the 4th amendment

So, Clau and I were in Boston last weekend, we wanted to go to a particular Italian restaurant that's apparently the most popular Italian restaurant in Boston, on the most popular night for Italian food of the year. We were stuck in a majorly long line and got to conversing with the folks near us (somewhere in their early 50s by the look of them) - turned out they were major Republican types from Naples, FL. I started talking to the husband while Clau got into a conversation with the wife. Of course, us living in NYC, 9/11 comes up (I didn't bring it up!) and the guy starts talking about how quickly we've forgotten about it and started acting like the whole thing never happened, so I had two points for him:
1) Maybe you've forgotten, but in NYC the shadow of that day hangs over the city non-stop like a cloud
2) If by "forgetting" you mean picking ourselves up and getting on with our lives, then yeah, that's pretty much what NYC has done, and maybe the rest of the country should too. The whole point of terrorism isn't to kill a few thousand people; it's to put fear and chaos into the entire nation, and that's exactly what's happened. If you really want to defeat terrorism, refuse to be terrorized.
As an example of how bad it's gotten in NYC, I pointed out that we have random subway searches where I don't think the NYPD has any expectation of actually catching any terrorists (see my earlier post on this for an anecdote), but rather it's for security theater and to catch some other offenders. The way I see it, they're searching people who aren't really aware of their civil rights, and if they find, for example, a gram of cocaine in a woman's purse, they're not going to say "well, this is obviously not a weapon - here's your coke back, have a nice day".
To which the fellow from Florida responded "Well, what's wrong with that? A person shouldn't be walking around with cocaine in the first place - if the cops catch some druggies instead of terrorists, isn't that still a good thing?"
To which I responded: it's the principle of the thing - we have a fundamental right against that exact type of search, and people are giving it up.
To which he again responded: well, what's the point of that? If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?
And I didn't really have an answer - I mean, I started to answer, but I ended up sounding more and more like a privacy nut. I ended up saying something like "well, it seems that there are two extremes: anarchy and totalitarianism. Most people's ideal falls somewhere between those two extremes, and I guess it's a matter of where you think the line should be drawn. For me, using terrorism as a reason to search people's bags on the subway is too far left of that line. If you don't agree, then I guess that's your prerogative, but you should decide where you would draw that line." Of course, I was flustered so I didn't put it quite that eloquently, but I think I got my point across.
Yet now I find myself wondering: why should reasonable people be opposed to these searches? I mean, I've been objecting on the pure basis that it seems a violation of a fundamental American right, but it seems that the whole point of the amendment was a response to overly generalized warrants, rather than police or government randomly stopping folks in the street and making them empty their pockets. Of course, it seems that the whole system of needing a warrant in the first place was a fundamental part of English law at the time, and the 4th amendment was something of a refinement of warrant requirements and applicability.
For the record, I'm still against NYPD subway search stations, but now I'm having a tougher time rationally explaining it to myself.  I guess it comes down to the ability of a government to oppress its citizens, with the underlying idea being that the government will use and abuse any power given to it, rather than using that power to serve the people.

This has been rolling around in the back of my head for a little while - I just wanted to get it down on paper.  I'll be sure to have a long talk with my dad about it the next time I see him.

Using a UPS as a transformer

So, as part of the Munich prep, I've been wondering how I can deal with my various American devices. We've been encouraged to leave behind our glorious TV (which I'm not sure I agree with, but then again our current unit is getting a little long in the tooth), but of course I will still have our wifi router, my Wii, and chargers for various devices.
Everyone seems to say that you need a step-down transformer in order to deal with the 220v power in Germany, but I've been wondering why I can't just use a UPS that can take 220v in and put 110v out. Theoretically, a UPS has two inverters - one leading into the battery and another leading out, so in theory (from my extremely limited knowledge of electronics) I should be able to use this in place of a transformer, with the side benefit of getting power redundancy and conditioning. So, I hit Google just to confirm, and I haven't been able to find one single account of anybody doing this. So now I have to face the choice of spending (and possible throwing away) $150-$200 on a decent dual-voltage UPS, or just dealing with it over there (which will undoubtedly cost more). But what really weirds me out is my inability to find a single account or testimonial of this on Google.

Viral marketing

I love it when folks come up with cool ideas - I've seen so many of these "unboxing" videos, but this took me by surprise. I totally want that phone now.

Chess

Played three games of chess last night with Neil, and got my ass handed to me all three times. At my best, I was keeping up; at my worst, I'd make some incredibly boneheaded move and put myself in a position where there was no way I could win. I admittedly conceded all three games, but my logic all three times went something like this:
1) With a level playing field, I can maybe keep up. Let's be generous and give me 50-50 odds.
2) Neil just made an awesome move that made me waste about four moves and ended up with me losing a valuable piece. Therefore, I'm about four moves behind and down in points.
3) Conclusion: with a level playing field, I'm about 50-50. With the chips in Neil's favor, I'm probably more of a 95-5. Therefore, let's just concede rather than playing for another 30 minutes just to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

I remember when I backpacked with Runar, we played a ton of chess, and he beat me almost every time (meaning like 98%). We were discussing rankings, scores, etc, and Runar pointed out something interesting - chess rankings (or scores, or ratings, or whatever the hell it's called) are very specific, and you need to play with someone with practically an identical score to you. I think the points go somewhere from 0 to 2000 or something, and a difference of 100 points means that the player with the better score will almost always win, which isn't really any fun for either player. The Internet has been a a great tool for chess players, not because of social aspects or by eliminating the need to have a chess board, but because you can find someone whose score is close enough to yours to ensure a good, fair game. And (at least according to Runar), the best way to improve is to play someone at more or less your skill level - it's not like basketball or other sports where you want to play with people who are better than you (actually, it kind of is, but a difference of 100 points is the equivalent of migrating from your pickup game to playing with college starters - i.e. it's so far out of your league that you just get shut down and don't really improve).
I'm very impressed - I'm tempted to teach him how to play poker, because I think he could be far better at it than I am. Poker takes analytical skill, which he obviously has, and it also takes an intuitive ability to read people, which I think he also has. Of course, I don't want to be responsible for him getting in trouble or turning to gambling, so maybe I'll hold off on that.

Speaking of poker, Clau and I have decided to go to Massachusetts for the holiday weekend coming up. We're making the balls-out drive to Salem on Friday night, crashing, exploring Salem and migrating to Boston on Saturday, partying in Boston on Saturday, then exploring some more before heading to Foxwoods on Sunday. I'll play poker at Foxwoods (probably until the wee smalls), then on Monday we'll explore Mystic Seaport and head back home. Should be a lot of fun. I've never played in a casino before and I hope I don't get my ass handed to me like last night. But, the way I see it, even if I lose $500 on Sunday night, the proceeds from our apartment the following Wednesday ought to take the sting out of it.

OK, lots to do for work, and if I get a chance I'm going to review some chess materials: if I can at least not do anything really stupid, maybe I'll have a chance.
Choice quote from Neil last night: "Hey, you've been making some pretty good moves; not the one you just made, obviously, but overall pretty decent." My cup runneth over.

FedEx follow-up

Got an email from my dad giving more clarification:

Read your blog. You don't hate Fed Ex, you hate Fed Ex Ground. It's two different services and Fed Ex Ground verily sucketh a major rock. Fed Ex Ground is a separate service that Fed Ex set up fr the purpose of fucking the drivers. These drivers are not real fed ex employees, they are called "contractors" but they drive a fed ex truck and wear a fed ex uniform and the packages they deliver come in a fed ex box. The services is way cheaper for the shipper but the drivers are getting royally fucked by fed ex. You must have noticed that some fed ex packages (the overnight, the two day) have a nice tracking number and you can re rout and other good stuff, and some seem to be just sitting in limbo and nobody cares about the package or you. That's the difference between the two services. When you ahve to ship fed ex, pay extra for a true fed ex servie like overnight or two day. Thought you might like to know.

I'm not 100% sure that I don't still hate FedEx for doing this - I mean, I don't hate Indian call centers for their poor training as much as I hate the companies that employ them. And of course, this comes back to my gripe with vendors for not saying who is going to ship the packages - I mean, UPS has ground service too and we don't have any problem with it, and the price difference between ground and 2-day tends to be pretty substantial (especially when you're ordering something like a $10 DVD). Still, for big stuff I think it's definitely worth it to opt for 2-day delivery, just in case it's going to be sent FedEx...

I hate FedEx

I cannot describe how much I hate FedEx. Every time a package gets sent to our apartment via FedEx it turns into a nightmare. Points:
1) They will not leave a package with the super. Every time we ask them to do that, they say "the super wasn't there". Funny how he's always there for UPS.
2) For "home delivery", they don't give a time window - well, that's not completely true - they say "sometime between 8am and 8pm".
3) The delivery time is never consistent, as can be seen from the door tags and the few times I've been home when they deliver. Sometimes they show up at 9am, sometimes 5pm, usually sometimes in-between.
4) They don't deliver on Saturday unless your delivery time just happens to be on Saturday. So, in other words, it's not that they're incapable of it, they just won't do it on request.
5) They "might" deliver to another address, depending on their mood, but they'll charge for it if they have to change to another FedEx facility (so, for example, if you can't be at home in Hoboken and you want it just delivered to your office in NYC, they charge for that).
6) They hold all packages in the bowels of Brooklyn. There was a time when they held stuff in Manhattan (admittedly way on the edge of Manhattan, but Manhattan nonetheless) - now you're just screwed if you don't have a car.

This is just my opinion - a quick scour of the Internet will yield lots of people who have similar but opposite opinions (like "FedEx is just fine, but UPS is awful!"). Personally, my big gripe is with vendors. I think it should be a requirement that all online vendors specify which carrier will be used to transport your order. Actually, what would be best would be a choice - most people would probably go for the cheapest option, but for people like me for whom it makes a difference, it would be nice. The only reason I can think of for this is either:
1) Vendors don't want to have to update their sites when they change carriers
2) Vendors themselves don't know who they'll use until the day they ship it, depending on packages, destinations, weights, etc.
3) Vendors know that people like me are out there, for whom "It'll be shipped FedEx" is a deal-breaker (and like I said, different people have issues with different carriers).

We need government intervention dammit! At the very least, I'm going to start getting picky about this and, when possible, let vendors know that I will only purchase from them if I can know that they're NOT shipping FedEx.

The worst part? I don't even really want this package anyway - it's something I ordered and then realized I don't need. However, I paid 30 bucks for it and I figure I ought to get it. Maybe I'll just let it go back to the vendor and suck up the restocking fee. Grr....

Summer in NYC

So it's the middle of August, it's about 70 degrees and pouring rain. The worst part is that I left my window open this morning, even after seeing the weather report. I figured "well, worst case scenario is a quick burst of rain, a little bit might get into the apartment, but it'll be OK." I didn't figure for the biblical-proportioned downpour that I'm now seeing outside the window of my office building, complete with thunder, lightening, and lots of hail. I shudder to think of what will be waiting for me when I get home.
On the bright side, it's supposed to be nice for the rest of the week, so at least Neil will be missing it (although he'd probably get a kick out of it - you don't get any proper thunderstorms in the Bay Area).

Dr. Horrible

I just the story behind this is so cool - Joss Whedon decides to make his little pet musical project and distribute it any way he can, without ever actually putting it on the air. I hope it's doing well.
Here's a link to an interview in Wired magazine about it. And, of course, it's on Hulu (after originally being aired in small segments for literally a few hours, before getting put exclusively on iTunes for the hardcore, and now free to all of you. A DVD can't be far behind.)

Click here to see the whole thing, or check out this tidbit:

Interesting discussion about talking to the police

This is very cool:
http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/07/eight-reasons-even-innocent-shouldnt.html

A law professor gives a very simple piece of advice: don't ever talk to the police if you're a person of interest / suspect / whatever. He offers a police detective the opportunity to comment, and the cop says "That's exactly correct."

This reminds me a lot of a conversation I was having with a lawyer friend last Friday - basically I asked him "if the cops want to talk to me, at what point do I decide I need a lawyer?" Actually I think I asked him something more like "dude, if I ever get arrested, who do I call, and what do I do until the lawyer gets there?" His advice: "Call [list of mutual criminal law friends], and until he shows up you have a one word vocabulary: 'lawyer'." We then proceeded to role-play with me being the police and him being me, and he spent the entire time with his fingers in his ears saying "lawyer! lawyer! lawyer!". Let's hope I remember that advice if I ever need it (in my short time left in the U.S.)

Various crap

OK, for one thing - for those of you not in the know, Google Reader is about the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's an RSS feed reader which you can use to keep up-to-date on all your favorite stuff, without having to check regularly. Also, it's extremely easy to use - just click "Add Subscription", put in the main URL for what you want to subscribe to, and voila. So, for example, you could just enter http://staunchtech.blogspot.com into the subscription, and you'll have an instant easy dashboard into my musings.
So, what's in my reader? My list is actually pretty small:
slashdot.org - of course
morelightmorelight.com - My friend Matt's genius thoughts
hotdealsclub.com - because sometimes something awesome pops up
thevegasyear.blogspot.com - this guy is really into playing poker and it's fun to read
blog.rocketboom.com - I went and visited these guys a while ago and they're awesome, so now they're on the list
www.xkcd.com - popular web comic that's become so hip it's mainstream
feeds.feedburner.com/tedtalks_video - this keeps me updated on the latest talks from TED
www.schneier.com/blog/index.rdf - I've already professed my love for all things Schneier
www.wondermark.com/wondermarkrss.xml - I love me some Wondermark. I highly recommend wondermark.com and spending 2-3 hours reading all of them.

While we were in Grand Cayman I caught a look at Matt's feed list and it totally put mine to shame. On the other hand, I tend to read and be interested in everything that comes up on mine. To each their own.

So what else - well, here's the quick list:

• Our neighbor is going to buy our apartment, we just got into contract after hitting some snags and everybody's pretty happy and excited.
• The car is in the shop, because whether we take it with us or sell it, we'll want to have it in tip-top shape.
  
• Claudia has been in Central America for the last week training folks, she gets back tonight (happy times!).
  
• I've been going to the doctor a lot. Seems that every time I go to the doctor I end up going over and over again and spending boatloads of money, which is why I tend to avoid going to the doctor. But, it had been a while and I had something that I wanted checked out, so now I'm going for like my third visit next week, plus I have to go to a dermatologist for a once-over etc etc. Like I said, every time I go it snowballs.
• Claudia inadvertently paid a credit-card bill, in full, twice. I've used the bill pay for the bank she did it from and I can totally understand how she did it, and I probably would have done the same thing. Nonetheless it's put us many hundreds of dollars in the red for the last 10 days or so (because we didn't even know it had happened until I tried to get cash about 5 days later). After endless calling, hopping from branch to branch, etc I think I've probably gotten the balance to more or less zero. Very very painful, and even though I already convinced them to waive most of the fees, they're still there, which means that I'll have to go through the whole exercise again.
  
• Incidentally, this is a great way for banks to get out of waiving fees - just agree to do it and then don't do it. Why don't they all do this? It's not like they're going to get caught - the worst thing that can happen is that a customer calls again, says "why haven't you waived these fees?" and then the new rep can say "There's no record here of any decision to waive those fees, and you should really be more careful." After which the customer can complain again, maybe you say you'll take the fees off and not really do it, at which point all the customer can do is close the bank account, but after all that time spent they'll probably just say "screw it" and keep the account. After all, they just paid a whole bunch of money for it! It's foolproof!

• Of course the whole Munich thing is still weighing heavily on our minds. There's a big list of stuff to be done and we're not in the least bit organized. Soon enough we will have to put our family nose to the grindstone and get to it.
• I'm trying to figure out if there's any way I can go to CA for a last hurrah before I go to Munich. I don't know if I can but I will certainly do everything I can.
• Speaking of CA, my brother's coming over in August. Hopefully I will have more time to commit to his visit than last time.
• Speaking of siblings, Clau's sister is pregnant! Huzzah - the pressure is off! I'm going to be someone's rich foreign uncle! Of course Carina will be making the obligatory visit to NYC to stock up on baby stuff (even before the dollar plummeted, it was cheaper to buy baby stuff in the U.S. than in Brazil, now it's waaay cheaper). We've had our fair share of expectant mothers loading up, but this will be the first direct family member coming for that purpose. Good stuff!
• Work! My current employer and I are in discussions as to whether or not I might be able to continue to work for the Company after I move. So far it's looking promising but not by any means guaranteed. In the meantime I've got my (potential) swan song - the EC2 project. I may never be able to discuss it on this blog but it's fun stuff - if it doesn't catch on here, I'll ask my boss if I can release it to the open source community, and maybe someone can do something cool w/ it and give me some cred in the OSS world. Win-win!

There's definitely more but I need to get back to work. More to come (seriously!) soon...

It's official - moving to Munich

Well, it finally happened - Clau got the transfer. Her first day is Oct 20 and we're madly scrambling to try to get everything ready in time. Life is nuts right now!
Just thought I should share...

Finally - a music service I can dig!

Check it out! The new LaLa has a model that I actually can agree with - you can "buy" songs in two ways:
$0.10 - Put it on your dashboard and you can listen to it from any computer with the iTunes-esque web interface - haven't tested it on my Mac yet but it smells of Flash, so I'm optimistic. With the 10-cent option, you can listen as much as you want, but you can't put it on a iPod or CD.
$0.89-$0.99 - Get a DRM-free mp3 of it - if you already put it on your dash, then the $0.10 will be credited against it (so you get the mp3 for $0.79 or $0.89 depending on label).
Oh, and you get one "free" listen of any track on the site (so you can decide if it's even worth the $0.10 to put it on the dash) - after that you're limited to a 30-second clip.

This is totally the way to do it, and IMHO combines the best of everything that came before it (iTunes, Yahoo! music, etc). Also, when you sign up you get 50 free credits for the $0.10 option. I checked out Madonna's new album guilt-free, and three songs made it to my dashboard. I'm totally in love w/ this - I just hope that it doesn't get squashed or have the price get jacked up.

Tell your friends - if this takes off then maybe it'll become the new standard model for distribution!

Darth Vader Feels Blue

Just when you thought that the world had run out of (good) ways to mangle Star Wars snippets, along comes some genius who shows us that the keg has not yet been completely tapped. I've watched this thing like 10 times and it still makes me laugh.

Genius - defacing of us currency

One of those things that's better than you figure it's going to be...
A collection of currency from a bored guy - link.


--Nate

Babies babies everywhere

Clau finally got back from Brazil with tons of stories - I went on a quick Bay Area trip while she was gone and it was great - got to see almost everybody. Spent some time getting to know my little sister, which was also cool - she's getting big fast!
The day after Clau got back home, her friends Andre and Roberta came over to spend some time w/ us and they brought their little baby Gabriella along. Clau just absolutely fell in love w/ the baby so that looks good for us!
Other than that, life is progressing at its usual pace - projects, little stuff, returning back to marital bliss. Of course there's a slew of details but right now I don't have the time to get into it - just wanted to let the world know that I'm still here...

--Nate

This is brilliant

Fictional forum of time travelers in the far future. Exactly what I bet it would look like...

--Nate

My new wallpaper

I got a wallpaper-sized version of this beautiful oil painting of the Crazy German Kid (search for it on YouTube w/ English subtitles - it's disturbing but funny). I got it from this guy who takes suggestions from readers about what to paint and then paints it - usually some interesting Internet memes. Plus it's a good place to go and make sure that you're up on your Inet culture. For example, I was unaware of the awesomeness that is the Techno Viking until I visited this guys's page - would have been worth the browsing even if I hadn't picked up this nerd-pop-culture-kitsch wallpaper along the way...

Last-minute trip

As part of my new job, I will sometimes get called to go somewhere at the last minute (although it doesn't happen often). So, tonight I'm jumping on a plane to Hamburg, working Wed-Fri in Hamburg and taking the 6am flight back to NYC on Saturday. Awesome.
I went to Hamburg when I backpacked Europe, and nothing sticks out in my memory. I recall staying for a day or two, thinking "that was lame", and moving on. Maybe this time will be different, although I doubt it.

Anyway, if you're wondering where I am Tues-Saturday, I'm either en route or in Deutchland...

--Nate

Turks and Caicos

Just a quick couple of links - Clau and I spent last Thanksgiving in Turks and Caicos. Definitely a nice place to go, although I prefer Cozumel, both for the amount of stuff to do and the quality of the diving. However, if you like to dive and you really want to get away from it all, T&C is not a bad choice.

Here's a link of the place we stayed on Google Maps

Here's a link to the photos on Flickr (admittedly not a whole lot of 'em, I'm really bad about that...)

That'll at least give some idea of what it was like...

--Nate

Guests and diet

Well, we've been very popular folks lately. Attila, Claudia's Hungarian friend from college, came to NYC on a business trip (he works for Morgan Stanley in Hungary), and stayed with us over the weekend. I really like him a lot - he's a guy of few words but obviously brilliant. He invited a couple of his friends from his GE days to come hang out with us, and we all had a really good time. My mom just came and visited us for a couple of days (always a treat!), and it was great to see her. Unfortunately I had a ton of work I had to do, but I managed to get home on Friday at a reasonable hour so we could have a nice dinner of sushi and Yolato, followed by passing out. Mom left on Saturday morning, then we had one of Clau's colleagues from Venezuela come by in the afternoon - we went to a great Venezuelan place in our neighborhood, then headed back to our place for some marathon gaming sessions - I taught Clau how to play hold 'em and she's really good for a beginner.
Yesterday our latest guests showed up - Viviane (another college classmate of Clau's) and Marcel. We really like them a lot and it's great having them here - in fact the only complaint I have is the effect of all these visitors on my waistline. Needless to say, I have not been eating properly for the last couple of months (between Brazil, no time for Clau or I to cook, and all the visitors), and I'm starting to gain my weight back. Gotta put a stop to that.
So, for the next week, we're entertaining. It's ridiculously cold this week - today it's about 15 degrees and just brutal. Next week, Clau and I are going to take some time and just chill out...