No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
- WH Auden
That pretty much sums up my distaste for both opera and musicals. I think West Side Story is the most quintessentially dumb musical in this regard. How can you have a story about rival gangs that involves dancing and ballads? Lost teeth, cigarette burns, gang rape, and being bound in a gasoline-soaked tire and set on fire, yes. Dancing? No. Not so much. Very few Tupac songs about how crappy a rival gang's choreography was in South Central...
Sunday, April 30, 2006
A fickle god
John Kenneth Galbraith apparently just bit it. My uncle actually lives right next to him, so probably the neighborhood is a zoo at the moment.
Why is it that God seems to be striking down the good and meanwhile letting evil thrive?
Why is it that God seems to be striking down the good and meanwhile letting evil thrive?
Saturday, April 29, 2006
I am a photographic genius!
Okay, not really. But I did have a few nice pics on my camera. Others here.
San Diego
I-280 in the Bay Area
I-280 in the Bay Area
Friday, April 28, 2006
When your family's long history of making bone-headed financial decisions comes back to haunt you
After this little gem, I think I just lost about $5000 between stock and options. Fucking Microsoft. Fucking Wall Street.
I had meant to exercise my options earlier, but of course I didn't get around to it. I thought to myself, "Well, what's the big deal? Microsoft stock doesn't really move much anyway..."
My family has a long history of making stupid financial decisions, so in some sense I'm doomed. My grandmother lost an original cell from Snow White (which is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars at this point), and my family also sold all its Eastman stock just before the merger that caused it to become Eastman-Kodak.
I had meant to exercise my options earlier, but of course I didn't get around to it. I thought to myself, "Well, what's the big deal? Microsoft stock doesn't really move much anyway..."
My family has a long history of making stupid financial decisions, so in some sense I'm doomed. My grandmother lost an original cell from Snow White (which is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars at this point), and my family also sold all its Eastman stock just before the merger that caused it to become Eastman-Kodak.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Why is this so hard?
Guys, look...I know each of you has your infrastructure all set up to use your respective next-gen DVD format, but come on...there has to be a sum of money or deal you can broker to get one of you to use the other's format. Your idiotic and stubborn greed is going to force the rest of the world to suffer a format war, and you'll be harming your own profit margin while most consumers wait for the winner to emerge before commiting to an entirely new format. This is a classic lose-lose when it could easily be turned into a win-win if you could get your heads out of your asses.
Dicks.
Dicks.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Yet another reason I come from the good Carolina
The southern, lesser one wants to ban sex toys.
Don't these people have better things to do? Is feeding the poor really less urgent that eliminating vibrators? Really?
Don't these people have better things to do? Is feeding the poor really less urgent that eliminating vibrators? Really?
When you download music, the terrorists win
Are you shitting me? Is this the mantra now? Anything somebody doesn't like can be construed as funding terrorists?
Somehow I don't think Al-Qaeda is getting rich off of bootleg Kelly Clarkson CDs.
Somehow I don't think Al-Qaeda is getting rich off of bootleg Kelly Clarkson CDs.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Oh, right, I forgot...
Republicans are still douchebags.
Republican operating procedure:
If you don't like the idea, insist on endless studies to "get the facts."
If you do like the idea, immediately close off all debate on the topic and label those who oppose you obstructionist.
Republican operating procedure:
If you don't like the idea, insist on endless studies to "get the facts."
If you do like the idea, immediately close off all debate on the topic and label those who oppose you obstructionist.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
A quick musical critique
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are fantastic musicians and terrible poets/lyricists. I love a bunch of their music, but their lyrics always make me cringe. Because they're trite and retarded. The lyrics, I mean. I don't know about the guys. One of them _is_ named Flea though.
That is all.
That is all.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Linus is an asshole
The Linux Linus, not the Charlie Brown one.
This is what I hate about some kinds of engineers and developers. They turn arguments about programming personal, and they think that just because they think they know better than everyone else gives them license to behave like an asshole. It doesn't. Civility and respect for one's peers doesn't evaporate because you can do math well.
People like to talk about how democratic Linux and Open Source is, but in fact it's really more like a monarchy or dictatorship with an arguably benevolent dictator. Ultimately, a very few number of people have control about which patches get into the Linux kernel and which ones don't. At best that is a representative democracy with no checks and balances. But I don't know that Linus actually ever faces elections over his control of the kernel.
This is what I hate about some kinds of engineers and developers. They turn arguments about programming personal, and they think that just because they think they know better than everyone else gives them license to behave like an asshole. It doesn't. Civility and respect for one's peers doesn't evaporate because you can do math well.
People like to talk about how democratic Linux and Open Source is, but in fact it's really more like a monarchy or dictatorship with an arguably benevolent dictator. Ultimately, a very few number of people have control about which patches get into the Linux kernel and which ones don't. At best that is a representative democracy with no checks and balances. But I don't know that Linus actually ever faces elections over his control of the kernel.
Stupid United
Why must there be inflation in frequent flyer miles required for award tickets? It's not like San Francisco is moving farther away from New York every year, for fuck's sake...
A phrase you don't expect to read
Did they really just say the animals were "radioactive...but otherwise healthy"?
No...no no no...see, glowing and radioactive is not a minor physiological quirk. One cannot be "healthy" and "radioactive" at the same time. If you glow in the dark and emit a low humming sound when standing perfectly still, I think it's safe to say you are very, very far from healthy.
No...no no no...see, glowing and radioactive is not a minor physiological quirk. One cannot be "healthy" and "radioactive" at the same time. If you glow in the dark and emit a low humming sound when standing perfectly still, I think it's safe to say you are very, very far from healthy.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
No sympathy
Fer fuck's sake...do I even need to say it?! Frankly, I think he should be able to use the fact that the two women let him in as a defense.
"Look, your honor...I, looking like the creepy old man I am, went around door-to-door asking women if they wanted free breast exams. They voluntarily let me in. They thought to themselves, 'You know, I _have_ needed a breast exam for a while, and I don't find it at all odd that an overweight old man is wandering around neighborhoods offering to fondle women's breasts. Come in, good sir!' I think it's only fair that I get to touch boob if I have to deal with the fact that there are people that stupid still alive in the modern world."
My impulse to protect people from being taken advantage of has limits, boys and girls. At some point, for the good of the gene pool, natural selection should be allowed to take its course.
"Look, your honor...I, looking like the creepy old man I am, went around door-to-door asking women if they wanted free breast exams. They voluntarily let me in. They thought to themselves, 'You know, I _have_ needed a breast exam for a while, and I don't find it at all odd that an overweight old man is wandering around neighborhoods offering to fondle women's breasts. Come in, good sir!' I think it's only fair that I get to touch boob if I have to deal with the fact that there are people that stupid still alive in the modern world."
My impulse to protect people from being taken advantage of has limits, boys and girls. At some point, for the good of the gene pool, natural selection should be allowed to take its course.
Go away
You had your chance Mr. Kerry. You, and the rest of the Democrats, blew it. And now you're a loser in the collective consciousness. Do us all a favor and don't fuck up two consecutive elections. Please?
Your daily idiotic patent
Microsoft's guilty of patent infringement. The patent? Using a product key.
Are you shitting me? The patent system has gotten ridiculous...
Are you shitting me? The patent system has gotten ridiculous...
Are you fucking shitting me?
Yes. That's it. Everything would be fine if we just reinstituted the draft. You fucking retard.
1) Iran's crazy nuclear talk is all just posturing for the sake of domestic public opinion. Nothing galvanizes a country behind a leader, no matter how crazy or inept he is, more than a credible external threat. Just ask Mr. Bush. The _worst_ thing you can do at this point is to provoke them.
2) You actually wrote this in something that you knew was going to be published in the New York Times: "President Bush has the perfect credentials overseas to execute this move, and little political capital at home to lose at this stage. Polls confirm that a wide majority of people in many countries view him and the United States as the major threat to global peace. Why let them down on this count? Go with the flow."
I...did you?...wow. Have you ever been so dumbfounded by a confrontation with stupid that you're left speechless?
3) You called Reagan a master of strategy. Just like Bush is a master of oratory? The man was a fucking retard. He had alzheimers, and he was a dick. If you're looking to him for foreign policy, that tells me you're an idiot with a dangerous failure to grasp the differences between the Cold War and the Middle East.
Please go back to jacking off to Rambo movies and stop cluttering the Times opinion section. Idiocy like yours just isn't as fun when it's so overt.
1) Iran's crazy nuclear talk is all just posturing for the sake of domestic public opinion. Nothing galvanizes a country behind a leader, no matter how crazy or inept he is, more than a credible external threat. Just ask Mr. Bush. The _worst_ thing you can do at this point is to provoke them.
2) You actually wrote this in something that you knew was going to be published in the New York Times: "President Bush has the perfect credentials overseas to execute this move, and little political capital at home to lose at this stage. Polls confirm that a wide majority of people in many countries view him and the United States as the major threat to global peace. Why let them down on this count? Go with the flow."
I...did you?...wow. Have you ever been so dumbfounded by a confrontation with stupid that you're left speechless?
3) You called Reagan a master of strategy. Just like Bush is a master of oratory? The man was a fucking retard. He had alzheimers, and he was a dick. If you're looking to him for foreign policy, that tells me you're an idiot with a dangerous failure to grasp the differences between the Cold War and the Middle East.
Please go back to jacking off to Rambo movies and stop cluttering the Times opinion section. Idiocy like yours just isn't as fun when it's so overt.
Stupid lack of foresight
This pisses me off. Wanna know why? Because I didn't think of it. September 12th (well, ok, maybe more like September 29th, or something like that), I should have put a whole lotta money in mining companies, but especially people like tire producers. This was entirely predictable. And I could have made money off of it.
Damnit.
Damnit.
Wow...go Windows!
Suck it, Apple.
Gabe from Penny Arcade reported getting 15-20 frames per second running World of Warcraft on his MacBook using OS X and then 30-40 frames per second on the same hardware using XP. Damn. Apparently software does matter.
Windows may not be able to do anything else right, but damnit, it still beats the shit out of Apple when it comes to games.
Gabe from Penny Arcade reported getting 15-20 frames per second running World of Warcraft on his MacBook using OS X and then 30-40 frames per second on the same hardware using XP. Damn. Apparently software does matter.
Windows may not be able to do anything else right, but damnit, it still beats the shit out of Apple when it comes to games.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Why Free Software is bad
I think this is a great case for why I like the idea of Open Source and I generally detest the idea of Free Software for being a naive view of the world.
As Stallman points out, there are four basic freedoms involved in Free Software (and, incidentally, I think the comment that, "Real programmers count from zero..." is very telling. The point of a computer, dear Richard, is to interact with people. Most people aren't programmers, nor should they be. _People_ count from 1. Idiot...):
As Stallman points out, there are four basic freedoms involved in Free Software (and, incidentally, I think the comment that, "Real programmers count from zero..." is very telling. The point of a computer, dear Richard, is to interact with people. Most people aren't programmers, nor should they be. _People_ count from 1. Idiot...):
- Zero is the freedom to run the program as you wish
- One is the freedom to study and change the software
- Two is the freedom to redistribute copies as you wish
- Three is the freedom to distribute modifed versions as you wish.
As far as I'm concerned, One is the only important principle there. The danger to the software industry is having software that's a black box. It's extremely important for interoperability and safe layering of software to know the exact behavior of the software you're interacting with. Indeed, this mismatch between two interacting pieces of software is the cause of most bugs, security holes, reliability problems, etc. Moreover, it's the way software vendors lock you into their products. Therefore, it's important to be able to study code both for research purposes as well as for competitive marketplace purposes.
Typically, the counter-argument to Freedom One is that, well, if people can see your source code, they can just copy it and use it without compensating you, and there's no incentive to create software any more. With regard to literal copying, that can be taken care of with copyright. With regard to copying the idea, well, any significantly complex idea is difficult to copy correctly. The value of any piece of software is generally not the fundamental idea behind it, but instead the robustness of the particular implementation of that idea with respect to performance, reliability, managability, etc. By and large, you don't get a benefit with regard to the latter simply by looking at someone's code. So I think that objection is bullshit.
As for the other freedoms, I have ranted about how ridiculous they are as ipso facto virtues. They aren't. They're derivative virtues that are essentially principles attempting a particular implementation of a wider goal where that wider goal is...actually, I'm not even sure what the wider goal is. The mentality of the Free Software movement seems to parallel a wider Libertarian philosophy that total freedom to do anything is a virtue in and of itself, which is both naive and stupid. Personally, I would say that the goal is to make computer systems that make people's lives easier and better. That's not the same thing as saying anybody should be able to do anything with their computer and/or their software.
Want an example in which the two are different? I'll give you my three favorites:
- Heterogeneity is the bane of managability, and computer managability is the single greatest headache of most consumers. In simpler, more concrete terms, computers infuriate most people because they are expected to be able to know what to buy, how to configure it, and how to fix it if it goes wrong. One of the best lessons we can learn from Windows is that if you give people enough rope to hang themselves, they will find a myriad of creative ways to do so. Want to install this ActiveX control? What about this program? How about executing this attachment? Think it's safe to go to this phishing web site? How about this driver...think it will destabilize your system? Etc. Most people neither want nor need all the flexibility of such a system, and would be downright grateful not to have to make those decisions.
- Data has more semantic meaning and importance than simple bytes. If your medical records are digitized, you want some guarantee about what the computer systems that manipulate those records can and cannot do. It is not necessarily in your or society's interest to have someone be able to load arbitrary software on a server storing medical records, because then all bets are off.
- Sometimes you want to be assured that a computer system not under your control faithfully performed some action. Think, for example, of a car odometer. When you buy a used car, you rely on the accuracy of the odometer to tell you how much that car has been driven. If someone came in and told you, "I should have the freeom to put whatever software I want in that odometer control!", you would probably get rather pissed off, don't you think?
Anyway...I think Stallman is an idiot (can you tell?), but Lessig I tend to have more respect for. I would like to hear his arguments against DRM as I suspect they are far more pragmatic than Stallman's.
(Keep in mind, incidentally, that because I think DRM is a good thing in principle doesn't mean I think it should be handed to industry carte blanche. We're being fucked by people like the RIAA, and I think DRM is our collective bargaining chip to get such people to stop being such monopolistic pricks. I.e., "We'll give you DRM, but you have to open up to increased competition. Mmm'k? Good boy. Have a biscuit.")
Working at Microsoft
A pretty good summary of working at Microsoft. I particularly agree with his comments on managers, both in the sense that there are too many of them and they get in the way, and in the sense that there's very little review or consideration of people skills in hiring managers. Most companies have the reverse problem: managers have nothing _but_ people skills (if even that), and they have no concept of the actual work being done. Microsoft (and now Google, incidentally) have the reverse problem: engineers tend to be the ones promoted to managerial positions, and consequently they have a very good grasp of the products and the technical issues, but they have _no_ idea how to deal with group dynamics or the fact that their reports are, you know, people.
Probably my other biggest gripe with being an employee at Microsoft is that there's no incentive in the review and compensation structure for group achievement. Everything's way too individual-focused, and consequently employees are basically pitted against each other in various ways. It's stupid.
But, overall, Microsoft really is a great place to work. I swear. Every group is different, and a lot of groups don't have these problems.
Probably my other biggest gripe with being an employee at Microsoft is that there's no incentive in the review and compensation structure for group achievement. Everything's way too individual-focused, and consequently employees are basically pitted against each other in various ways. It's stupid.
But, overall, Microsoft really is a great place to work. I swear. Every group is different, and a lot of groups don't have these problems.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
30 second bunny theatre
I think my two favorites are Reservoir Dogs and Jaws. SmileYouSonOfA...!
No, no, I think Jaws is my favorite hands-down if for no other reason than the shark has bunny ears.
No, no, I think Jaws is my favorite hands-down if for no other reason than the shark has bunny ears.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Dear sir
To whomever wrote the following on my NSF fellowship application review:
"The only reason candidate wants to pursue graduate study is because other colleagues have PhDs. Although proposed research is exciting and would benefit software systems, particularly Microsoft..."
I would like to offer a deep, heartfelt "Fuck. You." Did you even read my application, or did you just look at the fact I worked at Microsoft, have flashbacks to Windows 98 crashing in the middle of writing one of your technically shallow and uninsightful papers, and immediately conclude you didn't like me?
Not only do I have a very good idea of why I'm going back to grad school, but I guarantee I have a hell of a lot better idea than 90% of the people you gave awards to, most of whom are going to grad school because they can't figure out what the fuck else they will do when they graduate, and who will inevitably vanish into directionless oblivion soon after their grad school careers. I could quite happily stay in this job, but for some reason (one which is apparently beyond your comprehension), I voluntarily decided to take a drastic pay cut and up-end my life. Now, maybe you, my dear douche, are retarded enough and so incapable of independent thought that you would actually move to a different state and live off of $25k a year just because your friends did, but some of us actually, like, think through things. Try it sometime.
So, to reiterate, fuck you, fuck you, and, in closing, fuck you. If you didn't like me, or you thought the money would be better spent on someone with fewer financial means, fine, but you didn't have to be a dick about it.
Fuck you,
Nick
"The only reason candidate wants to pursue graduate study is because other colleagues have PhDs. Although proposed research is exciting and would benefit software systems, particularly Microsoft..."
I would like to offer a deep, heartfelt "Fuck. You." Did you even read my application, or did you just look at the fact I worked at Microsoft, have flashbacks to Windows 98 crashing in the middle of writing one of your technically shallow and uninsightful papers, and immediately conclude you didn't like me?
Not only do I have a very good idea of why I'm going back to grad school, but I guarantee I have a hell of a lot better idea than 90% of the people you gave awards to, most of whom are going to grad school because they can't figure out what the fuck else they will do when they graduate, and who will inevitably vanish into directionless oblivion soon after their grad school careers. I could quite happily stay in this job, but for some reason (one which is apparently beyond your comprehension), I voluntarily decided to take a drastic pay cut and up-end my life. Now, maybe you, my dear douche, are retarded enough and so incapable of independent thought that you would actually move to a different state and live off of $25k a year just because your friends did, but some of us actually, like, think through things. Try it sometime.
So, to reiterate, fuck you, fuck you, and, in closing, fuck you. If you didn't like me, or you thought the money would be better spent on someone with fewer financial means, fine, but you didn't have to be a dick about it.
Fuck you,
Nick
Don't make me come over there
Hey! Fuckers! Didn't I just say I didn't want to hear the word "teledildonics" used ever again? Didn't I?
-----
"A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes.
"People who use it are just blown away," said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does."
"The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."
-----
*shudder*
-----
"A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes.
"People who use it are just blown away," said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does."
"The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."
-----
*shudder*
How I learned to stop worrying and love the reactor
A founder of Greenpeace says he wants to take some time out from hugging trees and hug nuclear reactors. Aww...how cute.
Seriously, if we want to get rid of fossil fuels as a power source, the replacement is going to have to involve nuclear reactors. It's just that simple.
Seriously, if we want to get rid of fossil fuels as a power source, the replacement is going to have to involve nuclear reactors. It's just that simple.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
From the "No, seriously, don't even _think_ of trying this at home" files
This has to be the most elaborate, and sloooowest, Rube Goldberg machine ever built. Nice use of chemistry.
I am a truly terrible person
Fun things to do on Easter Sunday: give your cousin a hard time about her paper on black kids in special-ed programs. Extra bonus: cross any and all lines of decency you can think of.
-----
...
(18:34:35) Suzanna: my paper
(18:40:34) Sirius137: on?
(18:43:45) Suzanna: the overrepresentation of african american males in special education programs
(18:44:32) Sirius137: so you're saying black people _aren't_ special?
(18:44:40) Suzanna: precisely
(18:44:45) Suzanna: no...
(18:44:58) Sirius137: they all look the same to you?
(18:45:16) Suzanna: word
(18:45:40) Suzanna: i'm saying that teachers are stupid and that tests used to assess and diagnose (to place) kids with LD in sp. ed. are culturally and linguistically biased and that aa males are five more times likely to be diagnosed as MR than white females
(18:45:46) Suzanna: ...among other things
(18:47:31) Sirius137: so black people can't take tests?
(18:48:03) Suzanna: no
(18:48:45) Sirius137: Why don't you want black people to be special, Suz?
(18:48:49) Sirius137: What do you have against them?
(18:48:56) Suzanna: they scare me
(18:49:32) Sirius137: fair enough. They are kind of violent. You can tell from the shape of the skull.
(18:49:45) Suzanna: And they smell kinda funny
(18:49:59) Sirius137: like chicken. and watermelon.
(18:50:09) Suzanna: oh nick...we're terrible
(18:50:38) Sirius137: you're the one writing a paper on how not special black people are.
(18:50:46) Suzanna: it's also kinda my major and minor
(18:50:58) Suzanna: afro am studies with a minor in education and child study (concentration: special needs)
(18:51:17) Sirius137: so, black people and how retarded they are?
(18:51:26) Suzanna: ...
(18:51:32) Sirius137: Jesus...that's so insensitive.
-----
...
(18:34:35) Suzanna: my paper
(18:40:34) Sirius137: on?
(18:43:45) Suzanna: the overrepresentation of african american males in special education programs
(18:44:32) Sirius137: so you're saying black people _aren't_ special?
(18:44:40) Suzanna: precisely
(18:44:45) Suzanna: no...
(18:44:58) Sirius137: they all look the same to you?
(18:45:16) Suzanna: word
(18:45:40) Suzanna: i'm saying that teachers are stupid and that tests used to assess and diagnose (to place) kids with LD in sp. ed. are culturally and linguistically biased and that aa males are five more times likely to be diagnosed as MR than white females
(18:45:46) Suzanna: ...among other things
(18:47:31) Sirius137: so black people can't take tests?
(18:48:03) Suzanna: no
(18:48:45) Sirius137: Why don't you want black people to be special, Suz?
(18:48:49) Sirius137: What do you have against them?
(18:48:56) Suzanna: they scare me
(18:49:32) Sirius137: fair enough. They are kind of violent. You can tell from the shape of the skull.
(18:49:45) Suzanna: And they smell kinda funny
(18:49:59) Sirius137: like chicken. and watermelon.
(18:50:09) Suzanna: oh nick...we're terrible
(18:50:38) Sirius137: you're the one writing a paper on how not special black people are.
(18:50:46) Suzanna: it's also kinda my major and minor
(18:50:58) Suzanna: afro am studies with a minor in education and child study (concentration: special needs)
(18:51:17) Sirius137: so, black people and how retarded they are?
(18:51:26) Suzanna: ...
(18:51:32) Sirius137: Jesus...that's so insensitive.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Damn skippy
No shit Rumsfeld should resign.
From what I can tell, the military is doing the best they can in a totally unworkable situation. At the same time as I find it totally incomprehensible why anyone would (while sober) join the military (in the past few years...not necessarily in general...I can understand why you might have done it back when the illusion that the military kept America safe and wasn't simply a political pawn hadn't been completely shattered), I think they deserve a lot of credit. They're being given idiotic orders, and they somehow have to find a way to carry them out. And they're doing it.
How about we do them a favor and get rid of the fucktards deciding policy?
From what I can tell, the military is doing the best they can in a totally unworkable situation. At the same time as I find it totally incomprehensible why anyone would (while sober) join the military (in the past few years...not necessarily in general...I can understand why you might have done it back when the illusion that the military kept America safe and wasn't simply a political pawn hadn't been completely shattered), I think they deserve a lot of credit. They're being given idiotic orders, and they somehow have to find a way to carry them out. And they're doing it.
How about we do them a favor and get rid of the fucktards deciding policy?
A (hopefully) quick education rant
Look, I understand that the Republican leadership and the business leaders don't like academics who actually have some degree of independence and have an annoying penchant for pointing out what lying, underhanded pricks the Republicans and various industry agents are, but you don't have to go fucking up the American higher education system just because you're bitter.
Look, boys and girls: America doesn't produce shit anymore. Their manufacturing is dead, and agriculture is on its way out. The one (you hear me? The _one_!...) remaining competitive advantage we have is our academies, which are pretty much unparalleled in the world. Sure, they have their inefficiencies, but basically, yes, Mr. Miller, they're doing just fine, and we would do well to pat them on the back, say, 'Good job!", and give them more money to educate more people. The worst possible things you could do would be to a) drown them in standardized tests, or b) turn them into vocational schools that teach them just enough to get them employed.
American ingenuity is the one advantage we still have over the rest of the world, and these fuckers want to kill it. You breed ingenuity by both giving college students the background knowledge they need _and_ giving them relatively free reign to pursue the topics that interest them as per any decent liberal arts education. Making them take a semester class on fucking Excel just so companies can save on those training costs when they hire college grads is going to rapidly erode the quality of American universities and turn our college grads into mindless drones who not only can't think for themselves but know only how to perform drudgerous, repetitive tasks not even as well as their Indian and Chinese counterparts.
God I fucking hate businessmen who think the country should be run like a giant quantifiable assembly line.
Look, boys and girls: America doesn't produce shit anymore. Their manufacturing is dead, and agriculture is on its way out. The one (you hear me? The _one_!...) remaining competitive advantage we have is our academies, which are pretty much unparalleled in the world. Sure, they have their inefficiencies, but basically, yes, Mr. Miller, they're doing just fine, and we would do well to pat them on the back, say, 'Good job!", and give them more money to educate more people. The worst possible things you could do would be to a) drown them in standardized tests, or b) turn them into vocational schools that teach them just enough to get them employed.
American ingenuity is the one advantage we still have over the rest of the world, and these fuckers want to kill it. You breed ingenuity by both giving college students the background knowledge they need _and_ giving them relatively free reign to pursue the topics that interest them as per any decent liberal arts education. Making them take a semester class on fucking Excel just so companies can save on those training costs when they hire college grads is going to rapidly erode the quality of American universities and turn our college grads into mindless drones who not only can't think for themselves but know only how to perform drudgerous, repetitive tasks not even as well as their Indian and Chinese counterparts.
God I fucking hate businessmen who think the country should be run like a giant quantifiable assembly line.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Teledildonics
Can I please never read anything ever again with the word "teledildonics" in it? Thanks. That'd be great.
Hey, I'm all in favor sexual exploration, but I really, really hope the tech part of my life and the sex part of my life never, ever meet. Ever.
(don't read too much into the fact I'm posting a sex article at 2 am...the correct conclusion you should draw is _not_ that I was up googling "teledildonics" [shudder] but rather that I'm bored and avoiding going to sleep because I know it means getting up and having to work will occur sooner)
Hey, I'm all in favor sexual exploration, but I really, really hope the tech part of my life and the sex part of my life never, ever meet. Ever.
(don't read too much into the fact I'm posting a sex article at 2 am...the correct conclusion you should draw is _not_ that I was up googling "teledildonics" [shudder] but rather that I'm bored and avoiding going to sleep because I know it means getting up and having to work will occur sooner)
Monday, April 10, 2006
An...alternate...view on parenting
For those of you who think babies cute, perhaps this will illuminate my feelings on parenting.
My god...a coherent essay on software patents
This is probably the most cogent essay on software patents I've ever read, and it is a breath of fresh air when compared against RMS's nonsense.
My only gripe with it is the degree to which Graham thinks software patents are inherently okay. I buy all (or at least most) of his pragmatic arguments to the effect that patents actually have very little effect on modern software development. But that doesn't mean that the patent system is therefore good. Big companies tend to hoard patents in the way superpowers tend to hoard nuclear weapons; no one is stupid enough to actually use them. Okay, fine...but then why do we have patents at all? Graham argues that the USPTO is to blame for issuing idiotic patents. I agree. But I don't necessarily agree that it's possible even in an ideal world that the USPTO could differentiate between trivial and non-trivial patents. I mean really...how in the world would you codify what is a "trivial" software creation and what isn't? Some of the most powerful ideas in software are the simplest (think of, for example, auto-complete).
Oddly, Graham seems to indirectly recognize this when he talks about the different barriers to construction of real world inventions versus software inventions. Moreover, he (correctly) notes that the particular algorithms used _aren't_ what's hard about writing software. It's the thousand little details and performance optimizations that differentiate a good program from a bad one. Consequently, it can't possibly be patents that are creating the incentive for people to invent in the software world. It's the fundamental difficulty in copying the idea alone. Most of the time, the patent is irrelevent.
So, I dunno...the more I think about it, the more I am of the opinion that software patents are pointless. Copyright and trade secrets are enough to promote growth in the field.
My only gripe with it is the degree to which Graham thinks software patents are inherently okay. I buy all (or at least most) of his pragmatic arguments to the effect that patents actually have very little effect on modern software development. But that doesn't mean that the patent system is therefore good. Big companies tend to hoard patents in the way superpowers tend to hoard nuclear weapons; no one is stupid enough to actually use them. Okay, fine...but then why do we have patents at all? Graham argues that the USPTO is to blame for issuing idiotic patents. I agree. But I don't necessarily agree that it's possible even in an ideal world that the USPTO could differentiate between trivial and non-trivial patents. I mean really...how in the world would you codify what is a "trivial" software creation and what isn't? Some of the most powerful ideas in software are the simplest (think of, for example, auto-complete).
Oddly, Graham seems to indirectly recognize this when he talks about the different barriers to construction of real world inventions versus software inventions. Moreover, he (correctly) notes that the particular algorithms used _aren't_ what's hard about writing software. It's the thousand little details and performance optimizations that differentiate a good program from a bad one. Consequently, it can't possibly be patents that are creating the incentive for people to invent in the software world. It's the fundamental difficulty in copying the idea alone. Most of the time, the patent is irrelevent.
So, I dunno...the more I think about it, the more I am of the opinion that software patents are pointless. Copyright and trade secrets are enough to promote growth in the field.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Our brains are actually different
Ever wondered why women make no sense? Well, it really is because their brains are wired differently.
:-D
:-D
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen, a quick reminder:
Richard M Stallman is still an idiot.
It's the usual free software drivel, so rather than rant, I'll simply refer you to my previous posts on the subject.
It's the usual free software drivel, so rather than rant, I'll simply refer you to my previous posts on the subject.
A goddamn motherfucking brain teaser
Usually I hate brain teasers. And this case is no exception. Except this one keeps preoccupying me, so I'm going to make you suffer through it too.
-----
13 Yakuza subordinates go to the Yakuza boss's house. Out of respect, they all take off their shoes on the way in. After all of them have gathered, the boss walks over to the collection of shoes, sniffs, makes an unpleasant face, and picks up one (matching) pair of shoes. "These shoes are dirty and disgusting! Who dishonors me with such shoes?!" No one raises their hand. Infuriated, the Yakuza boss immediately shoots one of the subordinates utterly at random, takes the body and the offending shoes, and throws them into the snow.
Since the meeting cannot continue after such a violent episode, the boss dismisses the remaining subordinates. Each leaves one by one. If the subordinate's shoes are in the pile, he takes them and leaves. If not, he takes a random (matching) pair of shoes and leaves.
The question: What is the probability that the last man to leave takes his own shoes?
Update: I'll give you a small hint. I think it's probably easier to intuit the answer and then prove it than try to derive the answer (as I tried to).
-----
13 Yakuza subordinates go to the Yakuza boss's house. Out of respect, they all take off their shoes on the way in. After all of them have gathered, the boss walks over to the collection of shoes, sniffs, makes an unpleasant face, and picks up one (matching) pair of shoes. "These shoes are dirty and disgusting! Who dishonors me with such shoes?!" No one raises their hand. Infuriated, the Yakuza boss immediately shoots one of the subordinates utterly at random, takes the body and the offending shoes, and throws them into the snow.
Since the meeting cannot continue after such a violent episode, the boss dismisses the remaining subordinates. Each leaves one by one. If the subordinate's shoes are in the pile, he takes them and leaves. If not, he takes a random (matching) pair of shoes and leaves.
The question: What is the probability that the last man to leave takes his own shoes?
Update: I'll give you a small hint. I think it's probably easier to intuit the answer and then prove it than try to derive the answer (as I tried to).
Monday, April 03, 2006
Talk to me, Blendie!
I think I would do a lot more cooking if I had this blender.
(further proof that people at MIT have too much time on their hands)
(further proof that people at MIT have too much time on their hands)
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Crazy clouds
I'd never heard of mammatus clouds before. You'll think it's photoshopped, but amazingly, it's not. An actual sight over Nebraska. Is this the first interesting thing to ever come out of Nebraska?
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Google romance
You gotta love a company that has a sense of humor about itself. Microsoft would do well to poke a little more fun at its own ridiculousness.
Monday, March 27, 2006
An idiotic comment
I just heard one of the dumbest comments on the radio:
"...But, you know, if the kids are swinging like Barry Bonds and wearing their caps like Barry Bonds, they're going to be injecting the same stuff in their veins as Barry Bonds."
I don't even know where to start explaining how stupid that is.
"...But, you know, if the kids are swinging like Barry Bonds and wearing their caps like Barry Bonds, they're going to be injecting the same stuff in their veins as Barry Bonds."
I don't even know where to start explaining how stupid that is.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
How fast is your brain?
Find out.
I think it's a bullshit metric because you can learn to identify the aggregate sound instead of individually processing each sound, but still fun. I scored 30 ms. And that was with missing several because the stupid mousepad didn't work right.
I think it's a bullshit metric because you can learn to identify the aggregate sound instead of individually processing each sound, but still fun. I scored 30 ms. And that was with missing several because the stupid mousepad didn't work right.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Stupid dog humping stuffed animal
There's really nothing else to say.
(I think my favorite part about it is that after the video plays, the hosts are cracking up so hard they can barely speak)
(I think my favorite part about it is that after the video plays, the hosts are cracking up so hard they can barely speak)
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
How the fuck does this plane fly?
Doesn't it look like an A-320 got some sort of horrific tumor or something?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Inappropriate church signs
Putting me in front of a custom church sign generator can only end badly.
Jewmanji vs. Candy Machine: Round 1
Apparently, the candy machine has won this round, and Jewmanji has resorted to an angry, public missive.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Decisions on grad school come down to the littlest things
...but damnit, I may well go to UW just on the basis of the fact that the chair of the department linked to this from his web page.
Delicious mistranslations
I could go for a sour and sweet bone...
In the same vein, some of these comic interpretations of spam subject lines are fucking hillarious. The squirrel is such a brilliant touch.
In the same vein, some of these comic interpretations of spam subject lines are fucking hillarious. The squirrel is such a brilliant touch.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Idiots really can make money
What I found striking about this article on tech entrepreneurs under 30 is that there are really only a few good ideas in there. Skype is brilliant. God bless any technology that undermines the business model of an intractably monopolistic industry (e.g., the telcos). Pharmix is also a cool idea assuming it works. Given that they've already developed a new statin, I'd say they've proved it can.
But things like Meebo, Yelp, and Tagged are just retarded. They're remnants of the dot-com hysteria and, I would say, are ultimately doomed. Meebo is doomed because it can be trivially copied by Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo. Yelp is doomed because it's been done a thousand times before (epinions, citysearch, etc.). And Tagged is doomed because teens are fickle creatures and will quickly figure out the site is retarded. Teens really hate going to sites that are "teens only." Also, they need only take a look at the founders and will run screaming.
And yet these people have gotten millions of dollars in VC. Mindboggling. I am now determined to come up with something far more interesting and disruptive than "IM on the web." Just you wait! Stupid world...
But things like Meebo, Yelp, and Tagged are just retarded. They're remnants of the dot-com hysteria and, I would say, are ultimately doomed. Meebo is doomed because it can be trivially copied by Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo. Yelp is doomed because it's been done a thousand times before (epinions, citysearch, etc.). And Tagged is doomed because teens are fickle creatures and will quickly figure out the site is retarded. Teens really hate going to sites that are "teens only." Also, they need only take a look at the founders and will run screaming.
And yet these people have gotten millions of dollars in VC. Mindboggling. I am now determined to come up with something far more interesting and disruptive than "IM on the web." Just you wait! Stupid world...
How did I know a Republican authored this?
Oh, right, because only a Republican could come up with a douchebag-y piece of legislation like this.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Microsoft throws down the gauntlet against Google
The Windows Live beta is out. I gotta say, it's pretty damn nice, and I think the UI is actually better than Google's. I haven't figured out yet how good the search results though. Is it...is it possible Microsoft might actually make a decent product?...*faint*
Worrying about the gene pool
Frankly, I'm more worried about Tucker Carlson reproducing than I am about trekkies reproducing, but nontheless this interview about trekkie dating sites is funny. (Use IE as Firefox doesn't seem to render properly)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Why blogs are just one more corruptible media source
Have I really failed to post for the last two weeks? I'm lame. I'm also busy visiting grad schools, but I'm lame nonetheless.
(Aside for those who care: I got into University of Washington, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, UC San Diego, and UWisconsin at Madison. I got dicked by Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT. That's a whole other story. I think I got a lukewarm rec from one of my rec writers, which is fucking lame and an utter breach of protocol...you tell someone you're not comfortable writing them a good rec; you don't write them a bad rec. I was pissed about it [and still am], but oh well. I got into good schools anyway, which of course is a testament to my awesomeness. I was not keen on Stanford or Berkeley to begin with. It has been suggested to me that the Stanford guys make poor advisors. And Berkeley's strengths these days are more in databases and networking than systems, which is my area. I was pissed/dejected about not getting into MIT as I did want to go there, but I've also had increasing evidence that it is dysfunctionally competitive, so it's probably just as well I don't end up there. My theory on Princeton is that I just wasn't a good fit there, which is reasonable.
I'm reserving judgment on the places I did get into until I visit them all, but I suspect I'll end up at University of Washington. I'm not thrilled with the idea of going back to Seattle as it kind of feels like a step backwards, but oh well. I think grad school in Seattle will be different than working in a dysfunctional job at Microsoft in Seattle.)
Anyway, moving on, I was not at all surprised to see a New York Times article about shady relationships between PR firms and bloggers. This is the problem with blogs as news sources. There is virtually no accountability on the part of bloggers for either the accuracy of their post or citation of their sources. The degree to which bloggers have power as a news source is exactly the degree to which they will be manipulated by PR entities whether government or corporate.
Just wait. Coming soon: "The Iconoclast Blog: Exposing the Truths Other Media Are Afraid To Talk About! (Brought to you by Wal-Mart)"
Depressed yet? :)
(Aside for those who care: I got into University of Washington, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, UC San Diego, and UWisconsin at Madison. I got dicked by Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT. That's a whole other story. I think I got a lukewarm rec from one of my rec writers, which is fucking lame and an utter breach of protocol...you tell someone you're not comfortable writing them a good rec; you don't write them a bad rec. I was pissed about it [and still am], but oh well. I got into good schools anyway, which of course is a testament to my awesomeness. I was not keen on Stanford or Berkeley to begin with. It has been suggested to me that the Stanford guys make poor advisors. And Berkeley's strengths these days are more in databases and networking than systems, which is my area. I was pissed/dejected about not getting into MIT as I did want to go there, but I've also had increasing evidence that it is dysfunctionally competitive, so it's probably just as well I don't end up there. My theory on Princeton is that I just wasn't a good fit there, which is reasonable.
I'm reserving judgment on the places I did get into until I visit them all, but I suspect I'll end up at University of Washington. I'm not thrilled with the idea of going back to Seattle as it kind of feels like a step backwards, but oh well. I think grad school in Seattle will be different than working in a dysfunctional job at Microsoft in Seattle.)
Anyway, moving on, I was not at all surprised to see a New York Times article about shady relationships between PR firms and bloggers. This is the problem with blogs as news sources. There is virtually no accountability on the part of bloggers for either the accuracy of their post or citation of their sources. The degree to which bloggers have power as a news source is exactly the degree to which they will be manipulated by PR entities whether government or corporate.
Just wait. Coming soon: "The Iconoclast Blog: Exposing the Truths Other Media Are Afraid To Talk About! (Brought to you by Wal-Mart)"
Depressed yet? :)
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Shit.
I just realized that Tom Lantos is _my_ congressman. Fuck.
He might be getting a letter from me. On the other hand, I'm very lazy, so probably not.
He might be getting a letter from me. On the other hand, I'm very lazy, so probably not.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Lantos and the China tech debacle
Lantos is being a dick. Did he just bring Google, Microsoft, and Cisco in front of the Senate to publicly shame them? What an asshole. Particularly given, as per my previous post, these companies have exactly zero leverage with the Chinese government. If they had refused to comply with Chinese authorities, China would have said, "Fine. Fuck you, round-eye." and gone off and done it anyway. Is every consumer who buys Chinese-made goods supposed to be ashamed too? They are just as culpable if not more so for supporting the Chinese regime.
Anyway, he's a dick. That's all I'm saying.
Anyway, he's a dick. That's all I'm saying.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Apple is not switching to Windows
Apple is not switching to Windows. Ever. This may be the single dumbest article in a major magazine I have ever read.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
A new and exciting way Republicans are dumb
I meant to comment on the move to block US companies from having servers in China when it first came out...
Two Republican lawmakers want to make a law preventing US companies from, essentially, having operations in countries where governments have "repressive regimes." This is stupid. It might possibly make sense for countries that do not have the technological capability to create equivalent technologies on their own, but this is not the case in China. These lawmakers are assuming that little, helpless China would actually be hurt in any way by not having access to big-strong-economic-powerhouse-US firms for internet development, and that's bull honkey. If Google (or Microsoft) aren't allowed to do business in China, China will simply home-grow the equivalent technology. They honestly would not give much of a shit. The only people hurt here would be the US tech companies and the US government to the degree they would get a share of revenues from China (who, let's remember, we have a gigantic trade deficit with). Moreover, don't you think getting China to build their infrastructure using US technologies gives you more leverage in the long run than making an idiotic and short-sighted moral stand now?
Idiots. I understand it's all a political stunt, but still...idiots.
Two Republican lawmakers want to make a law preventing US companies from, essentially, having operations in countries where governments have "repressive regimes." This is stupid. It might possibly make sense for countries that do not have the technological capability to create equivalent technologies on their own, but this is not the case in China. These lawmakers are assuming that little, helpless China would actually be hurt in any way by not having access to big-strong-economic-powerhouse-US firms for internet development, and that's bull honkey. If Google (or Microsoft) aren't allowed to do business in China, China will simply home-grow the equivalent technology. They honestly would not give much of a shit. The only people hurt here would be the US tech companies and the US government to the degree they would get a share of revenues from China (who, let's remember, we have a gigantic trade deficit with). Moreover, don't you think getting China to build their infrastructure using US technologies gives you more leverage in the long run than making an idiotic and short-sighted moral stand now?
Idiots. I understand it's all a political stunt, but still...idiots.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Intel is evil
I'm really beginning to think that Intel is, in fact, more evil than Microsoft (and since when is Skype evil?!). AMD is pretty much strictly better than them, and yet they somehow manage to bully people (*cough* Dell *cough*) into signing exclusive deals with them.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Not only is it not a challenge to Darwinism, it isn't new
It's called Punctuated Equilibrium, and it's been around for quite a while.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Stupid Jim Gray
I wish I would quit discovering people much smarter than I am had already had my half-baked ideas years ago.
(It's very technical, and I don't expect you to suffer through it unless you're a CS person...but the gist is that Jim Gray used an nVidia GPU to sort an astronomical database really bloody fast by transforming the sort operations into what would normally be graphical texture mapping operations that 3D games like to do)
(It's very technical, and I don't expect you to suffer through it unless you're a CS person...but the gist is that Jim Gray used an nVidia GPU to sort an astronomical database really bloody fast by transforming the sort operations into what would normally be graphical texture mapping operations that 3D games like to do)
Google as Big Brother
So, ask yourself: if Microsoft were replicating the files on your home computer on their servers instead of Google, how would you feel about it?
I don't know how I feel about the issue yet...there are advantages to having a company that is full-time responsible for enabling ubiquitous access to my data. They can worry about backup, network availability, provisioning for storage, etc. But I also think it's worth worrying about having a single company storing your data in one place along with everyone elses as it makes it way too easy for them or any NSA schmuck to go poking around in it.
It's conceivable that your data could be indexed in such a way that _only you_ could search it, but that takes away all incentive for Google to be involved because then they can't target you for advertising. :)
I don't know how I feel about the issue yet...there are advantages to having a company that is full-time responsible for enabling ubiquitous access to my data. They can worry about backup, network availability, provisioning for storage, etc. But I also think it's worth worrying about having a single company storing your data in one place along with everyone elses as it makes it way too easy for them or any NSA schmuck to go poking around in it.
It's conceivable that your data could be indexed in such a way that _only you_ could search it, but that takes away all incentive for Google to be involved because then they can't target you for advertising. :)
Nooooooo!!
Terrible, terrible idea! Did I mention terrible? For the love of god, don't fucking do it!
So much for principles
Jesus Christ...this really is the Japanese internment camps of the modern era. They might even be worse.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Quick note on the budget (or lack thereof)
Bush's budget is idiotic. I mean, I knew it would be idiotic, but it's idiotic. Even ignoring the omnipresent ridiculousness of trying to deal with Katrina cleanup (aside: here's an idea: don't rebuilt New Orleans! It's a fucking terrible place for a city! Hmmph.), wage a "war," and yet somehow incur massive tax cuts simultaneously, my more immediate objection is the continued use of "supplementary budget requests" to finance Iraq. Just fucking stop it, okay? It was cute the first time (and by cute, I mean it was a disingenuous political sleight of hand that would make even the most morally constipated used car salesman shiver with unease), but it's getting old. If I make a "budget" for myself that doesn't include car payments and rent, that isn't really so much of a "budget" as it is a "laughably incomplete list of shit I need to spend money on that gives me no idea the actual state of my finances." PUT THE FUCKING WAR ON THE BOOKS, DAMNIT. Own up to the fact you guys have fucked the budget worse than even Reagan could have dreamed of in his most vivid Cold War/Star Wars wet dream.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Monday, February 06, 2006
As if I didn't have enough reasons to be pissed at the Bush White House
I was listening to the domestic spying hearings on NPR this morning, and (of course) listening to Gonzales pissed me off, as did listening to the sympathetic Republicans on the panel. I think all the Republican senators, particularly the ones from the states in the middle of the country that tend to be large and rectangular (Brownback, Coburn, etc.) should be fitted with collars that give them an electric shock every time they mention 9/11. Once again, boys and girls, "Hey! Remember 9/11?" is not a response to, "Umm, why exactly did you think that conducting surveillance against US citizens without a warrant was legal, and if you thought you needed to do it, why didn't you get the law changed so you could?" Republicans don't seem to get this. Mentioning 9/11 seems to be an almost reflexive response to any criticism. Hence, I think they need some form of psychological conditioning to train them out of it, and my preference would be something involving painful electrocution.
As for Gonzales, he at least was actually responding to the legal issues, albeit with contradictory and nonsensical responses. The Administration's position is that, well, yes, so technically FISA says we have to get a warrant (details, details), but it provides a back door for "legislation that dictates otherwise," and you should have known we'd want to conduct warrantless spying when you passed the PATRIOT act despite the fact that neither PATRIOT nor any other war authorization legislation ever said jack shit about anything even remotely related to warrantless spying.
Gonzales/Bush's argument strikes me as roughly equivalent to saying, "Well, mom, you said I could go play at Billy's, and you must have known that there's a strip club in the same town that Billy lives in, so in effect you told me I could go to the strip club."
Gonzales is such a douchebag. I at least enjoyed hearing Durban take him to task on issuing contradictory statements.
Gonzales: "We didn't violate FISA."
Durban: "But the Justice Department just last week issued a memorandum saying that FISA was too restrictive and the executive was forced to supercede it!"
Gonzales: "These are not the droids you are looking for."
I hate the neocons. I really do.
As for Gonzales, he at least was actually responding to the legal issues, albeit with contradictory and nonsensical responses. The Administration's position is that, well, yes, so technically FISA says we have to get a warrant (details, details), but it provides a back door for "legislation that dictates otherwise," and you should have known we'd want to conduct warrantless spying when you passed the PATRIOT act despite the fact that neither PATRIOT nor any other war authorization legislation ever said jack shit about anything even remotely related to warrantless spying.
Gonzales/Bush's argument strikes me as roughly equivalent to saying, "Well, mom, you said I could go play at Billy's, and you must have known that there's a strip club in the same town that Billy lives in, so in effect you told me I could go to the strip club."
Gonzales is such a douchebag. I at least enjoyed hearing Durban take him to task on issuing contradictory statements.
Gonzales: "We didn't violate FISA."
Durban: "But the Justice Department just last week issued a memorandum saying that FISA was too restrictive and the executive was forced to supercede it!"
Gonzales: "These are not the droids you are looking for."
I hate the neocons. I really do.
On the shitful state of video games
Since it's 3 am and I'm having my usual bout of insomnia, I thought this might be an appropriate time to comment on the shitful state of video games.
My generation was the first generation to really grow up with video games. Nintendo and I came of age together, and as my voice was awkwardly breaking and loved ones were not-so-subtly suggesting that it might be time to start using deodorant, so too was Mario taking his first mushroom-squishing hops and was Link taking his first sips of healing potions in his eternel quest to save Zelda. It was the Eden of video games, and everything was pure and new, and we lived in blissful ignorance of how crapitudinous the industry would eventually become.
The graphics on those games sucked. They unavoidably sucked. So you had no choice but to actually focus on the design of the game. Gameplay was actually important. True, the standard was lower because people had never seen anything like those games, short of Space Invaders and Pac Man, but still...you couldn't blow hundreds or thousands of man-hours on getting the shadows of your gun just right even if you wanted to. So you actually had to design the fucking game.
Fast-forward to the modern day. Everything nowadays is either a ridiculous and increasingly pointless arms race in 3D graphics or a junkie-like reliance on franchises (NFL, NBA, Grand Theft Auto, etc.), and it pisses me off. Moreover, I think it pisses a lot of people off. The gamer community is getting fed up with the same shit. It's a community that by its very nature consists of thrill seekers, and the problem with thrill seekers is that their reaction to things attenuates quickly, and they need something new. So of course feeding them yet another goddamn First Person Shooter is eventually going to bore them to tears. There are thousands of them now, and they're all the fucking same. It's all just Doom or Unreal all over again with cosmetic modifications. If it's not Doom, it's Final Fantasy dressed in fancier clothing. Or, if you're lucky, it's Warcraft. That's it. Those three lineages cover most of the games out there, and it covered them five years ago.
Every so often, a new game does indeed come along, and when it does, it tends to sell amazingly well. The first instance of this was Myst. Myst was such a success because it threw away fancy interfaces in favor of creating a totally immersive, meticulously detailed virtual world and a gripping, dramatic storyline. It was new, and it had nearly universal appeal. Sure, it bored some people, but it was so simple that anyone could play it straight out of the box, and it was addictive. And it was the best-selling game of all time for a while.
...Until the next breakthrough came along: The Sims. Here again was, finally, a fundamentally new idea in gaming. It wasn't combat-based, but it also wasn't the quintessentially isolated world that Myst and other RPGs created. It was the first genuinely social game, and it was one of the first games that ever hooked women. The objective, the rules, and the gameplay were fundamentally different from anything else anyone had ever done. It had a vague similarity to SimCity, but it included that oh-so-important social aspect that drew girls into its addictive little world. And to my knowledge, nothing has yet surpassed its sales numbers.
What's my point? Basically, that I'm waiting for the next breakthrough game, and looking at the shape of the gaming industry, I'm beginning to despair at it. In some ways World of Warcraft is the next Big Thing(tm). The first-person RPG has been done before, but Blizzard made the game a masterpiece by meticulously planning their online experience, and it has its players entranced. And they're making a shitload of money. It is, after all, a publisher's wet dream: a game that continues to draw income for as long as a player plays, and moreover the publisher continues to have control over the game even after it's released, so he has a way to easily tweak the world to keep the players coming back, credit cards in hand.
So yes, there is an online dimension to gaming that is in its infancy, and maybe that's where we'll see the really cool stuff in the next few years. I have high hopes for Xbox Live...it has the possibility to set the standard for online game play. But still...in a time when graphics hardware manufacturers are in the same kind of arms race that processor manufacturers were engaged in a few years ago, the game publishers are being seduced by the excited ramblings of their marketers who are telling them that they can sell a zillion copies of anything if they can produce a shinier demo reel than their competitors. "Oooh! Look at the shiny explosions! Look how that guy fell off that ledge! The kids will love it!"
But they won't, and they don't. Ignore the graphics for a moment. Game play on these games hasn't evolved one iota in at least eight years. This is stupid. There's no reason other than a lack of trying and an unwillingness to try something new. One of the many half-baked ideas I have in the back of my head is to look at using the immense power of modern gaming hardware to enhance the game play of games rather than the visuals. At core, all graphics hardware does is accelerate certain mathematical transformations that happen to be useful for painting pictures. I'll bet you could use the same hardware to do some really cool shit with either the AI or with non-linear storylines. I dunno...maybe not. But either way, the field is ripe to create a genuinely new game instead of the billionth iteration of rehashed games from the mid 90s. And whoever does it will be rolling in money while the other idiots are left whining about lagging game sales of a game that was supposed to be a hit because, "...it was the sequel to a well-received game, it had the violent aesthetic of the popular Grand Theft Auto series, and it featured licensed songs from name acts like DMX and Public Enemy."
Ugh. How fucking retarded are these guys? Just reading that sentence makes me want to punch the CEO of Activision in the face in service to the remote hope that I might be able to knock even the tiniest morsel of stupid out of him.
My generation was the first generation to really grow up with video games. Nintendo and I came of age together, and as my voice was awkwardly breaking and loved ones were not-so-subtly suggesting that it might be time to start using deodorant, so too was Mario taking his first mushroom-squishing hops and was Link taking his first sips of healing potions in his eternel quest to save Zelda. It was the Eden of video games, and everything was pure and new, and we lived in blissful ignorance of how crapitudinous the industry would eventually become.
The graphics on those games sucked. They unavoidably sucked. So you had no choice but to actually focus on the design of the game. Gameplay was actually important. True, the standard was lower because people had never seen anything like those games, short of Space Invaders and Pac Man, but still...you couldn't blow hundreds or thousands of man-hours on getting the shadows of your gun just right even if you wanted to. So you actually had to design the fucking game.
Fast-forward to the modern day. Everything nowadays is either a ridiculous and increasingly pointless arms race in 3D graphics or a junkie-like reliance on franchises (NFL, NBA, Grand Theft Auto, etc.), and it pisses me off. Moreover, I think it pisses a lot of people off. The gamer community is getting fed up with the same shit. It's a community that by its very nature consists of thrill seekers, and the problem with thrill seekers is that their reaction to things attenuates quickly, and they need something new. So of course feeding them yet another goddamn First Person Shooter is eventually going to bore them to tears. There are thousands of them now, and they're all the fucking same. It's all just Doom or Unreal all over again with cosmetic modifications. If it's not Doom, it's Final Fantasy dressed in fancier clothing. Or, if you're lucky, it's Warcraft. That's it. Those three lineages cover most of the games out there, and it covered them five years ago.
Every so often, a new game does indeed come along, and when it does, it tends to sell amazingly well. The first instance of this was Myst. Myst was such a success because it threw away fancy interfaces in favor of creating a totally immersive, meticulously detailed virtual world and a gripping, dramatic storyline. It was new, and it had nearly universal appeal. Sure, it bored some people, but it was so simple that anyone could play it straight out of the box, and it was addictive. And it was the best-selling game of all time for a while.
...Until the next breakthrough came along: The Sims. Here again was, finally, a fundamentally new idea in gaming. It wasn't combat-based, but it also wasn't the quintessentially isolated world that Myst and other RPGs created. It was the first genuinely social game, and it was one of the first games that ever hooked women. The objective, the rules, and the gameplay were fundamentally different from anything else anyone had ever done. It had a vague similarity to SimCity, but it included that oh-so-important social aspect that drew girls into its addictive little world. And to my knowledge, nothing has yet surpassed its sales numbers.
What's my point? Basically, that I'm waiting for the next breakthrough game, and looking at the shape of the gaming industry, I'm beginning to despair at it. In some ways World of Warcraft is the next Big Thing(tm). The first-person RPG has been done before, but Blizzard made the game a masterpiece by meticulously planning their online experience, and it has its players entranced. And they're making a shitload of money. It is, after all, a publisher's wet dream: a game that continues to draw income for as long as a player plays, and moreover the publisher continues to have control over the game even after it's released, so he has a way to easily tweak the world to keep the players coming back, credit cards in hand.
So yes, there is an online dimension to gaming that is in its infancy, and maybe that's where we'll see the really cool stuff in the next few years. I have high hopes for Xbox Live...it has the possibility to set the standard for online game play. But still...in a time when graphics hardware manufacturers are in the same kind of arms race that processor manufacturers were engaged in a few years ago, the game publishers are being seduced by the excited ramblings of their marketers who are telling them that they can sell a zillion copies of anything if they can produce a shinier demo reel than their competitors. "Oooh! Look at the shiny explosions! Look how that guy fell off that ledge! The kids will love it!"
But they won't, and they don't. Ignore the graphics for a moment. Game play on these games hasn't evolved one iota in at least eight years. This is stupid. There's no reason other than a lack of trying and an unwillingness to try something new. One of the many half-baked ideas I have in the back of my head is to look at using the immense power of modern gaming hardware to enhance the game play of games rather than the visuals. At core, all graphics hardware does is accelerate certain mathematical transformations that happen to be useful for painting pictures. I'll bet you could use the same hardware to do some really cool shit with either the AI or with non-linear storylines. I dunno...maybe not. But either way, the field is ripe to create a genuinely new game instead of the billionth iteration of rehashed games from the mid 90s. And whoever does it will be rolling in money while the other idiots are left whining about lagging game sales of a game that was supposed to be a hit because, "...it was the sequel to a well-received game, it had the violent aesthetic of the popular Grand Theft Auto series, and it featured licensed songs from name acts like DMX and Public Enemy."
Ugh. How fucking retarded are these guys? Just reading that sentence makes me want to punch the CEO of Activision in the face in service to the remote hope that I might be able to knock even the tiniest morsel of stupid out of him.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Probably the least effective reassurance ever
Turns out the warrantless eavesdropping the Bush administration has been conducting "only targets Al-Qaeda." Well my fears are certainly allayed, aren't yours? Glad we cleared that up.
[Idiots.]
[Idiots.]
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
He might be on to something
Indeed, what's wrong with having an entirely online existence?
(Disclaimer: As a general rule, never, ever believe or buy into anything Mr. Satchel Rage says. Ever. His siren song leads only to self-destruction and despair, or at best a protracted stay in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. And in this case the loti are, by and large, microwavable burritos. And yes, I think I'm done with the cliched mythology references. He does play a mean game of Buck Hunter though...)
(Disclaimer: As a general rule, never, ever believe or buy into anything Mr. Satchel Rage says. Ever. His siren song leads only to self-destruction and despair, or at best a protracted stay in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. And in this case the loti are, by and large, microwavable burritos. And yes, I think I'm done with the cliched mythology references. He does play a mean game of Buck Hunter though...)
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
State of the Union: Bored
I didn't really expect anything different, but the State of the Union address is really, really boring. Bush isn't saying anything. So far I've got:
- Terrorism: Bad
- Democracy: Good
- Unrelatedly, Hamas should stop blowing stuff up
- Support our troops
- Strong ecomony: Good
- Government waste: Bad
- Doing something about social security and medicare costs, which constitute over 60% of the budget, might be a good idea.
- We should talk about that. We'll even include the Democrats. At least, you know, in the talking part. Probably not in the doing stuff part though.
- Secure the border
- Expensive healthcare: Bad
- We use oil. God put all the oil underneath mean people. This seems bad.
- Corn is good.
- I had this dream where we had magical cars that ran, not on oil, but on dreams. Wouldn't that be cool?
- Math and Science: Good
- Funding basic science seems like a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't have cut all that research spending. To be fair, we had to make a token effort to make it look like we were paying for the tax cuts.
- Being nice: Good.
- Yay Sandra Day O'Connor.
- Life: Good.
- Ethics: Good.
- Staying in school: Good.
- Rebuilding Gulf Coast: Good.
- HIV: Bad.
- Americans: Good.
The only really controversial things he's said are:
- Immigrants: necessary
- The tax cuts that we made temporary so that it wouldn't explode budget estimates should (surprise!) be made permanent
- We will cut the deficit in half by 2009. Somehow. We didn't tell you before, but we have a magic powder that will do this that we got from a pixie.
- We're helping the poor and sick. No, really, I swear. Just don't ask me for evidence of it.
- Your doctor's bill and prescriptions are expensive because your doctor gets sued a lot.
- Teenagers are having fewer abortions because we told them not to have sex.
- People spend a lot of time worrying about courts that don't tell gay people God hates them.
- 'Member how I put two new members on the Supreme Court? That was cool.
- I like my wife. You should let her do stuff.
- Church groups who have never dealt with AIDS education seem the best people to deal with the problem, don't you think? They seem to have a firm grasp on reality, I've found.
- I'm like MLK.
Curious to see if the rebuttal will say anything more substantial. If I had to guess, I'd go with "no."
Sony ain't got shit
Let me go on record right now as saying that any Xbox Live competitor Sony comes up with will be utter crap, at least in comparison. Ignoring the fact that Microsoft has been working on Live for many years now, the mere fact that Microsoft is a software company and Sony isn't means they are facing a near insuperable barrier to entry out of the gate.
For fuck's sake. Literally.
Can we please just fire-bomb Kansas and start over with a less retarded population?
Monday, January 30, 2006
Grad school admission dates
(A rare personal information about me post...)
For those that have asked, I actually bothered to go look on various schools' admissions pages and found that notifications generally go out late February/early March.
Also, I realized I really need to go update my work web page. Sigh. I really hate personal web pages, to be honest. They usually contain all kinds of personal information that no one really cares about. I hope the various admissions committees are too busy to bother looking at applicant web pages.
For those that have asked, I actually bothered to go look on various schools' admissions pages and found that notifications generally go out late February/early March.
Also, I realized I really need to go update my work web page. Sigh. I really hate personal web pages, to be honest. They usually contain all kinds of personal information that no one really cares about. I hope the various admissions committees are too busy to bother looking at applicant web pages.
Well, Conservatives certainly are organized...I'll give them that
Why is it that Democrats (or liberals, since they're not really the same...probably part of the problem from the get-go) are fundamentally unable to organize such well-oiled and powerful networks? I am not merely lamenting here...I genuinely would like to know. Is it that the liberal base is too diverse a group, and trying to get them to cooperate on a wide, far-reaching agenda is like herding cats? Is it that every dinky little interest group is too myopically focused on their particular issue that they are politically unable to see the forest through the trees? Maybe it's simply that Conservatives had a 20-year head start on them...I don't know.
I would love to be able to blame a Conservative conspiracy, and certainly there is a fundamental funding disparity, but I don't think that's the critical factor. There is a fundamental disorganization on the part of groups on the Left that seems to be their own doing (and, of course, undoing). Each individual group (ACLU, PFAW, Planned Parenthood, Move On, etc. etc. etc.) seems reasonably organized on their own, but they are totally incapable of cooperating. There had to have been points on which the Federalists and the Religious Right disagreed, but they seem to have done a damn good job of getting shit done nonetheless. What gives?
Maybe it's that liberals are still not in the mindset of a minority and remain focused on how most of America is stupid (which, admittedly, it is) and how they are losing to tactics rather than policy. Maybe it's that they have to become as cynical as the Right have and stop worrying about ethics, morality, or any other such pesky issues of conscience and do whatever it takes to wrest control of the country back, even if that means outright lying (strategically) to the electorate. Seems to have done wonders for the neocons. Their only problem was that once they finally got what they wanted, it turned out to have been a fundamentally terrible idea, and in fact such a disaster in practice that even they haven't really been able to cover it up.
I would love to be able to blame a Conservative conspiracy, and certainly there is a fundamental funding disparity, but I don't think that's the critical factor. There is a fundamental disorganization on the part of groups on the Left that seems to be their own doing (and, of course, undoing). Each individual group (ACLU, PFAW, Planned Parenthood, Move On, etc. etc. etc.) seems reasonably organized on their own, but they are totally incapable of cooperating. There had to have been points on which the Federalists and the Religious Right disagreed, but they seem to have done a damn good job of getting shit done nonetheless. What gives?
Maybe it's that liberals are still not in the mindset of a minority and remain focused on how most of America is stupid (which, admittedly, it is) and how they are losing to tactics rather than policy. Maybe it's that they have to become as cynical as the Right have and stop worrying about ethics, morality, or any other such pesky issues of conscience and do whatever it takes to wrest control of the country back, even if that means outright lying (strategically) to the electorate. Seems to have done wonders for the neocons. Their only problem was that once they finally got what they wanted, it turned out to have been a fundamentally terrible idea, and in fact such a disaster in practice that even they haven't really been able to cover it up.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
I'm...I'm going to need a minute here
I...I just...whew...umm...yeah, can you come back to me?
(I think that's the closest I'll ever be able to get to watching porn at work...god bless you Carmen Electra)
(I think that's the closest I'll ever be able to get to watching porn at work...god bless you Carmen Electra)
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