It's getting late, but I did promise my wife I'd make a blog post today. It was Chinese Valentine's Day today -- Qi Xi (actually yesterday, as I'm posting this after midnight). I wish I had known ahead of time. Still my wife will be happy because I told her I would schedule both a General and Subject GRE test for possible admission to Graduate School. Online registration took awhile and I have just now finished (*yawn*). Now it's time to crack the books. The subject test, in my case Computer Science, looks to be the hardest.

We made a few tentative plans for our next reunion as we wait out Nian's "two year return to country of residence" in our visa application. China again this time, but also Macao which I have never been to. We will be there for Nian's birthday, which this year falls on Thanksgiving, which is a special blessing this year as it gives me two extra holidays against my vacation days. We will also be celebrating our Marriage anniversary in November, but I'm not quite sure yet whether I will be in China on time for both (we celebrate the registration and the ceremony).

I really should write more about our last reunion in Malaysia and Singapore, on balance we had a good time, but we encountered many problems with flights and motels, probably the main reason Nian wants to stay close to home this time around. Which is fine by me, because after our months long separations, I am more interesting in viewing my wife than the scenery.

My and Nian's trip to Singapore and Malaysia is over and I'm glad to report we survived, but after a tearful goodbye we had to separate for another 4 month time apart. We had a few tense moments and trying times especially when Malaysia refused Nian's first entry attempt on her Singapore visa. This turned out to be bad information from several sources and ended up with her having to fly in to satisfy entry requirements, but as I said this later turned out to be bad info. Later we missed our flight to our jump off point to Redang Island, so the center piece of our trip -- our 2 day 3 night island getaway -- ended up whittled down to 2 days 1 night. More like 1 day 1 night with a late arrival and an early departure. To say Nian was initially distraught would be an understatement, but in the end it seemed no great tragedy as we both got mildly sunburned on the first day out, and the only real activity other than the ocean beach was snorkel diving. I got one snorkeling session in and that seemed adequate.

Just now I came close to losing my post, but fortunately I had just saved my edits so far. I'm using a terminal that times out after 30 minutes, but I had actually had far less, as I was using the end of someone else's 30 minutes after they had left. Now I have a fresh 30 minutes and the clock is ticking. I need to board my flight to Chicago in about 30 minutes anyway, so that works out well. An hour ago I had struggled to do this post on an iMac in a general internet use area with no 30-minute time period. But the iMac would freeze up with the dreaded iMac bomb icon every so often in the internet Explorer session, most likely if one hit the backspace key to do a correction, and believe me I hit the backspace key often. I suspect the iMacs are quite old and the Explorer version looked like something very ancient. I don't whether to blame the early Mac 9 OS or the crappy Microsoft browser. So here I am at a much more recent windows machine and am using Firefox. I'm still saving my drafts often. The 30-minute clock is ticking and I didn't note the actual time it started.

Here in the terminal I notice quite a few people being given rides on electric carts. The rate would indicate they paid somewhere around $10 for the trip. The carts' signs indicate the advantage would be a quick journey from one end of the terminal to the other if you were in a hurry. However I saw the carts stopping often for pedestrians who were in no hurry to get out of the way. A brisk walk or trot would outpace the carts easily. Unlike the corpulent Wal-Mart shoppers you see using the free electric carts for shopping these people all looked fairly robust, so either they underestimated the timesavings, or are just well moneyed enough that $10 means very little to them.

Well that's enough for now, I have to scoot, on my own feet mind you, to terminal 63 -- home is still about 18-20 hours away (yawn).

Off to Singapore!

I got flamed a little over a post I made on Slashdot.org over the upcoming Shuttle launch, now scheduled for today at 2:37:55 PM EST, still I got modded a +5 insightful. Most of my original post dealt with the overly cautious call on cloud cover versus the increased risk due to thermal cycling on the propellant tanks due to postponing the mission. As an aside I closed with the opinion:

"Also while many may see July 4th as a feel-good day to launch (National pride and all that) if anything goes wrong there are religious types both Christian and Muslim that will see it as a sign validating whatever their view of the world is."

Someone accused me of being a "bigot" so I tired to clarify my position with:

Maybe this wasn't a strong enough disclaimer, but the there are religious types should indicate that I am not talking about ALL. Bigoted? Perhaps. I think my agnostic view of the world is superior to any of the World's organized religious. My common sense and experience having talked to religious people at work (and I'm talking a tech environment here) almost to a person they read great significance into random events. It seems to come part and parcel with the religious experience, especially those that interpret the Bible 'literally.' You may consider it a cop out to take these factors into consideration. But it is possible to be scientifically rational and politically unwise. Why fuel any flames if you don't have to? Maybe it was unwise to fly the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, to space on Columbia on the eve of war with Iraq. A HUGE percentage of the Islamic culture took Columbia's demise to be an act of God. If we weren't at war I would say fine, don't bother avoiding a July 4th lift if reasonably possible. The most recent news is making it look like a July 4th liftoff is unlikely anyway. BUT it is always possible political pressure will be put the bear to have a July 4th launch for reasons of National pride. This is the kind of synchronicity of events that ends in tragedy. If we should loose Discovery in launch it seems likely it will prolong certain aspects of our current military venture (whether you approve of that venture or not). The two shouldn't be connected, but they are because religious propagandists will make them connected. We should be surprised if our opponents in this clash of cultures would use NASA failures for propaganda purposes, the whole NASA manned space program is largely pro-American propaganda (when things go right).

Little did I have any idea how MUCH propaganda there would be with the July 4th launch attempt. FOX News is covering the lift off as a HUGE 4th of July spectacle, this continuous coverage ensuing shortly after a 4th of July speech by President Bush. Commentators gushing again and again how there had never been a 4th of July Shuttle launch. Some dark corner of my mind couldn't help but finish with "and there never will be again." Most likely there isn't any higher risk today than any other day (baring political pressure to launch), but if the risk is 1/100 then there is a 1% chance of a tragedy today and with a sizable portion of the American population watching this could be quite psychologically damaging. The science of this mission has been totally eclipsed by the coincidence of the launch attempt coming on July 4th. I think if hear one more commentator make a fireworks joke in juxtaposition with the Shuttle launch I will hurl. It is clear they aren't even consciously aware such comments could refer also to an explosion not just a launch plume.

        "5 minutes to launch"

I had really wanted to talk about the nature of Propaganda today, but I have worked myself into a lather about the specific over-zealousness of American cheerleading for today's Shuttle mission.

        "3 minutes to launch"

This is silly to be so nervous or anxious. It is illogical to think my words or thoughts could jinx a Shuttle launch.

        "2 minutes to launch"

My heart is actually pounding.

"90 seconds
1 minute
Go for auto-sequence start
10, 9, 8, 7, 6...
Go for main engine start
2, 1 we have ignition!"

The Shuttle leaps into the sky.

30 seconds, everything looks fine.
60 seconds everything still fine.
2 minutes and the solid boosters fall away.

3 minutes into flight now and it is clear my feelings of dread and foreboding were unwarranted. I now feel a little foolish for having been what amounts to superstitious. Still I wonder if it was wise to make this launch such a show. "Pride goeth before a fall," as they say. This common quote is actually an adaptation of a passage in Proverbs: "Pride goeth before destruction."

Sometimes I wish my nation had a little less pride.

I hear muffled explosions in the distance so 4th of July displays must be going on somewhere. Its Monday night July 3rd, so I can only assume there will be another display again tomorrow night. I'm not sure what to think of a July 3rd display; most likely Savoy is firing off a small fireworks show now so as not to compete with Urbana's and Champaign's much larger displays on Tuesday night.

I had been unaware I could or should officially record Nian and my marriage or exactly how to go about it, but at Nian's urging I went and got our Chinese Marriage Certificate recorded at the County Recorder's Office. It seemed to be a pretty slow office and I probably was the highlight of their day as they all made a pleasant fuss about having never recorded a Chinese Marriage before. On my way out I noticed a large 2'x3' Xerox of a "Release of Deed." It didn't seem to be instructive of anything nor one of a set of examples, so I asked what was special about it. They informed me it was a copy of their first E-Deed transaction to which I opined "that's kind of ironic, a huge paper copy of your first paperless transaction," at which point the three women behind the counter burst into peals of laughter. One asked me if I was a philosopher or writer or something. I said, "no I'm a programmer," but has I write this I wonder if I could take a little credit as a writer -- as for philosopher, well... everybody is a philosopher to a degree.

OK, what follows now is the Sunday post that I decided not to post, but what the hell, too many keystrokes to waste. Skip it if you don't care about HDTV technical issues.


I saw the new "Superman Returns" at a matinee today. On the whole I enjoyed the film, but was struck by the apparent discontinuity of quality in the cinematography. On the whole I'd say the quality was less than most films I've watched at home on my NEC 3150 in HDTV. The softness of the image at times was quite distracting.

No surprise then to find that the film was done at no better than HDTV resolution during filming. Filming was done with a new HD camera system called Genesis. Genesis may have superior lens characteristics compared to other direct to HD cameras, but 2 Mega-Pixels is still 2 Mega-Pixels. You can't blow that up to a 40-foot screen without it softening. I like to sit up close the screen and this only exaggerates the softening. 40 feet is 480 inches, so the smallest detail possible would be close to a quarter-inch across. DVD looks soft on my 3051 for the same reason, only 720 pixels across an 8 foot wide screen -- which gives about a 1/10 inch pixel, but of course I'm sitting much closer to the screen. At HDTV resolution my pixels shrink down to about .05 inches. I'd rather expect "Superman Returns" to look glorious on HDTV then. Our local Cineplex is still film. Since the SR transfer is 2 Mega-Pixels max to film (with some small loss of resolution due to transfer) running on outdated old equipment that probably can't maintain optimal focus and has substantial jitter -- what you end up with is something that is probably only slightly above conventional DVD resolution. Odd then that I should see reviews praising the look of the new film. I can only assume these reviewers watched screenings on Digital Screens that not only output the film at the full 2 Mega-Pixels shot, but probably line doubled and image processed the source as well to give a slightly higher than 2 Mega-Pixel faux resolution.

"Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" were both also shot digitally at HDTV resolution. In fact "Attack of the Clones" was shot at just slightly below full HDTV resolution (HDTV cameras where just not powerful enough yet at the time for full 1080P 24fps). I don't remember a "softness" problem viewing those screenings, but I believe those were digital screenings. Going from one realm to the other exaggerates the shortcomings of both.

Genesis Camera shooting will probably be adopted quickly for TV production where it is an ideal fit, but if Hollywood releases a string of films that look better on peoples' HDTVs than in the theater, then people will quickly quit going to the Cinemas. As I sat in the theater during the credits I thought to myself how the movie going experience has remained unchanged for basically 75+ years. It most likely doesn't have another 75 years in it. It will be lucky to have another 20 years as HDTV gains wide acceptance. Just as drive-ins seem quaint and anachronistic, so will going to a sit down theater. In 10 years a full HDTV front projection system capable of illuminating a 10 foot screen in a darkened room will probably be under $200, perhaps as little as $100 dollars (in 2006 dollars). There are 720P (the lower of the 2 HDTV resolutions) front projection systems that will do a 10 foot screen (easily) -for around $500 dollars -- 5 years ago they would have been over $5,000.

The post I had originally planned for today had gotten overly long for what it was about. Overly dry -- overly boring. Maybe I'll post it tomorrow. So I guess for today I have nothing to say. [crap]

It isn't my intention that this should be a political blog, but events keep coming this week that beg for comment. I do plan on mentioning a few non-political items further on down.

No sooner do I comment on how chatty Bin Laden has gotten of late, and how that might not be a good thing for him, than he releases yet another tape. This one calling for more Sunni violence against Shiites. All of course in the name of settling the score for Shiite violence on Sunnis, which is of course a little hard to swallow in light of how many Shiites have died due to Sunni bombings.

Al-Qeada seems to have morphed into just another cult believing that enough bloodshed, death, and chaos on Earth will hasten Divine intervention and judgement. I would compare them to South Park's Underpants Gnomes; whose famous business plan:

1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

Could be rephrased as:

1. Kill Believers and Unbelievers Alike
2. ???
3. Victory!

Bin Laden even referred to the Shiites directly as apostates, again echoing my assertion in my last post that Islam is just a little to picky and exclusive for its own good. Given that Iraq's eastern neighbor Iran is largely Shiite and Iraq's western neighbors are mostly Sunni, its no wonder it has become ground zero in the struggle for Islam's soul. Many have openly opined that it took a prick like Saddam to keep lid on things and be a buffer between these two visions of Islam.

Christians might look on with bemused smug satisfaction, but as an agnostic I think it was the neutering of Christianity by secularism that made it the more benign religion it appears to be today. While Westerners and Americans in particular can be accused of being too eager to resort to war and violence to settle matters in third world trouble spots, it certainly isn't at the urging of the Church. If Islam's Imams in general held the same anti-war anti-violence sentiment, the world would be a far safer place today. For better or worse Iraq has become a huge experiment in whether Islam can be secularized and democratized -- another irony given that Saddam led one of the most secular Islamic societies in the region. Sunnis held higher positions is society, but I think this was seen mostly as a racial right, not a religious one. Perhaps someone more versed in Islamic culture could set me straight on this matter.

There is a new and seventh installment in Brink today. This time dealing with the quest for and impact of Cheap Access To Space At 1,500 words for today's entry I am definitely getting wordier. I suspect I may be tempted to go back and pad my earlier entries out to more like 2,000-4,000 words. At these lengths and with proper illustration and additional research, the planned 35 installments would be a good start on the makings of a book. On a related note the Shuttle failed to lift off today due to weather. I worry that the temperature stress of de-fueling the liquid oxygen and hydrogen and then refueling will stress that foam insulation too much once again. It isn't likely we will loose the Shuttle in its next launch, but I wouldn't be surprised if foam debris is once again detected. Debris that would be less present if the Shuttle had lifted off after her first fueling. Now that we are looking for debris with over 70 hires cameras on launch, we are almost certainly going to find some and have another round of hand wringing afterwards. Expect more Shuttle delays and redesigns as the program winds down. I suspect the ISS will never be truly completed. They'll probably just have to say "good enough" after five more Shuttle visits or so and call it a success to save face.

After a short blip upward on the scale the day before yesterday, my quest to shed pounds before going to Singapore seems to be back on track. Without Nian here, there just isn't much for me to do, but blog and go to the gym. Nian would argue I have a lot of other assignments I should be making progress on, but with two weeks to go before I see her again, I'm more concerned with being the robust, healthy, not-over-weight man she met before my unnecessary lung surgery. I'm still about a minute off my one mile run times, but other than that I'm totally back to my pre-op workout levels, and my runs are still steadily improving.

I hadn't been aware that sci-fi spoof animated series "The Venture Brothers" had a second season coming until just a week before the new episodes started. This show is definitely not for kids, it is basically an adult-comedy send up of the ground breaking animated sci-fi series "Johnny Quest" from the sixties. I won't go into details, but I have watched the second season, first-season-cliff-hanger-resolution opener three times, and it just gets better each time, especially the techno-montage beginning to the music "Everybody's Free" by Aquagen featuring Rozilla. This portion alone I have re-watched close to a dozen times as the most perfect and emotional music montage I think I have ever seen in a film, live action, animated, comedy or not (OK I'm exaggerating a little). The voice talents on this series are so over the top and perfect in their rolls that the glorious animated drawings are almost unneeded and the show could be done perfectly well as a radio series. I don't think there is any way my wife would care for this series and all its pop culture references from the 60's 70's and 80's, but it almost makes me glad to be 48 so I get all the jokes.

I recently finished Stephen Baxter's "Exultant" Quite the novel. Stephen is my current sci-fi addiction, no one does hard science fiction quite as well as he does these days. You almost have to a Masters in Physics to appreciate the care and research he must put into these novels.

In an effort to better round out my reading I have started Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow," supposedly one of the greatest novels of the 70's. To be honest I'm finding its a bit of a slog, but at 150 pages in I'm determined to make it through the approximately 900 page tomb. I have certainly made it though longer books, and if you count series, stories that span muli-thousands of pages. I suspect the book just takes too much concentration to do on a stair machine, which is where I basically do all my reading these days in my quest to loose weight. With so many vividly described characters and such intricate scene descriptions it is easy to get all the players confused when you are struggling to keep your heart rate above 160.

My appetite for sci-fi will have to wait even further, as I have also just received my copy of "The Kite Runner," which is a novel my wife recommended. A romance set in war torn Afghanistan.