(no subject)

[prog]

Today's Doonesbury made me laugh out loud, even though it's getting into some really dark territory. ("Even though"? It's probably half the reason.)

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Today I found myself talking through my whole T ride to work with a Russian dude who struck up a conversation about operating systems after he noticed my O'Reilly backpack. Despite myself I ended up selling him on Mac OS X, which he didn't know much about (he had originally asked when I thought Linux would become a viable desktop platform), and I even told him about the new Mac mini when he asked how much Macs run these days. It's funny, because if he asked me the same question yesterday I woulda shuffled my feet and said that he was looking at an outlay of a grand or more, probably... and Apple just changed everything again.

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A story on mass DNA testing that headlined today's Metro (the freebie shopper that any bored T passenger can pick up off the floor and read) caused our discussion to veer into politics, and we talked for a while about how, compared to European countries, the vast size -- in terms of both geography and the ideological landscape -- of the USA makes it difficult to install policy at the national level. The dynamic across the Atlantic was different, he said: it's similarly difficult for new policy to take hold across the entire EU, but it's much easier for a single country within it to adopt something, and every time this happens the idea becomes more feasible to the whole union. I found this an interesting concept. (Though I actually know almost nothing about how the EU actually works, beyond being some allied nations with common currency, and am especially curious now. It'll be my next bored-reading WP topic, I suppose. That and China. I was thinking earlier today that I should learn about post-Mao China so I can explain to my parents how that country's rising star is not Clinton's fault.)

It reminded him about the American debate on racial profiling's role in the WoT, which he thought foolish: from his perspective, profiling only made sense, and those who bring up civil liberties-based arguments are misapplying them. I didn't want to get any deeper into that swamp than the acknowledgement that it's a very touchy issue to the average American -- that is, if you averaged all Americans' feelings into a single persona, I think that person would feel very conflicted and uncomfortable about it. If we had more time I would have liked to talk about how this feeling probably went against the grain of this country's self-identity, and how I found it interesting that he, who was not American, didn't feel bound to it the way I did. But he had to get off at Boylston while I continued to Longwood, so that was that. (I gave him my card, though. And told him to buy the Book if he got a Mac, which I think he will, ha. (I still get like a nickel from each sale or whatever.))

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Confidential to daerr: He didn't look anything like you and I don't know what his piano skills were, so the mystery remains.

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Wow... mac Mini. I want one. I'd name it Baby Mario.