Month: February 2007

Burger King counter help

Today I was reminded of a story that happened a few years back when my wife and I were in language school to learn Spanish.

Often you will find while living in a foreign country that some people just don’t try to understand you. I have seen it in the US as well. People who have an accent often get ignored, or the listener does not even try to make out what the person is saying.

One day while we were in Cuernavaca, Mexico learning Spanish we went to Burger King for lunch. I stepped up to the counter and wanted 2 Whopper Jr. combos for the wife and me. Our boy would just have a bag of our fries. Good healthy meal.

I ordered “Dos de combo número cuatro. Sin cebolla.” (Two number four combos. Without onion.) My Spanish is not perfect, but I do pride myself on having pretty good pronunciation. Based on many of the people I work with, having better pronunciation than them is not too hard.

The girl behind the counter responded with. “No hablo inglés.” To which I just repeated my order in the best Spanish I could. She said again that she did not speak English and asked me to please speak Spanish with her. I told her that I was speaking Spanish and I repeated my order. She said again that she did not speak English.

At this point we were causing a scene. The lady behind me stepped up and repeated my order using exactly the same words I had used. The girl behind the counter thanked her for helping me and took my order through the lady behind me. I was a little embarrassed thinking that my pronunciation must not be as good as I thought.

After I paid and stepped down to the end of the counter I heard the lady behind me giving the counter girl “what for” because she refused to open her ears and listen. All she saw was that there was someone who was not a native Spanish speaker standing in front of her and she did not speak English. She never even tried to listen to what I was actually saying.

The lady then came down to where I was and apologized for the closed mindedness of some people. I don’t think that lady spoke any English either, but she said my Spanish was just fine and understandable. Being the foreigner, I did not want to make an issue of it. But this lady did not mind standing up for me.

So, next time you have trouble understanding someone who does not speak English just like you do, give them a bit of a break and be thankful that they are at least trying to learn to speak your language.

Review: Slouching Towards Gomorrah

I had to read several books for a class I took recently. I wanted to give you a quick review of some of them.

This first book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah was the main book in the class. The class, by the way, was History and Philosophy of Education from a Christian Perspective. The book was used as a launch point for our main paper. It is written by Robert H. Bork. Those a bit older than me remember him for the hotly contested Senate debate as to whether he should become a Supreme Court Justice under appointment by President Reagan (I don’t remember this at all, but all my older friends do).

Slouching Towards GomorrahThe book starts out necessarily slow and difficult. I say necessarily because you really have to have an understanding of terms like “Modern Liberalism” to follow what he is driving at in the book. If you could somehow skip the first section of the book and get into the meat of it, the book would be much easier to read. In fact, once I did finish that section, I really did have problems putting the book down. It took me several months to trudge through that first section (I was not too persistent) which covers about 120 pages. The next 250 pages I read in 4 days.

At that point (part 2) you move into the examples of how modern liberalism plays out in today’s society. There are many interesting examples and case studies that he walks the reader through. It is definitely worth making it through the first section to arrive at parts 2 and 3.

His basic premise is found on page 5 and says: “The defining characteristics of modern liberalism are radical egalitarianism (the equality of outcomes rather than of opportunities) and radical individualism (the drastic reduction of limits to personal gratification).”

Though “equality” and “individualism” seem to be opposite terms to describe a philosophy, he goes on to explain that equality is sought in areas of competition and merit whereas individualism is used in the pursuit of pleasure and arts where there is no competition. Equality is sought in schools and in the work force. As a radical liberal you cannot allow for one person to excel over another. This is where Affirmative Action, Outcome Based Education and Political Correctness have their basis. Individualism comes into areas of euthanasia and abortion.

The ideals that the US is built upon (i.e.: ability to work hard and get ahead as well as the right to own your own property) are negated with radical egalitarianism. We all must be the same. If someone is smarter, or stronger, or prettier, he should be held back so those who cannot excel in those areas have an equal outcome. This is not about equal opportunity. Opportunity should be equal for everyone. But the outcome should be based on the individual. You cannot expect a person with an I.Q. of 50 to compete in business like a person with an I.Q. of 125. They should both be allowed to try, but the outcome should be based on their abilities. But, not in the mind of someone who fights for radical egalitarianism.

Radical individualism brings about chaos. When everyone is allowed to live as an individual without being subject to order and reason, you end up with chaos. This individuality, of course, cannot overstep the bounds of other people’s equality.

I did not like the way the author made certain assumptions about the reader. It was like the book was written for the 55+ crowd. I did not grow up in the 50s and 60s. I don’t know who the Black Panthers are. And, it was never explained in the book. There are several references to groups and movements from the 50s to 70s that were totally lost on me. A few lines to explain groups like the Black Panthers would have gone a long way to helping younger readers. I am 37, so no spring chicken, but there were many references that I just did not understand in the book.

All in all, it was a good read. I have heard about the book for several years and was glad to be forced to finally read it. I may have eventually gotten around to reading it anyway, but this was as good a time as any. Plus, I get college credit for it this way.

Published in 1996. The edition I read was updated in 2003. Harper Collins. 418 pages. You can click on the picture of the book to be taken to Amazon.com’s website about the book.

Steve Jobs’ thoughts on DRM

I have not shared my thoughts on DRM (Digital Rights Management) here, but suffice it to say, I think it is not a very effective way to accomplish the goal. If you don’t know what DRM is, basically it is the reason you cannot play music that you buy from the iTunes Music Store on an MP3 player that is not an iPod. Or the reason you cannot play music that you buy at (almost) any other online music store on an iPod.

Today Apple published an article by Steve Jobs telling what he thinks needs to be done with the DRM system. If you take time to read the article, realize that this is all very self-serving to Apple. This is not proposed by him because he loves you and me, it is so that we will love Apple more. But more importantly, so that all the countries that are suing Apple for limiting their DRM technology to iPods and iTunes will back off. That said though, this is very good for us as consumers as well. So, yes, he is proposing this for the purpose of not loosing billions of dollars in law suits and potentially having to lock out certain countries from using iTunes, but the side benefit, if it flies, is that you will be able to play your iTunes purchased music on many other devices.

I have owned an iPod for nearly 2 years. I have bought 2 songs off of iTunes and will probably purchase about that many over the next 2 years if things stay the same as they are now. Those 2 songs I bought will never be able to legally play on my Linux machine (which is my primary computer). I also cannot play them on my iRiver MP3 player. But if things change to a model where Apple drops DRM completely (which, by the way, Jobs said he would do in a heart beat, but is limited by the recording industry, this is not his choice), I would consider buying many more songs through the iTunes Music Store, or other on-line music stores.

As it is, I am limiting my purchases from on-line stores to Magnatune. They have a lot of music that I like, but not a lot of music I don’t like. So if your musical tastes are not what mine are, you may not find much there. Magnatune allows you to purchase music for a price you specify (as little as $5 per CD), then share that download with your friends for no extra cost. They actually encourage you to do so. They understand that you are more likely to purchase music if you get a chance to hear it first. They are their own recording label (of sorts), therefore do not have all the big names. But what they do have is top notch. It is not a bunch of independent artists who cannot get signed with anyone else because they stink. They really have good stuff.

Anyway, back to the point of the post. Check out the article. I got the tip off about this article from Podcasting News where they give a good summary of the article if you would rather read a short breakdown of it. I actually have not read the whole Jobs’ article since I got so excited about it that I had to post this. But as soon as I upload this I will digest the article.

Update:
I have read the article now. Wow! While there will be detractors from this idea that Jobs has, I think it holds some validity. He posits (a little incorrectly) that only 10% of the world’s music is sold with DRM and that 90% is distributed DRM free, and furthermore is easily pirateable; therefore, keeping DRM in on-line music store purchases is not necessary. Where he is a little wrong is that the 10% number comes from just music sold through iTunes. But, at most, legal on-line purchases certainly make up less than 25% of the total music purchased.

Very good article. I hope this gets picked up and starts some wheels turning. It really is worth the read if you remotely care. (Mom, that does not include you. You can skip this one.)

Running and commercials: revisited

I got a total of 5.2 miles in this morning. And I found the Super Bowl commercials. I did not scroll down far enough at YouTube.

My brother commented that the commercials were not that great, but the 2 I have watched so far were pretty good. I guess the difference is that I have not seen US TV commercials in 2 1/2 years and he has. Ah, to each his own.

Running and commercials

I did not find any commercials to view yet from the Super Bowl, but I am sure they are waiting for me to discover them.

I have not reported on my running much recently. I have a short run planned for tomorrow. Probably will run 3-5 miles. I have not yet decided. Since I am not really training for anything, I am just running 3-5 days a week whatever distance I feel like.

I looked on my running log today and saw that I have run 32 miles this year and have 313 miles on my shoes. I wished I could get shoes in my size here. I would just buy shoes on the Internet, but since I am new to this, I don’t have a shoe that I am confident with. My current shoes are ok, but not as comfy as my last ones. I want to try shoes on before buying. Which means, I may have to wait until this summer. They stop a half size too small for being big “enough,” but I would like them to be a half size larger than that. I may buy new shoes in the same model I have now just because I know they wont kill me. Though I have never really liked these shoes.