Author Archives: Steve

iSight Issues

I’ve had odd problems with my isight camera ever since I purchased my macbook pro, switching over from a PC after more than twenty years with the IBM and Windows paradigm, even though I got interested in computers in the early eighties with Apple 2es. The problem: I’d open Photobooth or Skype and would get nothing but a blank green screen in the vid-window. The devise appeared to be set just fine in System Profiler.

I decided to try an external camera. I figured that such a devise would be less expensive than shop time and would work okay for my needs. Anyway, it happens that the external camera proved incompatible with the mac. So I downloaded the maccam utility and placed into my Quicktime library. I used the maccam interface to crank up the external camera. Funny enough, both cameras started working simultaneously so that in Photobooth, I was grabbing a distorted image in the video window. I unhooked the external devise and–boom–the iSight camera was working.

I tested further by removing the maccam driver from Quicktime and still the camera worked. I’ve the utility where it is now, though, because now everything’s working fine.

So, here’s the test. Why did the iSight camera start working again?

On Dark Matter

From Ron Cowen and Science News

Cosmologists are agog about the possibility that an orbiting observatory may have discovered particles of dark matter — the proposed, invisible material that researchers believe makes up most of the mass of the universe.

At two meetings in August, researchers analyzing data from the Russian-European observatory PAMELA, short for Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics, reported preliminary evidence that the device had recorded more positrons from the Milky Way than could be accounted for by the standard model of elementary particle physics.

Politics and Lying

I disapprove of the current flavor of language (maybe we should call it a semantical ecology) that calls lying misrepresentation. Most “misrepresentation” is a form of cynical slanting, where a speaker or writer claims one thing knowing well enough that he or she is slanting. Dean Baker catches this:

Senator McCain claimed that Obama’s proposal would force people into a health care plan run by government bureaucrats. This is not true. Senator Obama’s plan would give people the option of buying into a publicly run Medicare-type plan, but this would only be an option. Under Senator Obama’s plan, no one would be forced to join the public plan, they would be free to stay with their current plan if they chose.

McCain knows that what he’s saying is a lie. The better thing to do would be to outline the real sense of Obama’s plan and then to present rational disagreement or objections to it, point by point. Speakers don’t have to live and breath by formats.

Of course, lying is a political habit now. Even Obama does it.

Fact Checking

From FactCheck:

Of course, we can’t say what Palin considers “major.” But if Palin’s own ethics reforms in Alaska were important enough to highlight in her convention address, then it’s only fair to credit Obama’s efforts on that topic. In 1998 in the Illinois Senate, Obama cosponsored an ethics overhaul that bars elected officials from using their campaign funds for personal use and and was called the the first major overhaul of Illinois campaign and ethics laws in 25 years. It also bans fundraisers in the state Capitol during legislative sessions. Obama’s Republican cosponsor Kirk Dillard even appeared in an Obama ad last summer describing Obama’s skills working with members of both parties to get legislation passed.

In Washington, Obama was instrumental in helping to craft the 2007 ethics reform law that ended gifts and meals from lobbyists, cut off subsidized jet travel for members of Congress, required lobbyists to disclose contributions they “bundle” to candidates, and put the brakes on other, similar common practices.

In addition, we already noted in a recent article Obama’s efforts with Republican senators to help detect and secure weapons of mass destruction and to destroy conventional weapons stockpiles around the world, and to create a publicly searchable database on federal spending.

Links in original.

Net-Newsers

From the Pew Research Center

Net-Newsers are the youngest of the news user segments (median age: 35). They are affluent and even better educated than the News Integrators: More than eight-in-ten have at least attended college. Net-Newsers not only rely primarily on the internet for news, they are leading the way in using new web features and other technologies. Nearly twice as many regularly watch news clips on the internet as regularly watch nightly network news broadcasts (30% vs. 18%).

FigureThis web-oriented news segment, perhaps more than the others, underscores the challenges facing traditional news outlets. Fewer than half (47%) watch television news on a typical day. Twice as many read an online newspaper than a printed newspaper on a typical day (17% vs. 8%), while 10% read both.

Spreading the Digital

This may prove to be an interesting semester. In World Lit we talked a little about how we establish relationships with the physical world around us. It was a question that just popped into my head but after asking it, I felt one of those holes open that needs lots of filling.

We talked about the difference between trust and faith: do we have faith in or trust street lights and plastic bags? We don’t “believe” that the insides of sandwich bags are clean and good for bread. Do we trust that they are?

Genesis starting next week since the Book of the Dead is not included in the anth.