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Charles' ExperiencesPersonal musings from Charles Oppermann |
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5/17/2009 Some musings about The Pirate Bay trial I commented on digg.com about this. Article simply quotes a defense lawyer (lord knows they ain't biased - NOT) and doesn't contain anything specific. This is Law 101 - if you can't argue the merits of a case, throw every allegation of bias you can think up. The case is on appeal already, which means that the conduct of the judge and decisions of a legal nature will be considered. At least in American law, an appeal does not mean an re-evaluation of evidence or verdict. Only whether or not the correct legal procedure was followed. Swedish law doesn't use juries like American law, but this wasn't just one person deciding the case - there are three other lay judges. I guess I'm not like everyone else in thinking that TPB is completely innocent. They profited from illegal activity. Even their lawyers concede that illegal activity was occurring, their focus was showing that the owners and operators of TPB weren't responsible for the actions of others. I get that, but come on. if I own an apartment building and some tenants are using it to deal drugs, I can be held liable, particularly if I was aware of the activity. There is no doubt that TPB owners and operators were aware of the massive violations of copyright law being enabled by their site. As such, being found guilty of accessory to beach copyright law was appropriate. We can all agree that copyright law needs serious overhaul, but it's the law at the moment and lots of people are breaking it. These 4 guys are taking it on the chin for the hundreds of thousands of real pirates. Here's a tip for the defense lawyers: Go easy throwing out allegations of bias when defending something with "Pirate" in the title. 3/27/2009 Show all devices in Device ManagerThe Windows registry keeps track of all hardware devices that have been installed on the machine. By default, the Device Manager only displays the hardware devices that are currently connected to the machine. Hardware that is not currently connected, such as a USB device, or a Firewire hard disk is not shown. Over time, a lot of devices can be registered, particularly if you connect the same device to different USB ports. By using an environment variable, you can have the Device Manager display all the hardware that have been installed on the machine. Set the “devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices" environment variable to “1” using the System Properties dialog. Alternatively, just type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 at a command prompt. Then using Device Manager, make sure the "Show hidden devices" option is set on the view menu. Normally when "Show hidden devices" is set, only non-PnP devices are shown. With the environment variable set, Device Manager also shows disconnected hardware using a semi-transparent icon. You can then uninstall the device and all the associated drivers. An easy way to load Device Manager is to type devmgmt.msc at the Run dialog or command prompt. A quick way to get to System Properties is to press Win+Break. [This posting is originally from my blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/chuckop/. I’m trying to move the more useful postings over to my current blog host.] 2/24/2009 Our boy has arrived!First what everyone has been asking for, pictures:
Now the details: Grayson Carl Robert Oppermann, was born 9:59 (PST) am, Monday, February 23, 2009, which was his due date as determined by our first OB appointment in early July 2008. Labor was relatively short (easy for me to say), with strong contractions starting just before 6 am. When we arrived at Overlake Maternity Center, Anthea was fully dilated and ready to go. She held up very well throughout, and except for a reference to me needing a vasectomy, she was a champ throughout. Her mother, Sue arrived from Florida on Friday and came with us to the hospital. Our close friend Timme arrived quickly afterwards.
By 9 am, there was a little concern regarding the descent of the baby's head, combined with a lowering heart rate. The doctor moved Anthea to an operating room in case a Cesarean birth was necessary. Using vacuum and *very* strong pushing from Anthea (and lots of encouragement from Dad), on the last natural attempt before forcing the C-section procedure, Grayson was born looking very healthy. Right away he let out a cry and Dad and Mom were able to finally share an emotional moment.
Time of delivery was 9:59 am, 6 pounds exactly, 19 and three-quarter inches in length. While the doctor tended to Anthea, Dad spend time with Grayson in the warming bed while he was cleaned and quickly checked over. My introduction to parenthood including getting pee'd on twice in the minutes right after birth, which was joyful and gave the many people in the OR a good laugh, including me.
As soon as we got back to the room, Anthea fed Grayson with no problems and he's proven to have his Dad's apatite throughout the day. All the vital signs have been excellent, except for a short period when his temp was elevated from too many blankets and overzealous and close hugging by Anthea and me. We are incredibly grateful to Sue and Timme for being there for us, taking turns helping and just being supportive. We're also thankful for the lovely flowers sent from Cottage Lake Veterinary Hospital where Anthea works.
Our son is named in honor of the people who have been of influence in our lives, and serve as examples of how we'd like him to grow up. They are: His grandmother (Susan Grace Raskin); his grandfather (Carl Oppermann), Uncle (Carl Oppermann Jr.), an early mentor of his father (Carl Sundberg); his Uncle (Robert Oppermann) and a dear friend of Charles and Anthea (Robert "Bob" Rivers).
We've been calling him Grayson all day, and it fits him well and sounds nice. We think a nickname of Gray might catch on, but we'll see.
We've tried to call people throughout the day as time has presented itself, but we haven't been able to reach everyone we'd like (due to not having #'s in my cell phone, or time zone differences). We hope everyone will understand, and no slight is intended.
Anthea is resting in fits, the baby is doing well and is finally resting and I'm catching up on the kind messages that have been left for us throughout the day. We expect to be discharged and home around noon (Tuesday). 2/21/2009 Anthea about ready to popAnthea is getting close to giving birth to our first child.
 We know it's a boy, and the official due date is Monday, February 23, but right now (Saturday afternoon), she's showing lots of pre-labor signs and we're wondering if when the water will break and everything.  She's holding up really well, although very tired.
 It's possible she and I are suffering from a low-grade infection, we're both run down and she's had some other symptoms as well. Anthea's mom, Sue, arrived last night and that take's a big load of worry off from me.  Our neighbor Rory came over and on short noticed helped move our master bed over a few inches to make more room. Rory and his wife Jeri, along with Timme, another close family friend really came through last week with final preparations for the baby room, the guest room, and our bedroom, where our son will spend his first few weeks. We're so fortunete to have such great friends!
 Here's Anthea a couple of weeks ago at 38 weeks, back when she was still smiling!
Yes, she's wearing a Tampa Bay Bucaneers shirt that says "I Love Chucky!" 2/4/2009 Sending children off to die - If I was the reporter... "It's devastating," said school board member Jerome Summers. "Nobody
anticipates the death of their child when they send their kid to
school." If I was the reporter, I would have then asked "Under what circumstances should a parent anticipate the death of their child? Sending them off to war? Packing their lunch box for the field trip to the munitions factory? When would the death of a child NOT be devastating?" I'm starting a new feature on this blog - "If I was the reporter..." This one comes from a an AP article on the death of a 10-year-old boy at a Chicago area school. The child was found hanging from a hook in a bathroom. School board member Jerome Summers obviously got elected because of his critical thinking skills and ability to belittle tragedy in just 16 words. Some more nuggets: Counselors were meeting with students and parents Wednesday. Maybe the counselors should be meeting with school board officials... Several parents who attended a school meeting Wednesday who would not give their names said school officials provided little information about the death; others said school officials instructed them to avoid talking to the media. Yes, the parents should avoid talking to the media, that's the job of school board officials with media relations experience. Maria Patino of Evanston said
her fourth-grade daughter, a student at the school, was frightened and
confused about what had happened. She
said her daughter asked, "Mommy, is the person going to come for me,
too?" because she thought somebody had intentionally hurt the boy. "I didn't know what to say," Patino said in Spanish. "It's too hard for a child to understand." I came home from fourth grade once frightened that the lunch lady was going to come for me and serve sauerkraut to me again. What's so difficult to understand here anyway? Every fourth-grader knows that bullies hang out in the bathroom. Maybe the lesson of not wear loose fitting clothing if your bathrooms have hooks doesn't sink in until fifth grade.Summers, the finance chairman of the board has always used an economy of words and simple prose to get his point, such as in 2006: "I do not want to be the one who ends up with an unbalanced budget on my watch," Summers said. The obvious-speak isn't limited to Summers though, the entire school board simplifies thing with this report with the dumbed-down title "The ABC's of School Funding (PDF)" The topic of the report? Unbalanced budgets. Keep up the good work Jerome! 12/27/2007 Marcia Wallace is Mrs. KrabappelI never realized until now that one of my favorite Simpsons characters is voiced by one of my favorite actresses from the 1970's. While preparing for a presentation tonight, there is a Bob Newhart biography playing on the local PBS station. I'd forgotten just how funny I found Newhart while listening to his classic clips. Growing up my parents always watched The Bob Newhart Show. I think my early desire to be a pilot was influenced by Bill Daley's portrayal of the free swinging airline pilot who always had a different stewardess on his arm or waiting in his apartment across the hall from Newhart’s. What I didn’t realize that Bob’s red-headed receptionist, played by Marcia Wallace has been supplying the voice of Mrs. Edna Krabappel, Bart Simpson’s jaded school teacher. In one of my favorite episodes (All’s Fair in Oven War), Krabappel is on the arm of James Caan: Caan: “Bart, Mrs. Krabappel and me are going to go back and uh, play some, uh, backgammon, if you know what I mean.” 9/27/2007 Pocketful of DoughVia Richard Sprague's blog, I got a link to Bruce Feiler's Pocketful of Dough article on how to bribe your way into exclusive restaurants without a reservation. Here are the tips from the article, but you should read the whole thing, it's fascinating.
9/18/2007 Bucky Katt Quote from Get FuzzyBucky Katt is the foul-mouthed cat from the cartoon Get Fuzzy. Satchel Pooch is his canine friend.
Just thought this was funny, particularly as I maintain a home for four cats. 7/9/2007 Kwik-E-Mart LocationsWant to find the handful of 7-11 stores that have been temporarily re-branded as Kwik-E-Marts for the upcoming Simpsons movie? Here's a Virtual Earth collection, with a picture of each store. 6/26/2007 Tony Soprano didn’t just get whacked; he practically got a funeralBobHarris.com - Tony Soprano didn’t just get whacked; he practically got a funeral I actually disagree with the authors assertion, but love the analysis. My wife noticed something strange about how Tony, Carmela, and AJ each ate the onion rings, but I didn't make the connection to Holy Communion until it was pointed out in a Slate article that references this shot-by-shot analysis. In my view, Tony and family live on, in fear of the law, of strangers, etc. Many people focus on the actions of the guy in the Members Only jacket and allusions to the Godfather, all of which are valid. I believe that David Chase chose purposely to ratchet up the suspense, to give a sense of what Tony's life is like now, with his crew decimated and the law closing in. If you think that Tony was whacked, then answer this: who did it, and why? These are valid questions because the war with NY is now defused. Are you really saying that Tony was killed for no reason or because some hitman didn't get the word in time? I don't think that would make sense, dramatically. If everything in the scene has meaning, every glance, every prop, then surely Tony's death would be meaningful - that there would be some hint why he was getting whacked. It's easy to assume that it's in revenge for whacking Phil, but without a theatrical clue, seems hollow and meaningless. But ultimately, this is a show about family first, the mafia second. To me, everything about this episode speaks to continuation:
One comment I read says that as the camera focuses on Carmela, the lyric "...a small-town girl, living in a lonely world..." is a forebearer of Carmela's future, I think it represents her past, present and future. It's been a lonely world for her, married to a mob boss. For that matter, the episode is filled with notions of the law closing in on Tony. Scenes in vans, with agents scribbling notes while listening in on phone calls. The whole business of the Grand Jury, etc. Why bother including them when there is no future that involves them? If everything has meaning, then those must have meaning as well. I guess in the end, it comes down to which head-fake do you choose? Do you think that Tony is killed, and that everything else is a red herring? Or do you think that Tony lives and that the Members Only guy, and the amp-ed up suspense at the end is the head-fake? I choose the latter, and admire David Chase in his ability to provide a Rorschach test in such a wonderful manner. Now the next question - will we ever find out for sure? Will the DVD commentary say "Yep, he's whacked." In fact, there are notions of unused version of the ending that is "shocking" according to the Members Only actor. Prediction: The shocking version is Meadow coming through the door and sitting down as the scene fades out. If there is a version that has the Members Only guy coming out of the bathroom with a gun, or a shot of a rifleman on the grassy knoll, we would have already heard about it. del.icio.us Tags: Entertainment, Sopranos 5/2/2007 Uphill battle for Bush wiretap planLet me see if I understand this correctly; the same group of politicians that don't want to share who participated in policy making, who use Republican Party e-mail servers to avoid having their e-mails archived, and have stifled the Freedom of Information Act; it's these same guys you want to expand their reach into your own life. Did I understand that right? Remember that 2,176 warrants for eavesdropping were granted in 2006 alone. Guess how many were denied? Only one. But that's not enough, the administration also wants to make warrant-less eavesdropping more widespread (which they claim is already legal). Link to Uphill battle for Bush wiretap plan - Politics - MSNBC.com 4/29/2007 Einstein quote on bees is bogusLately there have been a number of references to a quote from famed physicist Albert Einstein linking the extinction of bee's with the extinction of mankind. I personally read this in a few wire service stories regarding significant losses of bees in Europe and the United States due to something called "Colony Collapse Disorder". Cell phones, global warming and parasites are cited as possible causes. I even listened as Bill Maher mentioned it on his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher last week. In each story, the connection between mankind and bees was reinforced by quoting Albert Einstein and a dire prediction that says mankind only has four years to live if bees disappear from the Earth. In some of the stories, the Einstein quote is presented by a beekeeper, in other stories, the quote is presented independently. Regardless, you assume that it must be true. Alas it doesn't appear to be the case. The good folks at Snopes.com did some checking of Einstein's quotations and could find no such reference. They did find something from 1994 that attributed the Einstein quote to pamphlets published by the National Union of French Apiculture during a Brussels protest over economic matters concerning the beekeeping industry. Seems like something that was possibly invented out thin air in 1994 has become gospel for beekeepers to this day and gets repeated to reporters who print it without fact checking. 4/23/2007 Are you ready for some (women’s) football?Too cool! I am going to try to go to a Seattle Majestics game this season. In other news, the Microsoft Flag Football League will have a Spring season starting April 29 and I'm going to be playing for the Yo Mamma's again. Wish us luck and no injuries. Are you ready for some (women’s) football? - MSNBC.com |
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