Discourse.net

Out of the Hospital

2010-03-16T16:57:12-05:00

I’ve been discharged from the hospital and I’m now in a rehab facility trying to gain back my strength. I expect to be here about a week, and there really doesn’t seem to be any wi-fi anywhere in the building.

Progress

2010-03-13T21:47:58-05:00

The hospital IT guy got me online.

I am still very very weak, and can't type well as two fingers are numb (nerve got bruised in surgery; it will heal in time). I am likely to be discharged soon — next day or two I think — but while my progress is real, I have a long way to go.

If I am no longer as weak as a kitten, I would still be hesitant to take on a litter of them.

Basically, if it can't be done sitting or reclining, I still need help to do it. But that will change.

An Update From Michael

2010-03-09T15:45:58-05:00

I'm still in the hospital — and, ironically, in a part with no Internet. People have been reading me some of the e-mails and comments that have been sent and I'm very grateful, but unable to respond. It looks like I'll be in the hospital as much as another week. I hope once I get out to be able to thank people more directly.

A Message From Michael

2010-03-04T11:58:44-05:00

I’m alive.

For those of you who may have been wondering why there haven’t been any posts here since Feb. 12, the reason is that I had emergency open-heart surgery, and now I’m recovering.

If there’s a really great way to ruin a writing sabbatical, it is by spending it in the hospital.

The prognosis is good, but I was under heavy sedation until just recently, and I’m still very weak. (My brother Dan is entering this for me.) So posting will be light to nonexistent for a while longer.

Open Seat in FL-25

2010-02-12T09:12:41-05:00

OK, this is a bit complicated and very Florida. Bear with me.

1. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL21), who won a comfortable victory against a very flawed challenger in 2008, is retiring from Congress. Word has it that he's keeping his powder dry for a restoration of the ancestral kleptocracy in Cuba.

2. His brother, Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL25), who didn't win a huge victory despite a flawed campaign by a good challenger in 2008, is going to change districts and run from FL-21 instead of FL-25, because FL-25 is trending Democrat faster than FL-21, which remains a quality gerrymander.

3. Speculation is that Joe Garcia, currently heading the Office of Minority Economic Impact for the Department of Energy, may run again in FL-25. If so, I hope he runs a more grass-rootsy and less expensive-consultant-driven campaign. We don't need and can't afford Joe Trippi for this one. We do need a very experienced and organized campaign manger.

(More coverage in the Herald, Lincoln Diaz-Balart's exit from Congress sets off political scramble)

Too Complicated for the USA

2010-02-10T18:05:40-05:00

Video backing Robin Hood tax on banks from a country that still has occasional progressive twitches before elections.

Via Blenderlaw (what? you don't read Blenderlaw.com???)

Sanity Check

2010-02-10T11:21:26-05:00

Would it be insane to fly to DC on Friday for a conference? A really really good conference?

Update: It looks like it is canceled.

Geek Valentines

2010-02-10T10:21:02-05:00

Romantic Cryptography.

From the abstract:

We show how Alice and Bob can establish whether they love each other, but without the embarrassement of revealing that they do if the other party does not share their feelings.

(Via Light Blue Touchpaper)

UM Law Freezes (and Partly Lowers) Tuition

2010-02-08T13:56:53-05:00

Hot news from UM Law Dean White:

I am pleased to be able to announce that there will be NO tuition increase for the 2010-2011 academic year. In fact, while full-time tuition will remain at its current level of $18,709 per semester, the per credit tuition amount charged for part-time attendance will be reduced to $1337 from its current level of $1633.

The new part-time number lowers the cost of summer classes and of taking non-cross-listed courses elsewhere in the university.

I suppose this is one good outcome from the salary freeze.

Law Internet Down; World Isoloated

2010-02-08T09:44:02-05:00

UM law school's internet connection is down, and we're told it will be hours not minutes before it comes back up. So, no email for me; apologies if you are trying to get in touch.

Update: All fixed. Seems the A/C went out in the server room….

Salvete!

2010-02-07T00:20:05-05:00

I, for one, salute our new South Florida blog overlords.

For My Relatives and Friends in DC

2010-02-06T22:26:19-05:00

Snowpocalypse With Soundtrack

Yes, it's a Baltimore weather forecast, but it's right next door….

There Are Many Ways to Be Bad

2010-02-06T16:00:59-05:00

It's an amazing world where a few clicks leads me from boingboing's overly enthusiastic endorsement of what it calls 'Afrikaans rap-rave' (check out the comments too), to this chilling, compelling, greasy-sickening south african trash-rap (now taking the world by storm to this pointless confection) to wikipedia's dry dissection of bubblegum dance.

Now if I could just decide which I more wish I had never heard of…

Update: To ice the cake, according to the folks from South Africa in this comment thread, Die Antwoord are playing roles. The lead rapper, for example, is Waddy Jones, who is anglophone, not an Afrikaner.

There Is a Difference Between Warning About Something and Doing It

2010-02-05T22:35:44-05:00

I know, I know, I have a case of this today:

…but forgive me.

There is a very serious error in the IT World posting Can you trust Chinese computer equipment?. I've written to the author to ask him to correct it, and to post the correction to Slashdot, which has repeated the error (which is how I came to find it).

The original item states,

Indeed, back in 1983, Ken Thompson, one the creators of Unix, admitted that he had included a backdoor in early Unix versions. Thompson's backdoor gave him access to every Unix system then in existence.

“Why am I always the last guy in the world to hear about this stuff?” I wondered. In this case, it is because it is not so. If you look at the actual article referenced, Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust, his famous acceptance speech for the Turing Award, you will see it basically says the opposite of what the quote above suggests.

For starters, the very elegant backdoor attack presented in Ken Thompson's paper is a PROOF OF CONCEPT not an “admission” that anyone in fact did anything like it to early or late Unix builds. Ken Thompson in fact takes a very strong stand against such hacks. His point, though, is that the nature of compilers makes what have become known as “Thompson hack” or trusting trust attack very hard to detect.

It would be good if IT World ran a correction; if not maybe someone trying to chase down this latest piece of tin foil will find this posting instead.

Why the 'Enmeshed Male'?

2010-02-05T00:00:48-05:00

In the secret script at USA Networks (aka the enmeshed male), Grant McCracken thinks he's found USA's hit formula for shows like Burn Notice:

A man riding high is brought low. He now survives by dint of his wits and only because he relies on people he never relied on before. This man is now thoroughly enmeshed in a small group of friends and relatives. Without them he is nothing.

But his question is, Why this?

Explain, please, why this new pattern is so much in evidence in these USA Network shows.

What is happening in American culture that might help explain this new vision of our masculinity? After all, American culture has long been home to a notion of the unconstrained, rogue male. Consider all those tradtional TV heroes and movie stars, men who answered to no one. Why a new pattern? Why an enmeshed male?

He's even running a contest for the best explanation.

My only guess is that the imposition of great adversity makes it OK for traditional male hero characters to be a bit vulnerable, even sensitive. Which makes for better plots, and also makes plots that will appeal to women as well as men. And we've now moved to a state where a tough guy being a little vulnerable — with good cause — is not disqualifying.

That said, I still think from what little I've seen of him that that guy in Burn Notice is pretty wooden.