The other day I went into my local bank to close my account. I had deeply mixed feelings about this because I like to support local businesses and I'd had an account with them since my 18th birthday. There is, however, no Santa Barbara Bank & Trust in upstate New York.
I had built-up in my mind the idea that I would go into the bank and be instantly pleaded with by the bank manager like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life.
"...Now, listen to me, I beg of you not to do this thing. If Potter gets a hold of this building and loan, there will never be another decent house built in this town…"
Instead, the very professional teller asked me to pay my last overdraft fee, in cash, then asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I was tempted to ask her to show just a pang of dismay.
My phone recently received the upgrade to Froyo (Android 2.2) and as with many of the included apps, the Voice Search received a much needed upgrade. For example, I can now say "Send text to... John Smith... Hey can we change our meeting time to eleven [question mark] I'm running late [period]." The phone then asks me to confirm and then the text message is sent. The cool thing is that the voice recognition is good enough to understand most queries even if spoken in a casual tone (though I can do a pretty good robot impression to get it to understand the more obscure words).
This has me thinking of the possibilities of voice recognition software and, specifically, of the characters on Star Trek who could spontaneously say "Computer, what is our current trajectory?" or "Computer, how many dialects are there of Klingon and Romulan languages, respectively?" The computer would then respond quickly and accurately with an answer, in a crowded and noisy environment. This always seemed like, well, science fiction to me. But with recent phones like the Droid X and iPhone 4, I had an idea of how such technology could be possible.
The newest phones have 2-3 extra microphones just for noise-canceling purposes. Imagine if you had a dozen microphones in each room of a house ambiently listening, then you spoke a nonsense name which activates the query process. The computer then subtracts out the background noise, thanks to the other microphones, and performs the task or answers the question. If all the electronics in the house are connected through the voice recognition computer, then one could say such things as:
"[random name], turn on TV to channel 34 (or even just 'ESPN')." or "[random name], play music by Frank Sinatra." or "[random name], lower blinds in the living room." or "[random name], lock the front door." or "[random name], what is today's local weather?"
I have enjoyed my fair share of both fast-food and authentic Mexican food. Enjoying each for what they are. When Taco Bell announced their line of Cantina Tacos, I quickly cringed, then laughed heartily to myself. Taco Bell was going to try to make actual Mexican food? How bizarre! Instead of mass-produced taco shell, filled with "seasoned" ground beef, cheese, and shredded iceberg lettuce, these more traditional tacos would consist of ~80% meat, with some onion and cilantro in two plain-old soft corn tortillas.
So today I finally went and ordered their Cantina Taco Combo. I had one of each offered meat and then I ordered a normal crunchy taco for comparison. Clearly, someone at Taco Bell's development team has eaten real Mexican food, and someone else is in charge of securing cheep meat. These two people are probably bitter office rivals and don't send each other Christmas cards. The carnitas taco was great. I will probably order at least one of these from now on. The steak and chicken tacos, however, were rather disappointing. As I mentioned earlier, these tacos are mostly meat and if, as was the case, the meat sucks then so does the taco.
After cleansing my pallet with a crunchy taco, I came to the conclusion that I like this line of thought and these really were a good attempt at authentic Mexican food. However, when I return to Taco Bell I will probably order more fake-Mexican food than otherwise, and if I want the latter I'll go to a real Mexican restaurant.
The overturning of California's Prop. 8 by Judge Walker of the Federal District Court in San Francisco was national news today. This is by no means a final decision on the matter, but it is a big deal because it sets up an almost certain Supreme Court case (after an irrelevant stint in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals). Because Judge Walker used the US Constitution as the basis for his ruling, rather than the state constitution of California, if the Supreme Court takes up the case, their ruling will apply to every state. There are hurdles for both sides when it gets there but that's for another post.
I do not understand the argument or really the motivation of the intelligent, informed people who are against same-sex marriage. Marriage is a word. Some say it is a right. However, if it is a right then it is a very different sort of right than say the right to free speech or due process. Whereas the latter two are protected by the Constitution because they are freedoms that should not be impinged, marriage is just a legal action that two people take to change their status from two entities to one in the eyes of the government. The institution of marriage exists as a convenience to those pairs of people (historically a man and a woman) who chose to spend their lives together.
A major part of the defense's case for Prop. 8 was trying to establish as fact that heterosexual marriage is a inalienable aspect of human culture, that was created as a result of the human need to procreate. Saying that procreation is the source of our marital traditions is a perfectly sound but completely invalid point. A tribe of humans that has a familial structure generally works better than one where everyone sleeps around and no one takes responsibility of the resulting children. There are 1-2 commandment(s) on the subject for a reason. However, when John and Jane, the sweet octogenarian couple who grew attached after the deaths of their spouses, decide to move-in together, I'd like to hear you tell them they can't get married unless they intend to have children. I'll even go a step further: in a world pressed for space and resources, do we care if fewer children are born and more are adopted?
Relatedly, another very weak point in the defense of Prop. 8 was that having gay or lesbian parents would be detrimental to children. Same-sex parents have been shown in several studies to be just as good or slightly better at producing successful and well-adjusted kids.
Essentially, it seems that the opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to take away an institution they enjoy from those people who they believe are living a morally reprehensible lifestyle. Do most Christians think that a practicing Hindu will not go to heaven? Yes (That's Commandment #1, after all). Does that mean that because a majority of Americans disapprove of that lifestyle, they shouldn't be allowed to own a home? No, of course not. That is exactly opposite of how this country was designed to work.
Working at a movie theatre has, amidst the endless reminders of the shortcomings of our species, revealed some unforeseen pleasures to be had from the watching of humans en masse. One of my favorites is watching in anticipation as several hundred people work-out the punchline of a joke. The quickest and loudest people give courage to the more mild-mannered folks who in turn allow the timid ones to audibly chuckle. All this noise and positive energy feeds back into the crowd and, as they catch their breath and wipe away the blissful tears, the room is filled with an almost tangible sense of camaraderie and well... humanity. I love it.
Very similarly, at the end of Inception, as Mr. Cobb spins his totem (the little metal top) and walks away to his kids, the crowd gets a good 30 seconds to figure out what it would mean if the top doesn't fall. As they think back 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, or even an hour into the movie they can see that the closure which for nearly three hours they worked so hard for, has just slipped through their fingers. The very audible sigh of annoyance uttered by the sold-out crowd is priceless.
What do I think the ending means? Well let me start with what I don't think happened:
1. The totem was wobbling and was going to fall, they just didn't show it.
Fail. Even if it did fall after the cut to black, the filmmakers choice not to show it means they at the very least wanted you to think about what it would mean if it didn't fall. Also, the last ten minutes of the movie following Cobb "waking up" on the plane are filmed like a dream (i.e. abrupt cuts, the dreamer is suddenly at locations with no time between, the scene at his house seems like a reconstructed memory with the same angles/lighting).
2. The whole thing was a dream.
Possible but unlikely. The totem falls several times in the beginning of the movie thus proving reality. Unless the totem concept is entirely in Cobb's mind, which is kind of a cop-out. Also, there would have been projections trying to kill them any time they were in public. "What about the men from the company that hired them for the opening job? They could be the projections!" you say. Like I said, possible but improbable. It is kinda cool to think that Mal was right and if Cobb would just die, then he'd wake up to his real life with her.
What I think really happened: when Cobb visits the Yusuf the chemist, he tries out the special sedative/dream mix. We then see a quick montage of dream events and memories before Cobb presumably wakes up. However as Cobb tries to spin the totem in the bathroom, he is startled by Saito, fumbling the totem and stowing it in his pocket. He never reestablishes reality from that point on. This means that the entire caper could be a result of the shared dream Cobb has with the dozen old men in the chemist's basement, the rest of the cast being Cobb's projections.
This is not as depressing as it sounds, however, because Cobb does finally let Mal go and sees the faces of his kids again, meaning he may have found closure or catharsis, as Cobb likes to say.
