Chasing 16-0 in different ways, pros and cons of life in California and Riot Watch! in Turkey

- Both of the National Football League’s unbeaten teams rolled through Week 14 of the season, with the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints continuing their pursuit of perfection with hard-fought wins. However, this may be the last weekend that comes to a close with both of these teams rocking zeroes in the loss column, judging by the way the Colts have handled similar situations in past seasons. This isn't the first time they’ve gone undefeated deep into the regular season and every single time, they have elected to rest their starters for the final few games of the season once they had clinched homefield advantage in the playoffs. They secured that advantage with Sunday’s 28-16 home win over Denver, which elevated Indy to 13-0 and ensured that all of their playoff games (a maximum of two) prior to a possible Super Bowl trip would be at home. The man who presided over their previous runs at an undefeated season, Tony Dungy, is gone, but in his place is Jim Caldwell, a man who coached under Dungy for many seasons and seems to espouse similar beliefs when it comes to the question of going unbeaten versus resting ailing starters for the playoffs. Never mind that the Colts’ only Super Bowl win came in a season when they went 12-4, had to play their starters all 16 games and approach every game as if it mattered and that the seasons in which they gave starters significant time off at the end of the year ended with early playoff exits. Caldwell apparently isn't swayed by actual proof and for some reason believes that this time will be different. I sincerely wish he would play his starters and treat these final three regular-season games like they matter, not only for the run at history, but also because I hate the idea of teams essentially declaring that two or three games at the end of the year at basically glorified exhibition games. I hate it because fans who bought tickets for those games and paid absurd prices for them didn’t sign up to see Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark stand on the sidelines and cheer on their teammates. At least the Saints are keeping an open mind to the possibility of playing their starters for all 16 games. Head coach Sean Payton has gone on the record as saying that he believes his players who go berserk on him if he tried to bench starters over these last three games to rest them for the postseason. To be fair, the Saints still need at least one more win to clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs because unlike the Colts, they have a conference foe within three games of them in that race. Minnesota has no real chance to catch the Saints (they’re two games back at present), but to make it official, New Orleans needs one and possibly two more wins. Will they keep pushing for 16-0 if and when they lock up the best record in the conference? I certainly hope so, because two teams having a shot at 16-0 and both electing to wuss out and keep their prime players on the sidelines these last two or three weeks would be a crappy way to build up excitement for the playoffs……..

- Ah, the joys of living in California. You get better weather, beautiful people and the thrill of having your state governed by a former steroid-using, bodybuilding actor but in return, you suffer through earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires and living with some of the most plastic, artificial people in all the world. Evidence of this tradeoff came over the weekend as mud and rock slides stranded more than 100 vehicles Saturday on the Angeles Crest Highway in Angeles National Forest and forced dozens of families from their homes. Evacuation orders were handed down and people had to grab their belongings and flee. But aside from those stranded cars and people inconvenienced because of the evacuations, no real damage appears to have been done. Residents of 44 homes evacuated because of the mud and debris slides triggered by heavy rains north of Los Angeles were allowed to return home Sunday after all storm-related evacuation orders were lifted. Los Angeles Fire Capt. Mark Savage explained that once the weather improved, there was no reason to keep people out of their the homes in the La Canada Flintridge-Tujunga area once the weather improved. Some roads remained closed as crews work to remove debris, but most of those roads were reopened by the start of the day Monday. Authorities were also able to relocate the stranded cars and their passengers by putting them in a caravan behind a California Department of Transportation Truck. Now if you come to me and offer me a deal wherein I can have all of the aforementioned benefits of living in California but must deal with all of the drawbacks I also mentioned, I’m taking that deal every day of the week. Of course, with the bloated real estate prices in the state, it’s not like I could afford to live there anyhow, so in the end this is just one big moot point………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Let’s sojourn to Turkey for this edition of everyone’s favorite overview/celebration of social dissidence worldwide. An inspiring group of angry Kurdish protesters clashed with Turkish police Sunday and some of the intrepid protestors/rioters were chased some into back alleys as they fled the scene. Yes sir, things surely are becoming heated in Turkey, but that’s the norm these days. This protest/riot had the perfect storm of ingredients, with about 300 demonstrators gathering for a media statement at the offices of the Democratic Society Party, the main Kurdish political party, in the Istanbul neighborhood Dolapdere. But there demonstrators didn’t simply gather around to stand quietly and listen to a statement being made; they were there to rumble. The crowd began shouting slogans and throwing stones, which led to the predictable police overreaction with water cannons and tear gas. Showing that they don’t have a damn clue how to properly use tear gas, police managed to disperse it so recklessly that by Sunday night, tear gas had drifted into residences, causing people to choke and gasp. This showdown in the streets of Istanbul was set up by a recent court ruling to ban the Democratic Society Party -- known by its initials in Turkish, DTP - the party’s threats to boycott parliamentary sessions. There were also small-scale street clashes with police in the southeastern border towns of Yuksekova and Hakkari on Sunday, so clearly the spirit of dissidence was in the air. Only 30 people were detained in Hakkari, but this particular group stepped their game up several notches by using Molotov cocktails and wearing masks to hide their faces from police. Today, the DTP held a party congress in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir to debate whether the party should resign from the Turkish Parliament. That may be a moot point if the current trend of forcing party members from power continues. The co-chair of the party, Ahmet Turk, was banned from politics and stripped of his parliamentary seat by a Friday decision of the Constitutional Court, which decided that the DTP is a launching point for terrorist activities. Tensions between the Kurds and the rest of Turkey have been simmering for decades, which is a problem because Kurds are Turkey's largest ethnic minority, numbering more than 12 million people. When you’re the largest minority group in the country and your government denies your existence for years and years, there are bound to be problems. Those problems also tend to heighten when you have to constantly fight to have your right to publicly use your own language, which the Kurds have been forced to do. But if it leads to more than a week of peeved Kurdish youths clashing with Turkish police in cities and towns across the country, lobbing stones and Molotov cocktails at them, then I’m all for it…………

- Hear that? That…..is the sound of inevitability. As sure as Microsoft releases a new version of its subpar, crap-tacular Windows operating system, there will be a resulting flood of problems, complaints and disasters for consumers unfortunate enough to be saddled with a PC. Microsoft launched Windows 7 in late October amidst the predictable promises that this time, it would be different . But, just like with every previous Windows “upgrade,” the complaints began rolling in almost immediately. So far, a meaty 31 percent of users have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7, according to a recent survey of more than 100,000 customers. "Most of the problems that customers have with Windows 7 have to do with installation, or application and data migration," said Vishal Dhar, co-founder of technology firm iYogi. "These are all fixable problems, but they're annoyances and they're time consuming." Oh, what a perfect summation of the Windows experience in a few words: annoying, time-consuming and problematic. The most common problem is that the hour-long upgrade process gets to the "62% completed" point and then freezes. To fix that bugaboo, users must reboot their computer, go into advanced settings, and type in a code that instructs the computer to ignore plug-ins. But wait, there’s more! Even after they successfully install the world’s worst operating system, users are still reporting plenty of complaints. Those problems would include the absence of basic "applet" programs, like Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery. Why would these programs be AWOL? That would be because Windows 7 deletes those programs and makes users download them from the Windows Live Essential Web site. Having to take that extra step would be infuriating enough, but apparently Microsoft made little or no effort to inform users of the need to take that step. Other issues reported include users who said their DVD drives couldn't be found by Windows and two percent who couldn't sync their iPhones with Windows 7. Even one of the system’s supposed standout new features, "Aero" theme doesn't work properly for many customers. The Aero theme is supposed to allow users to see through a window to view the desktop or other programs that are open behind it, but 14 percent of users report problems using the feature because their lame-tastic PC’s didn’t have the graphics capabilities for it. Ah, there’s nothing quite like the laughs from a new Windows product launch…………

- Japanese professor and inventor Yoshiyuki Sankai is apparently a huge fan of "Iron Man" and "RoboCop," because he’s attempting to take the futuristic robotic suits at the center of those bloated Hollywood action films and make them a part of everyday life. Sankai, who admits to having been fascinated by robots since he was a child, unveiled several working prototypes of a mechanical, mind-controlled "exoskeleton" in 2005 that could allow the disabled to walk. The mind-controlled Hybrid Assistive Limbs (HAL) allow the disabled more mobility and a more active lifestyle, something that would be a huge benefit for Japan as it seeks ways to deal with its rising average age. The suits, which were recently refined, are now available for rent in Japan. The robotic limbs have what look like white soccer shinguards attached to each segment of the arms and legs and a fanny pack-like battery hooked around the waist. The entire apparatus functions by picking up the tiny flickers of energy that brains send to nerves when you "tell" your body to move. In turn, sensors relay this information to the suit's central computer and, within 125/1000ths of a second, the robot outfit moves based on your thoughts. There is also a memory component to the process, as HAL learns to better interpret your nerve signals over time, providing for greater control when standing up, climbing stairs, or lifting heavy objects. What about the fact that the suit weighs close to 50 pounds, you ask? Well, HAL supports its own weight, so users scarcely notice the added burden and Sankai says the power it provides more than makes up for that weight. The suit multiplies a human's force by two to 10 times, making it a valuable tool – if you can afford it. Sankai's company, Cyberdyne, offers the suits to disabled customers in Japan for a pricey $2,450 a month. American researchers are working on a similar suit, but their quest is more “Iron Man” in nature. The U.S. version of the suit is being developed by defense contractor Raytheon as an exoskeleton for Army soldiers. Still early in its development, the XOS suit provides troops with a significant boost in strength and endurance. A software engineer working with the project used the suit for various physical tasks to show off the XOS suit’s capabilities and reported extremely positive results. Let me know when robot suits become accessible and affordable to the common man, everyone, and don’t bother me with them until then…………