When I read the results of a recent poll by Cornell University, I could not believe what I was reading. Yes, 44% of those polled felt that there should be a limit on the "civil liberties of Muslim Americans." WHAT?! I'm sorry, but this is a sad commentary on the state of the people of this nation, if this poll is relatively indicative of the feelings of all Americans. Even worse, the fact that it was "found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims’ civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious." I would describe myself as "highly religious" and do lean towards Republican values more so than Democratic ones on numerous issues, but I do NOT want to be categorized with people that wish to discriminate in such a way.

Discriminating against someone based on the fact that they share race, creed, color, etc. with a group of people who are committing terrorist acts does not really address the root problem. This all begs the question, why are we not doing more to combat the reason the terrorists are trying to kill us in the first place? I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't believe the so-called 'terrorists' are justified in their activities. However, I do see that it may be easy for those people to find fault with our foreign policies and arrogance as a country - I sometimes wonder if we could be a bit more diplomatic in the way we handle things.

Well, I don't even know what to say other than this is unbelievable. So much for equality.

This guy makes me ill. Take responsibility for your actions and the associated punishments. Ditto for Mark Hacking. How in the world do these people think they can weasel out of the consequences for the actions they took by exercising their will? Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

[UPDATE: Added new section for Andrew Bird lyrics.]

As a follow-up to the posting about "bad" music, I thought it an appropriate time to share with my few readers something which I have been intending to share for a while now; Andrew Bird. Rather, the music of Andrew Bird.

Andrew Bird has been playing violin since he was a young lad (four years old). Years ago he appeared on a few Squirrel Nut Zipper songs, most notably the song "The Ghost of Stephen Foster" (audio excerpt courtesy of Amazon.com). Although Bird enjoyed playing with the SNZ, he didn't feel he would be happy staying on as an official member; he went on to form Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire. The music they put out on their first couple of albums ("Thrills" and "Oh! The Gradeur") was pigeonholed by many as belonging to the "swing" genre.

With The Swimming Hour, and more recently Weather Systems, Bird left behind the swing genre and its ilk almost completely, instead producing an album that, as a whole, cannot be easily described (which is why I will not make any certain-to-fail attempts at doing so here). Suffice it to say that Andrew is not only an accomplished violin player, but an awesome lyricist and performer as well, spending much of the last 2 years touring alone and utilizing some simple looping devices to essentially function as a one-man band. You must see this to believe and appreciate it, and thankfully, you can see such a performance courtesy of the WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour (this video (156MB!!!) at 23:05, 27:30 (the best place to start), 46:10, and and encore at 1:08:10 (this is my fave part of the performance, simply amazing) - I would download the entire thing before watching so you can cue up those times rather than wait through the entire streaming video (and have to watch The Crash Test Dummies)).

Simply put, I have not been this excited about music in half a decade. For music to *really* get ahold of me, the lyrics as well as the sound must be worthy of attention. Case in point are the lyrics to 11:11, a song about fate/destiny - in an interview Bird said that this song's lyrics were somewhat based on some true stories, one in particular about a young boy watching as his brother was shot in a drive-by shooting while drinking a glass of milk near a window, another about a woman killed by a piece of a window pane being carried by the wind:

Standing on the corner
Plastic cup in her hand
Standing on the corner
Saving for some gin
You don't need to ask where she's been or what's up
She'll gladly tell you all about the life she had
Before she had the cup

Standing by the window
Glass of milk in his hand
What could I have done what could I have said
Broken glass spilled milk lying on the floor looking dead

Window pain
Cutting through the rain looks so easy
Frame by frame
Looking for a name to claim on a breezy afternoon
And the ends coming soon

So many people hold a cup
So many die drinking milk in front of a window
I once knew a woman who got in the way
Of the intentions of a windy day
Don't hold a cup in any season
Don't make me choose between rhyme or reason
Don't drink that milk in front of that window
You might as well blame it on the will that the wind chose

You really should listen to the song and follow along in the lyrics to get the full effect. I think this song is one of my faves, mainly for the lyrics and the way the music is arranged. Two other favorites from The Swimming Hour are Case in Point and Way Out West. Both are worth your time. From the newer album, Weather Systems, Lull is probably my favorite, Nora O'Connor's voice rounding out Andrew's. That song has the sweetest sound - it is like audio Valium . . . so relaxing.

Andrew's next album is due out in February of 2005. You can get other albums and more information at his official website.

DISCLAIMER: This is in no way meant to serve as an exhaustive reference essay or history of Andrew Bird, so please don't construe it as such; and I make no promise that everything here is accurate, though I *am* rather anal about getting details as correct as I can.

Today I was shown something that I think is relatively hilarious. You Have Bad Taste in Music showcases videos of some guy going to music concerts/shows and basically berating the people standing in line, telling them that they "have bad taste music." To understand just how funny it is, you have to see it yourself.

Although none of the videos show it happening, I cannot help but wonder if serious bodily harm ever comes to this fellow (in one of the videos, someone seems to intimate that they are going to beat him up, but it doesn't happen). In some of the situations, he simply starts telling the people that they have bad taste, et al, but in others he gets his victims involved before they know what is going on, resulting in these people looking really stupid for having participated.

The main message of YHBTM is that the influence of radio and television have caused people to be indiscriminate in their choice of music to enjoy. I don't disagree with this at all. Music is sold more on image now than ever, and if you don't have the media and pop culture behind you and your music, you are certainly doomed to sell less records than the mediocrity which passes for superior music these days. According to the spokesman for YHBTM, there are three steps to beginning your journey away from bad music:

1. Do not attend "this" concert (the concert at which he is making these statements).
2. Stop listening to bad music (usually specified as the band putting on the given concert).
3. Turn off your radio and TV (because these feed your incorrect ideas on what constitutes "good" music).

By all means, watch all of the videos on this site. It will take you an hour or so, but it will be worth every minute. But don't stop there; you too must become part of the movement, and follow those three steps. One thing that I am very curious about . . . what kind of music does this guy listen to, and what in my personal music library would he find offensive. Maybe I can send him a list and have him indicate. Not that it would prevent me from listening to what I like . . . :P

I had heard this was going to happen for a while, but didn't really expect it - my Hotmail email accounts have been upgraded to 250 MB of space (up from a measly 2MB). w00t!

Although I don't really use my Hotmail accounts all that much (one is basically a spam account that I only keep for use with website accounts and mailing lists, etc. and the other is family and friends only (utilizes a 'safe list')), the extra space means I don't have to worry as much about the box filling up so fast and then bouncing communiqués which may be important. .

How did I ever live without this. I already love using it so much; I have only been running it for an hour! Google keeps on doing great things, it is hard to imagine life without it.

The mouse arrived today, and a worthy companion has been found and purchased (getting it brand new for $1100 cheaper than retail, thankfully). Soon (within a week or so), they will join together to create sweet sounds (or code, if you want to be technical). This will be a nice development machine with which to craft the code of my dreams.

I am starting a new job on Monday, working for TEK Systems (as a W-2 employee!) on a contract in downtown Salt Lake. I am leaving behind an independent contract job (as a 1099 contractor . . . yuck) which was fun for a while.

Okay, I am rambling now and really need to get back to installing this beautiful mouse on my current machine, so that I can break it in while it is waiting for its future partner!

Behold this beautiful manifestation of engineering prowess:

What is it? Well, it is none other than the latest and greatest

In addition to code generation, object/relational mapping is a subject that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Although I have not been able to use an O/R Mapper as of yet on any projects (not because of lack of desire, only because of lack of support for doing so among the developers I have worked with), I have read about and wanted to get involved with them for probably a year and a half now.

After reading Paul Wilson's rant (via Steve) regarding mappers, I think I am going to finally force myself to sit down and implement a project using one.

As with code gen, O/R mapping is something which, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it (I use code gen, for example, so I can often move quicker on a given project than unbelievers (read: I can do it cheaper))) receives little attention. Funny thing is that people in the J2EE world are familiar with and utilize this pattern, and have for quite a while (Hibernate, SimpleORM). As seems typical with those in the Microsoft camp, slow adoption is prevalent, and amazingly few people really even know what it is or why it may be useful.

Having long been a user of his free DAL generator, LLBLGen (going on 2 years now), Bouma's LLBLGen Pro appeals to me simply because I have watched Frans posts in the Architecture forum at www.asp.net over the last couple of years, and I like his ideas and agree with his opinions (though I will admit my opinions are not as well-informed as his are!).

Until I feel compelled to spend the money and buy LLBLGen Pro, I will give Paul's mapper a try at the much lower cost of $50 (after trying the demo of course). Unfortunately, my anticipation of seeing ObjectSpaces was ruined by Microsoft's inevitable delay thereof. Oh well, what can you do?

This is more of a note to myself, nothing too interesting. Simply some links to interesting articles on patterns and such:
Enterprise Development Patterns
Patterns & Practices
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability