Just some random thoughts:

• No bills longer than two standard typewritten pages (with appropriate full definition on what exactly that means)
• Bills must be self contained and not incorporate other content by reference
• Previous laws can be repealed, new laws can be passed, old laws can not be amended
• Any house or senate member can introduce any bill at any time
• Bills introduced must be introduced by a single member only
• The full text along with the name of the introducing member would be published immediately
• No amendments
• No debates
• Each bill must come to a yes/no vote no sooner than 5 calendar days after introduction and no later than 10 calendar days.
• If a bill passes in one chamber it would be automatically introduced in the other chamber and an up/down vote must occur within 5 calendar days
• Once again no amendments and no debates, just the vote

That would be much better. The way they do it now is non-sensical. Oh, and add to that one more item that would have to be a constitutional amendment, not just a change in congressional rules…

All laws, without exception, expire automatically 10 years after they are signed into law. All existing laws will expire on the next 10 year anniversary of their original passage beginning 5 years after the passage of the amendment.

(OK, some of the others might have to be amendments too if they were to stick rather than just be guidelines that the congress could override for itself whenever it wanted.)

There ya go.

Of course, if I was going to do all that, I might go even further and require a 90% super-majority to pass any legislation at all. Then you’d only get the stuff where there really was widespread agreement and you’d have a government with a much more limited reach I think. Dunno.

OK, I’m done musing about my completely unrealistic notions of how I would structure a government. I’ve got other things to do tonight.

For the last week (12 Aug 2007 to 18 Aug 2007) I decided to do some spot sampling of my computer activity at home.

On Cronus I had this exciting line (or earlier variants of it, I tinkered a bit) in my cron:

0 * * * * sleep `perl -e ‘print int(rand 3600)’`;/usr/sbin/screencapture -Sx /tmp/screensnap.jpg; /sw/bin/mutt -a /tmp/screensnap.jpg -s “Cronus Hourly Screenshot” abulsme@abulsme.com < /dev/null; cp /Users/abulsme/Documents/screenoff.jpg /tmp/screensnap.jpg The end result, an hourly “sample” of my screen, but at a random time so that it wouldn’t be predictable and I wouldn’t change my actions knowing when it was going to take a screenshot. I actually set this up as a test for something else I wanted to do, but then decided to let it run a week and see what I would find. The results would of course not be the same as if I’d looked on a less granular time scale, but it is still interesting. All of the below is based on which application was the active application at the time of the screenshot. Lets see some of the things I found: Overall… * 55.4% – Cronus’ Screen Asleep
* 29.8% – Sam using Cronus
* 9.5% – Cronus’ Screensaver On
* 3.0% – Cronus Crashed
* 2.4% – Amy using Cronus

Now, of the time I was the user and the screen wasn’t asleep or screen saving and it wasn’t crashed, the top 5 items were:

* 36.0% – Mail
* 20.0% – Safari
* 10.0% – iTunes
* 6.0% – Finder
* 6.0% – Excel

Leaving 22.0% of the time on various other apps.

Interesting, eh?

OK, time to turn the screenshots off. For now anyway.

Wednesday when I went into work, one of the elevator whiteboards was clear except for one word:

CONUNDRUM

Given the nature of the people in this building, I can not imagine that I am the only one now thinking that now, a day and a half later, Parker only has five and a half days left in the backstep to prevent a horrible catastrophe of some sort.

Um… OK… maybe I am the only one.

My friend Ron (of Creepy Classics and Monster Bash fame) and a friend of his have recently started up their newest venture. It is a low power AM local community radio station for the Ligonier area in Pennsylvania.

They are streaming online, so you can take a listen even if you aren’t in Ligonier. I turned it on for awhile yesterday, and the first thing I heard was my friend Ron’s voice doing a Public Service Announcement of some sort. Excellent! :-)

Here is an online test for Asperger Syndrome:

What’s Your AQ

Anyone involved with geeks will know that we share many character traits with those suffering Asperger syndrome: obsessive attention to detail, social awkwardness, and some difficulty relating to other people. A few years ago, I ran across a test used to diagnose Asperger syndrome, and was surprised to note that it seems like a thumbnail description of your average geek.

Being a geek, I decided to port the test from dead trees to PHP and Javascript. You can find your AQ by filling in the form below. If you feel like it, note your AQ in a comment.

(via The Daily Dish)

I answered honestly (I think) and scored a 31.

According to the test “Scores over 32 are generally taken to indicate Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism, with more than 34 an “extreme” score.”

So not quite, but pretty close! (18 is the average male score.)

Anybody who knows me should not be surprised.

Feel free to post your own scores in the comments.