Scophi's Personal Website

A response to comments concerning outrage at Kim DotCom's arrest for running a software sharing site full of pirated files. The majority of the comments focus on how his rights were trashed because of the way he was arrested.

I don't understand why this is so hard for everyone to understand.

One, the DoJ gets evidence of illegal actions. They review the evidence and find it to be solid enough to proceed. So they issue an arrest warrant.

Two, an arrest warrant doesn't require a "heads-up" notice to the subject or the subject's attorney. (I don't know where that came from. That's not even how it's done on TV. If a heads up is given in some cases, it's done as a courtesy, not a requirement.)

Three, they go arrest him. Remember, this was the US working *in conjunction with* the New Zealand authorities. The US didn't just rampage through another country and storm a house at will. It was the New Zealand authorities that took him into custody. Sheesh, people!

Four, if he resists arrest or attempts to flee, they have a right to capture him by any means necessary. This is standard practice pretty much everywhere. Even for a traffic violation. That's what an arrest warrant does. Besides, do you think the US would go through the trouble to arrange this with a foreign state department and then just leave because he didn't answer the doorbell? C'mon!

Five, who cares if they brought choppers. That has nothing to do with the legality of the case. Maybe the house was remote. Maybe the terrain was difficult. Maybe they just wanted to make a spectacle of him to dissuade others. Reasons are irrelevant. They could have used 3-wheelers to pick him up. It's not relevant to the case.

Six, (and this is the important part) now that he's arrested, due process will begin. He can have everything go through his lawyer and he will have his day in court. No rights have been superseded. Due process hasn't been thrown aside.

I don't know where everyone is getting their information, but this is all according to the books. Due process is what happens *after* you've been arrested, not *before*. And keep in mind, being arrested simply means you're being held, it doesn't convey guilt or conviction. That's what the process part is for.

My god, folks, has no one ever seen a cop show before?

People pirate because they can. Plain and simple.

It's human nature. The honor system only works in small groups and only when there's a chance of discovery. It doesn't work for society as a whole.

How many people would obey speed limits and stop signs if there were no cops?

As long as music/movies can be ripped and uploaded, there will be piracy.

iPhone owner: “Siri, what’s the meaning of life?”

Siri: “I can’t answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in which nothing happens.”

If soul is the brevity of wit, then I am either soulless or witless

A mob mentality has broken out over this topic and as usual has little basis in reality.

SOPA, PIPA, and even our old friend the DCMA are about stopping the rampant piracy on the internet, not censoring our right to free speech. The important word here is 'free'. Free speech doesn't mean you can take other people's work and have/use it yourself. These bills are about protecting copyright, trademarks, and patents...a central tenet of free enterprise.

If the author of a work (website, news article, song, movie, book, etc) cannot protect his/her ownership, then the author loses potential revenue, which diminishes motivation to create. This in turn saps the open market of true innovation and product variety. Don't kid yourselves. Product creation is still about money.

How many products do you think would make it to the stores if Microsoft, Google, Apple, Sony, and Samsung could not assume a profit? Why would anyone spend the time and money to release something that could be legally stolen as soon as it went out the door?

America is built on ingenuity. But with that ingenuity comes the ability to own your own inventions. You have a right to protect your own creations. Laws protect that ownership. Laws like SOPA.

The goal of SOPA is to allow governments the ability to intervene when a website blatantly steals intellectual property and distributes or pawns it off as it's own. I agree with this 100%. A website that is circumventing the system should be shut down.

Right now, if a website is blatantly stealing intellectual property, there is no way to stop it...other than long drawn out legal battles that rarely amount to anything. The laws currently have no teeth. These bills are an attempt to provide teeth.

SOPA and PIPA are not violations of the First Amendment. What you can say has nothing to do with what you can steal.

**The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, not theft of intellectual property.**

There is no abridgement of rights here. If you want to use a website to say anything you want, you have that freedom. SOPA doesn't touch that. But if you want to hawk other people's wares without permission, then you will be targeted.

Now what does this mean in real world terms?

It means that sites like Wikipedia and The New York Times are not going to be "taken down." They generate their own content. They aren't stealing other author's works (although if they are, they should be taken down). These laws are aimed at the likes of illegal torrents that offer pirated copies of software or mp3's. It is also aimed at sites not headquarted in the US.

There will be levels of disciplinary actions. A site won't just be blacklisted immediately. They will be given notice to comply with the laws (laws, by the way, that everyone else in America has to operate under). If they don't comply with the laws, then punishments will be leveled.

To sum up, the internet has become a wild west frontier that allows people to take what they want without regard for ethics or morality. That needs to stop. We are acting like children who want everything all the time, but we need to grow up. Everything is not free. There are limits. This is America. If you want something, you have to buy it.

Just because you purchased a DVD does not necessarily mean you are allowed to do what you want with it. You purchased a license to access the movie on the DVD, you did not purchase the rights to the movie. If you are given permission to back up a copy to your computer, then fine. If not, you can't just do it anyway. And you certainly can't put it on the web for anyone to download. You don't have the right and SOPA is here to stop that.

So far, Windows 8 marketing has focused solely on bringing together tablets, phones, and desktop machines. Interoperability is the word they want you to remember.

But just because products are interoperable doesn't mean that people will buy them. Apple has had interoperable products for years, but that didn't necessarily boost sales. Sony sells TV's and Blu-ray players that work well together, but that doesn't mean all Sony TV owners buy Sony Blu-ray players.

A product has to have a market demand first. Then it needs to be desirable. Then price comes into play. Then other things such as ease-of-use and availability. Interoperability is not very high on the list. Products that market solely on interoperability are destined to fail.

This is why I believe Windows 8 won't do as well as Microsoft hopes. They are basing the hopes of the product on interoperability, but I'm not sure that's enough.

Win8 may be great for the mobile experience, but not so much for the desktop experience. Meaning that if a desktop is your primary device then sticking with Win7 makes more sense. Win8 isn't offering anything for the desktop user other than an overly-invasive syncing tool.

Windows apps can currently be accessed on tablets and smartphones. Mobile devices sync with PC's just fine right now. Windows 8 doesn't seem to bring any new strengths to the mobile world. Sure it's nice looking (for a tablet OS), but it doesn't allow me to do anything I can't already do. It's not breaking any new ground.

From the fires of Mt. Redmond, Microsoft is trying to forge a single ring...I mean operating system...for all users that will bind together all devices. But when has an all-in-one anything ever worked well?

Interoperability is a benefit for a product, not it's main selling point. And to be honest I'm not sure that's either a benefit or a selling point for a company that currently has 0% of the tablet market and <%5 of the phone market.

There will be no post-PC era. Desktops are not going anywhere. There will always be a market for desktops.

One, the desktop offers an experience that you can't get with mobile devices. I can't sit at a desk, run mulitple monitors, play Blu-ray movies, and develop code for websites all at the same time with a tablet.

Two, not everyone is mobile. Hence, not everyone needs a mobile device.

Three, I don't want to have to sit with my arms outstretched all day at a desktop monitor as if in supplication to the great Microsoft.

Four, most enterprise/corporate computing is still done in a cubicle with a keyboard and mouse. That's not going to change. A mobile device would be a step in the wrong direction.

Five, mobile devices are complementary technologies, not replacement technologies. People who buy tablets are still buying desktops.

It's not about power, it's about the experience and the computing environment. Different enviroments require different devices. Mobile devices aren't appropriate in all settings.

Computer sales are not leveling off because tablet sales are rising. People are buying iPads in addition to Windows PC's, not instead of.

There is little correlation and no causation between PC and tablet sales. Anyone can say that's the reason. But look at what the actual analysts are saying:

Are more consumers ditching the traditional monitor, tower and keyboard combo for the compact simplicity of Apple’s ubiquitous tablet? No, says the NPD Group.

Based on the research firm’s utilitarian 'Apple iPad Owner Study II report,' PC sales were barely affected by the release of the iPad: Just 14% of the tablet’s early adopters said they declined a PC purchase (at the same time) as a result. Moreover, that concurrent figure dipped to 12% over the holidays, says the study.

75% of iPad buyers told the NPD they weren’t even looking for a new PC or notebook anyway.

Furthermore, any data that refers to the US only is describing a closed system (finite number of opportunities). This means that a product cannot grow indefinitely. It will begin to self-limit once saturation has been reached. If no one has a computer, you can sell hundreds of millions of new machines. But if everyone has a computer, you're limited to replacement machines. That's where we are now.

Worldwide sales are breaking even because other countries have not hit saturation levels. There are still billions of opportunities for PC sales.

Desktops are still a dominant and active part of the computing industry. Everyone is focused on tablets because that's where the potential is right now. But they are not going to replace desktops.

I believe there are two other factors at play.

One, people are waiting to see if/how Windows 8 will change the game. Why buy a tablet or a PC now when everything might change in 6 months?

Two, Windows 7 is a really good product that is still very recent. Many people don't have a reason to upgrade to a new machine if what they have works perfectly. I know that hardware is not software, but the two go hand in hand.

I have a two year old HP and Windows7. It works fast and smooth. Even if a new OS on new machines came out right now I would stick with what I have for at least another 2-3 years.

Desktops aren't going anywhere. Tablets are complementary technologies, not replacement technologies. Tablets have better sales right now because they simply haven't saturated their market niche yet

There is a paradigm shift occurring in the tech world which has to do with how consumers are divided.

It used to be that everyone was a consumer. Now we're realizing that there are actually two categories: consumers and creators.

Consumers use computers to access information. They look up movie show times, check Twitter and Facebook statuses, watch movies or TV shows, check stock ratings or weather reports, read the news, keep tabs on sports scores, view bank statements, and so on. There is very little information being created, just consumed.

Creators, on the other hand, use computers to build websites, write reports, create spreadsheets, generate budgets, edit movies and photos, code games, develop apps and programs, maintain tech websites, post blogs, moderate forums, and so on. They are concerned with creating information.

Of course there is some overlap, but the point is this: consumers are comfortable using mobile devices because they don't need larger machines. Creators need larger machines because tablets just aren't enough. Much of it has to do with simple ergonomics.

I would also create a third category for gamers, but since they need large machines, I'll lump them in with creators until I have time to think about this more.

“I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I’m baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.”

On the topic of regularly going to church
Amy Farah Fowler
The Big Bang Theory

After having a Fast and Furious movie weekend, I realized that the movies must have been released out of order. In the third movie, Tokyo Drift, Han dies in a chase scene. But somehow he's back in the fourth and fifth installments.

After searching discussion forums for an answer to how Han survived, I found out that Tokyo Drift actually comes after all other movies. Even the sixth movie, to be released in 2013, will take place before Tokyo Drift. So the correct order to watch them is...

1. Fast and the Furious (1)
2. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2)
3. Fast & Furious (4)
4. Fast Five (5)
5. Fast and the Furious 6 (to be released in 2013)
6. Tokyo Drift (3)

I have no problem with this, but it would have been nice if the producers had let us know somehow instead of just letting us wonder.

I have given more thought to my earlier post on anchor babies (Jun 18 2011), expanded it to include illegal immigration, and have concluded that the legality problem is really just an academic discussion.

The truth is that anchor babies, illegal immigrants, and first/second generation citizens tend to work hard, learn English, go to school, and become productive members of our society. They didn't come here to be lazy. They came here for a chance, one that they definitely take advantage of.

Without citizenship, they can't draw unemployment checks or receive food stamps or live off welfare. With the possible exception of free healthcare, there is very little they have access to. Anchor babies, like most illegal immigrants, are of more benefit to our economy and country than many of the entitlement-expecting Americans that do what little they can to live off the taxes of others.

When you read a story about an ICE raid that rounds up dozens of illegal aliens, ask yourself: Where do the raids always happen? Answer: At work...restaurants, pawn shops, laundromats, gas stations, garages, Walmarts, etc. They are working, which is more than I can say for many legal citizens who have been here their entire lives. The illegals may not be paying taxes, but they're not a drain on our system either.

People say that they come here and take our jobs. Ask yourself again: Why are the jobs sitting available? Did you not want it? Was it beneath your entitlement-expectations?

America offers lots of opportunities. If you are not going to advantage of them, someone else surely will. And I can't blame them for that.

In the August 2010 issue of Scientific American you'll find an article about the biological basis for morality. Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist and psychologist at Emory University, claims that animals such as dogs and chimpanzees, which do not have religion or philosophy, display moral judgement and behavior. Although the studies focus on primitive acts, such as "wild justice" and altruistic behavior, it shows that morality comes before reason.

This led Dr. de Waal to investigate whether morality leaves biological traces in species. He found that moral decisions activate a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is associated with social tendencies and emotion. Another part of of the brain, the anterior cingulate cortex, activates when ethical behavior is prompted. These two areas consistently lit up in primates during the "moral activity" experiments.

So why am I bringing this up? Because it shows that even advanced aspects of humanity may not be divine, but have mundane evolutionary explanations.

In this case, morality is nothing more than an genetic expression of valuing the community over the individual. Dogs find justice when the entire pack has been harmed or threatened, not when only one of them has. Chimpanzees will drown themselves to save others if it is for the greater good, but not otherwise. Mothers from all species will refuse food to save their offspring from starvation so that their genes and the future of the collective will continue on.

Morality is a function of community, not divinity.

This shows us that Spock's words in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan are ever true: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

This also lends support to another post I wrote (May 22 2011) where I stated that religion is not the only source of morality.

The article below fits nicely with my view of religious/spiritual belief...mainly that belief emanates from emotion, desire, intuition, and abstraction. I do not think that the majority of Believers do so out of logic and reason. Otherwise they would be called Thinkers, not Believers. My "intuition" tells me that those who claim to believe out of reason are really just finding academic ways to back up what they already feel to be right.

For many people, believing in God comes down to a gut feeling that a benevolent deity is out there. A study now finds that gut feelings may be very important in determining who goes to church every Sunday and who avoids the pews.

People who are generally more intuitive in the way they think and make decisions are more likely to believe in God than those who ruminate over their choices, the researchers found. The findings suggest that basic differences in thinking style can influence religious belief.

"Some say we believe in God because our intuitions about how and why things happen lead us to see a divine purpose behind ordinary events that don't have obvious human causes," study researcher Amitai Shenhav of Harvard University said in a statement. "This led us to ask whether the strength of an individual's beliefs is influenced by how much they trust their natural intuitions versus stopping to reflect on those first instincts."

The research was published Sept. 19 online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

LiveScience.com
Thurday September 22 2011

Be sure to read this clearly. This does not say that *God* is a gut feeling. It simply states that *belief* in God is often rooted in intuition. I would agree with this.

Everyone knows that rich people have uber-clever personal accountants who are able to keep them from paying taxes through loopholes in the tax codes designed specifically for the rich. Why I'll bet there isn't a single person who makes over $250,000 a year who has ever paid a cent to the government. Right?!

Of course not. The truth is that tax loopholes are almost as much an urban legend as the "backdoors" that computer hackers use to access the DoD mainframes in under 60 seconds. It's Hollywood jargon! That's not how the real world works. Certainly the DoD mainframes can be hacked, just as tax exemptions and credits can lower the amount some people have to pay. But these occurances are very rare and the article snippet below points this out nicely.

On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

Associated Press
September 20, 2011

In other words, 99% of rich people (1) pay more taxes and (2) pay a higher tax percentage than the rest of the country. So how are people complaining about that? The reality is that the lower 40% of the country adds nothing to the Federal revenue and the bottom 10% pay no taxes at all.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

Tax Policy Center, 2011

The only people I see that have a right to complain are the rich. They are the ones funding the military, education, space exploration, healthcare, infrastructure, research, and other government programs. The poor and the working class are getting free rides.

My problem with this article is not whether rich people pay their taxes or not, but that the average Joe keeps complaining about it. What each person, rich or poor, pays in taxes is between that person and the government. It is nobody else's business.

No, the issue is not economic, it is societal. The problem is expectation of entitlement.

People nowadays feel that either (1) the government is there to take care of them, or (2) the government owes them something. The truth is that neither is the purpose of our government. The US Government is in place to provide for the common defense of our country and to provide a framework in which the Constitution and state governments can operate. It is not to take care of people.

It used to be that when people turned 18, they only had a few options...get a job and live on their own, go to school and live at college, or join the military. Now there is another option...stay at home, live with parents, and ask the government to take care of them. The crazy thing is that the government does...through subsidized housing, food stamps, welfare, unemployment checks, free utility programs, free health clinics, loan forgiveness, and so on.

On the surface I have nothing against minimal support programs being used sparingly...very sparingly. But the rules are too lax and people know how to take advantage of the system. Not only are the wrong people often the beneficiaries of programs like these, but there are generally no time limits and no population limits.

We have millions upon millions of people sucking money from the government, causing tax increases that continuously burden the rich...who are now being penalized for going to school, getting jobs, contributing to the economy, and living the American way. It's not right. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor is not a valid system. It's ethically wrong. Robin Hood may have done this in a glamorized children's story, but he was still a thief...hence the name Hood, short for hoodlum. This is not acceptable.

People need to stop looking to the government to take care of them. They need to look to themselves, learn to plan ahead, prepare for the future...and in times of need, seek the support of family and friends, perhaps their community if times are hard. Stop asking the government.

Our Constitution does not guarantee the right to happiness. It only guarantees the right *to the pursuit of* happiness. If your pursuit is not successful, that's not the government's concern.

For the past few months I have been looking through dozens of job listings in an attempt to find something better than I have now. It's not that I hate my current job, merely that it's not what it once was and I feel that it's time to move on.

But I suppose this isn't the best time to give up a secure job. The economy still isn't doing so well and there just isn't that much available right now. Oh sure, there are plenty of entry level listings, but nothing that I would apply for. If I'm going to give up what I currently have, move to another city, and incur hundreds or thousands of dollars in relocation costs, then it better be a move in the right direction.

Which brings up another reason why I haven't found anything so far...I really don't know what I want in my next job. Do I want to stay in librarianship or do I want to move onto something else? I'm not sure. All I know is that I have never been interested in management, so moving up the corporate ladder is not what I'm shooting for. Where do I go from here?

Most people ask "Who moved my cheese?" I'm asking, "Do I even like cheese?" I probably need to take a few months to think about this.

I can say that I am getting a little worried about the future of computing. From what I've read about Windows 8 and the upcoming Mac OS, both will begin to merge desktop and mobile device experiences into one system.

As it stands now, Metro will be the default UI for Windows 8 and it uses tiles, not windows. The WIMP interface (windows, icons, menus, and pointers) that we have used for 20+ years may be going away, to be replaced with MPG (multi-touch, physics, and gestures).

Sure 8 will have some older features for a while during the transition. But it appears that these new features may be forced on us. Check out the newly released video...

Microsoft is gently pushing us (our files) into the cloud via their SkyDrive (which is actually a pretty good service if you're into that kind of thing). Opening a window won't happen as much anymore, if at all. It is a complete break from anything up to now. It is a device OS being pushed onto a desktop environment.

The problem for me, and I'm probably not the only one, is that not everyone uses devices. I don't have a tablet. I don't do anything in the cloud. I don't sync across browsers or spend my life using social media sites. I have no need for a mobile OS.

I use a real computer...a desktop machine with a real keyboard and a hard drive to store programs and files. I'm not on the go, on the move, or out in the field. I have a normal job that requires me to be at my desk and I have a computer in my house that I use for recreation. Why would I want to use a gadget with a small screen and a virtual keyboard?

Mobile devices can't replace desktop machines. I run multiple monitors, a blu-ray drive, and three or four peripherals from my machine so that I can be at my desk and do the things I want to do. I like to use my mouse. I like having a keyboard in my lap. I want the desktop experience. That cannot happen with a mobile device because of the nature of what a device is.

I'm not saying tablets aren't useful. I'm saying that mobile devices are a complementary technology. They work alongside real machines, not in place of them.

I think Microsoft is misreading a trend here. They're focusing in on devices because they are the latest gizmos and they're profitable. But that doesn't mean that everyone is now doing all their computing on them. It would be like developing an OS around Zune or X-Box and making it the dominant platform. It just doesn't make sense.

Microsoft is overestimating the role that mobile devices play in our society. They believe that devices are the successor to desktop computers. They are not. They're accessories to be used when your out on the road, or going to a meeting, or away from the house for a little while. But people still keep main computers in their offices and homes.

If Microsoft wants to make a fancy tablet OS that is interoperable with a desktop OS, that's fine. But don't expect everyone to jump onboard with Windows 8 as it is now. Assuming they stick with this idea/theme, Windows 8 will be the slowest adopted OS they've ever had.

With immigration laws working their way to the forefront of political forums and making headlines with the upcoming election year, I decided to look into one of the main areas of contention for law makers…anchor babies.

Anchor baby is a term for a child born in the United States to immigrant parents, who, as an American citizen, can later facilitate immigration for relatives. (Wikiepdia, 2011) The assumption is that any child born on American soil is automatically a US citizen.

The basis of this phenomenon comes from the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Related acts and legislation used to support the Amendment also exist, but they ultimately appeal back to the Constitution.

On the surface this looks like it supports the anchor baby phenomenon. But look closer at the middle of the sentence. The often overlooked, but very important words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” changes the meaning of Amendment. This phrase is a second criterion for US citizenship. Children must be (1) born in this country, and (2) under US jurisdiction. I believe this is where anchor baby arguments break down.

Children born to immigrant parents must act according to US laws, but they are not subjects of US jurisdiction. They are, from birth, subjects of the parent’s country. This is a very fine point. They must abide by our laws of criminality and protection. But that does not guarantee them advanced entitlements, rights, and privileges of a US citizen. We don’t even grant that to foreign ambassadors or people here on work visas.

A child born to Mexican parents, even when in the US, is a Mexican child, not a US child. Vice versa, an American child born to American parents in Lithuania is still an American child, not a Lithuanian child.

As such, anchor babies do not meet the second criterion of the 14th Amendment, and are therefore not eligible for automatic citizenship.

In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment (prior to adoption) by stating:

[A foreigner in the United States] has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptance of the word.

The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete.

The 14th Amendment was taken in large part from The Civil Rights Act of 1866, which had already granted US citizenship to all persons born in the United States, as long as those persons were not subject to a foreign power. Again we see that citizenship status only applies to those not already covered by another country’s jurisdiction, as is the case with anchor babies.

I believe that this argument could be used in court to invalidate citizenship granted to anchor babies in an effort to bring immigration processes under control.

It's funny how people look at the world sometimes…especially when comparing things that don’t seem initially related. Sometimes the bigger picture puts our perceptions into context.

• People will pay $1500 for a television that they watch only a few hours a day, but won't pay even half that amount to get a decent bed they will sleep in 1/3 of their entire lives. (31 million Americans experience low back pain at any given time, which is most often attributed to posture and sleep comfort. (Amer Chirop Assoc, 2011)).
• People are always told to wash their hands after they use the bathroom, but no one is concerned about washing their hands before. Isn't anyone worried about what they may transfer to their...uhh...private parts? Furthermore, by the time you get to the sink to wash your hands afterwards, you have already spread...everything...all over your clothing, countertop, faucet handles, etc.
• Lawmakers have outlawed marijuana, but not alcohol or tobacco. Alcohol-related deaths in the US numbered just over 23,000 in 2007 (CDC, 2009) and tobacco-related deaths worldwide topped 5 million in 2006 (WHO, 2008). The number of reported marijuana-related deaths in either year: 0.
• Americans complain about the government allocating $250 million to put a much-needed weather satellite into orbit (NASA, 2011), but then spent five times that amount ($1.21 billion) just going to the movies (Box Office Mojo, 2011). And that's just ticket sales. That doesn't include popcorn and sodas, which could probably have paid for the satellite many times over.
• Americans launch out against politicians and government agencies when they talk about information gathering and data mining in the name of counter-terrorism, but have no problem putting every single thought, photo, travel itinerary, and piece of personal information out on the web for everyone to see in the name of social networking. We're supposedly so concerned with privacy and Big-Brother snooping around, yet we have no problem saving all of our electronic documents out in the cloud, instead of on our own personal machines.
• Compared to other modernized countries, America has a diminished educational system (K-12), falling standards of health, lagging life-expectancies, sub-par technological infrastructure, and out-sourcing for most of our marketplace products...yet we become indignant when others talk about the end of American superiority.
• People complain year after year of increasingly hotter summers, colder winters, stronger storms, worsening droughts and floods, and shifting weather patterns...all of which is backed up by meteorological data...yet still debate that climate change is actually happening. (Yes, I am aware that there is a difference between weather and climate.)
• American's often criticize the inefficiency of our government and the red tape of our large bureaucracies, but then condemn other countries for letting new leaders (tyrants and dictators) take office and destroy everything the previous leader worked for.
• Parents refuse to let schools discipline their children and have no interest in doing it themselves, yet wonder why younger generations have no respect, morals, or ethics and complain that this country is 'going to hell.'

Atheism

The belief that there was nothing, and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically arranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. — Makes perfect sense.

Christianity

The belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. — Makes perfect sense.

In the Harry Potter stories, Hermione falls in love with Ron and fans have repeatedly asked...why? Ron is dopey, unsure of himself, and nowhere near being in Hermione's league. Still, she does fall for him...and here's my take on why.

One, Hermione's first emotional encounter with a boy was with Ron. In the first movie, Ron angers her after she tries to help him with his levitation spell. He makes a joke about her in front of other students and she overhears...storming off to cry in the girl's bathroom. Although the she feels horrible, it is her first emotional connection with a boy.

Two, the first person to ever save her was also Ron. In the same bathroom, only a few hours later, Hermione confronts a troll that nearly smashes her to bits in the stalls. Harry and Ron enter and begin to do what they can to help. As Harry becomes captured, Ron pulls out his wand and, listening to Hermione's advice, incapacitates the troll with his own club. In doing so, Ron shows that not only is he capable of being brave when he needs to be, for her, but also that the two of them can work together to surmount any danger.

From that point on, Hermione never looked at another boy.

Everyone who’s anyone has heard Han Solo state this confusing line in Star Wars.

You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?…It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

But everyone who’s anyone also knows that this line doesn’t make sense, astronomically speaking, because a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. So did the writers make a mistake? Or did Han say that in order to measure up Luke and Obi-Wan by gauging their response to a nonsensical statement? Or, as many fanboys want to believe, did he really mean what he said?

Assuming the latter, here is the best explanation I have seen for that statement.

The Kessel Run is a route through space that bandits use to smuggle cargo from the Kessel mines where Imperial starships don’t often guard. The route is 18 parsecs long.

Occasionally, however, Imperial ships will stray that way and smugglers will have to take shortcuts in order to avoid detection, cutting parsecs off the total route. But these shortcuts are dangerous due to astronomical hazards, such as distortion waves or asteroid fields, and many ships can’t handle these shorter paths.

The shortest of these shortcuts skirts the Maw Black Hole, which is ridged with asteroids. Taking this shortcut means that a pilot has to not only dodge asteroids in his ship’s path, but travel fast enough to not get sucked into the gravitational horizon of the black hole.

The closer you get to the black hole, the shorter the route will be…like cutting corners around a turn. But the closer you get, the faster you have to fly to avoid the pull of gravity.

So when Han stated that the Falcon made the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs, he meant that his ship is fast enough to fly close enough to the Maw Black Hole to cut the route down to 12 parsecs while not getting pulled into the gravitational field. No other ship can fly fast enough to take that shortcut.

Well...it works for me. We often hear professionals using jargon that doesn’t make sense to the average person. What Han said probably made complete sense to the others in the bar. Remember, Obi-Wan had just said to Luke: “most of the best freighter pilots can be found here.”

(If this sounds hokey to you, keep in mind that this is Star Wars logic, not Stephen Hawking’s logic.)

Everyone’s heard of the Tooth Fairy, who slips into your bedroom at night while you sleep and magically exchanges your recently pulled teeth with monetary gifts.

(Actually, that’s a fairly strange story we tell our kids. Some stranger breaks into your house at night, hovers over you while you sleep, takes your discarded body parts, and leaves you some money to keep it all hushed up. Aren’t there creepy stories about people waking up in bathtubs full of ice with their kidneys missing?)

Anyway, I think that if there are tooth fairies, then there must also be tooth demons…mischievous spirits that wreak havoc with teeth and gums, keeping dentist offices and toothbrush manufacturers steady at work. I believe this because I recently had a strange experience.

Last Tuesday I was talking to a co-worker and my back rear molar crown just popped out of my mouth while I was talking. Disconcerting to say the least. I suppose if I had dentures, I would be used to my dental appendages coming in and out of my mouth. But I don’t. What’s in my mouth has pretty much always stayed there…until now.

I had a root canal done on that tooth about a two years ago and the crown had been solidly in place since then. No sign of movement, pain, or swelling in that area. Everything was going fine. And then, pop, out it comes…in the middle of a conversation. No food chewing and no punch to side of my face. No reason whatsoever. Out it came.

So I called my dentist and got an appointment the next day. I figured that the glue/cement sealant they had used a few years ago had just given out for some reason and that he would simply pop it back in. But the Tooth Demon had more tricks up its sleeve.

The crown wouldn’t go back on. My dentist tried and tried for about 20 minutes, but the crown would not fit back on my tooth. He said he had never seen anything like it. As if the crown came from some other tooth. So he started filing and trimming the crown to make it go back on, but it never did.

He was at a loss. It wasn’t just that the tooth had shifted, which it had, which is also very odd (to have a tooth shift that much in less than 24 hours), but that the surface of the crown didn’t match the surface of my tooth, which had been perfectly fitted just a few years before. The crown did not have any chips that had altered it’s shape and I don't grind my teeth. Very strange.

Two hours later (after more filing, cord packing (whatever that is), and molding), I went home with a new temporary crown and will go back in a few weeks for my new permanent one. Hopefully this one will last more than a few years.

So beware of the Tooth Demon! He may strike at any time and cause unspeakable oddities to your mouth, too!

I read an article this morning about a college in North Carolina that didn't let one of its students walk at graduation because of a comment he posted on his Facebook account.

A tornado had hit the town a few weeks before and a college assembly was being arranged to discuss how best to handle the damage. The student, in an attempt to make sure his voice was heard, asked for a show of support from his friends. Here's the comment:

Here it go!!!!! Students come correct, be prepared, and have supporting documents to back up your arguments bcuz SAC will come hard!!!! That is all.

Basically, he's getting barred from graduation for telling his friends to "come prepared to debate your point of view." Umm...isn't that what we want people to learn in college?...how to be prepared and how to argue your point of view?

Although the student did have prior actions against him during his time as a student, this comment was not derogatory, threatening, or criminal. He was simply asking for support from friends.

Is it possible that he intended to make a scene? Yes. But you can't punish a person for what you think they might do. This isn't The Minority Report.

This leads to my main point: social media is just that...a social forum...a place to rant and vent and find others to share in your good times and bad...a place to say what you want to the world, even if no one is listening.

Sites like Facebook and Twitter are not political campaign headquarters or company intranets or university bulletin boards. They consist of personal online accounts that are independent of your school, your employer, your church, or any other organization you belong to.

As such, companies (used here to mean schools, employers, etc.) have no legitimate grounds for using people's social statements to discipline them in another arena. It doesn't matter if it's the company's employee, student, or parishioner. A company has no business being in its employees' social lives.

My employer doesn't own me or my time off work. What I do in my spare time is my business. Period!

If I want to speak out against the President of the United States or the president of my employer, I have that right. It's no different than teachers going to a bar on Friday nights and letting loose with a few drinks. People need to vent, socially, and this is what social forums are for. It is a sign of a healthy society.

So how far are we willing to let companies go?

They have started mandating that their employees lose weight and stop smoking in the name of cutting insurance costs. (That right there is a load of crap. Companies don't want to subsidize health insurance, so they take it out on their employees. That's passing the buck. Just because they have to abide by the laws of the land doesn't mean that I have to change my lifestyle to please them.)

But now they can oversee what we write or post on the Internet? Horseshit!

What's next? We can't purchase Coke because they have a contract with Pepsi? Or perhaps vacations can only be taken in states with the appropriate pro-business tax credits.

Business needs to stay in the office. What I do in my own time is none of their...business.

I have always been a late bloomer, socially and culturally speaking. I often find myself replaying events in my mind that happened years ago, only to say...oh, now I see what I missed.

For example, I often don't like music until after years after it goes off the radio. My sense of fashion is at least five years behind. And I was the last person I knew to get a cellphone or send a text. I have yet to understand why Facebook and Twitter are so popular.

The same holds true for Star Wars. People have loved this movie for decades, organizing fan clubs, attending sci-fi conventions, and writing numerous fan fiction novels in honor of Lucas's epic work. It is part of our culture.

But I never got it. I never understood why everyone was so impressed with Mark Hamill or cheesy special effects or a fairly weak story line. Star Trek, on the other hand, offered a much more developed writing style that yielded thought-provoking plots and characters that you could actually identify with. Why did everyone like Star Wars?

I now believe that it's something they all saw that I did not.

A few years ago I purchased the Star Wars DVD box set (Episodes I-VI) and have watched them all many times. At first it was just for the sounds and visual effects (which have been seriously upgraded over the last 30 years). After all, Skywalker Studios is almost unbeatable when it comes to audio-video editing. I mean, honestly, who doesn't love the sound of a light-saber? But I quickly realized that there is a much deeper story than what I initially gleaned.

The first movie back in 1977 took a chance with the American audience. Star Wars was really the first sci-fi movie to make a serious profit in theaters. There was a delicate balance that Lucas had to walk between action, story, and audiences not steeped in sci-fi culture. How far could Lucas go before he lost the audience's interest?

As such, the first movie was shy on plot details and back story, which is why I was never impressed. When the second and third installments came out, Lucas delivered more depth to the characters, but by that time I had lost my appreciation.

Since then, Lucas has become a legend and audiences have become experts in sci-fi lore. If movies like The Matrix and Jurassic Park could boast massive box office numbers, Lucas should have no qualms about how far he could go with Star Wars.

And he didn't. In Episodes I-III, Lucas finally provides the entire story...and something at the core was revealed to me. This movie is not about Luke...not at all. It's about Anakin/Vader. It always has been.

This sits well with me. Not only is Anakin a much more interesting character (compared to Luke, the whiny little farmboy), but Hayden Christensen is a much better actor than Mark Hamill. You can really see the inner turmoil on Hayden's face in Episodes II and III. Hamill never showed a single emotion in IV, V, or VI. I'm sure he tried, but he failed miserably.

We see Anakin go from momma's little boy, to husband and father-to-be, to dark evil overlord, and back to proud papa. What did Luke do during his trilogy? He went from cocky little know-it-all to cocky older know-it-all. Not a great transformation.

In the end, Star Wars is really a tragic love story. Despite all that happens throughout the six movies, it really boils down to this...all Anakin ever wanted was his mother and a girl who loved him. Everything wrong he did, he did for them...out of love. His path to the Dark Side was solely caused by the death of his mother and the fear of losing his wife. His love caused his agony. And in the end, it was his love for his son that turned him back.

I can now truly appreciate Lucas's genius in transforming a Greek tragedy into a modern, action-packed sci-fi film. I can't wait until the Blu-ray box set arrives in September (which I already have on pre-order).

Thanks, George!