Gray, Rainy, but Beautiful

At the moment, I am sitting at the Espresso Royale Cafe on the north side of Ann Arbor. I just finished a glass of hot chocolate, which is the perfect antidote to the cold and rainy weather outside. But despite the weather, I am very happy to be back home. I've been pretty busy today. I spent a lot of money at Lowe's today on new carpet for my family room. I also picked up more solar-powered lights that I've installed in front of the house. Given that nobody is home most of the time, I wanted to add more lights to make the place look a little less dead.

I'm heading off to church back home tonight, and then out to dinner with a friend. We will probably eat dinner at one of the many great restaurants downtime. (Did I mention that I miss Ann Arbor?) Tomorrow, I'm having lunch with friends south of Ann Arbor, and then it's back to airport.

No Free Speech Here!

For those of you who don't read Slashdot, you might want to read this article. A frequent flyer was traveling through Milwaukee's airport, and had written "Kip Hawley is an idiot" on the clear plastic baggie that TSA wants passengers to use. For those who don't know who Kip Hawley is, he is the Assistant Secretary who is the TSA Administrator. The TSA screener at MKE got very upset by what was written on the baggie, detained him, and summoned law enforcement. The TSA screener claimed that the flyer didn't have any First Ammendment rights once he entered the secure area.

This isn't the case of somebody yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, but is a clear-cut case of political expression. While this might be akin to wearing a "Support Nancy Pelosi" shirt to a Bush rally, this particular TSA screener forgot that as a government employee, he made an oath to uphold the Constitution. That means tolerating polticial speech that he may not like. Sadly, the TSA usually fails to respond to complaints, but I hope that in this case, they fire this employee, or at least send him somewhere where he doesn't have to interact with the public.

While there are good TSA employees out there, my own personal experience has shown me that the number of bad TSA employees is excessively high. Many of them are incompetent, don't follow TSA's own regulations, are rude, or think that they can do whatever they want with impunity. I actually feel less secure knowing that most of these individuals are on the job.

I keep a card with my address inside my suitcase, in case my bag ever gets lost by the airlines. I think I'll add the text of the First and Fourth Ammendments to it, in the event that the TSA screeners have idle time while they're pawing through my underwear. If you don't hear from me, perhaps you'll come visit me at Guantanamo?

Data Spring Cleaning

Last month, I purchased a new Apple MacBook Pro to replace my venerable 2001 Titanium PowerBook. My PowerBook has served me well over the years, but unfortunately, it has been dropped one too many times. I'm actually suprised that it has lasted five years of heavy use. This weekend, I started the process of moving the data on my PowerBook to the new MacBook Pro, and it's been a very time-consuming process. Given that the systems have different processor architectures, I can't just move the contents of the entire drive. So I have to manually decide what goes and what doesn't. I've been a bit of pack-rat lately - my home directory is 25G just by itself, and that's after doing some serious cleanup.

Has anyone looked at Apple's Xgrid software? It appears that it is a basic job scheduler, a simplified form of lsf. From the API documentation (what little there is of it), it doesn't appear that Xgrid provides any job communication capabilities. I'm assuming that MPI is still required. Still, it would be really fun to have a whole rack of Xserve's to try it out on.

Thankfully, it's Wednesday

This week has been very busy, and so far it doesn't look like it will let up at all. I am so looking forward to this weekend. Work has been very chaotic this week. I moved offices (a major endeavor for an IT guy), I have been trying to resolve minor crisises all over the place, and last night, I ended up working until 11:30pm trying to track down what ended up being a stupid Microsoft Internet Explorer bug. Even this evening has been busy, as I needed to catch up on a couple of weeks' worth of laundry.

I'm heading home to Ann Arbor for the last weekend of the month, and I'm pretty excited about that. I haven't gotten home nearly as much as I would have liked this summer, and it will be fun to hang out in Ann Arbor for a little while.

Frontline Comes to Arlington

McLean Bible Church is in the process of setting up an offshoot of its Frontline Ministry in Arlington. The Frontline Ministry is sort of a church within a church, and focuses on the twenty to thirty-something community. The new branch of Frontline, to be called Frontline Arlington, had its first "Preview" tonight. The church service was held at the Rosslyn Spectrum, and the place was pretty packed. I think that there were close to 350-400 people there tonight. Regular services won't start until January, but they're having one service a month to get ready for the real thing. I liked the service tonight -- it's a lot cozier than Frontline at McLean Bible Church, which hosts more than 1000 people per service. It's also walking distance from home. The main downside is that church services will be on Monday nights instead of Sunday, due to resource limitations on church staff, venue, etc.

I haven't decided yet whether McLean Bible/Frontline will be my long-term church home or not, but so far it seems to be working out ok. I'm starting to get settled in a church small group. It's not quite as good a fit for me as my old small group back home (Nomads), but it isn't too bad.

The Waning Days of Summer

The weather in DC was beautiful today, so I went out for a long bike ride. I decided to take a new route today, and rode up the Rock Creek Parkway, and then through Rock Creek Park up to Maryland. For those of you who are not familiar with DC, Rock Creek Park is a long narrow park that is located on the north side of DC. While riding through it, you can almost forget that you are in the middle of the Nation's Capitol.





The weekend was way too short. I ended up working most of Saturday, so today was the extent of my weekend. Still, I managed to have fun in the time I did have.

Why Not the Hannity Building Too?

While wading through bill searches on the Thomas web site, I came across the following bill:

S.3867: To designate the Federal courthouse located at 555 Independence Street, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as the `Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr., Federal Courthouse'.

Can you believe that Sen. Bond wasted his time on something like this?

Time Running Out? I Hope So...

In an odd turn of events, the House and Senate are no longer marching lock-step behind the President. The President has been urging Congress to pass two pieces of legislation. The first would undermine our commitment to the Geneva Conventions, while the second would legalize warrantless wiretapping. The problem is, both pieces of legislation that the President supports are so deeply flawed that even conservative GOP members are speaking out against them. The President is upset that Congress has fallen out of line, and today he urged in his press conference that Congress get his legislation passed quickly. He said, "Time is running out. Congress is set to adjourn in just a few weeks. Congress needs to act wisely and promptly so I can sign good legislation."

Obviously, the reason that time is running out is that the November elections are a month and half away. If the Democrats pick up a significant number of seats in the House, any chance of ramming through legislation goes out the window. So of course the President will want to lean hard on Congress to push his legislation while the GOP still has the majority of both houses. Unfortunately for the President, Senators Graham, Warner, and McCain are all supporting a bill that doesn't give the President what he wants. Even former Secretary Colin Powell, who fell on his sword out of loyalty to the administration, has written a letter opposing President Bush's attempt to weasel out of the Geneva Conventions.

Senator Graham wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice that makes some excellent points, and I recommend reading it.

In case you are interested, Senator Frist's proposed legislation is S.3861. His legislation gives the Administration everything it wnts on a silver platter, including section 949d (e), which allows secret evidence to be used against prisoners, and narrowing the meaning of torture in section 7. Senator Warner's competing bill, S.3901, is marginally better, although it still isn't a great piece of legislation.

Geeking Out with Photoshop

Two of my favorite hobbies are computers and photography, and tonight I was able to do both of them. I have been learning how to use image averaging for the purposes of noise reduction and increasing the dynamic range of images. (Kenobi: "I suddenly feel a disturbance in the Force like the sound of many eyeballs suddenly glazing over in unison.") Digital cameras are wonderful creations, but they have some limitations, especially in low-light situations. A picture will tend to have more noise in it if a faster ISO speed is used, or if the shutter is open for a longer duration. One way to compensate is to take several identical photos, and then average them out. Since noise is random, the image will remain clear, but the noise pixels will fade out.

To give you an example of this, here are a few pictures. This first image is a single frame of a nighttime scene (the view out my living room window):



This second image is the result of combining eight frames and averaging them out:



At such a small size, the pictures look fairly similar, although the tree leaves in the second picture are a little bit clearer. So in order to show what I'm talking about, here is an enlarged segment of the original picture:



If you look closely at this image, you can see the noise pixels in the tree trunk. As a comparison, here is an enlarged section of the "averaged" image:



The tree trunk has a significantly improved appearance, and the window screen is very defined. The foliage near the base of the tree doesn't look so odd either.

The main reason for using this technique is providing increased clarity to images that are taken under less than ideal conditions. For example, night scenes can be enlarged and still look remarkably clear. The downside is that multiple identical images must be taken, which requires a good tripod. A multi-frame mode on the camera is also useful. But this technique could come in very handy in photographing landscapes at night.

For those of you who haven't completely glazed over yet, and are interested in how this is done, there is a good article on the Cambridge in Colour web site.

West Wing Photos

I had my photos of my West Wing tour developed today. Having 35mm film developed seems so, um, ancient? However, my best camera is still my Pentax ZX-7 SLR, and that is what I used for my West Wing photos. Here are some of the photos I scanned in today:

Right before our tour, the President arrived back at the White House. This is the helicopter coming in for a landing on the South Lawn:



Every morning, the President walks down this walkway on his way to the Oval Office:



This entrance of the Oval Office faces the Rose Garden. The President usually uses this entrance for practical reasons. If he were to enter through the West Wing, all activity in the corridor would have to cease, and all personnel would brace the walls out of respect. Given that the West Wing is a very busy place during the day, this just isn't practical.

The White House

This afternoon, I had the privilege of going on a tour of the West Wing of the White House. This was my second tour of the West Wing, but it was as fascinating this time as it was the last. I saw sections of the West Wing I had not seen last time, and I also was able to see a few rooms in the Old Executive Office Building. The White House is a pretty amazing place from a historical perspective. I took lots of pictures where it was allowed, and hopefully some of them will come out. Unfortunately, the press "pool" is closed for renovations, so I wasn't able to get more pictures there.

That of course, reminds me of something amusing. I have a picture on my cubicle wall from my last visit to the West Wing. In the picture, I'm standing at the press room podium with the White House seal in the background. It was a nice little souvenir of my tour. One day, one of the other people in the office was talking to me at my desk, and then he noticed the picture. He asked, "When did you give a briefing at the White House?", and he was completely serious. Of course, I found this terribly funny, since I'm a lowly contractor and I can't imagine a situation in which I would be giving a briefing there. But as I thought about it, I realized that there have been a few people in my office who have either worked at the White House, or who have held senior-enough positions that they would have been there for work-related business. I'm just not lucky enough to be one of them.

Other than the White House tour, it was a pretty low-key weekend. This was the first weekend I have had to myself in over a month, as I have either been out of town, or have had guests visiting. I was pretty much a total bum on Saturday, and spent my time reading and watching TV. It wasn't productive, but it was much-needed rest. Today, I was a lot more productive, as I cleaned and did laundry. I have another busy week coming up ahead. Hopefully I will be able to catch up at work a little bit.

WWJD at Guantanamo?

Continuing on the subject of the prisoners at Guantanamo, I have been reflecting recently on Christian ideals and how they should apply to the treatment of prisoners of the "Global War on Terror". There are many people in the United States who believe that terror suspects should be treated harshly, interrogated forcefully, and get "what's coming to them". My natural inclination is to view the situation in a similar manner. After all, many of these terrorists symbolize true evil: they choose civilian targets, they wish to kill as many civilians as possible, and they won't stop until the United States has either been destroyed or subjugated to their twisted interpretation of Islam. But my reflections have led me to consider that my attitudes may be wrong.

If you could torture a terrorist in order to gain information that would save a thousand lives, would it be morally justified? On the surface, it seems the answer would be easy. But from a Christian perspective, I fear that it would not. However twisted these psychopaths are, they are stlll God's creation. Jesus would have looked with compassion at these people. He said, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be the sons of your Father in heaven." Terrorists are the modern day equivalents to the Zealots (the violent extremists) and tax collectors (the co-opted occupation supporters). And it's pretty clear that terrorists are the enemy of everyone in the United States. Is torturing a terrorist an act of love for your enemy? It may certainly be an act of love for those individuals who you may (theoretically) be able to save. But I certainly doubt that it will help bring the Kingdom here on Earth.

I wonder what someone like the late Mother Theresa would have done with the prisoners at Guantanamo. I suspect that she would have followed Matthew 25:36, and would have tended to the sick, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoners. And when presented with true Christian charity, is it not possible that God could have used her to change the hearts of these despicable men? Perhaps only a few would change. But is it not possible that we would have learned more information from these people than we would have from cruel and harsh methods? Perhaps we would have been able to save even more lives? And when discontented people in the Islamic world saw how we put our beliefs into practice, perhaps less of them would desire to attack the United States as the Great Satan.

Faith is about believing that God can do anything. Do people have faith that God can help us win the war against terror without us resorting to inhumane practices? Yes, we should imprison them to ensure that they can't harm innocent people. But we should remember that they are God's children, no matter how evil they have become. And we should treat them accordingly. And if the United States was a "Christian nation" (it isn't, but people like to spout that anyway), we as a nation would apply our beliefs even to our conduct in this conflict.

Wordsmithing in the Oval Office

A former lawyer and President, Bill Clinton, once said, "it depends on what your definition of "is" is". Most reasonable people would argue that the definition of "is" is pretty obvious, but Mr. Clinton raised the art of wordsmithing to a new level. His successor in office continues in this tradition. When speaking of the Geneva Conventions today in his press conference, the President said, "The problem is that these and other provisions of Common Article Three are vague and undefined, and each could be interpreted in different ways by American or foreign judges."

Here's the clause from Common Article Three that the President considers so vague and undefined:

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

While I'm willing to concede that there could be some activist judge who could believe that not providing prisoners with high-definition TV would be "humiliating and degrading", does anyone honestly believe that this is what the President is worried about? If you do, there's this bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase.

The clause that the President should be worrying about is:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

As a Senate-ratified Treaty, the Geneva Conventions have the full force of law in the United States. I haven't had the opportunity to read the President's proposed legislation yet, but I suspect that he is looking to narrow the scope of the protections accorded by the Treaty. Does anyone believe that this is something the world's most powerful nation should be doing?

This Boy Can't Dance

Over Labor Day weekend, my friend Tracey flew down to visit me. On Friday evening, she took me out to go swing dancing at the Chevy Chase ballroom. I had never been swing dancing before, and I figured it wouldn't hurt for me to learn how to dance. I discovered that I have almost zero talent for swing dancing, and it didn't help that most of the people there were excellent swing dancers. I couldn't quite get the "rock step" to work right with the rhythm, and Tracey said that I looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

On Saturday evening, we went down to Adams Morgan for clubbing. Again, we went dancing (although not the swing dance variety, thankfully). My talent for club dancing is marginally better than my swing dancing, but it is still pretty pathetic. Given that I have danced very little in my life, it was not really a suprise to me that I didn't have any talent. I felt a little like the poor guy in the movie Hitch, except he had a lot more talent than I do. Perhaps I need to take a dance class. Or two. Or a thousand. I wonder if practice can make up for the lack of a rhythm gene?