Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Greg's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, May 1st, 2008
10:42 pm	This is what "class" looks like Two softball teams were playing in Eastern Washington yesterday. A senior who had never before hit a home run hit one. She missed first base, stopped to go back and tag it, and blew out her right ACL. She fell to the ground in agony. The umpires ruled that she couldn't be touched by her teammates, and that if she couldn't continue on, the home run would be wiped out, it would be scored as a single, and the team could then bring in a pinch runner for her. The other team's Frst baseman, Mallory Holtman, asked if it was ok for her to touch the player. It was. So she and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Sara Tucholsky, and carried her to each base so should could touch it, and get her first ever (and probably last ever) home run. ( The player being carried by two opponents ) Current Mood: happy Current Music: Smash Mouth: I'm A Believer (6 Comments |Comment on this)
1:58 pm	What's on the minds of the "super delegates" If you're trying to figure out how the "super delegates" are going to vote, the first question you have to ask yourself is "what do the 'super delegates' want?" To answer that you have to answer the question "who are the super delegates?" And the answer to that is that the vast majority of them are Democrats currently elected to publish office. Many of whom are people who are up for re-election this year, or who have colleagues up for re-election in November. So, what do they want? They want to get re-elected. If they're not up for re-election (or if they're not in a seriously contested race), they want those Democrats who are in tight races to win. Which is to say: they'd like to see the Democrat Party retain control of the House, Senate, and all the State Legislatures that they currently control, and they'd like to defeat Republicans in tight races where control can be affected. If they could win the Presidency, too, that would be nice. But if you're a Democrat in Congress (esp. if you're chairman of a committee), keeping Democrat Party control of your chamber is a hell of a lot more important to you than the Democrat nominee winning the White House. So, from that perspective: what will the super delegates do? Frankly, i can't envision them doing the Republican Party the huge favor they'd be doing by giving the nomination to Clinton. John McCain is not popular with the Republican Party base. At all. For a lot of really good reasons. He's going to have a good deal of work cut out for himself trying to get them motivated to go to the polls and vote for him. OTOH, the Republican base hates the Clintons. Especially Hillary Rodham Clinton. Before the voting started, polls consistently showed that 47 - 49% of voters would not vote for Clinton, no matter who she was running against. As far as I know, those numbers haven't changed. If you want an energized, active Republican base, that's eager to get out and vote, make Clinton the Democrat Party nominee for President. IF you want a depressed, apathetic Democrat Party base, "steal" the nomination from Obama and give it to Clinton. Clinton's been running for President since 2000. She (and everyone else) figured that her name meant she had the Democrat Party nomination sewed up, and so she needed to focus on winning the general election. Which meant she needed to stay towards the center, and work to decrease the intensity of the hatred that built up against her in the 1990s. As a consequence, the party (non-union, non-black) base, which never trusted the Clintons after Bill's "triangulation" as President, doesn't like her. Which is why they flocked first around Edwards, and now Obama. These people are not going to be pleased if the Party Establishment overturns the will of the voters, and choses Clinton. Then there are the black voters, who give the Democrats 90+% of their votes. How do you think they would react to the white Party Establishment stealing the election from the black candidate, and giving it to the white one? Now, imagine you're a Democrat member of the House or Senate, or a Governor, up for re-election. You won your last race by 5 - 10%. Or your a Democrat member of the House or Senate, who likes being in the Majority party, and are aware of how many of your collegues won their last election in a close race. Are you going to chose Clinton over Obama? Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: Billy Joel: Big Shot (7 Comments |Comment on this)
1:22 pm	How the Democrats screwed themselves Someday I'd like to have a nice, friendly chat with the people who came up with the Democrat Party's current method of selecting a nominee. I'd have one question: "WTF were you thinking?" Let's see if I have the logic straight here: concerned that the Democrat Primary voters might "fall in love" with the "wrong" candidate, the designers arranged it so that the voters only got to pick 80% of the voting delegates to the convention. The other 20% would be "super delegates", "party elders" who would have "the best interests of the part" at heart, and so how could step in in a close race and "save the Party from itself" (which is to say, from those idiot voters). And yes, that last little aside is fair. Because the only reason to set things up this way is if you want the option of those super delegates overriding the choice of the voters. If you trust the voters to make the right decision, or if you're at least willing to let the voters decide, then you give them 100% of the votes, not 80%. So, for just a moment, let's look at this decision from an entirely practical, but abstract, perspective (i.e. not in the context of the current campaign): You've got a tightly contested race, that's going down to the convention. Neither candidate is able to win 62.5% of the available delegates (62.5% * .8 = 50%). One candidate is in the lead, but the Party Establishment thinks (s)he's too radical, and "can't win" in the general election. So the Party Establishment (in the form of the "super delegates") decides to pick "the best candidate", and awards the nomination to the candidate who came in 2nd place with the voters. (IOW, the super delegates "do the job for which they were created".) Now, imagine the response of the voters to this action. Especially, imagine the response of the primary voters who just got a big "f*ck you" from the Party Establishment. (Which, BTW, does not just mean the people who voted for the candidate who was denied the nomination. Every voter from the primary has just been told "your vote doesn't matter.") How many of those people are going to go out and work for that candidate in the general election? How many of them are going to riot at the convention (see "Days of Rage", Chicago, 1968)? WTF were they thinking? Now, let's consider how this has actually turned out. The Clinton campaign has known for over a month that there was no way they could catch up with Obama in the delegate tallies. If there were no super delegates, if all the delegates were chosen by the voters, then the campaign would have been over before the PA primary. Specifically, it would have been over before the whole Rev Wright thing blew up in Obama's face. Before the whole "bitter people clinging to their guns and their religion" thing had blown up in Obama's face. Stories that were pushed not by the Republicans, but by the Clinton campaign and its allies. Stories that would not have gotten anything like the same coverage if the Democrat Primary race was over, and Obama was the presumptive Democrat Party nominee. So, w/o the "super delegates", you have an end of the campaign in early March, and 6 months to prepare for the general election. With the "super delegates", you have another 5 months of bitter intra-party fighting, and a nasty fight at the convention that won't leave anybody happy. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: Scorpions: No One Like You (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
3:48 pm	The opiate of the elites Lovely article in today's New York Times. (Registration may be required. User "blogs", password "blogs".) Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites. For the sake of concreteness, let’s define the people Mr. Obama had in mind as people whose family incomes are less than $60,000 (an amount that divides the electorate roughly in half), who do not have college degrees and who live in small towns or rural areas. For the sake of convenience, let’s call these people the small-town working class, though that term is inevitably imprecise. In 2004, they were about 18 percent of the population and about 16 percent of voters. For purposes of comparison, consider the people who are their demographic opposites: people whose family incomes are $60,000 or more, who are college graduates and who live in cities or suburbs. These (again, conveniently labeled) cosmopolitan voters were about 11 percent of the population in 2004 and about 13 percent of voters. While admittedly crude, these definitions provide a systematic basis for assessing the accuracy of Mr. Obama’s view of contemporary class politics. Small-town, working-class people are more likely than their cosmopolitan counterparts, not less, to say they trust the government to do what’s right. In the 2004 National Election Study conducted by the University of Michigan, 54 percent of these people said that the government in Washington can be trusted to do what is right most of the time or just about always. Only 38 percent of cosmopolitan people expressed a similar level of trust in the federal government. Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social issues? Yes, but less than other voters do. Among these voters, those who are anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than those who favor abortion rights to vote for President Bush in 2004. The corresponding difference for the rest of the electorate was 27 points, and for cosmopolitan voters it was a remarkable 58 points. Similarly, the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 2004 were much more likely to reflect voters’ positions on gun control and gay marriage. Small-town, working-class voters were also less likely to connect religion and politics. Support for President Bush was only 5 percentage points higher among the 39 percent of small-town voters who said they attended religious services every week or almost every week than among those who seldom or never attended religious services. The corresponding difference among cosmopolitan voters (34 percent of whom said they attended religious services regularly) was 29 percentage points. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Mozart: Act IV Gente, gente, all'armi (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
1:32 am	Guess I like bananas too much :-) Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com You scored as The Librarian You're the Librarian! Once a wizard, now an Orang-utan (due to an unfortunate magical accident), you refuse to be turned back for a few reasons: In this form, it's easier to reach the shelves and hold more books; having the strength of five men makes people return their books on time; life's great philosophical questions boil down to "when do I get my next banana" You say "ook" but are usually understood well enough. The Librarian 88% Commander Samuel Vimes 63% Carrot Ironfounderson 63% Lord Havelock Vetinari 56% Greebo 44% Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 38% Cohen The Barbarian 38% Rincewind 38% Death 25% Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 25% Current Mood: amused Current Music: Chicago: Stay The Night (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
1:44 am	Small World So, Saturday I played Wilbur Wright at the Yuri's Day Celebration at NASA Ames / Moffet Field. While doing so I ran into a couple of people. The first one was an ex-girlfriend from college, the first person I ever fell in love with. Who I haven't seen in mumble years. She was there with a friend. I mentioned that I was finishing up my MS in Bioinformatics at UCSC. The friend got my card, because her company is looking to hire a bioinformatics person! :-) There was one other person there, who I didn't know, to whom I mentioned Bioinformatics. She turned out to be a Ph. D. graduate of the UCSC Bioinformatics program (I've heard her name many times, I think I may have even attended a talk by her, but I didn't recognize her). She recognized my name, and said only good things had been attached to it. (Always nice to hear.) It is often such a very small world. Current Mood: amused (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 11th, 2008
2:53 pm	Yuri's Day Tomorrow, Saturday April 12, is "Yuri's Day". It is the 47th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's Flight into space. There wil be a big party at Moffet Field. For part of the day I'll be walking around as Wilbur Wright. In preparation for my roll, I've been learning more about him. He had an awesome quote, which I wish to share with all of you: Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what they receive. Current Mood: impressed Current Music: John, Elton: Pinball Wizard (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 7th, 2008
1:33 pm	What an idiot The following is a rant. You have been warned. I am not ranting this way because the writer is attacking "my" candidate, because I don't have a candidate. I do, however, have a strong loathing for the kind of people who engage in the behavior discussed below. No one has the "right" to win. You have the right to try. But those who disagree with you also have the right to try. If you can't win "fair and square", then you deserve to lose, no matter how wonderful you are. An idiot named Sean Wilentz has an article on Salon titled "Why Hillary Clinton should be winning", that takes this months "People Utterly Unclear on the Concept" Award. The sub head says it all Under a winner-take-all primary system, Hillary Clinton would have a wide lead over Barack Obama -- and enough delegates to clinch the nomination by June. I've got a news flash for you Sean: The Democrats chose to set up a non "winner-take-all primary system". Because of that, for the last year - year and a half the candidates have been competing based on the system in place, rather than the fantasy in your head. If there had been a different system in place when the campaign started, the candidates would have done things differently. Get the concept? This is why you don't change the rules in the middle of the game (or after the players are done, and you're wrapping up the score keeping). Or at least, why you don't if you're a decent human being, rather than a dishonest, sleazy, political hack committed to no principle other than "my side must win". If you really think the rules are wrong, you are certainly free to say "hey, next time we should do things differently." But that is an entirely different thing from saying "my person is losing under the current rules. But if we change the rules in this particular way then my person would be winning, so we should change the rules that way right now." That, you stinking pile of dung, is sleazy, poor loser bullshit. Current Mood: bitchy (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
12:12 am	I'm no longer over the hill Monday at AM I submitted my Thesis to the members of my Thesis committee. Tomorrow I will be getting feedback. If I can get all major complaints dealt with by next Wednesday, I'll be going on "Filing Fee Status" (== "almost graduated"). Of course, if I can get all their complaints dealt with, I'll just graduate. :-) But, in any event, I expect that I will not be a full or part-time student at UCSC any more. So I moved out of Grad Student Housing, and back to San Jose. Now that I'm back on this side of the hill, I expect to be seeing you all a bit more. Current Mood: excited (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 30th, 2008
4:23 pm	That's going to hurt Poor Davidson. No one thought they had a chance, but there they were: 16 second left to go, they've got the ball, only down by 2 to Kansas in the Regional Final. Hit a basket and you're going to overtime. Hit a 3 and you're going to the Final Four. All they can come up with is a lame impossible shot with time expiring. :-( Ah, well, it was an incredible run while it lasted. And that's why we call it "March Madness". The #10 seed (ot of 16), was one made shoot away from winning the Regional Final over the #1 seed (and #4 team in the country). Current Mood: amazed (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, March 28th, 2008
2:47 am	Good night I got up at 9 AM. Wednesday. I got about 2 hours of rest since then, but no sleep. However, I have Graded my third of 74 immunology finals Posted the grades on the class web page Figured out a major bug in my Thesis, and fixed it Moved about a third of my things to San Jose, since, now that I'm close to Graduating, I can no longer live in Grad Student Housing. 42 hours in a row awake is more than I wanted. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
10:17 am	The joys of Grad School You would think that, having gotten up at 9 AM after about 5 hours of sleep, when I went to bed at 3:30 AM to catch a 90 minute nap that I'd fall asleep. Well, that's what I thought. I, however, was wrong. :-( So I ended up w/ about 90 minutes of rest, but no sleep. Then I went back to grading finals, and debugging my program. On the plus side, I finished my grading, and I figured out what I had these 4 hour queries (expected time to complete: under 2 minutes). It turns out that if you load the "right" kind of bad data into your database, you can end up with a result that has 233 million rows (instead of, maybe, 15 thousand). 233,000,000 rows * 8 bytes / row (plus 16 bytes / row of index) = "it takes a while". Esp if you end up doing it twice. :-( Ah, well, I think that's all fixed, now. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Monday, March 24th, 2008
9:45 pm	This is sad, but not a surprise Calif. Woman Slain on the Phone With 911 WEST COVINA, Calif. (AP) - A woman was asking a 911 dispatcher for help when her pleas were interrupted by gunshots, then silence. She was shot to death. The woman told the dispatcher someone was trying to break into her home in upscale West Covina, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Dan Rosenberg said. "Deputies heard gunshots followed by silence and an open phone line," he said. Click here to find out more! Deputies arrived at the house, 20 miles east of Los Angeles, a few minutes after Wednesday's late morning call. The woman, whose name was not released by police, had been shot several times. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. The police cannot protect you. Furthermore, you do not want to live in a society where the police are so ubiquitous that they could "protect" you. If she'd owned a gun, been ready to use it, and had gone for it instead of wasting her time on 911, she would probably still be alive. Get a gun. Learn how to use it. Keep it available for use. And always, always, remember, "it is better to be tried by 12, than carried by 6." Don't be a victim. Don't wait for 911. Update: Thanks to this blog I learned this: When sexual assaults started rising in Orlando, Fla., in 1986, police officers noticed women were arming themselves, so they launched a firearms safety course for them. Over the next 12 months, sexual assaults plummeted by 88 percent, burglaries fell by 25 percent and not one of the 2,500 women who took the course fired a gun in a confrontation. And that, says a new brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by police officers and prosecutors in a controversial gun-ban dispute, is why gun ownership is important and should be available to individuals in the United States. The arguments come in an amicus brief submitted by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America. Current Mood: sad (5 Comments |Comment on this)
3:46 am	Happy Birthday Amy Happy Birthday wolfe_girl87. May this next year be all that you want, and need. Hugs. Greg Current Mood: happy Current Music: Ennio Morricone: Slow Waltz – The Godfather Waltz (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
7:36 pm	You may be a Taliban if... You may be a Taliban if... 1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer. 2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes. 3. You have more wives than teeth. 4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon "unclean." 5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide. 6. You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against. 7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. 8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs. 9. You've ever uttered the phrase, "I love what you've done with your cave." 10. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least one. 11. You bathe at least monthly whether necessary or not. 12. You've ever had a crush on your neighbor's goat. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Pat Benatar: Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
9:44 pm	Buying a new computer In June of 2003 I built my own computer. Nice tower case, decent power supply, good motherboard (it came with 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports), floppy drive, keyboard, cheap video card, DVD-ROM, 7200 RPM 40 GB hard drive (2MB Cache), 1 GB Kingston HyperX RAM, AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton 1.833GHz CPU. Total cost for everything but a monitor (I had two 20" monitors): $635.49, of which $514.18 was for the CPU, RAM, motherboard, hard drive, and DVD-ROM. Yesterday I replaced those last five things. It's been 4 years and 8 months, after all. :-) 3AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz Socket AM2 Dual Core CPU, another good motherboard, 4 GB of faster RAM, 500 GB HD with 16 MB Cache (3.0 GB SATA instead of 100 MHz IDE), and 20x DVD Burner (also SATA, so again much faster data throughput). Total cost w/ tax and shipping: 624.20 So for 21% more (roughly equal to a 4% inflaction rate) I get ~8x the CPU, 4x RAM, 12x HD, and DVD burning, instead of ust DVD reading. It's just what I need to run fast compiles under Linux (and thus the crappy video card. It doesn't take much these days to get clear text). Sometimes I do love technology. :-) (While I was at it I decided my main computer (Mac Mini) needed an HD upgrade, too. Notebook HDs are expensive. :-( And small. the largest capacity 7200 RPM notebook HD I could find is only 200 GB. :-( ). Current Mood: amused Current Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, KV 467 - "Elvira Madigan" - Andante (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
1:44 am	YES! I just got my Master's Thesis Program working! I am, by God, going to graduate this quarter! Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: Meat Loaf: Paradise By the Dashboard Light (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 8th, 2008
12:14 am	That was fun Went to Cirque. Had a great time. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: John Denver: Sunshine On My Shoulders (Comment on this)
Monday, January 14th, 2008
4:02 pm	Too true What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd   (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help. Literature Nerd   Musician   Drama Nerd   Gamer/Computer Nerd   Social Nerd   Anime Nerd   Artistic Nerd   What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace Current Mood: amused Current Music: Chopin, Artur Rubinstein: Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1 (Comment on this)
1:07 pm	Wow Jan 1, at around 6 AM, I cleared out my spam folder. As of 1 PM today, Jan 14, I have 754,425 new spam in my junk mail folder, taking up 266 MB of space on my hard drive. That doesn't count all the spam I deleted by hand. Yes, that's right, I get an average of 56,000 spam emails / 20+ MB of spam per day. (Just for perspective: there are 86,400 seconds in a day. I get roughly 3 spam every 4 seconds, or almost 40 spam per minute.) If I was trying to get my email over dialup I simply wouldn't be able to do it. Death to all spammers. Current Mood: appalled Current Music: Eric Carmen: Boats Against The Current (Comment on this)