Month: November 2006

Apple store geek fetishism

24 inch iMac

The Apple Store in London has given me a good chance to play with some brand new expensive hardware. There is no denying that the iMac with a 24″ screen and a 2.16 Core 2 Duo processor is excessive. It is likewise undeniable that it is excessive in a good way. Anyone who works seriously with photos can appreciate the virtues of a 1900×1200 native resolution, especially on a monitor that can be easily configured to use standardized white balance and colour settings. All Macs look so much nicer once you set them to D50, I don’t know why they don’t come out of the box that way.

The MacBook Pros are also very nice, though even the demo units are surprisingly warm – especially on the flat area to the left of the trackpad. I suspect the processor resides there, since the computer was sitting idly when I checked the temperature and would therefore not be likely to be conducting hard drive operations. Unfortunately, none of the machines have a Dashboard widget running that indicates temperatures. Along with battery life and the limits of photolithography, heat seems to be the major limiting factor in consumer computers at the moment.

One surprise: not a single one of the hundred of so Macs on display, including the absurdly expensive ones, is running a demo of Photoshop. Apparently, Adobe still hasn’t released a version compiled for Intel macs. As such, you will be running a PPC compiled version through the Rosetta emulator built into Tiger. That means that, even with brand new gear, you would be lucky to have it run any faster than on an older PPC-based system. I tried playing with Aperture a bit but, like Photoshop, it is impossible to judge the real functionality in the hands of a neophyte.

All that said, I have been here long enough. It is time to move on to my next London objective.

PS. The Mighty Mouse is very decent, but hardly worth the asking price. Horizontal scrolling is useful so rarely that having a bi-directional scrollwheel is a distraction, rather than an aid.

First electoral response

My cloudy-headed morning-after analysis of the midterm election: American voters disapprove of many aspects of the Republican project, as well as the character of Republican government. That said, the Democrats are still seen more as a protest vote than as a viable alternative in and of themselves. That, and not the victory in the House, should be what the Democrats take from this election. It is also what should provide the motivation for their development in the years approaching the 2008 presidential contest.

They need to become less of an anti-party, and more of an obvious party of government. Partly, that will require choosing a leader less wooden and gaffe-prone than John Kerry. More importantly, it involves closing ranks, deciding on a policy platform, and selling it to the American people. Given the circumstances, it does not seem like the Democrats have much of a mandate for dedicating their time in Congress to investigating the misdeeds of the previous one. While some of that is clearly required, it should not distract them overly from tasks more relevant to their increased mandate.

As for the Republicans, this election looks like evidence that they have not been wholly discredited. It is a chance to learn a bit of humility and bipartisanship, building on their organizational strengths in the run-up to 2008.

Discussion of any of the above points, or related ones, is much encouraged. I will check in after my short trip to London.

Fight for the Senate

Background

In the contest for the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, eight races stand out as unusually important: (incumbent in italics)

  • Pennsylvania: Rick Santorum (R) v. Bob Casey
  • New Jersey: Bob Menendez (D) v. Tom Kean
  • Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester
  • Virginia: George Allen (R) v. James Webb
  • Ohio: Mike DeWine (R) v. Sherrod Brown
  • Tennessee: Bob Corker v. Harold Ford
  • Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill
  • Rhode Island: Lincoln Chafee (R) v. Sheldon Whitehouse

The first is a likely Republican loss, while it will be a fight for the Democrats to hold the second. As of the final polls before the election, the remaining six races are up in the air. To win a majority, Democrats need a swing of six seats.

I have written previously about the importance of the Senate in this race.

Breaking news

As of 2:30am, the Daily Kos (a partisan Democrat site) is reporting that the Democrats have gained three seats in the Senate. They need six for a majority.

More cautiously, The New York Times is only showing that they have certainly taken one of the six most contested seats: New Jersey.

Pollster.com is showing 49 Senate seats going Republican, 47 going Democratic, and four still up in the air. In the event of a tie in the Senate, the Vice-President gets to cast the deciding vote.

[Update: 2:50am] The New York Times is now reporting Democratic victories in the Pennsylvania and Ohio Senate races as well. Either Democrat Lamont or Independent Lieberman is basically certain to win Connecticut. For those who haven’t been following the news, Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary, largely due to his support for the Iraq war and the perception that he is overly close to the Bush administration.

[Update: 3:15am] The NYT and Daily Kos now agree that the Democrats have picked up Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. They also held seats in Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey. It also seems that Ned Lamont has conceded to Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

[Update: 3:40am] Up by three, with four still in play and Virginia looking like the Republicans will hold it, I am going to take another shot at going to sleep. The Republican candidate is leading by 5% in Tennessee, with 66% reporting. In Virginia, they are leading by 1%, with 94% reporting. In Missouri, they are leading by 10%, with 24% reporting. There are still no reports from Montana. Given that the Democrats would need to win all but one of these races, things are not looking terribly good, as far as their chances of a Senatorial majority go.

Election nights have certainly become a lot more exciting in the past few years.

[Update: 8:00am] Well, there you have it. The smart money was on a victory in the House and a narrow failure to win a majority in the Senate, just as most friends who I polled informally yesterday guessed. The Republicans took both Montana and Virginia, as listed above in my collection of crucial races.

Given the circumstances, I would not say that this is an impressive showing for the Democrats. They clearly need to become a lot more coherent and well organized before 2008. That said, I would say that the real priority for the American electoral system is to fix the many problems with electronic voting systems.

I wonder how this new Congressional balance will affect government over the next two years. That is something to ponder during my upcoming coach ride to London.

[Update: 9 November 2006] It seems that the race still isn’t over. More commentary as it emerges. The Democrats have taken Montana, with Virginia still up in the air.

[Update: 12:15pm 9 November 2006] It seems that Virginia has gone to the Democrats as well. That gives them a majority in the Senate. The moral of the story: don’t call things too early.

Hectic day, but good

Red Room in New College, Oxford

As is the norm for Tuesday, it has been hectic. I had a spattering of lectures, OUSSG, and a few other tasks besides. Now, I am going to go try to watch the Daily Show coverage of the midterm elections. Whether I succeed or fail in the attempt, I will not be able to stay up long, as I will be heading to London tomorrow.

Sorry to be so brief, but there are greater things afoot than blogging.

If you really want to read something related to environmental politics, here are some notes from an interesting lecture at the Said Business School – yet another series to which I will have to subscribe. The wiki is actually proving a surprisingly useful tool for research and general student purposes.

PS. Hilary Benn, the British Secretary of State for International Development, sent me a response to the fish paper today. I first spoke with him about it on October 10th. I have yet to go through his letter in detail, but it is clearly the most comprehensive response I have ever received in writing from a politician.

Another loan letdown

My student loan appeal has gone through and they increased my allotment by $623: not quite the expansion for which I was hoping. Essentially, the reason for this is that they have pre-set formulas for allotting loan amounts that adapt poorly to the nature of an Oxford education. They are based on the cost of living in Canada, and they do not reflect understanding of how Oxford terms work. They certainly do not reflect the extreme cost differentials between attending graduate school in Canada and doing so in a place like this.

A word of warning to future applicants: do not expect even half as much student loan funding in your second year as in your first; this, they ought to make clear before you go. In my case, seems as though some kind of additional fundraising is going to be required, if I am to make it through Trinity term and my exams.

See also: prior ravings about school related government bureaucracy.

American midterm elections today

Those looking for more polling data than they will know what to do with, for today’s midterm elections in the United States, should have a look at Pollster.com. For first year M.Phil students nervous about the quantitative methods test, it might be worthwhile reading as well.

I will definitely be watching the news closely between now and whenever the House and Senate races are settled. Hopefully, none of the quite justified concerns about problems with electronic voting machines will manifest themselves. Unfortunately, the vulnerabilities exposed by the Princeton study and others could be exploited in ways that could never be detected by electoral officials. Anyone who thinks that electronic votingi s secure, with paper ballots and automatic auditing of part of the vote, should watch this short video produced by the Princeton team.

No matter which way this election goes, fixing the mechanics of the electoral system should be a huge priority before the 2008 elections. Relevant previous posts:

Also well worth a look:

Saddam to be hanged

Ceiling of the Merton College Chapel, Oxford

Reading the news that Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, has been sentenced to die by hanging created a ambivalent combination of feelings. On the one hand, he is certainly guilty: if not of the particular atrocity for which he was tried than for crimes against humanity in general. Likewise, launching the Iran-Iraq War probably constituted ‘conspiracy to wage aggressive war’ – the crime for which the subjects tried at Nuremberg were hanged.

Problems with the trial

That said, there are procedural issues that draw the result into question. One major legal problem is the genesis of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (formerly known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal). This body, where Saddam Hussein is on trial, was not established by an elected Iraqi government, but by the Coalition Provisional Authority: a bureaucracy composed of and supported by the occupying army. To say that this is domestic Iraqi justice is therefore somewhat disingenuous.

Other serious problems have been the lack of security for those involved in the trial: including witnesses, judges, and lawyers. By the end of the trial, Saddam Hussein only had one legal representative left: Khalil al-Dulaimi (largely because others were dismissed, though three were killed). The absence of a stable security situation in Iraq, and Baghdad in particular, further reduces the changes of a free and fair trial being conducted, at an internationally certifiable level of due process.

A further problem is the absence of an adequate process of appeal. There is only a ten-day window in which an appeal can be launched, and it is widely expected to end in failure within weeks. Related is the issue that it is over-hasty to execute Saddam Hussein on the basis of one set of allegations, relating to 148 killings in Dujail in 1982, when so many more charges remain to be considered. The importance of being systematic and fair lies in generating an accurate accounting of the various crimes committed by Saddam Hussein and his regime. If the stated objective of the coalition in “drawing a line” under the Saddam era is genuine, such a comprehensive accounting seems like an important step.

Problems with the death sentence, generally

In general, the international community has condemned the sentence of death. The European Union has spoken against it. As have India, Ireland, The Netherlands, and New Zealand. Even Tony Blair said that he is opposed.

Personally, I don’t feel that execution is an option that should be available to any court. As a form of justice, it is little more than crude retribution. While the danger of convicting innocent people does not apply in this case, the general moral and pragmatic position against the death penalty seems very strong to me.

That said, imposing what has become the international consensus upon the Iraqi court carries problems of its own. To grant the new Iraqi governments powers and then circumscribe their usage does not conform to the project upon which the coalition has supposedly embarked. While it is clearly legitimate for outside actors to urge a reconsideration of the death sentence, it would probably be illegitimate to force the hand of the court in any significant way.

Primarily because of the flawed trial process, the insufficient appeal system, and the importance of rigorously cataloging the misdeeds of the former regime, Saddam Hussein should not be put to death.

All that said, I encourage someone to argue the opposite.

On mass leaching of images

Hotlinkers beware! Whenever you generate more than, say, 25,000 requests to my server, you will get the pancake face of doom. It may be a small fraction of my total bandwidth allotment, but when it begins happening at such a scale it transcends ‘annoying’ and becomes ‘rude.’

The saga of my interactions with the MySpace hotlinkers began here. Here is one of the many offending sites. This one has generated 700 image requests during the last thirty days.

Halfway through a stack of short-loan books

Happy Birthday Christina Porte

After a foggy day of reading, I have decided that I cannot efficiently carry out the tasks of graduate student life in the absence of caffeine. As such, I am lifting my personal prohibition, while being mindful of the three to four hour half-life (λ) of caffeine and my continuing efforts to develop a stable and efficient sleep pattern.

On an interesting side note, the half-life of caffeine (the time it takes for half of the concentration initially in the blood to be metabolized) varies enormously on the basis of certain factors:

λ for caffeine, normal adults: 3-4 hours
λ for caffeine, adult women taking oral contraceptives: 5-10 hours
λ for caffeine, pregnant women: 9-11 hours

For those with longer half-lives, the effect of the drug will be less marked, but will last for dramatically longer. [Update: This may be wrong. See this comment.] To quote Lisa Simpson:

As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. See, I made a graph…”

*Despondent*

“…I make a lot of graphs.”

With an eleven hour half-life, you would still have about one quarter of the caffeine from the previous morning’s coffee in your blood as you sat down with the next morning’s brew. With a three hour half-life, less than half a percent of the caffeine from the previous day would still be present.

On a related note, Green’s Café is no longer being seriously considered as a thesis HQ, because it closes far too early. Instead, I am working in the Jericho Café. They are open until a rather more useful 9:30pm. They are also closer to my house, and have a wider collection of food available. Thankfully, I am on track to have my reading for this week’s developing world seminar done by then; that means that I will not have to worry about it when I go to London on Wednesday.

Merton Chapel and Fauré’s Requiem

Merton College Chapel, Oxford

Happy Birthday Lindi Cassel

I went to Merton tonight, to see Claire sing in Fauré’s Requiem. This was the first time I had been inside the Merton Chapel, and I was thoroughly impressed by the architecture. I particularly like the transept, with its unadorned arches, illuminated from below so as to enhance the sense of depth. Not for the first time, I found myself somewhat regretful that I followed Sarah P’s suggestion, rather than her example, in choosing a college.

Despite having been here for more than a year, there must be dozens of such amazing buildings in Oxford that I have never seen from within. Over the course of the next few months, I shall try to see more. Having never seen the inside of anything at Christ Church or Magdalen, those would probably be good places to start. Are there any other essential Oxford edifices I have been missing?

The music itself was very beautiful, complimenting the otherwise unfamiliar setting. Despite the apparent fame of the piece, it is not something that I can recall hearing before, though I certainly recognized the short Bach piece that a cellist played during the service.

All told, it was enormously more enjoyable than my last Guy Fawkes night, which I spent on a cold and fruitless search for somewhere where I could actually watch the fireworks, instead of just hearing them explode in all directions.