Will the end of the world be on December 12, 2012?

I don't think so though I've heard some people say that if Sarah Palin wins the presidential election that year, it will.

The Mayan calendar was only calculated until December 21, 2012. Conspiracy theorists are delighted about it. The same people who stored bottles of water and bought generators in anticipation of Y2K, the millennium are just as excited about the idea of the world ending in 2012 as they were about a world wide blackout and chaos in 2000.

The Mayans developed a 5,126 year calendar cycle. The Mayans were rather clever but not clever enough to predict the end of their own civilization which disappeared sometime around the year 900. But the Mayans weren't predicting the end of their own civilization, much less the end of the universe. They were ingenious when it came to astronomy and they were proficient in preparing their calendar to account for centuries to come. If the Mayans had accurately predicted the end of the world, it is much more likely they would have predicted what to them would have been the end of the world, their world, the Mayans, which disappeared around 1100 years ago.

If Microsoft had been as far thinking as the Mayan scholars, it would have prepared its computers for a calendar year beginning with a 2. It wouldn't have been that hard. They were still building computers in 1995 that weren't programmed in anticipation of the year 2000. That they weren't thinking five years ahead doesn't mean they weren't capable of doing so, it simply illustrates that in our consumer driven society, it was expected that computers would be obsolete in three years.

According to some Doomsday theorists, there will be solar storms that will trigger volcanoes. Since there are solar storms in almost any given year, it's likely that there will be solar storms in 2012. Solar storms occur in 11 year cycles. Sometimes they cause brief power outages. Since there are 50-60 volcano eruptions every year, it is likely that there will indeed by volcano eruptions in 2012. If there were no volcano eruptions in a year, that would indeed be remarkable.

Some doomsayers predict that there will be a reversal of poles that will make the Earth spin in the opposite direction. There is geological evidence that shows that polar reversals have occurred in the Earth's history. But polar reversals don't happen in a year or even ten years. Polar reversals occur over a span of about a thousand years or more. The reigning theory on polar reversals is that the inner molten core of the earth's chaotic motion changes through time which causes the poles to reverse.

Scholars who have made the Mayan civilization their life's work dispute the claims that the world will end in 2012. Scientists dismiss the 2012 doomsday conspiracy theories with facts. But seemingly ordinary people completely dismiss scientific evidence and cultural knowledge of the Mayans in favor of a doomsday scenario.

So the question then becomes, what is it about disaster, catastrophe and doom that so fascinate people who are otherwise rational people? I suspect that it is derived from the apparent human desire for drama and excitement. Humans love a mystery. The Mayans are mysterious because their civilization was so advanced. It's often hard for people to put people from ancient civilizations into any real context. The people who lived 2000 years ago had the same brain capacity that we have and they did remarkable things. They built pyramids. Even 200 years ago people built magnificent bridges and dams while today it is easy to think of the crumbling infrastructure of our country and be unable to conceive of how such engineering can be replaced. We built canals and railroads without the aid of computers and those remarkable feats seem long ago in a dim and mysterious past already. In a thousand years, our descendants will deem it remarkable that we built skyscrapers and roads with the limited technology we have.

Yes, the Mayan civilization was remarkable. They were clever enough to create a 5000 year calendar. Our own civilization has been remarkable too. The ancient Egyptians were remarkable too. They built pyramids. Ancient people in Britain created Stonehenge, managing to move tons of rocks and manipulate them into a circle without the aid of cranes and trucks. The Roman empire was remarkable too. To date, none of the great civilizations have been able to predict the end of our own civilizations, much less the end of the world. The Mayans had to stop somewhere in their calendar calculation. That it happens to be in 2012 means they felt comfortable enough about their own civilization to predict that their descendants, 5000 years later, would be able to continue their calculations. They had to stop somewhere. Even if one brilliant Mayan mathematician and astronomer spent his or her whole life calculating a calendar, it would have ended sometime.

Top Chef this week

Spoiler alert: If you haven't watched Top chef this week, and don't want to know who had to pack their knives, don't read!

I was glad to see Carla finally win one. I like her but she definitely hasn't really shown her talents in the season so far. Last week, she was the team member that had the worst food but Rhadica got sent home because she was the leader of the Restaurant Wars team. I think Rhadica is a much better chef than some of the people still in the running. In fact, I think that Rhadica, Stefan and Jamie are this season's best chefs.

Even so, Rhadica made a terrible mistake in not choosing Stefan to be on her team just because she didn't like working with him. He's the best chef this season whether we like him or not. Personally I don't think he's shown himself to be too much of an ass really even though the other chefs all seem to hate him. This season's chefs are much nicer overall than in many seasons past. No one stands out this season as being the one we love to hate.

I think Stefan will win the season. He could have been cut tonight but wasn't. The judges chose to send Jeff home. They didn't particularly care for his dish, but in the cook off wars between previous season chefs, one of the judges chose his food over the previous season chef. None of the judges chose Fabio's dish over the other guys dish so I can't understand how they didn't send him home.

Two episodes ago, they made it clear that they don't consider what the chefs have done in the past in choosing who will go home that night. That is when they sent Ariane home even though she had won several challenges. She had been the team "leader" for the night and Leah and Hosea threw her under the bus. In that episode, Leah should have been sent home.

But I don't believe for a minute that they don't consider previous cooking challenges before choosing who to send home. Everyone agreed that Fabio's dish was the worst but when they got ready to send someone home, they sent home Jeff. Jeff hasn't won too many challenges if any this season while Fabio has won at least one. I like Fabio and they probably do too. He's the consummate entertainer so they probably want to keep him on board for as long as they can.

But the most thrilling thing that happened tonight is that Andrea from a previous season beat Stefan across the board. I happen to think Stefan is the most talented chef this season...well he or Jamie is anyway. But I always liked Andrea and think she was underestimated tonight. Stefan thought she would be easy to win and he referred to her as the vegetarian chef. That she tries to incorporate healthy cooking into her recipes doesn't mean she's not a strong chef. She is one of my favorites from all the seasons. Go Andrea!

Cheney swears in a new congress in the epitome of irony

Did anybody besides me find Cheney swearing in the new Congress just a little bit ironic? Part of the oath is to "uphold the United States Constitution." To have Dick Cheney swearing in the new Congress is protocol, he is still the vice-president. But after his blatant willingness to set aside the United States Constitution during the Bush presidency and his eagerness to accept responsibility for condoning and okaying the use of torture of prisoners just makes the whole swearing in ceremony a tad bit ridiculous.

So-called Apple tax the latest ploy by Microsoft but it won't work

I read an article on ZDnet today by Ed Bott discussing the latest Redmond ploy to criticize Apple by calling the higher price of Apple machines the "apple tax".

Bott details his experience using a MacBook for a couple of weeks and then delves into the cost of hardware and software for the Mac compared to a typical Windows machine.

I made the switch from Windows to an iMac last year. I am not the typical power user, just an ordinary end user. I switched because I went through two long-labored processes of removing viruses that my anti-virus software didn't prevent. I spent about 5 weeks posting what was going on with my pc (made by Dell incidentally) to a virus help website, getting instructions, following them and then posting the results and going through subsequent instructions, step by step until I got rid of the virus.

It would have been bad enough on its own but it was the second time I had gone through the process. The first time I got a virus I was using Norton Anti-virus software that was updated daily. The second time I was using Trend Micro's PC-cillin that was updated daily.

I am an average user. I have never visited a porn site and have been around long enough not to click on any link without trusting the purveyor of the link implicitly.

Add to that experience the fact that I used a friends laptop in the interim that had Windows Vista and I made the switch to the iMac. I know the TV commercials show some ostensibly clueless people using the Vista software and saying how much they like it before knowing it's really Windows Vista but I'm not buying it, figuratively or literally.

My experience using Windows Vista reminded me of the experience I had when I had to upgrade my 3.1 Windows to Windows 95. The problems seemed to outweigh any neglible improvements.

I bought the iMac thinking I could get Windows and run it on my iMac for programs I missed or needed. As it turned out, I never loaded Windows on my iMac. I found out I didn't need to. The only program I would like to use that is Windows based is my Family Tree software and I didn't see the point in getting Windows for one program. Instead I put the program on my husband's PC. I only use it once in a while anyway.

At this point, it would take a lot to get me to go back to using a Windows machine. For me, it's worth the extra cost to have a reliable operating system that doesn't freeze and isn't nearly so susceptible to viruses.

It took me about a month to truly get used to using an iMac after 20 years of using MS DOS and then MS Windows OS software.

I am not one of those people who feels any particular loyalty to some giant nameless corporation or the CEO of such a corporation (read Gates vs Jobs here). I buy what I think is best for me and at this point, the Mac is best for me, not because I think it's cool and not because I for some arcane reason dislike Bill Gates. I like the iMac because I never have any trouble with it. You wouldn't believe the cartwheels and backbends it took to get the Gateway PC sitting next to my iMac to run wirelessly. And yes, I called the Linksys help desk. What a joke. The four or five phone calls I made to them were a waste of time and I finally figured out how to get the wireless card working through dumb luck and trial and error.

But getting back to my point, the iMac is easy to use. And like I said earlier, I am not a power user, I'm your average computer user. I shop online. I email. I play Boggle online. I check Facebook. I research information online for my blog.

My husband and I own our own small business (used book store) that is online. Slowly but surely all of the business stuff that we do on a computer is shifting to my iMac because everything we do is easier on the iMac. And that is surprising because we always had the impression that the Mac was supposed to be for hip artsy types while the PC is for working class slobs like us.

We have found that it's easier to print out a Delivery Confirmation label on my iMac. It's a whole lot faster and we can modify what is being printed because the label is on the local machine as opposed to being on the post office website (the only way to do it on a PC).

What I'm beginning to notice is that every program for the PC that we use for business that is made by Microsoft is huge, unwieldly, cumbersome and is probably perfect for huge corporations but much more than what we need for a used book business.

The only thing left on my husband's PC at this point is the credit card processing software (that we have been told is being discontinued) and a text in tabs file in Microsoft Excel that contains our inventory data. Since my iMac can reproduce the text in tabs inventory file we have on Excel, after the credit card software is obsolete, I can see no reason to have a PC for our small business.

Ed Bott wrote about the cost of upgrading the RAM. The thing to do is what I've been doing for years with my Windows machines - upgrade the Ram yourself. It's easy to do. And a whole lot cheaper.

Interestingly, I've noticed that my iMac runs a whole lot faster with 2g of ram than my husband's PC does with 4g of ram. To be fair, his machine is older than mine by a year.

The number one reason the Apple iMac is worth paying more for than a Windows machine is reliability. For me, it was worth the extra cost. The article referred to at the beginning of this column doesn't take into account the costs associated with downtime, virus software, and the ensuing panic attacks. I will stick with Mac to avoid those costs.

Madoff mails $ millions to friends and family

Madoff's bail should be revoked and he should stay behind bars. Republicans don't want more regulations for SEC even though Madoff swindled investors to the tune of $50 billion.

read more | digg story

Mitch McConnell could be a shape shifter

Has anybody else noticed that Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky has no smile wrinkles? He could have played the part of Odo on Deep Space 9 without any makeup.

I'm beginning to think he is an alien sent here to investigate the human species on our planet.

All joking aside, McConnell could be said to be the ranking Republican in the Senate. Yesterday, when President-elect Barack Obama talked about some of the details of his stimulus plan, McConnell posited that he (McConnell) and other Republicans had pressured Barack Obama and that as a result, part of Obama's economic stimulus package contained tax cuts for the middle class. Excuse me, shapeshifter McConnell, but this is the plan that Obama touted all during his campaign in the last two years. But if it makes you feel better to think that you have had something to do with the attempts to raise our nation's economy out of the quagmire that you and your fellow Republicans have sunk us into, go ahead and think it. But for God's sake, don't say it out loud. We, well, those of us who have been paying attention, are well aware that Obama has had the middle class tax cut in his economic plans for about two years now.

McConnell is taking credit for Obama's economic stimulus plan but when asked about the election counts showing that Al Franken would be the new senator from Minnesota, McConnell was quick to return to his usual persona of Senator "NO" saying that Franken will not be senator until he is certified.



If McConnell is the ranking Republican, we Democrats are in good shape. Between McConnell and Chip Saltsman, famous now for sending RNC members a CD with offensive Christmas songs like, "Barack the Magic Negro" for Christmas presents, the Republicans are imploding.