Redistricting Thoughts

No, this is not about censorship or anything Orwellian. Instead it is about political redistricting in my corner of Minnesota. Tuesday afternoon was a big day for wonks due to the state court panel presenting the new boundaries for congressional, state house, and state senate districts.

So I went from living in House District (HD) 31b to living in HD28b. What changed? Not a whole lot, though we finally have the complete counties of Fillmore and Houston in one easy to find district. It always bothered me that the cities of Fillmore and Houston were carved out to be given to neighboring districts. This makes more sense demographically and geographically. Rep. Greg Davids should be very happy with this, for he will not have to run against another member of the house like in other parts of the state.

Another bit of good news is that the Senate District barely changed and for the better along the lines of the house changes. I am glad to still have Jeremy Miller for my senator, so that was a relief. There had been a very real chance that district would be radically altered and I did not want to be paired up with Austin.

Changes to the Congressional district were bigger, but once again logical. Other districts did not fare as well. Michelle Bachmann is on the warpath over what happend to CD 6, with threats of suing. Being of the opinion that politics becomes both crazier and nastier the closer you get to metropolitan areas, none of this was surprising.

All in all, I am happy with the way things turned out locally.

A Good Metaphor for the Times

Watching this video of a Brazilian rescue helicopter shaking itself apart made me think of of how current political and economic events going on across the world are being handled. My second thought was that it did not look real and appeared to be a RC model. Amazing how the human eye and brain responds to something it has not seen before.

I hope and pray those injured will recover quickly.

Area 88 Ep. 2: The Setting Sun as Grave Marker

aka Boris

Any doubts about the seriousness of the anime series are dispelled by this grim episode that follows a pilot nicknamed “the Angel of Death.” Thrilling action scenes punctuate a slower moving story about survivor’s guilt and the tremendous toll war takes on those who fight it. While photojournalist Makoto Shinjo learns more about life on the base, the real star of the episode is attack pilot Boris. The ghosts of the Vietnam War are beginning to haunt the stories of Area 88.

There is a poetic quality to both the visual and verbal imagery of this series that sets it apart from most anime. The thoughtful and meditative scripts are matched by the art and directing, making for stories that are not easily forgotten. This particularly strong episode sets the tone for the entire series very early on.

After hearing a rumor about a pilot called “the Angel of Death,” Makoto becomes intrigued. Ominously wondering if he is Shin Kazama’s personal angel of death, the photographer sets out to find out about the enigmatic pilot named Boris. A master of ground attack missions, he is reputed as getting all his wingmen killed -- so nobody wants to fly with him.

Odds and Ends–Tech Edition

The Iview Cypad 760TPC I purchased earlier this month has been a lot of fun to monkey with. Being new to tablets and the Android OS, I have to say the stability leaves something to be desired. It appears to be app related and I did go in forewarned about the crash rates of mobile operating systems.

Battery life has been good since I disabled the telephone related drivers on it. I get better than five hours doing a mix of things including playing games, web browsing, reading, and watching videos. Performance has been fast, but with occasional slowdowns that seem to come from my monkeying with app installations too much. The temptation to play with new software is severe due to the plethora of freebies available.

One of the apps I really like is the Gospel Library one from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not only are scriptures available, but class manuals, conference talks, and magazines. All of them can be highlighted and annotated with that synced up to your Church account online. This week I matched up all of that from my hard copy of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. This week I will get the Holy Bible synched up as well.

Another app I have gone nuts with is the Kindle for Android one. Yes, I now have the equivalent of a Kindle Fire in many ways. The sheer volume of public domain books they have up had me downloading like mad while watching a movie Saturday night. Being able to watch something and multitask on the Net is an unexpected bonus for me. The IMDB app makes it a handy “look up the actor” tool, too.

I purchased one book and read it, The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. It was nice to find a straight forward translation, since the one I had dated back to the 1980’s and was aimed a business men. There are some formatting errors, but nothing egregious and it was a quick read. Reading on the Cypad is easier on the eyes than expected and the ability to look up archaic words is very handy.

After testing multiple browsers on the tablet, I have kept three on it: the included Android one, Firefox, and Opera. If a page does not render correctly in one, one of the others usually can handle it. Opera is my main one due to its much better controls and rendering. I am disappointed that embedded videos do not work well, if at all, on the browsers. Dedicated apps appear to be the only way to go since websites are detecting mobile devices and do not act normally as a result.

With a new mini HDMI to HDMI cable, I finally was able to test out the video output of the Cypad and was stunned by how well it upscales to 1080p. With only limited space to play with until I get a new microSD card, I can’t test a full length movie yet. I can see using this to teach Sunday school lessons with downloaded Church videos and one of our new flat screens.

On the PC end of things, VLC 2.0 is finally out and it looks like I will be going back to it for my video playing needs. So far it has rectified all my problems with VLC, but further tests await. Besides the improved performance and compatibility, a lot of little things have been added and tweaked. The ability to jump chapters in ripped videos means I will be able to do screen captures more efficiently for my Blu-ray reviews. Anything that speeds that up is good with me, because I resent having those huge MKV files taking up room on my hard drives.

I have been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic with a friend online and have some issues with lagging despite a 100-105 MS. It may be my old video card cannot handle some of the areas with only 512mb of memory or it may be the fact I live in the middle of nowhere. More playing should give some clues. The game is good and if you liked Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic you will love this.

Health 2-20-2012

Typing the date out in the title made me look not twice but thrice.

Anyway, last night was miserable and had difficulty sleeping due to coughing fits. I love it when an upper respiratory infection goes into the chest. That said, it appears that the end of the bout is nigh. At least I hope so.

It has been odd for my father to get ill with the same thing at the same time, so that has been a new experience.

Secret Investigation Record (2010)

aka Joseon X-Files: Secret Book

A stylish and intelligent science fiction drama from South Korea that offers up many questions and a few answers, Secret Investigation Record is highly entertaining  but all too short. Clearly a homage to The X-Files, it manages to be its own beast thanks to well fleshed out characters and historical setting. Being loosely based on real records from the era lends a Project Blue Book feel to it as well.

I was a big fan of The X-Files during its early seasons, having watched it from its broadcast premiere. Unfortunately, it became clear around the third season that the creator of the show did not have a clue to what he was doing and was making it up on the fly. So it was with a mix of curiosity and trepidation that I approached this Korean drama set during the Joseon Dynasty.

Luckily for me, the made for cable television show turned out to be very good right from the first episode.

Health 2-18-2012

While it is no fun to report that the cold has started to move into the chest and I have used up what reserves of energy I had to fight it, it seems like a mere trifle after hearing from friends that their young son has cancer. Perspective brings clarity and I find myself worrying a great deal over the boy and not at all about myself.

My prayers go out to Jonas, for he and his family need them.