Thomas Jefferson Quote

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of USA (1743 - 1826) ...

Vote Different the video

It seems I was ahead of the curve in buying votedifferent.org. A viral video with over 1 million views called 'Vote Different' has hit the net. It has nothing to do with me, or my political bloggings other than being political. It does, however, bring up a something I wanted to blog about when I first bought the domain name. Now seems as good a time as ever. ...

Many people relate to voting for someone, or some thing, by choosing the lesser of 2 or more evils. This relationship to voting is probably one of the many reasons so few people actually vote, it isn't a very powerful place to make a choice from. To add fuel to the fire, most political campaigns include advertisements that just talk about the negatives, or perceived negatives, of their opponents.

More often it is even perceived negatives. With the right music, somewhat artsy video work and of course not giving your opponent a chance to rebut the claim almost anything can sound like a negative.

It isn't the fault of the campaigners though. They are only doing what works. But why does it work? It works because, as humans, we like stuff to be easy. In order to make politics easy we usually make decisions early on and don't change our minds. In order to make things easy we don't look at political ads ( both positive and negative ) and ask questions. Who paid for this ad? How credible are they? Are the statements in the advertisement true? If so, is it really as bad or good as they make it seem? Does it go along with my personal beliefs? Does it affect my personal beliefs? Have I been wrong all along? Quite simply, in order to make things easy we remain unconscious to just about everything in our lives. A famous female astronomer, Maria Mitchell, said "Question everything." While she was talking about science, it applies everywhere.

Obviously, questioning everything can get overwhelming. That's why we don't. It would benefit us to consciously choose what to be conscious of. Choose things that affect your life, and thus the lives of people around you. Politics affect us all. Politics in other countries our lives in ours.

Instead of choosing the lesser of two evils, we could relate to voting as choosing the best option on a ballot. It's a positive, and requires us to look at who would be the best as apposed to who wouldn't be the worst. Not quite a double negative because it still isn't positive. From my last experience voting, I found that looking for the best candidates in every case and then selecting them at the ballot box was very empowering. I felt like I made a difference. Especially when I see some of them are in office now.

So go ahead, watch these political ads. Ask questions of yourself and of people around you. By being in a true conversation, which requires listening as well as talking, about the things that affect our lives, we can make a positive difference in our lives. Some things we never thought beneficial can benefit us. Things we never thought possible can occur. Whatever you do just pay attention.

Language Lessons

In the movie 'Better Off Dead', the thing that got Lane Meyer( John Cusack ) down the K12, ahead of the ski captain and away from the paperboy all while on one ski, was language lessons. And while Monique's( Diane Franklin ) brand of language lessons are probably worth writing about, that is not what this post is about. Instead, this post is a follow up to my post a few weeks ago called the Power of Language. ...

In my previous post I wrote about how it would be good for us to become multilingual. Being multilingual has many benefits and the only thing stopping many people ( other than lack of desire ) is a knowledge of how to start learning. So I decided to put together a list of ways I have found to study French( what I am currently learning ) and talk about how you can go about finding information on whatever interest you.

1. Library - I am a big proponent of everyone having a library card. A ton of free reference, as well as other, reading material all indexed and catalog much better than the internet. If your library has one, check out the media section. You'll probably be able to find learn by cd or cassette tape versions of the language you are interested in. This is great for long drives. I did this when I had weekly trips between Wilmington and Louisville ( 12 hours each direction ).
2. Podcasts - You don't need to have an IPod to listen to a podcast. Any MP3 player will do. Just google up the language you want to learn and podcast and you should be good to go. I googled up 'French Podcast' and I came across frenchpodclass.com. It is more than just someone teaching french. Each week Sebastien puts together a lesson plan based on a bi-weekly topic. Along with that he intersperses french music, movies and television so that you can learn the language from real uses of it. There are plenty of these out there for many languages so you can try a few and find one you like. By the way, if you do have an IPod and use ITunes, it is really easy to find these. All you have to do is, from the store select Podcasts. Then in Categories select Education. They should be in some of the top ones on that list but you can then select Language Courses under more education. Then it is very easy to sync your IPod as a podcast you subscribe to is updated.
3. Learner.org - This is actually a resource for educators but as a parent and/or student you can use this as well. On this site I have found video on demand for programs that teach french, spanish and german. There is quite a lot of other stuff that you may find yourself interested in watching as well. Especially if you are as much of a nerd as me. For learning french I find an episode of 'French In Action' is very nice( of course Valerie Allain as Mireille makes it pretty easy to watch ).
4. Foreign Service Institute - This is something very interesting I found online. The foreign service institute is trains people who go into foreign service. Since the language courses are created by the US government, they are in the public domain. With this knowledge, a group of people have put together a website trying to get as many different language programs available to people as they can. The website is www.fsi-language-courses.com and they have lots of different language options to learn. Not all languages have all the modules, but this is how the professionals learn so even partial programs are worth your time.
5. DVDs - This isn't a huge deal but many DVDs have language tracks that you can listen to and/or subtitles in different languages. Some educational DVDs our kids have actually have slightly different content based on language chosen. So pop in your DVD and change the language options. It's time to watch Harry Potter in spanish with french subtitles!

I hope the these options give you some ideas on how to proceed in your language lessons. Unfortunately, none of them point to language lessons in the language of love that Monique and Lane get to experience in Better Off Dead. Oh well, there's plenty of research you can do on that. Enjoy.

Watching Firefly

Yesterday I posted a review on the Firefly Soundtrack. At the end I recommended watching the show ( buying the DVD is my real recommendation ) if you haven't already. If you aren't willing to buy an inexpensive and incredibly popular box set off of my recommendations then here is a way you can test it out. Through amazon's video download service you can download 1 or all of the shows to your computer, TiVo or personal video player.

Here is the link to Firefly on Amazon's Unbox ...

I highly recommend watching the pilot which is called "Serenity". Many people also fell in love with the show after watching "The Train Job", which was actually the first episode Fox aired I believe. Once you fall in love with the characters you may want to watch my favorite episode, "Out of Gas". However, once you fall in love with the characters you will want to buy the complete box set.

Review: Firefly (Original Television Soundtrack)

Within the past year I was introduced to the television show "Firefly" and the movie that was made after it was cancelled called "Serenity". As this show is well beyond just "brilliant but cancelled" I became a big fan. When this soundtrack came up in my amazon gold box deals I had to check it out. ...

Of course, for a fan the Firefly soundtrack is a must have. One of the many great things about the series was the music. It set such a great mood for this future, yet so present day, 'verse that Joss Whedon created. Today I have been playing the songs in random order at work and they are great background music to work to. It sets a wide assortment of moods, to go along with the ways visuals the music went with, but for the most part it is very soothing. I feel that the music on this album would be great for anybody to have in your library, especially if you are a fan of soundtracks.

For fans of the show it is missing "The Hero of Canton", but after listening to it I feel the song would almost be out of place with the rest of this music. Of course, if you own Firefly: the Complete Series you probably have access to the Easter Egg of Adam Baldwin ( Jayne ) singing the song, with a slight modification.

As I said before, this is good music even if you aren't a fan of Firefly and Serenity. However if you haven't seen them yet do so, you will become a fan as well. It is what television was meant to be.

The experiment is over

After over a month of trying to make Fedora my main operating system, the experiment is over. ...

I don't remember how long ago I set up my dual boot system with the idea that I was going to use linux exclusively. 1 month maybe 2. Today I have chosen to end that 'experiment'. It didn't start out as an experiment but it sure turned into one. Today I attempted to work from home and found it aggravating to do in linux. Being a flash / flex programmer I have found that linux isn't ready to improve my workflow. The big necessity I need to run, Flash 8, doesn't work with WINE. It might work with crossover office but I'm not going to pay more money to run one program. My latest project has me using Flex Builder 2, which is built on the Eclipse framework but does not work on eclipse for linux. From what I hear, this will most likely change in the future. Adobe is getting more linux friendly. Until then, I'm sticking with my PC, it works without any extra tweaking under the hood to get those programs to work.

Since this blog is brought to you by the fine folks at Opera, I also found it annoying that Opera did not work well in my setup. I ended up using firefox, which is a fine browser, but I like the elegance of Opera. So I will be sending all my preferences and mail back over to my windows install ( which is quite easy ).

Finally, I hated having to shutdown Linux and boot into Windows to play EQ2. This is the major shortcoming of linux in general. Even if it were possible, which it isn't Cedega doesn't even have it working, I never got full 3D acceleration out of my ATI card so I wouldn't have been able to play it anyway.

In conclusion I'd like to say that there were definately things I liked about linux. I obviously like the virtual desktops. If all I wanted to do was surf the internet, check email and create documents it would have been very easy and quick to setup. It only took me 35 minutes, including set up of dual boot. I think, if I want a different OS than Windows, it will probably be a mac.

Great Download for Virtual Desktops in Windows

Now that I have begun using Linux at home, almost exclusively, I have begun to like many of the workflow enhancements it has. One of my favorites is virtual desktops. If you use your computer a lot, and find yourself with several applications open at once, they are worth a look. Unfortunately, your options for Windows are often lacking but recently I found one that seems to do the trick. ...

Once again, I have found a download while perusing the articles at LifeHacker.com. The article talked about a very flexible virtual desktop tool called Dexpot.

To give you a rundown of features I have found so far:
- Allows you to have 2 - 20 virtual desktops.
- You can set rules that make programs and/or their windows go directly to certain desktops.
- If you want a window open on all desktops you can do that. This can be applied to a rule for a program as well( good for Rocketdock )
- Lots of keyboard shortcuts and easy editability of the shortcuts to make it work the way you want it too. I believe it also has some mouse gesture ability, but I haven't checked that part out, since I don't want to get in the way of Opera's mouse gestures.
- OSX expose like ability to show all windows ( or all windows associated with the current active program ) in the current desktop.
- task switcher that can switch through tasks between virtual desktops.
- I haven't checked it out but I believe each desktop can have its own screen resolutions, icons, screensaver, backgrounds and more.

I have had some issues, but those are mostly because of a dual monitor setup, which sadly it does not fully support( but it supports enough ). Those issues are minor enough that I just work around them now that I know about them. There are also a bunch of ways to tweak things so maybe it is user error( it probably is ). It seems to work quite well though, and has made working with several programs much easier to manager.

Check it out for yourself:
Dexpot Website
Download Here

The power of language

Recently I received an email that started with the sentence, "I don't want to be part of the problem so I am passing this on." The 'problem' it was referring to was the spanish language in the United States of America and how its use was on the rise. A specific point it brought up was 'the Pledge of Allegiance'[ to the USA and its flag ] was said in spanish after a bilingual student had finished saying it in english. At the end of a diatribe about how it was never translated into polish, german or any other language of other immigrants( I'd like some indisputable proof on that one ), it ended with the trite, short sighted expression 'if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem - so pass this on'. Today's article is about why I chose to, in the eyes of the original email sender, be part of the problem and how I feel we are missing an opportunity. ...

"This is America, we speak english here!" Well actually, many languages are spoken in America, or rather the Americas( North and South ). You can of course change the America to United States of America but statements like the former show a certain lack of vision. By holding on to who we know ourselves to be so much that we don't let others grow, we do everyone a disservice. I will explain a couple ways this is done below.

First, someone said the Pledge of Allegiance in spanish( after saying it in english ). Let's go over the Pledge, part by part"

"I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands." Those words, said in any language, convey a very powerful message. Someone is pledging loyalty and devotion to the Republic and flag of the USA. The aren't promising to speak english.

"One Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." This part describes, in my mind, the reason someone would pledge allegiance to the USA. It is one nation that can not be divided, but not because there is a totalitarian dictator holding it together through martial law. The USA also offers freedom from control and fairness for everyone( there is no exemption in the sentence ).

As a proud citizen of the United States of America, I think this pledge should be said and honored in as many languages as possible. When someone says this pledge in their native tongue, it means quite a bit more than saying it in their second( or third, etc ) language.

Does this mean I think they shouldn't learn english? No, I just think it would be good if we learned spanish or, more to the point, became a multilingual culture. There are precendents set for this. Our neighbors to the north, in Canada, are multi-lingual. The have english and french all over the place, especially in Quebec. When I visited Europe I noticed that many of the people I came in contact with spoke many languages. Usually at least 3 but often times more. But why compare our country to others in ways we come up short( from one point of view )? A good reason to create a multilingual culture is the effect on our ability to think.
Research has shown some interesting things about thinking in more than one language. Different languages reflect another view on something, usually based on a languages history and culture. Research has also shown that foreign language education in elementary school does not hinder a childs ability to learn other important lessons. So if it is good for our minds and doesn't hinder other learning let's do it. I'm working on learning languages myself and will pass on some resources in future postings. So, while I am not part of the solution the email writer was referring to I choose to be part of a solution that helps us all grow into the future.

The Object.watch method

The Object.watch, an often overlooked method, is quite powerful and well worth educating yourself on. If you have ever wanted to know every time a value changes and take actions accordingly, this is the function for you. The Object.watch method allows you to take a programmer defined action every time a property is set. In fact, your action actually takes place in the limbo time between a property being assigned by a user and when it is initialized to that value. What does that mean, let's take a look. ...

First off the Object.watch method is called like this:

Object.watch( property:String, handler:Function[, userData:Object] ):Boolean

The first parameter, 'property', is the property of the Object you want watched. So if your Object has a property called color then your property would be "color" ( make sure it is a String ).
The second parameter, 'handler' is a Function object. The handler Function is the function that takes action when a property gets assigned a value.
The third argument, 'userData', is just an optional piece of data you can pass into the handler function. You only get one, so if you want to pass in more than one piece of data you will have to package them up in an array or an Object.

Now let's take a look at some sample code:

// aButton is a Button component placed on the stage.var aButton:Button;
var obj:Object = new Object();
obj.color = "blue";
obj.watch( "color", watcher, this );
function watcher( prop, oldValue, newValue, userData )
{
  trace( prop + " changed from " + oldValue + " to " + newValue );
  trace( "userData = " + userData );
  trace( "obj.color( in watcher ) = " + obj.color );
  return newValue;
  //return oldValue;
  //return;
}

aButton.onRelease = function( )
{
  this._parent.obj.color = "red";
  trace( "obj.color( after assignment ) = " + this._parent.obj.color );
}

This allows you to see it in action. You could of course get 'obj.color' to be assigned many different ways, but this will do for our purposes. What I want you to look at here is the function 'watcher'. Whatever function you create must follow this same definition. All 'watcher' functions should have a the arguments, 'prop(erty)', 'oldValue' and 'newValue' - and in that order. The fourth argument is the optional userData you may have passed in.

What you really get to see in the previous example is what the current value of the property being watched ( obj.color ) is during the function. You also get to see how changing the return value of your handler function affects the properties value after the assignment occurs. You can keep a property from ever being changed by having a simple handler/watcher function that just returns the old value.

Now, how would you use this? The first thing that may come to mind is to watch changes in the properties of MovieClips( _x, _y, _width, _height, etc. ). That is probably the most useful way to use the Object.watch method, however, those properties are actually cleverly disguised getter/setter functions. Getter/setter properties can not be watched with Object.watch(). Don't throw the idea away though. You can use a proxy object to pass the information to the real MovieClip.

For example:

var mc:MovieClip; // some MovieClip you would like to watch.
var proxy:Object = new Object();
proxy._x = 0;
proxy._y = 0;
proxy._width = 100;
proxy._height = 100;
for( var x:String in proxy )
{
  proxy.watch( x, watcher, mc );
}

function watcher( prop:String, oldVal, newVal, clip:MovieClip )
{
  clip[prop] = newVal;
  trace( prop + " changed from " + oldVal + " to " + newVal + " on proxy and mc" );
  return newVal
}

Use this code as the basic idea behind using a proxy to use Object.watch with MovieClip properties. Just assign the value to the proxy instead of directly to the MovieClip and you can used that value as it is being changed in the MovieClip instance. If you actually need a true MovieClip proxy you can just extend the MovieClip class. A basic MovieClipProxy class is available over at senocular.com. In it's current form it doesn't do anything except get the values to and from the original when you use the proxy. You might also want to change the way the constructor works to suit your needs.

On a final note, the yang to the ying that is the Object.watch method is the Object.unwatch method. Once you no longer want to watch a property you can stop by calling Object.unwatch( property:String ).

OsX type dock for Windows

Over at my new favorite news feed site, Lifehacker, I found a download of the day article that is a must download. The download is called RocketDock and it is very similar to the Macintosh OsX dock. I have only worked with it for a day but I love it. It has quite a few options to make it look just right and yet it is still easy to use. Plus, they are building a community of people who develop skins and icons to use with it. Now if I could just find something that works like this for my new linux setup at home.