Uninterruptible Power Supply

After years of living vicariously, I finally bought myself this APC Back-UPS RS 1500 for my home PC system. The 1500 has enough extra juice to power my entire system, with 21" CRT for an hour or two, which sounds like overkill until I remember that my computer will become more central to our home life in the future as I upgrade our A/V system to use Media Center, and switch to VOIP for phone service, etc.

Since Katrina, my wife has been on a home disaster preparedness rampage, setting up our emergency supplies container, buying extra flashlights/radios/water/etc, so it has me thinking about a Real Disaster: my computer dying. So I paid about $200, which sounds like a lot of money until I realize how much more it would cost to replace a new system that got fried in a thunderstorm. Actually, I'm less worried about thunderstorms than I am about a sudden power blackout that could hose my computer right in the middle of writing an important email or blog entry :-)

Waste in Iraq

Gideon wonders why more attention isn't paid to the waste and corruption in Iraqi defense ministry procurement. I wonder what the point of such a story would be:

1. Help the fledgling Iraqi democracy become more efficient. Our troops fighting the War on Terror need to know we are doing everything possible to increase the legitimacy of the Iraqi government.


2. Expose the War for the sham that it is. Wake up a few more people to the madness of it all, so we can just get out.


3. Impeach Bush. His incompetence in Iraq is equalled only by his incompetence on domestic issues.

The Left is in long-term decline because it no longer appeals to "normal" Americans. It would be hard (impossible?) to find a journalist in the Mainstream Media who could write honestly from the perspective of #1, so most Americans will just glaze over the story, essentially ignoring it as yet another trumped-up variation on #2 or #3--ideas which a slim (but solid) majority of people find revolting.

Absolutely everyone, George Bush most of all, wishes we didn't have to be in Iraq. What we really need are constructive, realistic proposals for what we should do now.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

If Larry David had never been co-creator of Seinfeld, this sitcom would be considered the work of a pretty good, though not great, amateur. The improvised acting is frustratingly slow if you're used to professional TV but not bad if it were somebody's video blog.

We watched the first couple of episodes from Season 1 on DVD last night, including a funny one about their visit to a dinner party only to be kicked out by the hostess after Larry knocks over a lamp. The comedy seems vaguely Seinfeld-esque, with everyone at slightly increased levels of insanity the further removed they are from Larry. There are several interesting characters, but the show doesn't quite get the level of development you see in Kramer or Elaine -- everyone's too busy improvising, often ending in a too-amateurish feel.

I'm a very picky TV viewer, so don't look to me for recommendations. I'm glad I saw the show, but it doesn't meet my standard for something I'd record and watch again. Maybe if they hired a crew of professional writers and actors and had it expensively produced and marketed, but I'd rather spend the time catching up on all the excellent old Frasier or Seinfeld reruns I still haven't seen.

If you're thinking of Salmon Days in Issaquah...

Issaquah Salmon Days Festival is not as fun as it looks




We went there yesterday. It was very crowded, in spite of the threat of rain, so lots of people must like it. The kids exhibits are fine, especially the one sponsored by AXA where our kids got to make their own toy propeller thingy.

You should definitely try to park in a pay-lot, one of the ones closer to downtown. The bus from the offsite lots (we parked near CostCo) take forever to get you there, and cost $1/person--which ends up being the same price as one of the closer lots anyway.

We thought the Kiwanis salmon BBQ was a rip-off: $11/adult for not-a-whole-lot-of-food. And $8/child (over 5). I'm not sure why they bother serving cole slaw, especially to kids. Does anybody ever eat it?

What if we hadn't invaded Iraq?

Victor Davis Hanson finally answers the questions I've been asking for a while. It's very easy to pick on the U.S. involvement in Iraq [insert all your favorite reasons why the place is a mess], and by the way what happened to all the WMD we were supposed to find there? "Bush lied, people died". "Why didn't we give the inspectors a chance?"

But what if we hadn't invaded? Saddam & crew would still be out there...doing what? The sanctions would almost certainly have ended by now. Of course the U.S. government would have continued to refuse opening diplomatic and trade relations, but what about France and others? The oil-for-food program enriched Saddam, but at least it placed some superficial constraints on his cronies' ability to spend the money. What if there had been no constraints? What if Iraq were just like North Korea today, only wealthy and strategically located?

Sean Crotty: Article catches fire

Sean Crotty: Article catches fire
Ebay is an open API that lets you, say, get an up-to-date list of the most popular search terms and add that to your application. That becomes powerful when you combine it with other web services, like Google Maps or Virtual Earth.

Sean points to this web service that shows all the used cars for sale near you.

Downfall (movie review)

What happens when an all-powerful man must “think the unthinkable, bear the unbearable” as Hirohito famously told the Japanese at the end of World War II? Adolph Hilter’s entire image was built on invincibility, strength, complete lack of tolerance for weakness; what happened when he faced defeat?

Downfall is a movie based on the recollections of Hitler’s personal secretary, a young woman who was at his side during the war and right to the end in his Berlin bunker. She remembers him as an inscrutable, a man who could be privately very gentle, forgiving, and kind, but in public reverts to "The Führer", an unchallengeable, unsympathetic, unforgiving tyrant intolerant of failure. When his generals lose and must face their inevitable self-destruction, he calls them traitors, humiliating them in front of the survivors, yet when she through nervousness makes a typing mistake he calmly and gently encourages her to start over.

The others in his coterie face the inevitable in different ways. Many of the adjutants spend their final days in drunken stupor, laughing and telling jokes among themselves (“Berlin has been turned into warehouses. Everyone is running around saying ‘where’s my house?”). Frau Goebbels, loyal wife of the Nazi propagandist, gently kills her children in their sleep because “I can’t let them grow up in a world without National Socialism”. Eva Braun has a happy, joyful disposition throughout, insisting on good food and drink, forcing reluctant soldiers to dance with her even as the bombs fall.

Fifty years later we automatically think failure when we remember Hitler, but for the people who surrounded him in those final days—people who had grown up assuming they were part of something that would last a thousand years—there was some terrible soul-searching and a real lesson in humility. I can't help thinking that some of the same lessons must have been faced by Saddam's loyalists in their final days too.