uh... a little early, isn't it?

So it's 9:30 am and I'm on a train down to San Jose. There's a woman sitting up on the upper level. She's perhaps in her early 50s. Blond, in a suit, looking pretty well-put-together. She rifles through her leather backpack for a white paper bag, and pulls it out. It's a small bag, the kind you'd put lunch in for your kids. She pulls out an airline bottle of Absolut Citron. Yum, I think. Oh wait, it's morning. Surely she's got something else inside that bottle, like water. Oh wait, no, I guess it's never been opened before; she's really struggling to open it. She can't get her well-manicured hands to grip the lid tight enough when she twists. Oh my god, she's not going to ask for help, is she? What would I do? That's a lot of random enablement for this point in the day. ... Oh, thank god, she got it open. Oh, how about that, she pounded it. Wow.

Part of me wanted to go up to her and say something like, "you're not hiding it well. Everybody knows." Maybe that would be the thing to really knock some sense into her, when a stranger calls her out like that. But then she's on the phone making a call. It sounds like it could be her adult daughter on the other end. "I'm on the train, I'm coming to see you. ... no, I'm really coming to see you. I'm dead serious. I get there at 10:22. Menlo Park." I'm thinking, ok, she's springing a visit on someone close to her. She's not going to work like I thought. Sounds like the unpredictable actions of an alcoholic. More talking. I'm trying not to listen, but at the same time it's impossible not to. And then the money shot: "OK, can I just get through one day without you reminding me that I'm an alcoholic?! Just ONE DAY." Ahhhhh. So I guess it wouldn't make a difference if I called her out. Sounds like her family is already deep in that mire. I don't envy them one bit.

She packs up her bag, and walks to the next car. Do I follow her? No... I've invaded her privacy enough for today. But I think I'll move to another car anyways... this one smells really strongly of kerosene.

51-yo Wisconsin man remembers every day of his life

This is really interesting... this guy in Wisconsin has an off-the-charts ability to remember details from absolutely every day of his life. What a crazy experience that would be... you'd never need post-its, that's for sure.

Someday they'll have genetic therapy to implant abilities like this in anyone who wants them. I think I'd sign up for this one. It seems like it would add a greater sense of appreciation for any given hour since you'd actually remember what you did that hour for the rest of your life. Or perhaps it would just give a greater sense of shame over how much time you've wasted. =P Hard to say...!

NYC Cabs going Green by Oct 1

I didn't know this, but NYC has mandated that its cabs all get 25 mpg or more by Oct 1... though apparently that's been difficult to achieve because of a shortage of hybrid supply. Still, damn cool. =)

Religious Progressives take to the air

This is pretty awesome... there's a new PAC (political action committee) called Matthew 27 that carries a message of religious progressivism. Basically, the left side of religion, in opposition to the crazy right that has so dominated religious discourse for the last couple decades.

Click here for a brief article about the radio ads they're running in very right-wing areas of the country...!

I have to say, this is really exciting for me. Decades ago, the religious left basically stepped off the stage rather than try to publicly counter the right's increasingly loud and shrill messaging. But the religious left has a strong tradition in this country, from abolitionists like Nathaniel Taylor to civil rights activists like MLK Jr. So it's really kind of ensaddening that in the 21st century, American religion is almost universally equated with right-wing funamentalism. The fundies (as I like to call them) represent a small fraction of this nation's religious beliefs, but since their message is the only one we ever hear it's hard to believe that. :(

So anyways, cheers to Matthew 27 and any other such groups. May they achieve great success in their quest to change the way Americans perceive politically active religion.

Fishies Nibbling my Toeseses

OK, I totally want a fish pedicure. Apparently, you dunk your feet in a bin of water and little carps eat the dead skin off of them. Not that I have a lot of dead skin on my feet... my feet are quite healthy and lovely. But still, it'd be fun to sit still and get nibbled at for 15 mins. =D

er..... awkwarrrrrrrd

Apparently there's a "nude dining fad" in NYC. This group (whose motto is "no hot soup", by the way) goes around the city renting restaurants out for a group to eat in naked. And they're served by regular staff, who by law remain clothed.

How odd. I wonder if they cover the windows? And I wonder if they give the wait staff the option to sit that night out? =P

VTA proposing sales tax increase to extend BART to SJ

So I'm 100% in favor of extending BART to San Jose, and apparently the VTA (Valley Transit Authority) is planning to do just that. They're going to put a sales tax increase on the ballot this fall to fund the extension. I suspect the timeline of the extension's construction would be over the next 5 years. But it's about damned time...!

Today I Joined Twitter

File this under: why the hell do I want to do this again?

I've joined Twitter. If you're wondering what Twitter is, it's a service that allows one to publish short, neurotic, play-by-play updates of one's life to anyone who cares. These updates are 160 characters or less. You can make the updates from their website, or your cellphone, or any one of I suspect 100 different apps that have incorporated Twitter into them. If you use gchat or Facebook, it's basically the exact same thing as your status message.

Why would anyone want to do this? Good question. My friend Craig claims that Facebook will one day die an anonymous death, while Twitter will live forever. I completely fail to follow his logic, so much so that I actually see things completely opposite. Facebook is so widely adopted (old HS friends are finding me there, and my mom's about to join) that it serves a useful social purpose of connecting people in ways that mySpace, classmates.com, and a thousand other points of dim and boring light failed to do.

And yet, Twitter seems pretty popular. Lots of people use it, and they don't just track their friends. They actually "follow" completely random people that for some reason or another amuse them. This creeps me out a bit... I don't really want the world to know exactly what I'm doing at all times. But I think I could have fun with it... I could twit things like, "taking a shit" or "masturbating with a melon" and totally freak people out.

Hmmm... come to think of it, these Twitter freaks could actually be onto something.

Anyways, feel free to e-stalk me via yet another method: https://twitter.com/exogeologist

And Massachusetts Declares "We're Awesome!"

Or perhaps they were saying, "We're Fabulous!" Either way, the Massachusetts Senate conducted a voice vote yesterday WITH NO OBJECTIONS to allow gay couples from outside the state to come to MA to get married.

It was targeted mainly at the state of New York, whose governor has announced that although the state doesn't perform gay marriages itself, it will be happy to recognize as valid any gay marriages that were legally performed elsewhere. Apparently if they all come to MA, that will inject over $100 million into the MA economy annually.

So letting the gays marry is basically just good business sense. Who knew!! =D

McCain has no answer for why insurance pays for Viagra and not birth control...

Not that this is a particular surprise, but when asked by a journalist if he would support health insurance covering birth control if it already covers Viagra... he squirmed and punted. Planned Parenthood made an ad from it, as seen below.

If you ask me, this is a freakin' no-brainer. As a society, we're happy to pay for erections, but not to prevent unwanted pregnancy? That's a policy for unmanaged population growth, which is not what we need.

Al Gore Challenges Next Prez on Energy

So Al Gore has issued a challenge to the next president to achieve 100% renewable electricity within 10 years. He says it will cost between $1-$3 trillion, but is otherwise doable if we have the will. Apparently, it would cost roughly the same to build all the coal-fired plants we'll need, anyways...

What's interesting to me is what a massive difference this would make to our economy. $3 trillion injected in infrastructure like this would go primarily to US firms who manufacture solar, wind, geothermal, and (cough) clean coal technologies. This would create jobs and inject a huge amount of money into our flabby economy. It would also make a big impact on staunching the flow of US capital to foreign oil producers... especially as an updated high-capacity grid could support widespread deployment of electric vehicles.

So is it a good idea? Well, clearly yes. But can we actually do it in 10 years? I think the answer to that is yes, as well. By some estimates, Iraq will have cost us $3 trillion by the time we get out. Which is absolutely insane. And think about that for a moment... instead of buying a pointless war that's weakened global security and the US image abroad, and killed thousands of Americans and maimed 10s of thousands more, and killed or maimed hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iraqis... instead of that, we could have had a 100% renewable electricity infrastructure.

Seriously. What the fuck.

Political Polsters Ignoring the Cellphone-Only

There's an interesting article on salon.com that discusses how polling companies are ignoring the segment of the population that doesn't own land-lines, but only owns cellphones. It's thought that ~15% of Americans fall into this category. This could skew polls against Obama, because this demographic tends to lean Democrat... meaning that Obama is likely 2-4% higher than polls currently show...!

It's "a sample that's predominantly under 40 years of age (oops, that one
favors Obama); disproportionately renters rather than homeowners
(Obama-leaning again); full of college students (sounds like a
Starbucks Obama thing to me) -- and, for good measure, includes a
higher proportion of blacks and Hispanics than the national population
does."

Why are they doing this? Basically, it's just too expensive to call cellphones for purposes of political polling. There are laws forbidding auto-dialing of cellphones, which forces manual dialing. And cellphone users are less likely to pick up, and/or call back. And of course there's the issue of people not living in the area code of their phones (myself included!). But pollsters are ignoring this group at their own peril... landlines are a dying breed, so it won't be long before 30-50% of Americans ditch them entirely in favor of their mobiles.

The Power of Cloud...

If you're like the me from a few months ago and are wondering what the hell is up with all this Cloud Computing talk, here's a great demo from 3tera's AppLogic of why everyone's so hot for it.

A lot of the talk around Cloud plays out like a Gartner Mad Libs... "By the year (3 years from now), (technology) will represent (high percentage) of all IT revenue in the US. Enterprises that don't transform themselves to adopt (technology) will lose (high dollar amount) in revenue, as their competition gains increased market share. The CEO and board will find themselves facing angry shareholders and (medieval torture process)."

But there is a lot of truth to the Cloud hype... and if you have any experience in data centers or the deployment of web apps, this demo will likely prove that to you.

Lindsay's a Lez!!

omg... Lindsay Lohan is of my people! She's recently confirmed that she's in a relationship with another woman. yay!!!

The armchair psych in me says, aha, that's why she was so out of control... it was an external expression of her internal turmoil. Of course, I have no idea what she was thinking, then or now, but regardless, I really hope she finds happiness. And it's fantastic to have another openly gay celeb (in what's a depressingly narrow field of them) who can (hopefully) act as a role model to up-and-coming young GLBTers.

Obama and Cheney are 8th cousins

I'm not making this up. Apparently Obama is descended from Mareen Duvall, who married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, back in the late 1600s.

Hilariously, Obama spokesman Bill Burton replied: "Every family has a black sheep." Ahhhh, good times. I wonder who my 8th cousins are. Probably streetwalkers.

Obama Supports Gay Marriage!

Yay!!!!

Obama has publicly stated his support for equal rights for sexual minorities, specifically on the subject of gay marriage. While he's stated that he supports states making their own decisions, he also is advocating support of gay marriage at the national level. Specifically, he supports extending "fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law." And he's against the attempt this fall in California to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.

Not surprisingly, McCain is so anti-gay that he's even opposed to civil unions. What an ass.