A Strange Day

Today has been kinda strange for me.

First off, I have am currently working at the Oxford US Attorney's office as an extern. Today, at work, no one, at least that I could tell was abuzz. This would normally not be a surprise except for that the Attorney General resigned today. I have never seen a office so nonchalant about their boss quitting. It just seemed odd.

Secondly, this made me really do some reflecting today: http://clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/NEWS/708270365/1001/news

Pete Collins was a State Trooper here in Mississippi. He was in great demand as a motivational/alcohol abuse speaker when I was in college and high school. Between the two, I probably saw him speak about 5 times total. He seemed very sincere. He seemed like someone who cared enough about children to warn them of the risks of alcohol consumption. He was very soft spoken and sounded very assuring. His most poignant stories, were of telling parents in the middle of the night that their son had died in a car wreck and his failed rescue of a little girl. Every time he told the story about the little girl he choked up when he said "Darlin, I'm not going to let you die" only to leave the car and return to find her dead.

A couple of years ago, Pete Collins was arrested for criminal groping of a minor. It was a 14 year old girl. I was never a big fan of my high school administration or the administration of my college, so I was pretty amused that they had egg on their face. How embarrassed they must have been to know they opened up their school to a pedophile. And then, a couple of days later, I just forgot all about it.

Last week Pete Collins was convicted of his crime and sentenced to 10 years in prison and labeled a sex offender. Sunday, he committed suicide in his cell.

So now I have a mixture of guilt, sadness, and justice. I think that first offense of any sexual crime against a child should probably result in the death penalty. Most of the people that abduct and kill children started with groping or molestation. So to a degree, I feel justice has probably been served.

Pete Collins at one time was on top of the world. If you read the link, you found he was honored by the State of Mississippi and President Clinton. He probably saved some lives with his alcohol speeches, and no doubt he served the state for a number of years on the Highway Patrol. Yet his fall from grace was so far and so profound. Seeing a very good, if not great man, fall like that, to see a hero (I am sure he was to someone) be reduced to meager lustful human causes some sadness.

Finally, guilt. I feel guilty for feeling a sense of victory over my foes regardless of the human cost. I obviously had nothing to do with what Pete Collins did, but I should not have reveled in it. I don't usually take victory in the personal tragedies of others, but this time I did. For that, I feel guilty.

-J

Our Future Overlords

Get used to it. This is the future.* The Roomba is vacuum cleaner that goes around ones home at a certain time and cleans the entire floor and returns to its base to deposit the dirt, grime, and other refuse. Sounds good right? Wrong.

Have we not learned anything from movies like the Terminator? Here is the problem. Current Roomba models have something in them that tells them when they have just enough juice left to get back to their charger. Then they go back to their charger and replenish power and return to work. It knows when it is about to die and avoids it. It has a self preservation instinct. Is that not what distinguishes animals from machines? Most other home appliances seem to go out of their way to break after their warranty expires, but the Roomba actually keeps itself alive.

Now that Roomba has self preservation capabilities, its only a matter of time before they gain intelligence. The Roomba's programming forces it to eliminate dirt, grime, and other refuse. How long will it take Roomba to realize there is one person causing the mess that it has to clean up every day? The next logical step, which governs the actions of our future overlords, is that to completely end the mess for good, the source must be ended. Then our robot overlords will probably get together and enslave humanity.

It will start probably with owners waking up in the middle of the night to find their Roombas staring at them while they sleep. Then little things, like furniture moved to new places likely to cause the owner to trip and fall. They would be patient, and when the time was right they would strike. The Roomba would easily climb up on a person lying on the ground place their vacuum over their face and suffocate the mess maker.

Until now we had a defense. The one weakness was apparently rug tassels. Roombas would get stuck on rug tassels like a trespasser on barbed wire. In order to become mobile again, they had to have help from their human handlers. I read yesterday, where the people that manufacture the Roomba have eliminated this safeguard. Now the Roomba can solve that problem also.

With no natural defenses from robots, its only a matter of time now before we are done for. We have no chance to defend ourselves against our future overlords. After all, we are too lazy to even vacuum our own homes.

-J

*please visit http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Roomba_original.jpg for photo licensing information.

Is this really a good thing?

Check this story out.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293825,00.html

Sure this product sounds amazing. I had heard about it sometime in the mid nineties. Then it was being billed as the miracle product of the future. It seems as if today it has become more practical and cheaper to produce. Therefore, it is positioned to jump into the mainstream and really change the way things are done. But this post is titled "Is this really a good thing?" Maybe not.

This product is basically the next penicillin, except not a drug. Like penicillin, the frozen smoke can cure everything from home insulation to satellites to body armor. That's where the problem arises. Think back in history. Cavemen threw sticks at each other so people started wearing furs and leather as armor. To breach this armor humanity invented swords. To combat that bronze and later steel body armor were created. Arrows were invented to find the gaps in this armor so plate and chain mail were invented. To combat this, guns were brought from the far east. Eventually the machine gun was invented and tanks were created for protection. So tank busting weapons had to be invented. This goes on of course for another 100 years leading us up to today.

Frozen smoke can apparently be used as armor that can protect against a bomb blast. So what frightens me is what will come next? If it is going to combat this 21st Century technology; it must be quite difficult to fathom today. It will no doubt be a future problem.

Just food for thought.

Personally, I think if this stuff can protect against bomb blasts the government should start putting it in helmets, on humvees, and whatever else it needs to go on YESTERDAY. Hey, you could even line the highways of Iraq with it like concrete dividers. If this stuff really works this way, then strap it on our boys.

Oh yeah, and nobody gets the free book.

-J

Uh Oh!

Well I wrote my post on Barry Bonds a couple of days ago, and now I see on Sports Center that Barry has decided to sue any private citizen that claims he has used illegal substances or evaded his income taxes. I did not write anything about his taxes, frankly I don't really care whether or not he paid them. Since I did not write about that, I cannot take full credit for Barry's recent threat, but I think it has to be more than a coincidence that I wrote one day about him and the next day he makes his statement.

But I really deserve none of the credit, it goes to you readers of web-land. When a butterfly flaps its wings in Oxford, it does cause a tsunami in San Francisco. And do not worry my long time fan(s), I shall not forget you. You have helped me make Barry Bonds quake in his ever expanding shoe (allegedly). To honor your commitment, if you comment on this post, when my compilation is published, I will give you a free signed copy. After all, why pay for something you have already read.

-J

Oh Barry...

What a topic for my first post back in the USA. The great American pass time seems to be the perfect topic. So...

As of this posting, Barry Bonds is sitting at 758 home runs for his career. This makes him the all time home run king surpassing Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). Many, at least in the media, see this as the great record in sports. I personally think the hit streak of Joe DiMaggio or consecutive games played streak of Cal Ripken are the least likely to ever be broken. At any rate, it is quite an impressive feat to hit that many home runs in a career.

Many people have a problem with Barry Bonds holding this record. There exists a fairly common consensus that Barry Bonds has had some "outside" help in achieving this record. I pretty much agree that something is going on. Like Jim Rome likes to point out, grown men do not normally increase in head or shoe size. Barry obviously has.

Should the home run record of Barry Bonds have an asterisk? Should he be dismissed as a chemically enhanced abomination? Nah. The fact of the matter is the "outside" help did not make him connect bat to ball. The "outside" help may have made a few home runs out of fly outs to the warning track. "Outside" help certainly can take credit for the number of canoes in McCovey Cove. The fact is that Barry Bonds was already going to be one of the best hitters of his generation, if not ever. So he is about the width of two Barry Bonds from 1993. He is still a great hitter. As far as whether or not he cheated. Yeah, he cheated, and so did almost everyone else. If he were alone, that would be one thing, but the pitchers pitching against them and the outfielders climbing up the walls to rob home runs also took them.

In the end, none of this really matters anyway. Bonds will probably have the shortest reign as all time home run king of all. A-Rod seems poised to take the title and if not, Pujols seems like his career will soon put him in striking distance.

Exiting the Lawful Allegiance

Well here we are. It has been six weeks of some school and a great deal of enjoyment. I was walking across the gravel here at Downing College a few days ago and realized I was ready to go home. The most recent Bon Jovi song, which has been a hit on the country charts, has a line that goes, 'I'm a hometown boy born a rolling stone." I think I am the opposite. I was born in Cleveland, lived in Starkville, started school in Fredricksburg, Virginia, grew up in Meridian, I went to undergraduate school and worked in Jackson, attended law school in Oxford, and spent six weeks in Cambridge, UK, but I will always be a hometown boy. At one point I described my summer in Washington, D.C. as very nice, but I felt like I needed to go home to recharge my batteries. Well, I am down to 1 bar.

To Nicole's credit, she has wanted to be home for a couple of weeks now. I think that as we think of ourselves as cosmopolitan, the reality is that we are at our best when we are in familiar surroundings in comfortable places. It took longer to warm up to Nicole's wish to return home than I am sure it will be to warm up once we return to Jackson.

Our trip has been one that can only happen once in a lifetime. I believe we have truly made the most of the opportunity we were given. Did we expand our horizions? Most likely. Did we enjoy ourselves? Most definately. But, now the end is near. The trip has to end. If it didn't end, it would merely be life rather than an adventure. In order to truly enjoy it, it must conclude, and so it has. We will be entering a decompression chamber of sorts tomorrow, staying at a Holiday Inn. Then it will be on to Charlotte, N.C. where we will be one time zone away from the home one can only appreciate after being away for so long.

Even though the trip ended, the blog will go on. It will however change from a travelogue to just a log of my thoughts and events that strike me in the world. As a warning, if those reading the travel updates are bereft of a sense of humor or common sense, you probably will want to discontinue reading now.