Books

I just read Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky, and I loved it. He tells the story of how cod was one of the main reasons why the "discovery" of Newfoundland by Westerners was such a big deal, because there was such great cod fishing there. And cod was a great fish because it's easy to catch and easy to preserve in salt (the fish has little fat, which is what causes things to rot). It was quite a good read, full of fun trivia and more information (and recipes) about cod then you ever knew existed.

Speaking of fishing, Beth and I went up to Minnesota and met my parents there to do a little fishing in the great north woods. It was Beth's first time fishing and she caught three fish - I caught none. But we had a good time with my mom and dad and we got suntans to boot.

And now I've started reading Kurlansky's longer but very similar book, Salt: A World History. I never knew salt was so important - I guess you easily forget that in this era of refrigeration.

I'm back

Sorry everyone for leaving the blog for so long. Needless to say, I've been busy!

Last week I was finishing up schoolwork. I finished up my US Foreign Policy essays, on the power of the president in wartime, the ability of the media and other domestic actors to shape foreign policy, and applying themes we've learned in the class to the politics surrounding the current Iraq War.

Once I finished that I gave the final test to my undergrad class, then got to grade all the short answers and essays the next day so that grades could be turned in by Friday.

On Friday, Beth's little brother and girlfriend came down to DC and delivered an armoire to us that her grandmother had used and not needed anymore. We'll be moving our computer off our old IKEA desk and onto this much nicer looking piece of furniture, and we'll be able to close off the computer behind doors so it doesn't dominate our living room.

Then on Friday we drove with them up to Beth's parents house to spend the Mother's Day with them. We also got to see our little niece, who is now just four weeks old. Of course, she is so beautiful and adorable. But Beth and I are not ready to have a baby quite yet. There's something about the hourly crying that made us glad we still have independence.

Finally, we went to the outlet stores to go clothes shopping and both of us stocked up on dress clothes for the summer.

Picture Gallery

Some of you may have noticed the new picture gallery I set up, but for those of you who haven't, go check out the gallery, located on the right of the page. I still haven't found a design for the pages that I really like, but the pictures themselves are all there.

*** UPDATE 1/23/07 ***

The site is no longer up, as my former university kicked me off the servers. I'm still looking for new space.

TV on the Internet

Since we don't have a TV here, we've been enjoying watching ABC TV on our computer this past week. ABC is showing full-length episodes of four of its shows online in May and June. Most of the shows have only the last several episodes to watch, but our favorite show, Alias, has the entire season five up to what has been broadcast. So every night after we finish studying for our finals we've been watching a few episodes.

Evidently, the US is far behind other countries in what is called IP-TV, with South Korea being the most technologically advanced on this front. With the constant fighting between the telecoms and cable companies and all the monopolies in between, I'm not surprised. I don't know if this happens all over the country, or just here in DC, but I see advertisement signs everywhere by both the telecom and the cable industries, usually attacking the other side. Just think where we'd be if they spent that much effort and money on improving their service.

Computers

Because our mail is delivered to central mailboxes in our building, we sometimes get our neighbor's mail (probably when the mailwomen gets a little too hurried). We usually just take the mail and drop it in front of the neighbor's door when this happens, but yesterday we got our neighbor's PC Magazine, so I decided I might flip through it before turning it over. I know, I'm evil!

So I was reading the John Dvorak column and he was commenting on the progress of computing in the last few decades, noting how fundamental shifts that we all expected have not yet materialized. Specifically, computers have not become more human-centric, i.e. they don't talk, listen to, or understand humans very well at all, unlike in the science-fiction movies such as Star Trek where the characters ask computers questions and they respond intelligently.

Dvorak likens the phenomenon to the 1950's notion that everyone would be driving flying cars by the year 2000. And what are we doing? We're still driving cars that are relatively the same as they were back then, with only marginal improvements. Dvorak writes,

"Instead, the car became merely a practical deviste that can double as a status symbol and a fashion statement. Can the same fate of practicality strike the computer?"

Although he doesn't consider many of the advances that the internet has brought, it still makes me wonder about how much more computers are going to do for us, at least in the near future.

Where is Aaron?

Sorry about the long delay in posting. I had two paper due on Monday, so last weekend was completely devoted to paper writing, one on the statistics of corruption and one was the edit of my Clinton-China-MFN paper.

The statistics paper proved somewhat interesting, as I was able to show that greater civil liberties and political rights leads to lower levels of corruption in countries. This is somewhat notable, I suppose, because it is often argued that authoritarian governments, because of their centralized control, can run economies more efficiently than democracies. I have shown this claim has, at least, some problems. Horray! But not too revolutionary...