Bill

Today I was the sole witness to one of the worst parking jobs ever. A middle aged lady in a black Hyundai pulled into the parking garage near my office just as I was about to get out of my car. She drove around the line of cars I was parked in and pulled into a long line of empty spaces along the outside wall of the garage. She was the only car in the line. On her initial effort she clearly parked across the white dividing line and occupied two spaces but she didn't notice it until she was half out of her car so she climbed back in for a second effort. She backed up, curled around, pulled in, and managed to stay in just one space (though she was hugging the line) but she seemed to forget she had to stop so she drove straight into the wall of the parking garage. She was not in reverse.

It was both humorous to watch as well as a little scary to think this lady would be out on the road later. If you see a black Hyundai with some front bumper damage be on the look-out.

#Tumble #regular

I just read this article Faith and Foolishness: When Religious Beliefs Become Dangerous: Scientific American and, while I agree with his general point I think he glosses over the story of Margaret McBride and it’s implications.

I had actually heard this story recently, while driving home, on NPR.  Sister Margaret McBride was an administrator at a Catholic church in Phoenix AZ.  I say she was because, after a recent decision she made she lost her position and was excommunicated from the church.

I imagine to most catholics that sounds like a pretty harsh punishment.  So you might be wondering what heinous thing she did to warrant such severity.  She favored the mother’s life over that of an 11 week old fetus and authorized an abortion.

Let me be clear here that it wasn’t a decision she entered into lightly.  The mother, a 27 year old who already had four children, was suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension that were putting both her, and the fetus’s, future at serious risk.  

The youngest surviving premature fetuses ever was 21 weeks and six days old.  Significantly older than the age of the fetus in the Sister Margaret scenario.  Thus, had the good sister denied the abortion that was determined to be essential for the mother to survive neither the mother nor the fetus would have survived.  Yet, the catholic church still punished this woman who had devoted her life to the church with excommunication for saving the mothers life at the expense of the fetus that was already on death row.

I understand that the church has huge problems with abortion and, in general, I can understand their position, but condemning the mother to death in order to save an unsavable fetus is a barbaric act of cruelty.

I feel just as strongly when someone denies their child or spouse medical attention when it is necessary because their religious beliefs hold that “faith healing” is the only option.  It is a dangerous and irresponsible way to handle the health of another human being.

I think Lawrence Krauss (author of the initially linked article) does a fine job of focusing on the insidious ways that religious beliefs can be dangerous to society - however, I think it is just as import to focus on how they can also be dangerous to individuals.

This isn’t to say that I have a problem with faith or religion in general - I don’t.  However, I do feel that it is important to call out and question ideas that are inherently dangerous to both their adherents and those who are affected by them. 

#regular

I just checked out this article on the Complexity and Social Networks Blog: Mood, twitter, and the new shape of America and within it they had a great little video that shows how the mood (and volumne) of tweets changes over the course of time across the USA.

The color represents how happy people are (red=less and green=more). The size of the state (they get pretty distorted) shows how many tweets, relatively speaking, are coming from that state.

If you pay close attention you’ll see that West Virginia is always red; or always as sad as can be. That is a bit disappointing really, but, I guess, not all that surprising.

Here is the project homepage for more information on the video and the data behind i

#regular

I just finished trailblazing through the woods looking for a geocache hidden deep in a briar patch. My vibram fivefinger kso shoes worked out much better than I expected. They were especially handy when I had to fors a small river. So far there is nothing I can’t do in these shoes.

#regular

My Vibram KSO’s arrived last Monday afternoon and I promptly put them on.  Other than sleeping I didn’t take them off until today.  I was pretty nervous about the shoes so I decided to dive in head first into wearing them to see how I felt about them.

I previously left my impressions after the first day and promised to share a more comprehensive review at the end of a week.  The brief summary is that I am quite happy with them.

I don’t have any particular foot, knee, or back problems so, unlike some, I didn’t experience any sudden health improvements.  Instead I just experience a change in the relationship I have with my feet.

I know, it’s only been a week, so it may seem like I’m overstating the effect the KSO’s have had on me.  Traditionally I don’t like to walk barefoot.  In fact, I can’t stand it.  I don’t like getting crumbs, dust, or anything else on my feet plus, to be honest, the bottoms of my feet are really soft so it hurts to step on just about anything.  Further, I have naturally dry skin so I can’t really go barefoot (or even in just songs) for long or else my feet will dry out.

However, for the past week I have been able to, essentially be able to go barefoot.  The shoes are so snug on my feet it feels as if I have none on.  At first even with the shoes on it still hurt a little (nothing like being barefoot) to walk across gravel but, by Sunday, my feet had grown so used to the various textures I walk across that it no longer hurt.  

The shoes are also very versatile.  For example, I have ridden my bike to work wearing them (the spikes on my metal pedals did hurt a little through the shoes), I’ve gone swimming in them, done a little bit of rock climbing, and I’ve played a few minutes of soccer in them.  In all of those cases the KSO’s held up great.

On Friday night we went to my fathers house for dinner and then some swimming.  I decided to keep my KSO’s on for the time in the pool and they really surprised me.  For instance I figured that the rubber soles might get slick against the lining in the pool but they didn’t.  Instead, my feet never slipped.  In fact, even when I was goofing off on the diving board (somewhere I always find dangerously slick) I felt comfortably stable.  They were great.  Plus, because the shoes fit so snugly they didn’t slip off my feet at all while I was swimming.

The shoes, do, however, take a while to dry.  In fact, if it weren’t so sunny out on Saturday morning they may not have dried before the mid-afternoon on the day following the swim.  The top portion of the shoe dried but the insole did not.  There was also a sticker on the insole of each shoe that I had not previously noticed.  After the stickers came off the insoles were left with two sticky spots.  They are getting less sticky over time but the stickiness is really annoying at the moment.

When climbing the rocks at the park the hold given by the sole and the flexibility of my toes was great.  Plus the soles protected my feet from the heat in the rocks.  I was also surprised, on the descent, when I decided to jump down from about six feet my feet didn’t hurt from the landing.

The “soccer” was actually played with a red kickball and I was also surprised to find out that none of the kicks with the ball hurt my foot.  I may actually try an at bat in the next kickball game in them.  The sole gave me a much better “feel” for the ball and I think I may be a better bunter with them than I am with the cleats.

I’ve also tried some running in them - though nothing far at all.  I can attest that, becuase you land on the front portion of your foot and then push off again that you end up putting A LOT more stress on your calves than you do when running in shoes.  Even after a very short distance I noticed my calves were really having to work hard.  I imagine if I were to attempt any substantial distance that my legs would be exceptionally sore the next day.  Even knowing that though I am intrigued by the whole “barefoot running” phenomena so I may actually try to work up to some longer distances in them.

After a week they are still hard to put on - particularly on my left foot where my small toe doesn’t want to cooperate.  Granted, it is much easier to put them on now than it was, and the total time I spend putting them on is no longer than it takes me to put on and tie traditional shoes, I still feel like a clutz trying to put the KSO’s on.  Twice I have accidentally ended up with my two smaller toes in the same toe pocket.

In my prior review I mentioned that my pants are too long when wearing the KSO’s and this is still a problem.  A twitter acquaintance suggested I cuff the pant inside itself and then use a paperclip along the back to hold the pants up.  That didn’t work very well for me but I upgraded from a paperclip to a small paper “binder clip”.  Because they are black they blend into my pant leg fairly well and they are much stronger than a traditional paperclip so they do a better job of holding up the cuff.

A couple of times I have accidentally snagged my pinkie toe on something which, while it hasn’t hurt, has left my toe feeling odd.  I’ve also had a jar fall from a window ledge and land on my toe.  Both of these events have served to illustrate that the KSO offers almost no protection for your foot from damage from above - they have been great with protecting the sole of my foot; but the top is left completely unprotected.

I understand this has been a bit of a rambling review of my week but hopefully it gives you an idea of how my experience has gone.  Overall I’m pretty sold on the shoes.  They aren’t perfect but they’ve been much better than I expected.

#regular

Yesterday my new shoes arrived and I immediately put them on to wear around the office so I could determine if I really wanted them.  So far I have found three things about them that annoy me however, my overall impression is quite favorable.  With that said here are my brief day 1 impressions with the negatives first.

The first thing I noticed was how hard they were for me to put on. My smallest toes are curved a bit under the toes adjacent to them (on the big toe side) so it was difficult for me to get the last two toes on each foot in their appropriate pockets.  Fortunately, after putting them on a few times I think it is getting quite a bit easier to get everything lined up.

I have long had an issue where my feet, when naked, are cold.  My wife has pretty much always complained about my icy feet.  Fortunately, when I wear normal shoes and socks they do a pretty good job of keeping me toasty.  Unfortunately, the complete absence of insulation and padding in the Five Fingers means my feet are always cold again.  It isn’t bad if I’m outside but when I’m inside with air conditioning my feet stay cold (even when the rest of my is comfortable).  It was suggested that I might have them on too tight but I don’t think that is it. I think it is just my typically cold feet.

My final issue with them, so far, is unavoidable considering they are a shoe that aims to provide the barefoot experience while still providing some protection for the soles of your feet.  My pants, now that I have no real height addition from my shoes, are all a touch too long and the back of my pant leg drags on the ground and often gets under my heel when I’m walking.  I’m not really sure how I’m going to address this issue in the long run but, for the moment, I just pull them up and try to get my pants to catch on the rear pull tab (used when putting the shoes on).

These are all pretty minor complaints considering how fundamentally different the Five Fingers are compared to traditional shoes and you may be surprised I’m only nit picking.  However, the positives to the shoes, for me, really shine out in contrast to my three negatives.

My favorite part of the shoe is how snug they actually are.  I always tie my normal shoes pretty tightly (my wife, when she was pregnant, would complain at how tight I tied her shoes).  I like a snug shoe but really, none ever have felt as perfectly form fitting as the Five Fingers do.  They are like a racing glove for my feet.  It’s pretty cool.

Sitting at my desk today I caught myself thinking I wasn’t even wearing shoes a couple of times.  They are that unobtrusive.  Sure, if I really focus on them I notice the little bits of pockets around my toes but they are pretty natural feeling over all.

One thing that I sort of dismissed when I was reading about the shoes was the sense of connection with the ground when you are walking.  But, it turns out it’s pretty cool being able to feel all the textures I walk on.  For instance my street is a brick paved lane and so I can feel each joint I walk across.  If I were barefoot I would say it was uncomfortable but the thin sole is just enough to remove my discomfort and to still give me some really cool sensory feedback.  

The texture you’re walking on doesn’t have to be a hard one either to provide that feedback.  While I can’t feel each blade of grass I could also feel the texture of the grass in the park.  It’s almost as if I’ve suddenly turned on a new portion of my overal sense of touch.  It’s pretty wild.

Yesterday I went to play Ultimate Frisbee.  Typically, at work I enter the mens room, change into my shorts, and tee-shirt, and some running shoes before heading to the park.  I always hated it because I either had to stand on my shoes or, worse, on the potentially unseen nastiness that coats a bathroom floor (in the stall) while I changed my shoes and socks.  With the KSOs (Five Finger Keep Stuff Out model) I am able to just slide my feet out of my pant leg and then slide them right into my shorts without having to take off my shoes.  Sure, my shoes could be nasty but they aren’t any nastier than my barefeet were before and this way the nastiness is on the shoe.

I have not really run in them yet but I did try a short jog of about 100 feet just to see what it felt like.  It was on blacktop and overall it felt fine.  I naturally went into a barefoot gait (as opposed to a shod one) and I didn’t experience any discomfort.  I am not a “barefoot runner” so I guess my natural stride, even in shoes, might lead me to a mid-fore foot strike instead of a heel strike.

The oddest feeling, when wearing the shoes, is how light and spry I feel.  I have the inexplicable urge to practice high kicks and spin kicks as if I were in a martial arts class.  It’s really amusing how often I catch myself in that mindset particularly considering I have no martial arts training at all and I’m about as flexible as my desk.

So far I’m glad I finally pulled the trigger to buying them. I’ll let you know in about a week how I feel after some more extended usage.

#regular

Perhaps, in some larger cities, it is true that Kickball leagues are filled to the brim with slim pant wearing; too-cool kickball hipsters but, it just isn’t something I’ve seen in Kickball near my home.

It would be cool, perhaps, to have an invitational type weekend of Kickball where people from other leagues in the mid-atlantic come together and then, perhaps, I’d see this hipster invasion.  But, as it stands now, we have a teams of school teachers, computer programmers, doctors, chiropractors, entrepeneurs, lawyers, disk jockeys, and sales people.  Not a was-once-emo among the group.

Are we doing something wrong?   Perhaps, we are because my team can’t seem to win.  Maybe that’s the problem, we don’t have enough hipsters on the roster.

#regular

I have an iPhone which I’m generally happy with.  However, I am almost certainly getting an Android handset when I replace my iPhone.  I’m not going to delve into the reasons for my abandonment of an fine phone instead I want to talk about the phone line I will be adopting.

Android phones run the android operating system developed by Google and the open handset alliance.  I am really excited about getting an Android phone but, at the same time, I have some hesitation because the screen shots I alway see of Android really suck.

I get the feeling the developers of the UI just wanted to put a lot of crap on the small screen.  For instance, the giant clock that is a seeming requirement for all android photos is an eyesore.  Who needs or wants a gigantic analog clock on their modern high tech digital device? Here is a new phone, not even released yet, with the aforementioned ugly clock:

I also dislike how the rest of the icons are seemingly scattered around the interface.  

Even when shots don’t show the ugly clock they instead throw a huge calendar on the screen to replace it.  Check out this image of the new HTC EVO:

It looks like a pretty nice phone but the screen UI just sucks.  You can probably get rid of the calendar but I’m not sure - that isn’t a feature the screen shot can convey.  Thus, am I going to be forced to page to get to more than the 8 apps that the screen still has room for?

Compare those images to the standard iPhone screen shot:

The entire screen is devoted to giving me quick access to various apps that are installed on the phone.  Plus it keeps your four most common apps front and center along the bottom on every screen of apps.  I can’t tell if any Android handset does something similar.  If they do, and the four apps at the bottom of the HTC EVO (second image) are the equivalent to the iPhone quick launch bar then that means you only have room for 4 apps on the home screen under that ridiculous calendar.

Look, I’m willing to bet the calendar can be removed - but it (or the clock) are seemingly omnipresent in every photo of the handsets and these big ugly widgets don’t give me any confidence in the overall usability of the handsets.

It also doesn’t help that when I’ve tried to mess with newer Android handsets at our local Verizon store (yes, I know the HTC EVO is a sprint phone) the sales reps suck and are completely unhelpful.

Sure, I shouldn’t judge a book (or a phone) by it’s cover but it’s hard not to be a little uneasy about the Android handsets based on the images vendors use to advertise them.  I assume the big calendar/weather widget is the “best” image they could come up with which, to me, is a bit sad.

Hopefully, when I am truly ready to buy a phone the sales people will be a skosh more helpful.

#regular

Anyone who has ever tried to get a loan, or a credit card, or maybe even a job has had to deal with their credit rating and credit score at one point or another.  However, most of the time we, the people being rated and scored, have no idea what the three credit ranking companies think about us.

That doesn’t have to be the case.  You can get a free copy of your credit report, once a year (no strings attached) from https://www.annualcreditreport.com/.  Some people suggest you log in once every four months and get a different report.  Thus in January grab your Experian report, in May get your Equifax report, and in September get your TransUnion report.  I think that is a pretty solid strategy as it lets you keep a semi-regular eye on your credit report.

Keep in mind each report is a little different and each may have some different creditors on them.  Also note that none of those come with your credit score.  Your score is a magical number somewhere between 300 and 850.  At a minimum you want yours to be above 650.  But how do you know what it is?

Well, you can pay for it - or you can get your TransUnion credit score for free at https://creditkarma.com.  Credit Karma offers this for free by offering you a variety of different credit cards and other things of which, if you sign up, they get a cut.

The score they present you with is a little old.  For instance I used it yesterday and the score they gave me was from the end of December 2009.  Normally that isn’t a problem but if you’ve made a major move regarding your debt since then the score reported by Credit Karma may be misleading.

For example, I paid off my car since then so my credit score is actually higher (by 36 points) than it is shown on Credit Karma.

Make sure you review your credit reports because the data in them is the backbone of your credit score and your credit score is what is used to evaluate you when looking for a mortgage, a good credit card rate, and sometimes a job.  

Pay special attention to anything on your report that suggests you were delinquent or sent to collections - medical bills are particularly bad about this - and if they aren’t right contact the credit agency and dispute that line.  Having even a small bill (less than $20) sent to collections can easily knock 100 points off your score.

It’s your score so you owe it to yourself to keep an eye on it and to fix the problems that appear.

#regular

In the past month I’ve been extra busy removing malware and rootkits from various computers including my step-mothers, my wifes, and even mine.  Thus I’m putting a simple list of default software that should be on each machine and updated on a regular basis.

• Spyware Blaster - This doesn’t scan, monitor, or remove spyware, it just makes it hard for the crap to be installed automatically.
  
• Spybot Search and Destroy - Has a real time scanner and a good removal tool.  Turn on SDHelper and Immunize.
  
• Avast Personal Edition - While it won’t help you with malware generally it’s a good antivirus and it’s free.  My only gripe is that I have to re-register every 14 months which could leave someone unprotected.
  
• SuperAntiSpyware (SAS)- I have the portable copy becuase I don’t like to install even more stuff.  I also have the free copy because Spybot is already doing active scanning.  I use SAS as a secondary tool for removal.
  
• MalwareBytes - Not necessarily required with the rest of the things on the list but if you have something and the other two (SAS or Spybot) don’t remove it you can give this trusty tool a try.
  
• CCCleaner - This isn’t really a tool for removing malware or preventing it but it kicks ass none-the-less.  Just make sure, when you install it, that you are aware it will ask if it can install a toolbar in your browser - I tell it no.
  

#regular