I went for the cheapest, most sensible choice and just mailed the dead iPod off to have a new harddrive put in. As much as I wanted to use this as an excuse to buy expensive new toys, there is no need for it; repairing the old expensive toy just made too much sense.

One nice thing brightened up the no-portable-music week; a friend from China visited and brought me some beautiful calligraphy of two famous Ci poems from the time of the Northern Song Dynasty. They were carved into stones outside of Xian, China, and my friend bought some really nice rubbings of the stones. They are:
Nien nu chiao - The Battle of Red Cliff (念奴娇 赤壁怀古). 念奴娇 (Niànnújiāo) is the poem name, sometimes known by it's first line: 大江东去 (Dàjiāngdōngqù, Eastward flows the Yangtze River) by Su Dongpo (aka Su Shi)
and
满江红 (The river runs red) by 岳飞 (Yue Fei)

I looked around on the internet and found good translations of both poems. 大江东去 is really lovely. I really like the last lines: 人生如梦 (A man's life passes like a dream) 一尊还酹江月 (Pour out a cup then, to the river, and to the moon.) The other poem, 满江红, is full of anger and passion. It was the last writing of a (falsely accused) general being recalled by the emperor to be executed as a traitor.

Anyway, it's neat stuff and without my friend's gift I'd never have been introduced to Ci poetry.

080220 Davis, CA
Oh, you've probably already figured it out, but the lack of posts lately is because work is eating me alive. I've got two projects in the start-up phase. This means that nothing is worked out very well (welcome to basic research, where we work on the edge of what is known) and none of it is ready to hand off to the research assistants with whom I'm currently working. So, each day is packed with trying to set things up well enough that the two lab assistants can run some productive experiments, then trouble-shooting all the bits I'd not taken into account yet, then redesigning the experiments when they go home, then coming in early the next morning to nail down the new version so we can do it all over again. Keeping three people productively busy while we are still roughing out the experiments is taking all my free time and mental energy.

It's interesting and enjoyable, but I won't have any slack time until we have the experiments all roughed out and humming along. At that time, the lab assistants will be able to crank through the experiments on their own and I can back off and just do the data analysis.

080217 Davis, CA
Man, skiing is fun. I hit the slopes from lifts-open to lifts-close. By about 2:30, I could feel the flexing of individual strands of muscle in my upper thighs, but regular exercise meant that I had the endurance to finish the day strong, rather than with shaking legs (like I finished my first day of skiing last year), even as the fire of muscle fatique spread across my upper thighs.

For some reason, I'd been under the impression that everyone without kids approached skiing the way I do (hit the slopes hard and keep hitting 'em till night forces you off the slopes). Because of that, I have been assuming regular skiers must be pretty fit and have great endurance.

I was up at the cabin with a couple of coworkers who were all regular skiers. These very fit regular skers (who also rollerblade, run marathons, and bike long distances regularly) were somewhat agast at the idea of opening and closing the mountain, much less doing it a couple of days in a row. Their typical plan is to hit the slopes in the morning, have a relaxing lunch, get in a few more runs, and be off the mountain by 2:00-2:30 so as to leave plenty of time for lounging and recovering. Me, I tend to eat an energy bar at the summit (for the nice view), finishing the bar over the course of 2-3 runs, so as to avoid loosing valuable slope time. No wonder they find a skiing weekend relaxing while I find it an experience requiring a recovery day.

With their example, I decided to let sanity prevail the next day; I skied the moring and left as afternoon crowding set in on the slopes, driving home while the sun was high and the traffic was light. A shower and a nap later and I felt tired, but pretty good. Sure, I could have packed in more skiing, but this was good.

080210 Davis, CA
As you might have expected from the lack of blog posts, I've (still) been quite busy lately. One of the time commitments has been something good; I've been getting exercise on a regular basis, but that is an extra ~6 hours a week less free time for typing away at the blog. I guess the most interesting thing I've done lately was that I went to the Chinese New Year's celebration in Sacramento on Saturday (it's now the Year of the Earth Rat). For good and for ill, it was a true community celebration; local arts and crafts, local performers, etc. The good part was that it was very much a community event. The bad part was that it was very much a community event; the singing could optimistically be described as "adequate", the juggling act only dropped their balls occasionally, etc. It was like going to watch your neighbors' kids doing a martial arts demonstration... Because that was exactly what it was, rather than some sort of tourist event.

080127 Davis, CA
Oof. I started two weeks ago with several aspirations. One was to do a blog post from Denmark. The other was to complete a report for work, thinking I'd have time in the evenings while in Denmark. As it is, I am catching my breath only now. Hot diggity dang am I tired.

The week before last, I was in Denmark for a company Tech meeting. I flew out Sunday the 13th and arrived there Monday the 14th (2 hr Sacramento to Seattle + 3 hrs delay + 10 hrs Seattle to København + 9 hr time difference = 24 hrs), without having been able to sleep on the plane. From the time I arrived until the day before I left, it was a continuous series of meetings with 8:30 AM start times and often ending with small group dinners out until 9-10 PM. Since these were technical meetings bringing together key people from around the world, it was a rare opportunity to hunt down all these people face-to-face. So, I didn't skip anything and I abused caffeine pretty heavily all week. By the end of the week I was feeling pretty haggard. On my one day off while in Denmark, I ended up just walking around København for about four hours to sight-see, before going back to the hotel to pack up and go to bed early.

Danish winter did not seem as bad as the Danes had claimed. Yes, it was wet, cold, windy, cloudy, and dark, but it was not as extreme or as depressing and awful as I'd been led to expect. Then again, there is a big difference in the psychological impact of experiencing it for one week versus experiencing it for three months.

I flew back from København on the 20th, arriving home by 11 PM California time (after having been awake for the last 23 hrs). The leg of the trip from København to Seattle was really neat. We took the short route; NW from København, arcing over Greenland and crossing the polar ice-cap to come diagonally NE to SW over Canada. Because we were chasing the sun west, with a northern arc, the sun seemed to set and then sit just below the horizon as a spectacular crimson fire all across the curve of the horizon. We flew for hours, viewing the western sky all aflame above ice glittering with ruby and gold reflections, until our southern travel brought the sun back above the horizon again. Even with all my traveling, I'm still not tired of looking out airplane windows.

In any case, despite the late return, lack of sleep, and the jet-lag, I was back in at work bright and early Monday morning and I had a very busy week back... With the result that my first day off (the 26th) was spent unconscious, other than a brief period from 3 PM to 8 PM.

Today, I feel more human... Like a tired human, but still human. I have no idea what time my biological clock thinks it is. I've spent that last week forcing myself onto California time, but I still tend to get very tired by ~6-7 PM and feel relatively wakeful by midnight. Eh, c'est la vie. I'm glad I got to attend the tech meeting despite the exhaustion.

080112 Davis, CA
Just a quick note. I'm about to head to Danmark for a tech conference. I'll be there for just under a week. As I'm throwing together a few things in a suitcase, I'm feeling pretty good about it; I already have the right plugs for my electronics (computer, iPod, and phone), a phone chip that will work in Denmark (it's the one I bought in Poland), and some Danish Kroner ($) and transit cards (subway tokens). It is going to be dark, cold, and sleeting for most of the week I'll be there, but I'm really looking forward to seeing my old coworkers again. Also, I have to admit feeling vaguely self-satisfied that I've got this travel thing down. Foreign country, foreign language, no problem. Sweet.

080104 Davis, CA
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've been quite overwhelmed, with several work things due at the close of December, travel for Christmas vacation, and several work things due before I go to a Technology Conference in København, Danmark, on the 13th of this month. While visiting with my parents over Christmas, they reminded me that I had apparently failed to post the pictures from my trip to Poland to my picture gallery. I now have those pictures posted (on page two of the listing of galleries), although the photos are in semi-random order and largely without comments.

When posting the pictures, I noticed something; the galleries on page one of the album all had been viewed numerous times. The galleries on the second page had been viewed only once each (by me as I was posting them), even though two of those galleries were from my trip to China, with some great pictures from my visit to Suzhou and points south of there. Ah, well. I guess I should have pointed out before that there was a second page of galleries available.

The only other bit of news I can add before getting back to work is to mention that, as presents for my nephews and niece, I wrote them some short stories. It seemed like a good way to give a personal gift, without contributing to clutter in their parents' houses. I posted the kid's short stories here.

Page Last Modified: 2008 05 11, 00:46:38

 

 

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