I’ve read more comics in the last year than at any point in my life after the third grade.  One title I haven’t dipped back into is the Archie series – I was imagining that nothing had really changed.  I was wrong. today I read that we’ll soon have “”Archie Marries Veronica Part 1:  The Proposal” in the comic book store. I keep waiting for someone to explain that the Archie series has finally decided to experiment with several alternate universes the way the super hero comics have.

Veronica or Betty, Ginger or Mary Ann, Betty or Wilma. Your choice and your willingness to defend it tell me more about you than the average Facebook profile.

Why do you want to know where I am?

While I was reading an article on developing expertise, I ran into a clip of football stunts on facebook that makes the point visually. I like the sheetrock and the bell tower bits best.

So what is it you love enough to spend the time to get that good at? You should watch me edit a file when I am in the zone, it will knock your socks off.

Even though the state of the art augmented reality is still pertty crude. I think it’s the most exciting part of what computing might offer in the future. Having a smart phone and ubiquitous internet access already has changed my notion of knowing facts as I can look them up at any time. I don’t have to organize or horde them if I can search for them at a moments notice. Of course, this bring up the debate of whether or not Google is making us smarter or dumber – little of both I’m sure.

Check out the video below for another look.

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

I really enjoy the nomination hearings for Supreme Court nominees. Unlike lower federal judges at least the Supreme court nominee is gauranteed a hearing and most likely a vote.
The one thing that has struck me the last few go rounds is how the whole process is really geared towards candidates who are able to say as little as possible. If hearings are for the purpose of cross examination or fact finding, shouldn’t the process reward candidates who are forthcoming? No, I’m sorry it doesn’t work that way in the Senate. This isn’t unique to the Senate, it is rampant feature of almost any large group of humans.

One thing I appreciate about the current candidate, Sonia Sotomayor is her resume. She has 17 years of experience on the Federal bench. Lately, it seems like President’s favor candidates with a very short public record as to avoid controversy. So normally you pick candidates with no track record and the hearing that rewards the candidate who says the least. In fact Justice Scalia even declined to answer a question on “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison” in his Senate hearing in case the issue came up again and he had to rule on it.

So what is the point; what do the hearings accomplish? I think they are mainly theater – Senators primping in front of the camera hoping that their constituency will remember their speech in the guise of a question. No surprise really, lawyers are taught to only ask question for which they already have the answer.

So what’s my fascination with this giant waste of time? I think it’s because deep down I really believe that our constitution matters a great deal and this is one of the rare occasions when people actually publicly debate the interesting issues. We’ll forget soon enough when the next celebrities bites the dust, but it’s great to see the interest every few years.

Lake Vermilion has an annual loon count run by volunteers. Since loons seem to be everywhere on the lake it’s kind of interesting to see a table that actually shows the real count. I’ll have to try and volunteer for this count next year.

I’ve had a few conversations in the last week or two about the latest Senator from Minnesota,  Al Franken.

People outside of Minnesota can’t really figure the whole thing out. We seem like these relatively stolid people, but we do occasionally elect some really odd ducks or perhaps I should say loons.

One of the best online explanations was the recent David Carr  NYT article, “Al Franken and the Odd Politics of Minnesota“. The only thing he missed was emphasizing how Franken has been re-casting himself as a pundit instead of a comedian for years. While the radio show might not have taken the nation by storm it cast him solidly in a different genre than Saturday Night Live cast member/comedian. The same thing is true for Jesse Ventura – who at least finished his term in office. We thought of him as a radio pundit – not a pro wrestler.

I’m a little disappointed to hear that Franken isn’t planning to be funny in the Senate. I think a little humor might be good for the place. Amy Klobuchar has done a surprisingly job being funny in the last eight months – I suppose she can keep pulling more than her fair share if required.