Blog Chain Letter

Thanks to Amy for tagging me, and for her nice words. Her comment that I am "fiscally liberal but socially conservative" was initially jarring because I was not raised to be liberal anything, but also because I have become exceedingly disaffected with the politics of the "religious right" over the past ten years. Still, she is probably more correct than the opposite statement would be.

The deal is this: I am supposed to take Amy's list of five blogs, remove the top line and add myself on the bottom line. Like so:
MOT http://motheroftwins.blogspot.com/
Indigo Girl http://indigogirl.typepad.com/linda/
Jamie http://selkie.typepad.com/selkie
Amy http://againstthegrain.typepad.com/
Matt http://tisco.blogspot.com/

As you may perceive, the genre is changing somewhat, now that it has gotten to me. :)

Okay, five blogs that I can recommend to you all:

• Shane -- Like me, a Caltech alum, active Christian, who now does scientific research connected with the space program. But Shane's ideas are generally much more keen and provocative than mine.
  
• John -- Also a Caltech friend, I've greatly enjoyed John's thoughtful perspectives as he explores his faith.
  
• Cheryl -- Yet another Caltech friend, Cheryl is very energetic, both in social situations and at work. As with her former roomie, I've found some political synergy here.
  
• Jenn -- Married to a Caltech friend (pattern shows cracks...), Jenn is gifted as an animator and illustrator. Her intense self-examination is a challenge to me, yet always leads to grace.
  
• Josh -- Another artist friend, this one from here in Ithaca. Sadly, as seems to be common in a small college town, he and Mary Jo are moving just as we were getting to know and like them. Josh has a separate blog devoted to their son Harper.
  

Pictures!!: In other news, there are new pictures available at the Samuel picture page. I hope you enjoy them. 

Posted by Matt on 7/31/2005 11:41:00 PM -- Permalink --  1 comments

Maps to my heart's content

Those who know me really well know that I have long had an obsession with maps. When I was a kid, one of my forms of recreation was to lie on the floor with a sheet of notebook paper overlying an atlas, tracing out the map so that I could embellish it with the details I thought interesting at the moment (rivers, highways, college football teams, whatever). I still have the ability to become absorbed simply with an atlas open in front of me, poring over various aspects as they come to my mind (Laura occasionally teases me by calling me "Map-thew").

So you can imagine my delight at discovering NationalAtlas.gov. I found it via a Google search for congressional district maps. I had wanted to see the map of a particular district, so that I could see exactly who it is who persists in electing one particular yahoo congressman who's been in the news. Not only does NationalAtlas have a comprehensive database of congressional district maps, but also the distributions of earthquakes and mining operations, the natural range of any species of bat or butterfly, the outcomes of U.S. presidential elections, not to mention pretty satellite views, to name just a few things. And it all seems to be paid for by the federal government. This is really great. 

Posted by Matt on 7/19/2005 11:54:00 AM -- Permalink --  1 comments

Baseball Strikes Out

Apparently, writing out that I won't be posting for a while is just what I needed to motivate me to post again...

It was in the news today that the International Olympic Committee has removed baseball and softball as Olympic sports. Undoubtedly there is an aspect here of a multi-national body sticking it to the United States by kicking out our national pastime, and you might expect me to be upset at such an insult to my favorite sport. But as I was discussing this with Laura, a number of interesting points came out.

Firstly, the Olympics have made a big push in the past 15 years to showcase the best athletes in the world at its events. Even the big team sports like basketball and hockey are now sending top-level all-star teams, but Major League Baseball has steadfastly refused to do this. However justified the concerns may be about disrupting MLB's grueling 162-game schedule, that decision makes continuing Olympic baseball that much less consistent with the Olympic ideal. Secondly, the recent publicity of baseball's drug problems certainly hurt its standing with the Olympics, which are exceedingly vigilant about drugs. Although MLB's new drug policy has made a noticeable difference this season, it still falls far short of Olympic standards.

Baseball is huge in countries that border either the Caribbean Sea or the East China Sea, but elsewhere it is at best in the early stages of growth. Perhaps other Olympic sports are similarly regional in their scope, but I don't think many of them are team sports. Because the Olympics enforce a geographical equality in the teams that qualify, the eight Olympic baseball teams in 2004 included Australia, Netherlands, Greece, and Italy, none of which have placed very many players in the Major Leagues. Meanwhile, baseball-crazy countries including the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Mexico, not to mention the U.S., were excluded because of insufficient Olympic slots from their part of the world. Next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic should be a much better forum for international baseball than the Olympics has been, featuring top MLB players and embracing baseball's regional appeal by inviting all nations with a strong baseball tradition.

I feel much more sorry for the women's softball players. With no significant professional league, most softballers have only the Olympics to aspire to once they've graduated college. Furthermore, at least in the U.S., softball has been a primary vehicle for the advancement of women's sports in general, and the Olympic decision can be seen as disrespect for that role. On the other hand, softball's international appeal is even weaker than baseball's, lacking the Latin American following that is a mainstay for baseball. Not a single Latin American team competed in the 2004 Olympics, a fact that staggers me. I can only chalk it up to an indifference to women's sports in that region, or the idea that baseball is a man's game. Distasteful as that is to me, the fact is there. American dominance of softball is so complete that it's embarrassing. We won the first 8 games of the 2004 Olympic tournament by an average score of 5.75 to 0 -- that's right, no one even scored a single run against us. Australia finally achieved that feat in the gold medal game, but the U.S. still won 5-1. Some have complained that U.S. softball is being penalized for its success, but an alternate way to view it is that America is simply the only part of the world where very many people care enough to become good at softball.

Laura also mentioned the interesting point that non-baseball-playing Olympic host countries face considerable expense constructing baseball stadiums. Most stadiums in the world are designed for soccer and track-and-field, and are oval-shaped with a short dimension of 250 feet or so (think L.A. Coliseum). Baseball, however, is best played on a rough square with dimensions around 400 feet. I don't know how many suitable venues for baseball currently exist in England; and if they were to be built, who would use them after the Olympics?

Perhaps I am being too soft in justifying a decision that (some might say) is just baldly anti-American. But I have to honestly say that I have never really watched Olympic baseball myself, mainly because the quality of play is low compared to the Major Leagues. So I can't say I'll miss it too much. I am much more excited by the advent of a "World Cup" than I am upset by the demise of baseball in the Olympics. 

Posted by Matt on 7/09/2005 12:08:00 AM -- Permalink --  1 comments

RSS Is Kinda Neat

I'm not the biggest techhead around, and I seem to be rather late to the phenomenon known as RSS. The initials stand for "Really Simple Syndication," and it is basically a format by which you can receive automatic notification whenever new content appears on a website you want to keep track of, rather than having to remember to check the website yourself. I'm sure RSS does more than just that, but this is all that I have figured out at this point.

Since it looks like it might be some time before I start updating this blog regularly again (nothing's wrong, I've just felt like I need to devote my brain cells in other directions for a while), you might find RSS to be a good way to be notified when I finally do post again. I only recently set this up for myself, and here's what I did: Go to Bloglines.com (thanks to Amy for the tip) and set up an account for yourself. When you have an account, go to "My Feeds". Then, for each blog you want to keep track of (known as a "feed"), click on "Add" and follow the directions. Note that some websites you want to keep track of may not be RSS-compatible. Once you have a list of feeds, and have marked which posts you've already read, click on "Download Notifier" to get a small application that can start up in the background whenever you use your computer, and which will notify you when something new appears on Bloglines.

Note that these notifications do not seem to be very prompt, but I usually know within a day or so when new content has appeared on one of my watched sites. Another drawback is that no notification is sent when new comments appear on a blog, so you still have to check periodically for those.

If, like me, you have a Blogspot blog that is more than a year old or so, your blog may be RSS-incompatible by default. This is easy to fix. On the user page, click on "Settings", then on "Site Feed", and change "Publish Site Feed" to "Yes".

I may put up more pictures from time to time, and who knows when the urge to speak out will grab me again. 

Posted by Matt on 7/07/2005 12:36:00 AM -- Permalink --  5 comments