I dropped by one of the big box stores today looking for a new PowerPoint clicker, so naturally I walked out with a new-ish Chromebook. It was an open box, so it was 25% off. I figured I’d give it a test drive; worst case scenario I could return it and lose the restocking fee.

It’s an HP Pavilion 14. It feels a bit lighter than the MacBook, the screen’s a little bit wider, and the color has taken a little getting-used-to. The blues are a little different on this screen, a little bit lighter than on my MacBook or on my work computer, which is a Cray running LCARS. This Chromebook feels like cheap plastic, likely because it is cheap plastic. The savings have to come from somewhere.

The keyboard is wider due to an extra column including PageUp, PageDown, Home, and End, so on-the-fly editing has been an adventure. Apparently there’s a real live BACKSPACE key that I can use instead of holding down FN and DELETE. I found that out the hard way, which was by accidentally deleting the last five words instead of the last five letters. Thank the gods that CTRL-Z is still the “undo” function. The alphabetical keys are positioned a little further left than I’m used to. The function/control/alternate keys serve different purposes. But I suppose that’s what you’ll deal with on any new computer. It’ll take some getting used to.

This is the first entry I’ve composed using Google Docs, which means that Google probably has a permanent record of it, which means the NSA probably has a permanent record of it also… but they already had access to everything on every other computer, too, so why not start keeping stuff on Google Drive or whatever they’re calling it this week? Let them pick up the cost of the extra hard drive space. Anyhow, I normally use TextEdit on the MacBook, which is more than versatile enough to meet my blogging needs, or Microsoft Word, which uses magnitudes more processing power than is necessary to blog. But Google Docs looks to approach Word’s capacities while remaining deft and lightweight like TextEdit.

It’s an impressive little toy so far. I wonder if Google is going to push their product line by making laptops and tablets available at bulk discount to any school districts– say, mine– so we can get rid of some of the plodding dinosaurs the district issued us back in ‘06.

Still no new clicker.

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I want to have hope for the Bears, I really do. The playoffs are still a legitimate possibility, but the run defense is gone. Trestman & Co. seemed to have solved the offensive line problem, but now they have exactly the opposite problem: no defensive live. It’s humiliating to think that these Bears– who wear the same blue jerseys as Urlacher, Briggs, and Colvin; as Dent, McMichael, Hampton and Singletary; as Butkus and Atkins and O’Bradovich; as George and Turner and Musso; even as Nagurski and Grange and Trafton– have the worst run defense in the league and one of the worst defenses overall. They’re going to have to revamp the d-line, fix the secondary (the linebackers usually seem to work out well), and use up more of the clock on offense.

Last week, Senate Democrats exercised the “nuclear option”, i.e., they eased the rules of cloture by requiring 51 (instead of 60) votes to stop filibusters in certain confirmation hearings, i.e., they made it easier to rubber-stamp the President’s nominations. The Democrats say they did it because the Republicans were being obstructionist by filibustering the nominations of so many of President Obama’s nominations– which they were. The Republicans say the Democrats have violated decades if not centuries of precedent and tradition– which they did. But it wasn’t cheating. Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution permits the Senate to make its own rules, so changing the filibuster rules (especially mid-term) may be sneaky and may be cheap, but it’s legal, so that’s that.

I have long thought that the two big parties have been foolish not to unilaterally abolish the filibuster. Here’s my reasoning, in short:

1. No part of the Constitution requires a filibuster, so there’s nothing legally stopping its abandonment.

2. If the majority Party A gets rid of the filibuster, Party B is surely not going to reinstate it when (if?) they re-take control of the Senate, so in the long run Party A won’t look that bad.

3. If Party A gets rid of the filibuster for confirmation hearings, Party A can confirm any nominations they want. So why not get a head start on Party B? Get your nominees through now, and your judges will be on the federal courts for the next 20 to 30 years. Let Party B play catch-up.

4. If Party A gets rid of the filibuster for legislation, Party A can pass any laws they want. Get your laws in place now, and start adding to the legal infrastructure that Party B will have to dismantle if they ever take the Senate back. If Party A’s laws prove popular or effective, then Party B will be in the position of having to get rid of good laws.

5. Party B will be back in power one day– maybe after the next election, maybe later– but Party A has an entrenched policy and/or personnel advantage because they moved first.

My thinking was based on the assumption that Party A had just taken over the Senate, had relatively high approval ratings and political capital, and that they could afford to take a hit in the polls. The reality is a little bit different: I think the Democrats (Party A) are making this move out of desperation, as a reaction to the ObamaCare albatross. They’re doing it in order to entrench as many federal judges as possible before the 2014 elections because they’re increasingly afraid they’ll lose control of the Senate. Plus, they want as many pro-ObamaCare judges as possible on as many federal courts as possible for as long as possible, because Lord knows those lawsuits are a-coming.

But here’s the trouble: the Democrats skipped #4. They got rid of the 60-vote rule for confirmation hearing, not for legislation. And by doing so, they made it a lot easier to get rid of the 60-vote rule in case of legislation. Now, whoever controls the Senate can say, “Hey, now that we only need 51 votes to stop the other party from obstructing crucial nominations, why not have a 51-vote rule to stop the other party from obstructing crucial legislation?”

Today, the Democrats would gain no additional advantage by making the additional change, because the Republicans control the House and aren’t going to pass anything the Democrats like anyways. The Dems should have done it four years ago, when they controlled both houses of Congress and Obama was still extremely popular. Instead, they’ve blown the first-mover advantage and they’ve opened the door for the Republicans, next time they control both Houses (which could be in January of 2015), to say, “Fair’s fair; 51 votes stops a filibuster in all circumstances.” And then 51 Republican Senators will be able to pass whatever bills they’d like.

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The 60-vote cloture (Senate-ese for “stop a filibuster, thereby forcing a vote in one hour”) rule was one of those elements of the Senate that was supposed to make it the calmer, more reasonable of the two Houses. It would make the Senate into the saucer that cooled the tea, if you’re familiar with that old analogy, because in theory, you’d need to build a broad 60-vote consensus to pass legislation. And maybe it has served that purpose, or maybe it did serve that purpose, but in this case– the case of the Affordable Care Act– it seems to have institutionalized a program that came up in a radical, fleeting moment. A party briefly had 60 votes, it quickly passed a badly designed law of dubious constitutionality, and given the current filibuster rules, we’re conceivably stuck with that law until there’s a 20-vote swing in the other direction. Actually, it passed the Senate 60 to 39, so it’d have to be a 21-vote swing.

The filibuster was supposed to make it difficult to pass bad laws. It made it just as difficult, if not more so, to get rid of bad laws.

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I will say that the sturm und drang over the rule change is overwrought. The Senate did something perfectly constitutional for once; hopefully it becomes a habit. And if the 60-vote rule is really that sacrosanct, then it should be no problem to have two-thirds of both houses of Congress introduce and three-quarters of the state legislatures pass an amendment requiring the Senate to keep the 60-vote rule. I won’t hold my breath.

The 2014 NBA draft is expected to be unusually strong, so naturally there’s been much discussion in the blogosphere about whether various teams (let’s say the Celtics) will (or should) tank this season. In turn, there’s been a handful of posts about how to reduce tanking. I really don’t care that much about tanking, as long as my teams aren’t the ones tanking. But if you want to reduce tanking– regardless of league– I hereby offer the following suggestions.

It is important to remember the key purpose of professional sports drafts: to help the weakest teams the most by giving the weakest teams the highest draft picks. So, the team with the worst record gets the first pick, second-worst gets the second pick, and so on. The NBA’s draft has a slight variation in that they give the weakest teams the best chances at getting the highest draft picks. Got it? Good.

I’m going to reduce tanking by (A) ignoring the aforementioned key purpose, and (B) making the whole process needlessly complicated– which is why my proposal will never be adopted. I’m going to substitute a new, different key purpose, which is to encourage teams to win every single game they possibly can.

You want teams to fight to win every single game? You want teams not to tank? Then give the highest draft picks to the best teams, not the worst teams.

That’s right, I’m going to give the top draft pick to the best team in the league. A playoff team. And the worst team in the league won’t draft until the end of the first round. Think about it: each additional win improves your chances of getting the higher pick, so you’re going to fight for that win instead of quitting, right? Tanking problem solved.

But the parity problem– the problem of trying to give the weaker teams a better chance of becoming competitive– isn’t solved. So now I’m going to make the draft even more complicated.

If any playoff team uses a draft pick before any non-playoff team does, then every other member of that playoff team’s roster is now available to be drafted by the rest of the league, and will be until one its players is taken. The playoff teams can pass and go to the back of the line for that round. Once all the non-playoff teams have made a pick, then the playoff teams can start drafting without restriction.

For instance, if the Miami Heat win the NBA Finals again, they’d get the #1 overall pick. But if they use it, then every other player on their roster is now eligible for the draft… until LeBron gets drafted by the very next team. You think the Heat would draft #1 if it meant making LeBron James available to the rest of the league, no strings attached? They’d pass the top pick to whoever finished second, and drop back to the last pick in the first round– just where they would’ve been under the old system. And second would probably pass to third. And so on, and so on…

…until you started getting to the weakest playoff teams. Then you’d start seeing some real intrigue. Should that sixth- or seventh-seeded team with lots of heart, a hardscrabble offense, and a rough-and-tumble defense risk losing a solid player or an occasional All-Star journeyman in order to use the first pick and take a possible superstar?

If nothing else, it’d make draft day much more interesting. The weakest teams may take a while longer to get stronger, but… too bad. Start winning more games.

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Or we could just throw out the draft altogether, stick with the salary cap, and let teams freely contract with willing new players. Who would want to tank then? “We lose on purpose; sign with us, please?”

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There’s another tanking-like problem I’d like to address, that doesn’t occur as often. As playoff time approaches, you’ll occasionally hear talk about which playoff match-ups would be most favorable to any given team— and sometimes, the highest-seeded teams end up locked into match-ups that just aren’t favorable. If you’re the top seed in the NBA or NHL, you’re slated to go up against #8 first. But what if, for whatever reason, #7 is a more favorable matchup for you? Too bad, you’re stuck. Or what if the #2 team is missing its best player due to injury, and you’d rather play them now and bump them off while they’re weak instead of facing them in a few weeks after he’s recovered?

Instead of rewarding the best team by having them play the team with the worst record, why not reward the best team by letting them choose their playoff opponent? Wouldn’t that make the higher seeds even more valuable? Home-field advantage is nice, but I think I’d rather (or also) have the ability to pick my first opponent. The top seed picks first, the highest remaining seed picks next, and so on. You can even do it after each round (as long as that’s applicable; once you’re down to the final two teams in a conference, you’re stuck).

And think of the drama it might add. Teams aren’t simply assigned to a playoff slot anymore; now the top seeds have to call out their opponents. “Oh, [insert top seeded playoff team] wants to play us first? They think we’re weak? We’ll show them!” You can have the “playoff selection show” on the last night of the regular season, sell some ad time, and send me 17% of the revenues.

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Seriously, if any league does this, I’d better get a cut.

A hypothetical:

You are in an urban setting– tall buildings, busy streets, loud noises. A person pulls out a gun and starts shooting at you. In order to dodge the bullets, you run out into the street and are promptly hit by a bus. Hopefully you’re going to be okay, but that’s not relevant to the coming line of questioning.

Is it your fault that you were hit by the bus?

Is it the shooter’s fault that you were hit by the bus?

Is it the bus driver’s fault that you were hit by the bus?

Is it anybody’s fault that you were hit by the bus?

Do these answers change if the shooter was shooting wildly and was not targeting you in particular?

Does the fact that occasionally pedestrians are hit by buses (even if nobody’s shooting at anyone) absolve anybody of blame in the above scenario?

My most frustrating experience in college recurred frequently: nearly falling asleep in class. I’d be sitting there, notebook open, pencil in hand, trying desperately to concentrate on the lecture, to focus on the notes, to keep my head upright, to not drift off…

The fatigue would occasionally be interrupted by that little mid-air head bounce back into a fleeting wakefulness, a quick check of the clock, a horrifying realization that there were still, say, forty-seven minutes left in the class, forty-seven minutes until I could get up and move around, forty-seven minutes until I could head back to the dorm, take a decent hour-long nap before my next class, and shake off the exhaustion. After a good dozen or so of those head bounces, the prof would finally dismiss the class, I’d hightail it back to the dorm, kick off the shoes, close the blinds, turn out the lights, plop my head down on my pillow…

…and stare at the popcorn ceiling, completely wide awake, unable to sleep. The minutes didn’t tick away because I had a digital clock, but they would have if they could have, and as they would have done so, I’d grow angrier and angrier at myself for not getting any sleep after dying for it throughout the last class, and after an hour or so I’d climb out of bed having gotten precisely zero winks of sleep, put the shoes back on, load the next set of books into my bag, and trudge off to the next class knowing perfectly well that I was in for fifty to seventy-five minutes of the same damn thing.

I was reminded of this incredible frustration while driving home this weekend. Middle of the day? Check. Decent sleep the night before? Eight solid hours. A balanced and not-too-sugary breakfast? Yep. Didn’t matter– I felt like I desperately needed to get more sleep. I kept counting off the miles ’til I could get to the next rest area, pull into a spot, tilt the seat back, put a coat over my face to block out the sun, and get a quick nap. I’d get to the next rest area, pull into a spot, tilt the seat back, put a coat over my face to block out the sun, and… sit there wide-awake and eyes open for fifteen minutes wondering how stupid I looked. I’d then straighten up, get back on the road, and get about five minutes down the road before the drowsiness would set back in. Dangerous stuff. If I pull off the road to get some rest in hopes of ensuring safe driving, but I don’t actually get any rest, then clearly the rest area is malfunctioning or mislabeled. I should sue the state.

Mayhaps I need to trek into the mountains to find some guru or shaman to teach me how to sleep and how to stay awake. Either that or see a sleep therapist.

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Those little head bounces could be quite painful when I was in seventh grade. I always had a window seat on the bus, but the windows were offset a bit from the seat. So when I would drift off to sleep, I’d end up with my head against a bolt between the windows. The bus would hit a bump, my head would bounce against the bolt, and the pain would wake me up… for about three minutes until it happened all over again.

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And now I read that insomnia may trigger Alzheimer’s. Just great.