Sumit’s Seattle Scribblings

After much hand-wringing, I’ve decided to move my blog.  I’ve thought about hosting it myself, but that will take time I don’t want to spend right now, so for the moment, I’m going to keep it over at MSN spaces, which is impressively full-featured given its freeness.  The new address will be http://spaces.msn.com/members/sbasu .  I’ll probably still post here occasionally to poke my friendsters about the fact that I have new entries, but not every time I post :)   The reasons why I’m moving the blog:

1.  Archiving.  Friendster only shows the last 10 posts, which is pretty annoying.  msn spaces archives all your entry, for free.   It also has trackbacks, which blogger (the other main free service) doesn’t have.
2.  No update emails.  Friendster sends a friendster message to all my friends telling them I’ve updated my blog, even when all I’ve done is fix a spelling error.  With msn spaces, those with an RSS feed will have the latest; others can surf by once in a while, and I’ll post digests on friendster occasionally so the non-RSS’ers can know things have been updated.
3.  Easy updating.  Updating the friendster blog is a huge pain - first logging onto friendster, then going to the blog gateway, both of which are incredibly slow.  For msn spaces, I can blog directly from the toolbar or from their website (which is pretty zippy).
4.  Media.  I can (and have) embed a media player into my space, so I can feature my latest song for people to listen to right within the browser (sorry mac and linux friends, this only works on windows).  I’ll still link to the song so everyone can listen, but being able to hit play in the browser is just convenient.
5.  Search engine indexing.  Msn spaces blogs are indexed by the major search engines, while friendster spaces are not. 

Now, the downsides, as there are always downsides:

1.  msn spaces don’t look great — yet.  I’m hoping they will soon allow for greater customizability in terms of appearance, especially in terms of custom images and the like.
2.  censorship.   Blog titles can’t contain the 7 FCC "bad words."  Originally, this was a bigger deal to me, as I thought it covered the entries, but it’s just the title, and since my dream of calling my blog "ass poop butt monkey"  has died for other reasons, I suppose this doesn’t bother me that much.   It’s still lame though.

For now, the balance seems to be in the favor of msn spaces, until I have the time and energy to host my own blog (don’t hold your breath :).  See you over there!

-Sumit

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a research group that looks at how the internet affects and is affected by culture in America.   This particular report just came out and talks about how the current generation of teenagers are very much into "remixing content" from the internet, be it words, images, music, etc., mostly in the form of blogs.  The most exciting part to me, though, was the fact that the leader in the blogosphere among teens are teenage girls age 15-17:

Older girls ages 15-17 are the most likely to blog; 25% of online girls in this age group keep a blog, compared with 15% of older boys who are online. About 18% of younger teens of both sexes blog.

First off, it’s impressive that so many teens are blogging, but I think it’s spectacular that girls are taking the lead here.   My take is that for a long time, the entry point into the computer world has really been gaming, which is for the most part designed for boys (now, I know at least one amazing woman who is very much the exception here, but she knows who she is and she’s always the exception :).   Blogs, on the other hand, provide a very different outlet - now people can create a presence on the internet and become known and respected for it for reasons other than how many Dweebons they blew up on level Zogotreeb. 

You can download the full text of the study here: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp

My friend Candace is a Naturopathic Doctor (ND) and runs a nice practice here in Seattle called Crescent Natural Health.  I didn’t know much about naturopathic medicine before moving to Seattle, but have recently learned a good deal more, both because I met a few people who worked in the area and also because my parents began using some naturopathic treatments.    For those of you who are skeptical, I would say that drugs are drugs, whether they are made by Glaxo-Smith-Kline-AOL-TimeWarner or appear naturally in some plant or other.  The real question is whether there have been solid studies that confirm the efficacy of the drugs.   Candace can definitely help in this regard -  in addition to be a very level-headed and caring person, she is quite scientifically-minded, and will present you with hard evidence wherever possible.

You can find out more at http://www.crescentnaturalhealth.com/

Tomorrow night (tuesday) on Frontline will be a documentary on the erosion of Roe vs. Wade over the last thirty years and the current threats to abortion rights; the episode is called "The Last Abortion Clinic," and more information is available here:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/ .  It’s a critical time for this critical issue - while early anti-abortionists were mostly radicals/fanatics and thus widely ignored for many years, they’ve quietly gained a lot of political ground in the last decade, especially in the politically powerful (though often overlooked) deep south. 

For those of us who want to preserve abortion rights, it’s very important to know how serious this battle is, who the players are.   Most of us are already aware that the real risk is not a sudden reversal of Roe vs. Wade, which is highly unlikely, but a slow erosion of rights through many small decisions.  Consider, for instance, the legislation from a couple of years ago which made the murder of a pregnant woman a double homicide - one for the woman, one for the unborn child.  Most congresspeople (including Democrats) sided with this law, since who wants to be seen as being against murdering pregnant women?  The insiduous aspect, though, is that it paves the way to give legal rights to the fetus - if killing a pregnant woman is two murders, killing the fetus alone must be one murder, right?  Well, not yet, but it’s definitely something to worry about.   

For those of you in the Seattle area, the documentary will air on KCTS (channel 9) at 10pm on tuesday (11/8) and 3am on friday night/saturday morning (11/12).  I plan to watch it at home (and probably record it); if you’re in the area and want to come over let me know.

In the last few weeks, I’ve received two kinds of feedback about my blog and the fact that friendster sends email notifications every time I make a post.   The majority of people have said it’s a nice reminder to go look at the blog and know that there will be something new to read.  On the other hand, a small but passionate minority has been greatly irritated by the excess of email that this generates.   Before I get started on the details though, I want to thank each and every one of you that has taken the time to read what I’ve been writing - you’re my friends, I love you, and it means a lot to me that you care about what I have to say.   That said, let’s get into the nitty and the gritty:

First of all, if you want to opt out, it’s easy - you can turn off the receiving of "friend updates" (more about them here: http://friendster.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/friendster.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=191) in your "Account Settings."  You’ll still get friendster message alerts, you just won’t get things like birthdays, blog updates, etc. 

Next, I must say it’s been interesting having a blog on friendster - in the last few weeks, many friends I’ve talked to at gatherings and parties have mentioned they’ve been reading my blog, presumably because they got the updates via email.   This is great - it makes me feel like it’s worth posting about interesting things, since people - in fact, people I care about - will actually come and read about it occasionally.   Also, I think the typical user out there is not (yet) using an RSS reader, so she/he has no other way to know when things have changed.

Regardless, I’m in the process of finding a longer-term hosting solution, though since I’ll probably going to be self-hosting, this may take a while.  Friendster is at best an "amateur" blog and has a variety of annoying characteristics, like only being able to show the last ten entries, only allowing comments from friendster members, etc.  However, they use typepad, which is a really nice interface, and it’s pretty darn easy to use.   And those email notifications - while annoying - do seem to be effective :)  Even once I find a more permanent hosting solution, I’ll probably post occasional "digest" entries on my friendster blog, just to broadcast out to all you friendsters that there’s new stuff to read!

I’d love to get your feedback on this; please leave me comments here or just send me an email/message.

Many of  my local friends will recognize this, or at least have heard me yakking about it incessantly :)  This is my halloween costume, and it’s taken me all week to make it…  you can click on the image for a larger version.   So what am I?  My most common answer was a wild thing from "Where the Wild Things Are."  I also liked saying I was an undomesticated teddy bear - before they file the horns off to make me safe and acceptable for the children of the bourgeois.  I’d originally planned to be a rabbit and then a monkey, but I’m too skinny to be a good rabbit, and I didn’t want to ruin this lovely jumpsuit with a long annoying tail.   I can also carry around a string of leaves and call myself a tree!  So versatile…

It’s a one-piece furry jumpsuit that I made from a new material I found at Jo-Ann (at crossroads, surprisingly, the best fabric store in the area).  Unlike most fake fur, this stuff is incredibly soft on the outside (it feels like a super-soft teddy bear), but very smooth and comfortable on the inside.  Typical fake fur is horribly rough on the inside, so you end up having to make a lining - which would have been a huge pain for a suit of this size/complexity.   Unfortunately, while comfortable, the inside is also super-slippery, which makes sewing with it an incredible pain.  Of course, as with other fur, the long strandy hairs keep getting caught in the machine as well, which made the making of something less than a joy.

As for how it’s put together, the body is a narrow tube construction with pockets added in later.  Since pants are generally a V-construction and I wanted to save material (this stuff is expensive), this made the crotch area something of a bunchy mess.  Thus I made a little flap panel from back to front (an H-cut) to fit that area and then closed the leg tubes.  This left a small gap in each inner thigh, which I was initially going to cover up with more fur, but the suit is so warm I left them in for ventilation.   The top is fitted with three velcro closures, which worked very well for this material.  The arms are separated tubes.   There are also pockets, which are from a different material.  By mistake, the right pocket ended up around the knee, which I was initally really unhappy about it, but it turned out to be super-convenient - when I’m driving, it’s really difficult to access ordinary pockets, since the seat belt is strapped over them, but the knee pocket works perfectly

I’ve worn this to parties the last two nights, and may actually wear it to work on monday (Halloween).  I realized that I’m teaching that day - but maybe that’s all the more reason to wear it!  If you think I should/shouldn’t, drop me a comment, perhaps you’ll motivate me…

This is the new album from Death Cab for Cutie.  I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while but right now just seems particularly appropriate.  It’s beautiful and haunting, in many ways similar to Transatlanticism (chord patterns, instrumentation) but in many ways different (themes, lyrics).   This represents the band’s first work under a major label - they’ve signed recently with Atlantic and were for many years with Barsuk, a local Seattle label.   For those of you who don’t know, Death Cab is in fact a Seattle band.  In fact, their lead singer is also the voice of The Postal Service, who was with (also) local label Sub-Pop, whose offices used to be just a block from my apartment. 

But back to the album.  I was most touched by the brave themes of some of the ballads - "What Sara Said," about being with someone through an extended illness and watching them die, "Brothers," about how love may fade as we get older, "Someday," trying to console a lover that has been left behind.  But tonight I’m thinking of the very first track, "Marching Bands of Manhattan," and in particular the refrain, which starts half-way through the songs and repeats about twelve times, which sounds as though it would be ridiculous and repetitive but is in fact very powerful - at least to me:

"Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet with a leak but there is comfort in the sound
And while you debate half empty and half full
It’s rising up; your love is going to drown."

You can preview the album at http://music.msn.com/album/?album=44208826 .  May it mean as much to you as it has to me. 

Wow, I came across something today that really surprised me with its unexpected beauty.  I’m pretty particular about my musical tastes, and when someone start with a techy-twerpy concept and tries to build from there, I’m generally not too generous with my praise.  But this guy, Jim Owen, sent this out to a musicians’ list at work.  He called it a "duet for piano and windows."  This was enough to make me click on the link and gave it a listen - and I was floored.  It starts off in such a geeky place, but then is so thoughtful and contemplative, then spry and full of energy, then… well, I’ll let you listen for yourself:  http://www.songfight.org/music/welcome_to/jimofseattle_wt.mp3 

If you like it, vote for his song!  It’s on a competition site, http://www.songfight.org , and I haven’t heard all of the other pieces but I think his is really the best up there.  Wow.

Recently it’s been bugging me that I say "guys" to refer to a mixed-gender group of people.  It’s a small thing, perhaps, but little things like this make a difference, and add up to big biases (consider the "boy and his father get in an accident" story - since you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll blog about soon).   I remember when I was about ten years old watching "Star Trek: The New Generation," and laughing that they had changed "where no man has gone before" to "where no one has gone before."  My mom tried to explain why these little things were important, and when I told her I thought it was silly, she actually cried (one of the very few times I’ve seen her cry) and said that if I couldn’t see the small things, there was no hope of my really understanding what equality meant.  It broke my heart to see her cry, and it really made me think.  Since then I’ve had similar revelations, usually originally pointed out by friends - such as referring to women as women and not "girls" ("girl" is not at all the same as "guy"; "girl" maps to "boy," whereas "guy" is age-independent - no such term exists for women). 

As for referring to groups, a friend of mine says "folks" (it was his saying this that really made me start thinking about this) but I find this too "folksy;" "you people" sounds too Ross-Perot-sticking-his-foot-in-his-mouth; "ya’ll" sounds too Southern.   Can anyone think of a good one? 

I was coming home across the 520 bridge around 12:30am (still working on a paper) and heard this interview on NPR with this 82 year-old woman in the Philippines who is singlehandedly revolutionized the book sales industry there, and has gone to great lengths to get textbooks into the hands of children all over her country.  She’s even gone so far as to broker deals with Western publishing houses to let her reprint texts for a small royalty fee.  When the interviewer asked her, as politely as he could, whether the fact that she now essentially has a monopoly on book sales in the Phillipines has made her complacent, she reacted with genuine surprise: "Why no!  Every day is a learning experience, there is so much to learn, and so many more books coming out every day."  Wow.  She wasn’t even thinking about competition or business, she just wanted to get the books to the people.  "What if I wanted to open up a bookstore?  I’d have no chance against you, right?"  the interviewer asked.  "No, no!  I’d sell you the books wholesale, so you could open up your own store and sell them at the same price as me!"  I got teary-eyed just listening to her.  What an amazing woman.  I wish I could just listen to her tell modest stories and talk about the world, all the while recognizing that she is one of the most impressive entrepreneurs of our time.

So why is the title about my Mom?  Well, my mom is this kind of person.  She has that special brand of goodness in which one gives without even thinking of it as a gift.   She changes the world every day with her hope and her optimism, her sincere desire to help people.  I’ve found myself getting frustrated sometimes in the face of her eternal optimism, telling myself she’s naive, but when I think about it I realize my frustration is with myself at not having the pure trusting and giving spirit that she has.  She doesn’t try to see the good in everything; she does see the good in everything.   That’s why she’s my amazing mom, and I hope I can learn to be more like her.