Highlights of 2013: Edward Snowden

I went back and forth on including Edward Snowden on my list, since I normally like to include just things that I’ve been directly involved with. There’s no denying that the spying revelations brought forth by Edward Snowden has affected me, if in no other way than to sour me on the state of American affairs. Tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone? Go for it. Terrorists in Yemen plotting a bombing? Vector that Hellfire straight through that phone. But UNICEF? Brazilian oil companies? Innocent American citizens, who ostensibly have the right to be free from suspicion and unreasonable searches? Way, way, WAY over the line.

Fortunately one federal judge has seen the light and declared this collection is “likely unconstitutional.” Another one said it’s legal “because 9/11.” I saw a post somewhere today asking if we’ve reached the point where anyone spouting “because terrorists” to excuse their overreach can now properly be told “shut the hell up!” I’m thinking we have. In fact, I’m thinking we reached that point a long, long time ago.
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Highlights of 2013: Health

It’s that time when I take stock of the passing year. Kicking off this year’s list is health, both mine and others. I was fortunate again this year that all of my loved ones lived another year. I know I won’t always be able to say this and I know how fortunate I am that I still am graced by the presence of some truly wonderful people.

As for my own health, I began taking it more seriously this year. The new job I took in February and the schedule it required kept me from my daily early-morning dog walks I had enjoyed. I began to miss this simple daily exercise and it soon began to show in my elevated blood pressure. Last winter I had gotten fit enough that I had to take out a few links from my wristwatch to keep it from spinning around my wrist. I was thrilled when I realized that a belt I had last worn a decade ago now fits again.

This progress didn’t last long, though, as the stress of my job and easy access to breakroom snacks led me to mindless snacking at the office. I finally wised up, cut the snacking, cut way back on my beer intake (ooh, that was hard), and cut my weight from 182 pounds earlier this year to 169 pounds Friday morning. This is the first time my weight has dipped below 170 in at least a decade and I couldn’t be happier. I’m even wearing slacks again that last fit me over ten years ago!
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The HTML blink tag is officially dead

One of the notable events of 2013 that has largely escaped notice is the official death of the HTML blink tag. As of August’s release of Firefox 23, Mozilla has officially dropped support for the tag, arguably the most annoying web element ever invented.

When Mozilla released Firefox 23 on Tuesday, the updated browser put an unofficial end to one of the annoyances of the early Web—the “blink” tag.

According to the release notes for the new browser, Firefox 23 completely drops support for the “blink” element, preventing browsers from rendering text that, well, blinks.

via The blink tag is finally dead, killed off by Firefox 23 | PCWorld.

The Jesse Ford Taylor Plantation and Lotus Villa

Belvidere Park and Woodcrest neighborhoods recently had a neighborhood get-together where I shared some of the history of the community. I had learned much of this at the East CAC’s “history night” at our October 2009 meeting, when a descendant of the Taylor family shared a family history.

I’d had this history tucked away in paper form ever since that 2009 meeting. At the recent get-together I decided I needed to share it with the neighbors. Putting our new multi-feed scanner to use along with some optical character recognition software, I reformatted the document into one much more easily read. As far as I know this document does not exist anywhere else on the Internet.

Here’s part of the rich history of East Raleigh: the story of the Taylor Plantation and Lotus Villa as told by Eliza Lindsey Baucom in 1956. Read it all here [PDF}.

No, dogs are NOT people

This is not a person

At a dog adoption event last weekend, the governor’s wife, Ann McCrory, explained her philosophy about training dogs. She said “consistency is key.”

“It’s no different from raising children,” she said, “making sure they eat properly and don’t go into the kitchen like my husband and take chocolate chip cookies by the handful.”

Now, I have a lot of sympathy for Mrs. McCrory; it can’t be easy being an introvert in such a high-profile position not of your choosing. I also know this might have made sense in its particular context. Yet with all due respect for Mrs. McCrory, she has no experience with raising children and has no real idea what she’s talking about.

Back during a May public hearing on Raleigh’s dogs-in-parks problem, one speaker ended her statement with this gem. Whatever points she had just made in her statement flew completely out of my mind:

“Remember, all dogs are people in innocent little fur coats.”

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Slinging groceries

I received the most unexpected compliment Saturday afternoon at Costco. I had just finished deftly emptying my cart at the checkout line when the gentleman in line behind me spoke up.

“I can tell you’ve done this before,” he said as he and his wife smiled in admiration.

It took me a moment to parse what he had just said. Then I grinned and shrugged my shoulders.

“Yeah,” I said, “I used to work in retail and I guess it shows, huh.”

I’d been swiftly pulling out items that somehow went together (like refrigerated items). The hours I spent running a register as a teenager at Dart Drug have stayed with me, I guess. There was a method to it, a rhythm I would get into that became very Zen-like. I loved the physical nature of being a cashier, the challenge of speed and accuracy, the unconscious awareness of where everything is on the counter and how I could simply trust my hands to know where they were going.

Then some bozo would show up in line with a dozen coupons and a checkbook and I’d be cursing and wishing I was somewhere else. Ah, those were the days!

Wow, I can’t believe I just waxed nostalgic about such a shitty job!

Meeting Daylight Saving Time half-way

Clock Radio

Since I am not yet Dictator of America and unable to dispatch with this silly notion of Daylight Saving Time, I have decided to meet the time-switch halfway. I will change all of my clocks to Standard Time again but will adjust my bedtime/waking time by a half-hour. Rather than awakening an hour later than I did during the summer, I’m waking only a half-hour later. Bedtime comes a just a half-hour earlier, too, rather than a whole hour. My daily routine in-between matches that of the rest of the world.

To summarize:

EDT wake time: 5:30 AM -> EST wake time: 5:00 AM
EDT bedtime: 10:30 PM -> EST bedtime: 10:00 PM.

This is the same routine I did a few years ago. We’ll see how long I choose to keep it up.

Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here’s a Simple Plan to Fix It

Interesting take on DST. While I agree that DST is a bad, bad idea, I think the solution offered here is equally dumb, if not more so.

I believe local time should be coordinated as closely as possible to solar time. That’s how our bodies’ circadian clocks work. Trying to squeeze everyone into two time zones simply for convenience’s sake (and ignoring solar time) is stupid.

Daylight saving time ends Nov. 3, setting off an annual ritual where Americans who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii and residents of 78 other countries including Canada but not Saskatchewan, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour. It’s a controversial practice that became popular in the 1970s with the intent of conserving energy. The fall time change feels particularly hard because we lose another hour of evening daylight, just as the days grow shorter. It also creates confusion because countries that observe daylight saving change their clocks on different days.

It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether. The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all. Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There’s evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks. Being out of sync with European time changes was projected to cost the airline industry $147 million a year in travel disruptions. But I propose we not only end Daylight Saving, but also take it one step further.

via Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here’s a Simple Plan to Fix It – Allison Schrager – The Atlantic.

Pilot in the making?

Travis is protective of our flight simulator

Our son Travis had his checkup yesterday. The doc reports that he has exceptional eyesight. I found this interesting since all the kid talks about is planes, planes, and more planes. When he’s not doing his homework (or building planes with his Legos), he’s watching YouTube videos about aviation. He was also flying my flight simulator quite often.

He’s begged me for flight lessons before. He’s even asked if lessons were a birthday gift. I’ve hemmed and hawed but if he keeps showing such strong interest and has the ability and determination, I might not be able to avoid it.

Kelly might think otherwise, but Travis could be on his way to becoming a pilot. A pretty good one, too, I’d bet.

Mental Floss Exclusive: Our Interview with Bill Watterson!

The magazine Mental Floss has a rare interview with Bill Watterson. Though Calvin and Hobbes long ago disappeared from the newspapers I felt compelled to read the whole article.

His answer to this question made me sad:

According to your collection introductions, you took up painting after the strip ended. Why don’t you exhibit the work?

My first problem is that I don’t paint ambitiously. It’s all catch and release—just tiny fish that aren’t really worth the trouble to clean and cook. But yes, my second problem is that Calvin and Hobbes created a level of attention and expectation that I don’t know how to process.

Bill Watterson’s earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants to do. He’s a fantastic artist and he’s worried about attention and expectation?

Dude, just do your thing. Please just do your thing. You don’t have to outdo Calvin and Hobbes, just let your new work take you wherever it may. I know I would love to see your new work and I know many others would, too. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore, and yet the artist who held such high standards for his craft is probably a prisoner to those high standards.

I’m sad that the world will miss out on Watterson’s continuing creativity.

via Mental Floss Exclusive: Our Interview with Bill Watterson! | Mental Floss.