Tom's Bluggeritions

Nevermind

2010-04-01T16:05:00.002-04:00

I'm done blogging for the time being. Too much other stuff going on. Maybe I'll come back to it, maybe I won't, I don't know.

I always get a weird sense of bleakness when I wander across a dead blog or a website that hasn't been updated in a long time. There's a sense of unfulfilled potential. It's like wondering about the might-have-been future.

Sorry if I've made you feel this way. Not that I really even know if anybody reads my blog in the first place, heh.

You Really, Really Need to Understand Economics

2009-12-17T10:52:00.008-05:00

It should be obvious to just about everybody, even disregarding recent history, that a working knowledge of economics is pretty much an obligation for any citizen of any democratic country, especially those that are capitalist. For instance, there is fairly strong evidence that the recent economic kerfuffling could've been prevented if certain electoral decisions had gone otherwise maybe ten or twenty years ago. Or maybe five or ten years ago, if you're on the other side of the debate. Either way, you've got to believe it matters.

But the good news is, learning economics, at least enough to be a competent citizen-voter, is not all that hard.

Half the difficulty is penetrating the jargon, in my opinion. The actual meanings of all the wacky terms are, mostly, pretty simple and common-sense, or at least they have been to me.

The other half is understanding the math, and it's not all that hard math actually. A good friend of mine (http://vort.org/) once told me most of economics is just adding and subtracting. Sometimes the numbers can be very big, but luckily big numbers are just as easy to understand as small numbers. In fact, there is no conceptual difference between the two.

So, for fun and my own education, I think I'll start learning basic economics from the ground up, and then talking about it here. Nah, actually, science is way cooler and way more interesting. I was sort of a policy & current events wonk for a long time (long influence of the debate team from high school I bet), and lately it's just not worth it. Nobody interrupts you to question your value as a citizen or whether or not you really love your fellow man when you talk about how awesome it is that Voyager 1 is about to become the first man-made artifact to enter interstellar space.

Unfortunately, I was Right About Facebook

2009-11-30T14:05:00.002-05:00

So awhile back I posted about my Facebook aversion. Looks like I was justified:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/23/1458246/Facebook-App-Exposes-Abject-Insecurity

http://www.cyberoam.com/pressrelease_q12009.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159738-2/5_facebook_schemes_that_threaten_your_privacy.html

Ask yourself: How hard is it to leave a dangerously insecure service when everyone you know wants you to stay?

Astronauts Read Fantasy

2009-11-04T13:10:00.007-05:00

In what is perhaps not a huge surprise, astronauts read fantasy novels. I made this discovery myself, though I don't know if it's been made by others before me.

Evidence: See the floating book on the space shuttle. See the purple book on the bottom of the stack of fantasy novels.

Reason Magazine Betrays Their Eponymity

2009-06-11T11:54:00.008-04:00

I'm in favor of articles like these, wherein a major news outlet is criticized for poor journalism. On the other hand, it seems Reason itself needs to reassess its commitment to, er, reason. I'm not trashing the article as a whole, as in fact the internal logic and overall quality of evidence seemed to me convincing enough in general, at least at a glance. However, the section on obesity doesn't measure up to its peers. It's flawed, and obviously so, in ways I intend to prove.

"But the science proved hard for the panic to overcome. In 2005, a team of CDC researchers published a study finding significant flaws with the 400,000 figure. The real number, they said, was closer to 112,000." [link in original]

Yes, overestimating the figure by a factor of four is a serious problem. Still, 112,000 is still quite a few individuals, wouldn't you say? What might be the context for this sort of figure? In other words, what is the threshold for an acceptable level of corpulence? To put the idea of perspective into, uh, perspective, the United States suffers about 30,000 suicides every year, and about 40,000 deaths due to automobile accidents every year. So now the 112,000 figure looks enormous. Yet a minute ago Reason made it look small by comparing it to a poorer estimate of itself.

"And when you add in the protective effects of being mildly overweight, the number drops to 26,000."

There two unsubstantiated claims here, both of which are remarkable. Remarkable claims demand proof with evidence and reason, and none are offered. First of all, what exactly are the "protective effects" of being overweight, aside from, I suppose, resistance to starvation? The clinical definitions of terms such as "overweight" and "obese," as I understand them, are carefully chosen by medical science. They are unhealthy conditions by definition. If there are also benefits to being overweight, of such efficacy that they offset the deathcount by 75% (112K down to 26K), one would think that there would be more information somewhere. If there is, Reason has unreasonably chosen to withold it. Moreover the 26,000 figure itself is entirely unsubsantiated.

"As for medical costs, a 2008 Dutch study suggests what would seem to be intuitive: People who live longer tend to incur more lifetime medical expenses. Meaning that if obesity does modestly shorten lifespans, it does so at a savings to taxpayer-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid."

Misuse of context! Ten yards and loss of down! The Dutch study's cost-benefits model is entirely based on being Dutch. From that study: "Except for relative risk values, all input parameters of the simulation model were based on data from The Netherlands." Reason is attempting to tear down Time's claim that obesity is a problem in the United States. The hilarious thing is, I don't even have to prove that the Netherlands is substantially different from the US in relevant ways, as I suspect it is; the serious flaw in their reasoning is that they assume the study's conclusion is as valid here as it is there.

Feh, Reason. They make a mockery of the word.

The Scientific Consensus on Global Warming

2009-04-23T18:31:00.000-04:00

It appears that public opinion, and therefore public policy, is slowly tilting towards action regarding climate change. This means that the general public of the United States is finally accepting the scientific consensus regarding the changing climate of the Earth. Different polls show different percentages, but it would appear that a substantial number of Americans now believe that:

The Earth's climate is experiencing a slow, long-term warming trend.
This trend has been caused by human activity, mostly the emission of carbon dioxide by modern industrialized countries.
This trend will have substantial negative consequences for the Earth's environment and the human species.

You can read for yourself about what Americans believe on this subject in a few places. Unfortunately these polls also show that a substantial proportion of the general public also disbelieves the scientific consensus. Some even deny that such a consensus exists in the first place.

This is unfortunate, considering that the opinion of the scientific community is almost unanimous regarding global warming. You can read about the details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

And if you don't trust wikipedia, follow the evidence to their sources; there are far too many to include them here. Every credible scientific association, including every national science academy of the industrialized world, believes the above enumerated statements about global warming. I think the one exception is the American Association of Petroleum(!!) Geologists, whose position on the issue isn't actually hostile, but rather neutral and even weakly supportive. The last remaining dissent of any relevance appears to be the opinions of a few scattered individual scientists.

Why then does the magnitude of this consensus carry so little force with those who doubt?

My Facebook Aversion

2009-02-09T11:03:00.002-05:00

I have a bunch of "Friend Requests" and I'm never going to act on them. The reason is, I hate Facebook. Well, sorta. Not the service itself; The truth is, Facebook-the-service is actually pretty cool. Look at all the neat things we can do with it. We can talk to eachother, share pictures, and arrange ourselves in social networks. I hear there are games and other amusements.

Yet I refuse to use any of these. I'm only here so I can read my girlfriend's blog. Oh, except it's not called a blog, it's "Notes". Anyway.

I'm not opposed to social networking as an idea. I'm opposed to the way it's implemented. Consider what Facebook really-truly is -- a service offered by a for-profit corporation. I don't want my friendships defined and mediated by a single for-profit corporation.

Think of all the other ways you can talk to your friends -- the mail is a government agency subject to influence by the democratic process. My Verizon phone can call any phone number in the world regardless of what company is providing service to the receiving phone. Email can fly easily from my gmail account to my friends' accounts regardless of what company owns the servers in between. My actual blog (http://tomkolson.blogspot.com/) is visible by the entire internet -- any person with any web browser can read what I have to say.

Not so with Facebook nor the other social networking sites. If I want to use Facebook to talk to my friends, my friends have to be on Facebook too. Say I discover that Facebook Inc (the company that sells Facebook, the service) is doing something horrible with their profits. How do I boycott a company who is controlling access to my closest friends?

So, that's the reason I don't have many Facebook Friends.

Addendum - I tried several times to tell all the pending friend requests that I wasn't going to be accepting, but Facebook made me to through its captcha thingy every time. Ick.

A Small Start

2009-01-11T22:37:00.004-05:00

For people who want to know more about the world around us, with an inclination towards seeing around all the hype, spin, misconceptions, and outright lies, here's a good place to start:

http://www.straightdope.com/

I especially like repeatedly bouncing on the random column button:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/random

I think their hit-rate for relevance is pretty good, based on an admittedly unrigorous study (clicking the Random Column button and repeatedly being fascinated for the last ten or fifteen minutes). I had particularly good luck when I got:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1789/why-cant-felons-vote

Blogging Again

2008-12-23T05:49:00.000-05:00

I've decided to start blogging again. The major reason for doing so is to rectify my own personal ignorance. I realized during the recent elections that I didn't have much trustworthy information about the candidates' positions, personal histories, nor even voting records. Moreover, I wouldn't say I'm sufficiently knowledgeable regarding the world generally. The bald truth of it is that an ignorant person cannot vote responsibly.

I feel I owe humanity some kind of restitution. Since my sin was ignorance of the relevant parts of reality, it seems right in a poetic sort of way that I should atone by accumulating and transmitting useful knowledge.

So, I'm blogging again. I hope it does some good, to myself if no one else.

This Blog is Ended

2007-12-21T23:37:00.000-05:00

I don't think I'm really interested in blogging anymore. I'm not really sure why or else I'd explain it.

I guess I'll close with a quote from one of the best people in the world:

"When you look at the world with the eyes of compassion, you suffer much less."

My Brother has Flown to War

2007-10-29T23:20:00.000-04:00

This hasn't happened before. My brother -- six years my junior -- is going into the Middle East to do his sworn duty in Iraq. You know what? Fuck how useless, awful, and wasteful President Bush's war has been, I'm proud of my brother.

I wish he didn't have to go, though.

So does my mother. She wept on the ride home from seeing him.

I had to skip kung fu practice, but as my Sifu would probably agree, my first family takes precedence over my second.

And, weirdly, the Red Sox won the World Series the same day.

American Christianity's Bad Reputation

2007-10-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

I've got some unconventional views about God, religion, and such:

That said, it's nice to know that I'm not in the minority about one opinion at least: Christianity in the United States has gone all screwy. Matt makes the point much more eloquently than I do:

I've Been TRYING To Wake You Guys Up...

To summarize, he makes the argument that, even when conducted by Christian polling organizations, Christians aren't viewed very favorably.

There is a Christian argument against accepting criticism from outside the faith -- that way lies the influence of the sinful world or Satan himself. Yet, plenty of people on the inside, who voluntarily identify themselves as Christian (full disclosure: I count myself as one of these), see recent developments in Christianity unfavorably.

Hi mom!

2007-09-26T19:05:00.000-04:00

So let's all give a hearty welcome-to-the-Internet round of applause to my dear old mum, who just bought a shiny new MacBook and is, by all accounts, having a ball.

It occurs to me that I've never actually said "Hi, mom!" and actually expected her to read it or hear it before. Usually I've said it as a joke.

The Artificial Scarcity of Imaginary Monsters

2007-07-27T10:20:00.000-04:00

I must confess that I do not like any of the Pokemon games, except possibly the old rail-shooter for the N64 (shooting as in photography; it was very interesting). I can't say I didn't try; for awhile I was dating a girl that was a Pokemon fanatic, so I bought a copy of the game to see if we could have fun together, and despite my hours of work playing the game, it didn't work out at all. The trouble was the artificial set of restrictions put on gameplay -- No good reason for them to be there, but they prevented me from having fun with my girlfriend, even though I paid money to do so. So, no matter how adorable I found her while she was talking about her cute li'l elemental cartoon bluejay, I couldn't share in the fun of that experience with her.

See, the main problem is that Pokemon makes you do something that, from a computing point of view, makes no sense.

You may think you're going on an interesting hunt, finding Pokemon when you play, say, Pokemon Diamond for the Nintendo DS. You're not. You're not actually "finding" anything, because these Pokemon aren't actually scattered around in the landscape as the game portrays. You may only be able to access new Pokemon via wandering around the landscape (or visiting the egg-farm, or whatever), but the fact is that all the Pokemon are arranged neatly in plain sight, sitting in a row, from the moment you purchase the game. You're just not allowed to take Pokemon from this neat row.

Instead, you have to jump through arbitrary hoops. You may like jumping through arbitrary hoops, and if that's what you find entertaining, then by all means, continue doing so. I just want you to realize that these hoops are unequivocably arbitrary.

Unfortunately, the artificial scarcity doesn't stop there. You may think it's some kind of value-add that you and some other guy, having different versions of the game (Diamond and Pearl in this case) can find different Pokemon and trade with eachother, thus enriching one another's experiences. This is entirely illusory. It would have been trivial to include all the content on all copies of the game. Why split it up like that? Oh, right, the giant pile of money.

I like The Battle for Wesnoth much better than Pokemon: If I want the challenge of searching the lands for new soldiers for my army, I can have that. However, these restrictions can be turned off. So, I can have fun however I want, which is a pleasure in and of itself. This is an increasingly foreign concept to mainstream gamers, I think, and probably mainstream audiences generally.

The word for it is freedom.

Tom Olson: Self-Aware Drunk

2007-07-26T18:39:00.000-04:00

So, sometimes (like now) I have too much to drink. I'm totally aware of it though. I've got this perception that life doesn't hurt as much as it usually does . . . hang on, I think most of my decreased perception of pain is physical. And I know, more or less for a fact, that tomorrow is going to hurt -- you can't turn off the unpleasant parts of your nervous system without serious cost. At least it's just beer, and not, say, heroin.

Somehow, I believed that I would get back to the office after the company party (ten years, hooray!) and find myself magically able to work. This is what I would imagine might be called the "Superman" phase of inebriation -- I feel like I can accomplish anything, without the usual self-doubt. It's a bit like driving a car with no speed governors. Everything is opened up, and anything is possible.

This is, of course, stupid. Alchohol is a chemical depressant (see the appropriate Wikipedia article); there's no way I'm more effective when drunk, unless of course there is something in my brain that holds me back, that alcohol subverts.

Maybe this warrants further study. Further drunken study. Heh.

My View of War

2007-07-02T11:44:00.000-04:00

When I was a little kid, I used to love death machines and liked to watch people using them on TV, not realizing that I was consuming fiction every bit as fantastical as my favorite, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and related works. It sounds strange when I refuse to euphemize my old love for military machines and war movies, doesn't it?

Like so much that I felt and thought when I was young, I'm kind of ashamed that I used to feel this way. Perhaps I have Tolkien to thank for that, at least in part. One of his characters clearly intended as a role model (Faramir) puts it thusly:

"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

This is my view, in my better moments, and I shall not apologize for holding it, not even in the run-up to America's national patriotic holiday.

Someone Even More Sarcastic Than Me Agrees: MMOs Bad

2007-05-09T10:29:00.000-04:00

I don't play MMOs. Penny Arcade, always a fount of straight-talking yet delightfully irreverent gamer wisdom, explains the biggest issue I have, which is of course economic:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/05/07

There are others. For example, it is part of the business model that a person becomes socialized into the culture of the game. Human identity doesn't occur independently of a human being's surroundings, one of which is the set of cultures to which that human being belongs. So, when a person becomes socially invested in an MMO, effectively, part of their identity now belongs to the company that owns it.

To some extent, of course, this is necessary: We can't escape the brands we develop affection for, nor the corporate infrastructure that we depend on. Hell, most of us spend the better part of our waking hours at work, our time and effectively some of our identity owned by a business interest.

However, it's not necessary that we make these trades for nothing but entertainment. Give a child a paper bag or a cardboard box and see how much fun a person can have for free, without any psychological hooks.

Software Is Hard, Part 1

2007-04-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

It's a well-known fact that software is a difficult field in which to work. One of the many challenges of writing computer programs that confronts me personally, on a nearly daily basis, is the problem of mystery. It is a fact that a large part of my job is devoted to solving them. Dealing with the unknown is a notoriously hard thing to do, as so much of human history attests. A person in software will regularly feel inadequate, frustrated, and even helpless in the face of the accompanying cognitive dissonance. Often enough, these mysteries cannot be ignored or circumvented because their solutions are prerequisites of functional computer programs.

So, this hard thing, seemingly intractable mystery, is a constant companion.

I think this phenomenon, in large part, explains why so many people try programming and come to dislike and even hate it.

How to Fix d20

2007-04-11T14:22:00.000-04:00

I finally figured it out. After years of noodling, heckling, berating, bitching, and houseruling, I know the #1 thing that needs to be fixed with the d20 system, Wizards' dominant tabletop roleplaying engine (this is the system that runs D&D, yep, I'm a nerd).

Characters need more skill points per level. Most D&D characters turn out to be "really good" at only two to four skills, out of about fifty to choose from. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of discussion, but the point is that it's both unrealistic and harmful to the fun of roleplaying.

I can imagine several fixes, but here is my favorite:

More skill points for most classes, say +2 (sorry rogues, you only get +1)
Additional skill points for cross-class skills
Some kind of reward for diversification of skills

An example of that last would be, say, cheapening the first four ranks of a skill by half.

C Thirty Years Later

2007-04-06T17:29:00.000-04:00

There are lots of new languages, but the market for a very fast, low-level, and fairly minimalist programming language persists. This market is filled by C, but if C didn't exist and people were to start with today's knowledge of programming language design, what would they produce?

I don't mean OO or functional programming or anything like that. What if you kept what C is good at (being fast, being close to the "real" computer) but designed it using modern language design technique?

What Everyone REALLY Wants

2007-03-28T09:50:00.000-04:00

I think folks get kind of uptight about what they want. They think they want lots of different things:

Money
Power
Pleasure
Respect
Approval
Sex (let's face it)

And they also think they want to avoid a bunch of other things:

Pain
Disease
Loss
Insecurity
Death

My view on the subject is that, deep down, what we all really really want is:

Lasting personal emotional peace, regardless of the circumstances

There's more than one way to look at it though. What's yours? (This is a real question, leave a comment.)

New Year's Poem

2007-01-24T13:52:00.000-05:00

Written on 31 December 2006:

Yet Another Year

It comes and it goes.
The world inhales, then it exhales.
Again and again, but not forever:
I must die, the world must die.
But not yet.

A Surprisingly Subversive Film

2007-01-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Over the Hedge was a pretty decent movie (I guess it's based on a comic strip). The surprising thing, to me, was the highly subversive message tucked away in the premise:

The protagonists of the film, a crowd of cute and cuddly forest animals (and one reptile), find their habitats suddenly encroached upon by new suburban developments, complete with McMansions, SUVs, and carefully manicured lawns. These are barely exaggerated for the picture, though the same is not true of the extra-caricatured human antagonists. The world-wise raccoon's expositions about the human pattern of life are bitingly frank. I was reminded of Animal Farm mixed with Gulliver's Travels.

Strangely, the initial crisis of the film (at least for the "family" of foraging furry forest friends, rather than the raconteuring raccoon . . . that's entirely enough alliterative accumulation, I think) is never actually resolved. This crisis is that the animals need the food resources of the woodland that had been destroyed by human expansion. At the end of the film it is flimsily resolved by deus ex machina (the squirrel has somehow managed to recover his previously-gathered nuts, and there turns out to be enough for all).

Which is fine enough for now, but what about the next year and the one after that? There still isn't enough habitat for the animals, as the turtle explained at the beginning of the second act. What would they do once Hamilton's nuts run out?

It's actually even worse than that. The animals now live in a tiny patch of wilderness left after the expansion (viewers are led to believe that the animals are surrounded by row upon row of suburban sprawl in all directions), as seen in a pamphlet scavenged by RV the raccoon. Ominously, this area is slated for "future development" according to the brochure.

So, despite all the good intentions, they're still doomed. I wonder if it's intentional, or if I've misread somehow, or what.

An Important Tool of Self-Improvement

2007-01-17T09:57:00.000-05:00

In Chess, serious players are aware of a certain rule: If one wants to improve one's game, one should find opponents who are superior to oneself.

I think this maxim works well in the general case: If a person wants to improve himself, he should hang out with people who are better than him. Not only can one learn a lot from such people, but one can also benefit from the social pressure to contribute to the group and the psychology of wanting to be useful among people who are already pretty useful to begin with. It can drive one to excel.

It seems to me that a person will feel slightly inferior or even unconfident among such superior people. Therefore, such feelings can be used to gauge a group's quality compared with oneself.

I am Familiar with the Taste of Foot

2007-01-10T22:15:00.000-05:00

So I, perhaps foolishly, thought to myself that I might have something useful to contribute to The Exchange, a program on NHPR that Laura Knoy has hosted for years.

I pretty badly misspoke myself. In the rush of being broadcast live across the state I got awfully nervous, and listening to it again later on in the day, I have to say I'm a bit embarrassed.

They were talking about ethnic diversity and affirmative action in the collegiate setting. I've noticed in my personal experience, and this has been confirmed by studies, that even though a college campus might be ethnically diverse, often times highly technical fields of study (specifically, the hard sciences, mathematics, and engineering) are virtually ignored by ethnic minorities and women. Leastways, very few of them graduate.

This is a bad thing, because these fields yield the most lucrative starting salaries after college (we had a T-shirt to that effect when I was in school). If we want real egalitarianism and socioeconomic diversity, we ought to be figuring out a way to graduate more women and minority students with these degrees.

That, in a nutshell, is what I meant to say.

I actually said something quite a bit more grating. I came off rather crassly, and it sounded a lot like I called Women's Studies and African American Studies worthless compared with being a rich computer nerd like me (ha ha ha, and what I do is harder anyway, you peasants).

Eww.

This sort of arrogant-sounding bluster is exactly what's wrong with a lot of the discussion in the software industry, and yet as much as I detest it, I'm pretty sure I managed to inject some of it into a completely unrelated discussion.

Since that foolishness is now a matter of public record, I wanted to add the preceding clarification, and the following apology, to the public discourse as well:

Sorry about that. I should've spoken more carefully and more clearly.

Dear Internet -- Thanks

2006-12-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

As the year ends, I find myself realizing that my life is significantly improved by the presence of the Internet. I suppose I mostly mean the World Wide Web (I feel so mid-nineties writing it out that way), but whatever.

I use email, instant messaging, web browsing, ssh (telnet but encrypted), and related tools constantly, for all sorts of things in my daily life. I wouldn't have my rather good job without it, because Linux probably wouldn't have been made, and certainly wouldn't have succeeded as it has, without the Internet's help. Unless one counts this blog (and one probably shouldn't) and a few scattered ravings published by my college newspaper (those were the days), I haven't really contributed anything at all.

Thanks too to the armies of nerds fixing, upgrading, monitoring, and maintaining the infrastructure, right under our noses, or rather, tucked away in network operations centers all over the world. They do such a good job that usually nobody even knows they're there.

So, thanks Internet, including all of its attendant parts and people. You've made my life better.

Hooray, I'm not a Scene Whore!

2006-12-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

According to an obviously reputable and highly trustable, expert, authoritative, and final source:

http://attrition.org/~geekgrl/text/whore.html

I am not a Scene Whore! Behold! I shall answer the questions forthwith!

Yes, between two and five. That's right, I've lost track.
Yes (Programming Perl and a bunch of college textbooks).
Oh yeah. I don't operate much anymore though. Since I got back from the war and quit the sauce my hands shake. These days I'm in general practice. I might go into teaching.
Yes, I'm pretty sure.
Yes, but not where it matters much (still counts!).
Yes! Am I totally 1337 yet!? Woo!
Oh totally. Like, twenty. Fifty. Higher numbers are better right?
Gee, this is a tough one. I volunteered at Usenix one time, does that count? It does? Sweet!
Er, I think so. There are a bunch of ways to parcel the bits. The kernel, the filesystem, the utilities, and uh, the libraries I guess? This question could refer to the kernel itself, in which case I guess it'd be like the scheduler and the memory manager and the . . . other stuff. I'm going to assume that the first answer is right. I've done so well so far that I must be a trustworthy expert.
ls -laR # See, I even commented it so you can cutpaste the whole line to test it yourself.

So, in conclusion, I believe I got a perfect 100%. it must be the case that I R SO AWSUME ILL HAX YOUR BOXORS!!!!!1!!1!

Dammit, Blogger!

2006-10-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

Or perhaps, dammit firefox! In any case, this is absurd. Every time I try to post these days, it seems like there is yet another weird bug that eats my entire post (today, it actually crashed my browser).

So, no more blogging. It may return in some other channel (blogging is useful, after a fashion), but for now, I'm done.

Summer's End Update

2006-10-06T08:50:00.000-04:00

For those who have been agonizing about my Summer of Loafing, you should know that I got a job in Manchester working as a software engineer. I went to the national iaido meeting and made sandan, and then when I got back I discovered I had an offer letter. Now, it seems, my start date is Monday.

It is amazing to me how life crawls along, unchanging for months, and then everything changes in a week or a few days.

9/11: Bad for the US, but not Really Catastrophic

2006-09-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

A thought has been growing in my mind. I feel I must speak. It's going to sound harsh, so let me verify a few things first: I absolutely believe that 9/11 was a horrible tragedy, and that those responsible should be brought to justice. I have nothing but sympathy and compassion for the victims and their families. I remember that day of insanity just like everyone else does.

However.

I've come to believe that the horror of that day, despite its emotional impact and the dreadful harm to those directly involved, has been overstated.

Take the death toll, for example. The human loss, as heartbreaking as it was, is nothing to us as a population. 3,000 people is, what, less than 0.0001% of our national census? That same year, almost 40,000 American citizens committed suicide, mostly as a reaction to utter despair or unbearable pain, and about that number do so every year. Which is more heartbreaking?

Yes yes, very many dollars were lost, along with a staggering quantity of property. However, the recession we experienced in that period was, I believe, one of the mildest on record. Meanwhile, Manhattan is doing just fine, based on what I've seen. Hell, I was there in February of 2002 and it seemed to be basically fine even then. Sure, something huge had happened, and the effects could be felt everywhere, but the city was still the city. Life was going on.

Finally, we've seen much, much worse. The American Revolution, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Korean and Vietnam wars, for starters. Has it been so long since these great trials that we've forgotten our strength?

We must, must remember that terrorism is a tactic of last resort. Terrorism is what you use when you can't hurt your enemy in any other way. In short, they couldn't do anything to really damage us as a nation-state, so they attacked our hearts instead. It's awful and cruel, certainly, but not actually a threat in any major strategic or economic way.

So long as we don't allow them to manipulate us, that is.

Seen in a .sig file

2006-08-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

-- John F. Kennedy

How to Fix Iraq

2006-07-26T12:38:00.000-04:00

It's actually pretty obvious, but we as a nation are not willing to do it, so of course the rolling bloody disaster there will continue indefinitely. (Literally, that's the policy right now: The duration of major deployment by US armed forces is not definite.)

First, a justification: The situation in Iraq right now continues to be terrible, as basically everyone agrees. Putting it as charitably as possible, the claim that conditions are improving is dubious and not widely supported. In any case, everyone ought to agree that Iraq is not okay right now. I think every reasonable American would agree that, if we can take some action that would dramatically improve conditions there, that we should do it immediately.

The good news is that we certainly can. The bad news is that we almost certainly won't.

Basically, there aren't enough troops.

We know that we don't have enough soldiers there; even before the invasion the defense department estimated that we'd need three or four times the number currently deployed; I'd guess that about four or five hundred thousand soldiers would be a good start. The RAND Corporation spelt it out in a much more thorough way back in 2003. As things stand now, we can't even secure the borders, and thus can't prevent weapons and other supplies from flowing into the country and into insurgent hands.

Yes, this would almost certainly mean a military draft for the first time since the Vietnam War. No, no politician in their right mind would suggest such a thing, because it would probably mean a serious political hit. Given that 98.5% of congressional incumbents are re-elected, I'm not sure what they're afraid of, but the fact is that nobody in a position of risk is willing to speak the obvious yet difficult truth:

Iraq has been three years of misery, squalor, and bloodshed because we're okay with that. It's our fault, and no one else's.

Back to the Granite State

2006-07-23T23:51:00.000-04:00

I decided to take my leave of the Ocean State, in part because the only way to stay there was by paying giant piles of money to my landlord. My mom very graciously decided to take me in once again, until I find work again.

In a way, it feels kind of shameful: I'm an adult now, and by the usual standards, adults do not live with their mothers. On the other hand, the only real reason to care is that other people will think ill of me. Then I realize that the only people who really would think ill of me are the kind whose opinions I am uninterested in hearing.

So, once again, one is struck by the fairly obvious unreliability of one's own instincts.

Also, Neuromancer was really good. Thanks, Muncus.

Independence Day

2006-07-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

About thirty minutes ago, Independence Day Number 230 came to a close. We had a rather dodgy space shuttle launch, some political buffoonery, a few baseball games, and many many ancient Chinese pyrotechnics performances.

I must be as mad as the rest of the hatters here in the Colonies, because despite all the foolishness and cruelty that we're responsible for, I love this place.

Apparently a Quitter After All

2006-06-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

It turns out that My First Real Job isn't panning out. I'm finishing up my current work and then I'm done. My employment ends on the 30th at the latest; sooner if I can wrap everything up before then.

It was half quitting and half firing, I think: I wasn't really enjoying my time there, and they weren't really pleased with the quality of work I was able to produce. So, it was a mutual decision.

I'm choosing to believe that it was a case of talent mismatch rather than simple incompetence: I don't think I'm good at doing the kind of development they seem to need.

I have to thank them, too. I learned and made some money and I was at least marginally useful, and I'm grateful for that.

This sort of thing sometimes doesn't turn out well, so I'm pleased that I've managed to cross this particular bridge without burning it. It appears that I will be missed, and I'm very grateful for that, as well. I'll miss them, too.

I've no idea what I'm going to do with myself or where I'm going. The most obvious (and some would say, least insane) answer is that I'm going to be looking for work elsewhere as a software developer of some kind.

It's a big world, though. I'll have to give it some thought.

New York City, Kendo, Wars Past and Present

2006-05-31T00:55:00.000-04:00

I went to a kendo tournament for the first time this weekend. It was a great time. The photos turned out pretty well, I have to say.

This is, I think, the sixth or seventh time I've gone to Manhattan with the express purpose of ignoring everything there but the Japanese swordsmanship. New York City is forever going to be the Land of Japanese Swordsmanship Dojos and Absurdly Tall Buildings for me, I'm afraid.

Now that I think it over, it was a pretty curious way to celebrate Memorial Day, given that Japan was once, for a while, a hated enemy. To think that on the very day I was watching fencing matches between Japanese and American kendo players, the people who were actually killed by Japanese weapons sixty years ago were being honored for their sacrifices all over America.

I consider the tournament to be living proof that their lives were not spent in vain.

That connection reminds me of the first time I visited the city for an iaido seminar and exam, in early 2002. I visited Ground Zero, and with bizaare elation mixed with tears I saw, hanging on a fence with countless other condolences and well-wishes, hundreds of paper cranes, sent by students from across Japan. The poignancy of it lies in the origin of that particular cultural symbol, and it staggered me.

It's proof that sometimes, even the bitterest enemies can rise above their enmity, and it gives me a glimmer of hope. It is sorely needed.

The Tuesdays of Life

2006-05-09T22:59:00.000-04:00

Interestingly, your life (assuming you live just about anywhere in the first world) will contain, on average, about four thousand Tuesdays. I personally am well into my second legion.

Exercise Is Good!

2006-04-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

So I just went down the gym and burned a bunch of calories. I feel pretty good now; must be the endorphins. Here's what I did:

100 kcal on the exercise bike.
10 situps
some stretching & other miscellaneous exercises
a few kicks on the heavy bag
20 more situps
10 pushups
100 more kcal on the exercise bike

All in all it took about an hour, and I'm pretty pleased with how it went. At the moment I'm aiming for consistency rather than intensity, so basically I'm going to try to do something about similar (that is, an hour of decent exercise) every day if I can.

On days when I do iaido or go to hung gar (being much more intense, generally) I am exempt.

Let's see how I do.

bash.org is Really Quite Humorous

2006-04-18T20:24:00.000-04:00

It's probably a sign of how far gone I am, but this made me laugh so hard I violated my lease agreement.

bash.org is completely hysterical, in a not-quite-worksafe sorta way.

English: A Language With Holes.

2006-04-13T00:42:00.000-04:00

As mightily expressive, rich, and variable as our language is, a few inadequacies nevertheless persist. For example, English is without a neuter personal pronoun. Every time you hear or read the phrase "he or she", you encounter this lack. "He or she" and other similar constructions (I've seen "s/he" in at least one place) are the ill-fitting lumps of asphalt that fill that particular linguistic pothole, leaving the surface bumpy and unattractive.

It's a bit silly, considering that English, with the largest vocabulary of any tongue in the world, usually possesses the perfect word or words for any given need.

What we need is "it", but for people. Somebody riveting syllables together down in the wordsmithies should remedy that.

Preach on Reverend!

2006-04-06T23:17:00.000-04:00

from http://www.paradox1x.org/html/quotes.shtml:

"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood, and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this."

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

As for Me and My House

2006-04-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

I may have a decadent first-world lifestyle, and I may be consuming more non-renewable natural resources than, say, Solomon ever did, and I may drive to work most days instead of walking (it's less than a mile). I may rely indirectly on a culture of wanton pollution and rapid consumption for everything from clothing to food to what I do for work.

However, my home's electricity is now provided by renewable sources only.

It may not be much, but it's a start.

An Essay About Computers Everybody Should Read

2006-04-01T16:57:00.000-05:00

I didn't know the full text of In the Beginning Was the Command Line was available for free on the internet. That's awesome. Go read:

http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

The less you know about computers, the more you need to read it.

The IRS Wants Your Gambling Money

2006-04-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

In addition to wanting your drug money, the IRS also wants to tax some income from gambling.

Financiers Like to Straddle Things

2006-04-01T11:01:00.000-05:00

Actually, it's true. Is it just me or does every profession have it's own oddball dialect of English that's strange and outlandish to the outside ear?

So, how much of this blog is googling for wikipedia entries? Do you like rhetorical questions? What if the questions are metarhetorical?

Things Java Does Better Than Perl Part 1

2006-03-30T10:20:00.000-05:00

Just for the record, as much as I dislike the Java development community in general, I have had to admit over time that the language & "environment" have their advantages.

For example, Java's documentation generation system(ation) is better than Perl's, especially for applications that substantially leverage OO, inheritance in particular.

Specifically, javadoc digs into the inheritance tree to find all the methods that a class provides, not just those provided at the class definition itself. The utility of this was brought home to me today, as I found myself wandering around in various classes over and over again looking for methods.

Likewise, I believe that javadoc is smart enough to accomplish this even if the programmer puts no documentation into his or her source file.

Pod, to my knowledge, cannot accomplish this at all.

Largo Channels Han Solo

2006-03-28T20:02:00.000-05:00

My own inexpertise may be misinforming my opinion here, but Largo is the man:

The IRS Wants Your Drug Money

2006-03-22T20:40:00.000-05:00

No, seriously. From Publication 525:

"Illegal income. Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity."

In other words: If you make money by selling heroin, you must pay income tax on the proceeds.

I can only assume this is a poorly-conceived enforcement strategy.

del.icio.us

2006-03-18T13:59:00.000-05:00

So I had an idea for using del.icio.us more effectively: I created a tag named 'toolbar'. I added a link to it to my firefox toolbar, so I can get at it easily. In this way, the only thing I have to do to add to my list of frequently-used links is post to del.icio.us and remember to put in the 'toolbar' tag. It's very convenient.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, del.icio.us is awesome! Go use it! It makes surfing the web twice as fun, and it also cures cancer.

Well, maybe not cancer. Perhaps a mild headache.

OMG FURNITURE LOL

2006-03-18T11:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, I have furniture now. I feel sort of lame for purchasing from Ikea so universally, but the truth of it is they're the only people who carry anything practical, seemingly. I purchased a huge loft bed and matress (ironically the same one as this loser), a nifty table and four chairs (all fold up handily), a giant bookshelf, and a loose collection of what my grandmother calls "odds and ends". Basically the last is a pile of little baskets and storage boxes, trash cans, and things like that.

As soon as I buy a desk, a desk chair, and possibly a filing cabinet, I'm done.

Nope, no couch. I don't need one, for I own no television. Nope, no TV, no DVD player, no DVR device, no game consoles, and no fancy stereo. I have my computer, a broadband internet connection, and a library card, and that's more than good enough, thanks.

Oops. Now that I think about it, I do own a Sega Dreamcast, though I'm really on the edge about just getting rid of it. If anyone wants it, leave a comment. You pay for shipping, you get an old-school DC, a pile of virtually useless games (and two of the five or so real gems for the system: Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi, I believe), a couple of controllers and memory cards, and a keyboard adapter. The thing can probably make a good router or firewall for somebody, if nothing else.

"Your Router's Telephone Number"

2006-02-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

So, my new internet provider, Cox Communications, is proving to be as incompetent and blundering as everyone around here said they were. I went in with a beginner's mind, too. I really tried to start with a neutral opinion of them.

So, to give you an idea: When you mistype your password three or four times on the company's website (when you want to, say, change your account information), they give you slap on the wrist and a nastygram, and forbid you from trying again for thirty minutes. If that wasn't dumb enough, the timeout information is stored locally in a browser cookie. You know, the kind that you can clear out yourself.

That's right, this "security feature" is exactly the same as handing a safe-cracking cat burglar a stopwatch and saying "Okay, you, don't try to break in again for half an hour."

Also, it's full of unnecessary javascript that renders their search features nearly unusable.

But that's all really irrelevent to the real silliness going on here. They refuse to allow me to "use" more than one computer at a time. I put quotes around the word "use" because what they really mean is that once I connected with my laptop, no machine but my laptop can ever connect again. I'd like to say their DHCP server politely tells me that I'm being denied, but they don't bother; they just ignore any requests. This behavior is in direct conflict with what the technician told me the day he installed the whole thing. I asked him this question explicitly.

Oh yeah, it took twenty minutes of coaxing to get the poor tech support staff to tell me all this. I had to correct the guy a few times along the way, too, and convince him that no, it wasn't my hub malfunctioning. (PS - The telephone number of my router? What on earth could he have meant?)

Oh, and guess what? If you want to connect with more than one computer, they expect you to pony-up an additional fee. The other option (paradoxically, they're okay with this) is putting in my own router. Madness. I'm told I can switch out which computer is granted access, but I'm taking a pretty dim view of the possibility. I mean, what if my router has no working telephone number?

So, and this has probably violated the usage policy, I'm forced to falsify my computer's identity by faking my laptop's MAC address, which is a trivial operation in any unscrewy combination of cards, drivers, and operating systems. Yeah, real secure.

Morons.

Not a Quitter

2006-02-09T21:45:00.000-05:00

So, and I'm just saying, I'm still a hip-n-trendy blogger. Yep, I occupy my little section of the blogosphere and I'm not giving it up. I just moved two states to the south (see below . . . er, look to the south?) and my home interwebs connectionifications aren't debrokenified yet.

Life right now is work, grocery shopping, and staring at this fat candle I have.

And I do mean work. I had no idea I could focus on one thing for so long and actually produce something useful afterwards. I think work will be even better once we finish making some infrastructural changes (ie transitioning to RT), but for now I'm liking it well enough.

Went to iaido last week; took me about an hour to get there. Not bad; the old trip was two hours.

Went to Chinese New Year last week. Not bad; I don't notice it so much anymore, though I definitely still get the mid-afternoon exhaustion-trance, no matter how much Uncle Sing yells.

I think I'm going to try out the pool table.

Melissa has a Blogger Blog too!

2006-01-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

Direct your eyeballs hither. She's the first friend of mine to use Blogger, so far. I like her layout; it's so literaterary!

Moving Out

2006-01-16T13:51:00.000-05:00

I've found a place to live! It's pretty awesome:

Less than a mile from my new job.
On the river.
Brand new.
Nifty renovated mill decor (bricks, high ceilings, random old iron & steel parts here and there).
Nifty amenities package (free wireless & a pool table in the common room, for instance).

On the other hand, rent is a bit higher than my preference. Oh well, can't have everything.

Moving to The Really Really Tiny State

2006-01-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

Real quick:

I've gotten a job at The Conference Exchange, a nifty little software service company based in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
Apparently, most of the work is going to be Perl, MySQL-based SQL, and perhaps some HTML templating. We'll see.
My start date is Monday, 30 January.
So, I'm moving to the Ocean State. I'm probably leaving in about two weeks.

Interestingly, the new digs are going to be much closer to my grandmother, but pretty far away from my mother, but closer to kung fu and iaido, and finally, a bit closer to Boston, New York City, and, of course, Providence. Oh well, win some, lose some.

PS - I would've linked up everything as I am wont to do, but as you might imagine, at the moment I have little time! You'll have to google everything for yourself this time. (Insert your own emoticon expressing impish mischief here.)

How on Earth Did That Happen?

2006-01-12T14:53:00.000-05:00

Somehow, the official soft drink of Nebraska is kool-aid. Weird, huh?

Horchata

2006-01-09T20:29:00.001-05:00

Horchata is a drink, made from rice, sugar, water, and seasoning (almonds, for instance, though I'm using cinnamon and almond extract), which provides excellent relief from excessively spicy food. A light, delicious beverage that is highly refreshing when served cold, it is also a fine distraction from sticky, summer heat. Which is why I'm cooking it for a little dinner-party tomorrow night, to go with the fajitas, even though technically the risk of sweltering heat is pretty much zero. The recipe I am using was taken from a rather pithy blog about cooking.

On the Benefits of Camellia Sinensis

2006-01-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

Although the evidence is far from conclusive, some studies show that this mood-altering botanical product has significant health benefits. I must confess that I am a frequent user myself, and that I not only have a regular supplier, but also that I own several pieces of substance-related paraphrenalia.

Addresses and So Forth

2006-01-07T15:41:00.000-05:00

So, I'm one of those wacky Linux zealots you may have read about. Linux is great, most of the time, but sometimes things turn out to be more complicated than expected.

For example, I want to do something relatively simple: Keep a little digital address book for all of my family and friends. I don't need or want it to be complicated or rich in features. I only require two main features: I need it to be convenient for daily use, and I need its stored data to be easily exportable (should I migrate to another application at some point).

So far, I've kicked around a number of ideas. I have to say I'm not really looking for one of those Outlook clones (evolution, for instance), because I prefer applications with simple, clean interfaces (and anyway, mutt/gmail works just fine, thankyouverymuch). The pickings at that point are relatively thin.

The Debian packages list has yielded a few possibilities, and I suspect poking around at freshmeat and the like will yield a few more. We'll see what happens.

I may end up writing my own database application (in Postgres, SQLite, or whatever); it'd be good practice, certainly.

Something Awful: Funny Once Again

2006-01-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

From Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday:

Verily didst I guffaw most heartily upon gazing upon't.

My Laptop Knows Superheroes

2006-01-04T18:27:00.000-05:00

As noted elsewhere, my laptop recently guest-starred in an episode of Battlestar Galactica. As it turns out, the little guy has appeared in at least one other role. I'm afraid it may've been typecast, because it seems to be playing a Special Fancy Science Fiction Scanner Thingy in the film Fantastic Four. Somehow it got out to rehearsal without even telling me! I thought we were friends!

God, and Related Matters

2006-01-03T01:25:00.000-05:00

Real quick, just for the sake of writing it down:

I think God exists in the usual Judeo-Christian-Islamic sense of the word (created the universe, omnipotence, omniscience, etc), and I further believe that the Christian vision of God (and related matters such as Christ, etc) is mostly correct (don't get me started).
However, insofar as human beings can know anything, I don't think human beings can really know about God for sure.
Furthermore, all the religious knowledge of the world, collectively and including my own, must be a combination of guesswork and inference, at best.
So, I acknowledge that, when it comes to God & such, I could very well be convinced otherwise someday, and that I might be wrong about the whole business, and in fact that it's just a guess in the first place.
That's okay though, because, even though sometimes there is no way to know for sure, guesses can be right.

My Spacefaring Laptop

2006-01-02T21:30:00.000-05:00

I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica, and have, at this point, seen the introductory miniseries and most of the first two seasons on DVD, thanks to a certain video store which happens to be named after a certain kind of explosive device dropped by aircraft to destroy ground targets.

It just fascinates me that the video store is named after a device used in an era that saw the first widespread-use of aircraft carriers, the now-famous details of which have been borrowed extensively for the sake of both verisimilitude and drama in many kinds of fiction. Lo and behold, one that borrows particularly heavily is Battlestar Galactica.

Which I am completely addicted to. It's a great show, all the way around. Imagine one part Babylon 5, one part Body Snatchers, one part The West Wing (albeit, Galactica's political intrigue is kind of a joke comparatively speaking), with a little space survivalism thrown in. The plot here and there stretches my suspension of disbelief once in awhile, but I've grown to like the show so much that I feel bad saying so.

It reminds me also of Space: Above and Beyond, which makes me uncomfortable because, like so much science fiction (Firefly, cough-cough) it was abused and eventually killed off by what I believe to be short-sighted, unimaginative, ham-handed corporate executives. That may be a trifle unfair, but it's my dreams they are crushing, so to speak, when they ruin what I love.

What about my laptop? Oh, right! My little friend (or liliwyn as I have named it; ten points for Gryffindor if you can determine the language), was actually in an episode of Galactica last season! For anyone interested, it's in Episode 209, "Flight of the Phoenix". Look for the scene in which Dee's computer console explodes; afterwards Lt. Gaeta diagnoses the problem with a Special Fancy Science Fiction Scanner Thingy. This device is none other than a dressed-up Panasonic Toughbook CF-18. If you pause the DVD carefully you can see an edge-on shot of it, concealed partly, but it is unmistakable. You can clearly see the heat-sink-like "teeth" in the edge of the screen casing, and even a bit of the lock button there on the right side of the, uh, other part.

To top it all off, the episode is about--twitter!--a computer virus! Oh, be still my cylon-manufactured functionally-equivalent replication of a heart . . . oops, did I say that out loud?

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

. . . even though December 31st is of cultural significance at best; it marks no significant astronomical event, certainly. It's intended to be the solar new year, and it's only different from the solar new year (which happened on the solstice ten days ago) because some Roman didn't realize that the number of days in a (solar) year does not precisely equal an integer. That is, New Year's Day happens when it does because of a measurement error. And, it has remained so because of laziness. Just so we're all clear.

Honestly it's not that Roman's fault, though. It takes a lot of work to discover that sort of thing. I mean, how long did it take us to realize that the orbit of the earth was actually subservient to the sun, and not the other way around? Hell, from a certain point of view (namely, any point on earth) it's not a bad way of looking at things, even though it is incorrect for most purposes (many of which don't matter unless your society is capable of space travel, and gee, it all seems to have been worked out in time).

Interesting how things work out.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-25T20:50:00.000-05:00

Also, today is the first day of the Festival of Lights. Leonard Nimoy said so on the radio.

I had the singular experience of listening to a Nova Scotia Christmas story just now on The Folk Show on NHPR. It was very interesting, and had a strong Irish flavor. Whomever the narrator was, he was more or less completely enchanting. The plot is as follows:

Jeremy is the Captain of a Schooner, the Jeanie Teal. Evidently, his yar-boat (spelling?) which trails behind the Jeanie T is inhabited by two fairies (Bogguns? Was that the word?) who insist on, basically, ruining his life. The lead fairy, whose name is Angus, was completely foul and mean, and insists on making Jeremy's life miserable by preventing him from going anywhere in the Jeanie T. Jeremy gets the idea that his niece living some distance away (in Quarby or someplace like that) would like to see him for Christmas, and through quintessential anti-leprechaun trickery manages to secure a bargain and get what he wants, thanks to Jeanie's help (she, the schooner, can talk by the way). It was a very good listen, it was.

Hot Dog, I'm Edumacated Now!

2005-12-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

Well, despite my best efforts, I seem to have obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science. I'm afraid my performance wasn't stellar this time:

CS 775 Database Systems -- D
CS 719 Object Oriented Methodology -- C-
GEOG 541 Geography of Japan -- C-

But I'm reading a serious Failure to Care on that. I'm done! Woot! I can hardly wait to begin my fifty years of . . . sitting in a cubicle. Hmmm.

December Solstice!

2005-12-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

Today, December 21st, is the December or Winter Solstice. Just thought you'd all like to know in case you have any pagan rituals coming up.

Interestingly, the solstices are reversed in the Southern hemisphere; in (most of) South America, for instance, today is the Summer Solstice.

Ha Ha Ha -- Wait

2005-12-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

I thought this was hysterical, then it kind of made me uneasy:

bed car job couch bed
sun soul in love on a beach
car job couch bed grave

They have many more over at http://www.workhaiku.com/.

Thanks very much to Sasha for passing me the link.

Still Seven Minutes to Midnight

2005-12-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

Interestingly, humanity has made no progress in fifty-five years. At least we're still around, and given how dangerous things can get, I'd say that's a good thing.

Also, a big shout-out to Stan. It is possible that he, personally, "may have averted a nuclear holocaust." I don't know about you, but my hairs have all been raised.

Of course, Stan wouldn't've been put into such a tight spot if it weren't for a particularly terrifying software problem. That's right, folks: An error in software is responsible for almost causing a nuclear holocaust.

Egg nog? By hand!?

2005-11-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

What kind of magical world is it in which I live? My mom tells me that a mere mortal may, with a minimum of trouble or even thought, make egg nog from scratch.

I know. I had to sit down. And drink egg nog. For she made the wonderful stuff right in front of me. Right in front of me.

Now, you may be thinking you need special materials (such as a cauldron, or possibly a Persian astrolabe) but I assure you: What you need to make egg nog is probably in your house already. These are heady words, as I fully realize, but then egg nog is a heady brew, is it not?

The following recipe serves one human.

Ingredients:

one egg
cold milk
sugar
vanilla extract
nutmeg

Procedure:

Crack the egg into a tall glass (mine are 12 oz. tumblers) and beat with a fork or a whisk to a smooth yet frothy texture, like Barry White remixed with extra-staticky atari samples.
Fill the glass with milk; it will come to a little over a cup of milk (or 1/4 of a Liter if you're feeling continental).
Add a Tablespoon of sugar, a few drops of vanilla.
Stir vigorously until the wonderful concoction is thoroughly mixed.
Sprinkle nutmeg on top to taste.
Gaze wonderingly at the magnitude of what you have done.

That's it. Amazing, isn't it? Now I should mention that it will probably be a bit thinner than what you're used to with store-bought egg nog, since they use whole milk and you probably drink that sissy low-fat milk. My mom tells me that when she was little egg nog was always made by hand, and that she remembers when egg nog became a store-bought product.

And, I should mention that I think commercial egg nogs often include "rum flavoring," whatever that means. I don't know about you, but I can think of a great way to make egg nog "rum flavored". Wink wink. Holiday cheer indeed.

del.icio.us is Delicious!

2005-11-25T23:29:00.000-05:00

I just thought I'd mention that I have a del.icio.us account. del.icio.us is pretty darn cool. If your interests run near my own you may be interested in my pile of links.

Things I'd Swear Were Movie Props

2005-11-25T22:55:00.000-05:00

Seriously, this thing looks like something from the Tomb Raider games or maybe one of the Indiana Jones films.

As it turns out, it's "just" a Persian astrolabe from, uh, Persia, suitable for, uh, astrolabor, I suppose.

Gah, it looks like carp since it's been shrunk down by whatever method Blogger uses; no doubt the process is optimized not for quality but for computational efficiency. In any case, clicking upon it will yield a much larger and clearer view.

Oh yeah, it's from the 18th century, which means it was made towards the end of the astrolabe's one thousand year period of more or less common use.

New column! It's about Harry Potter! Wheeeee!

2005-11-23T22:52:00.000-05:00

This one was run last Friday. I got it in so late my editor tried to reduce me to atomic dust using his radioactive eye-beams. Luckily I had brought my Satirotron, whose funhouse-mirror-like properties deflected his beam into the arts department. Thankfully, they used their special subjectivity powers to neutralize the deadly rays by employing a deconstructionist approach. The resulting paper, "Radioactive Eye Beams as Text" will be published next month.

Anyway:

New 'Harry Potter' Film Eagerly Anticipated
Fans Worldwide to See Film

Tom Olson, Muggle

Yesterday at midnight--very early this morning--the fourth Harry Potter film opened at theaters around the world. Attendance was expected to be widespread, while some theaters were expecting sell-out crowds. The previous films have been uncommonly successful both financially and in the eyes of critics.

Here at UNH for example, a few students were planning on dressing up as Hogwarts students on the way to an early (or late) showing yesterday evening (or very early this morning). Elsewhere in the United States, similar excitement is building with groups of friends and families planning trips to see the film. Across the pond in England, possibly the center of the universe for Harry Potter's fans, the atmosphere is most charged. This past Sunday, over 5,000 fans gathered at the Odeon cinema in London for the premiere of the film, where witch's hats were nearly as ubiquitous as umbrellas in the driving rain of the British city.

"You can leave all your troubles behind and go into a world that doesn't exist," said one fan, describing the reasons she loved the Harry Potter series of novels and their attendant films, video games, action figures, Halloween costumes, school supplies, lunch boxes, and myriad other items. Some people traveled from as far away as Mexico and Japan to make it to the London premiere, demonstrating the worldwide appeal of the Harry Potter phenomenon.

In China, for example, there are many fans of the films and related items, such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings films, and other big-budget escapist fantasies. An Tan Meng, a fourteen-year-old boy working at a factory that produces plastic products a few miles from Dongguan, reports that he is "thrilled" that the new film is coming out soon. He said, "Harry Potter is terrific! I'll get to see the film when it comes out."

Tan Meng (Chinese personal names come last, while their family names come first) and his family all work at a factory that produces, among other things, Harry Potter-themed plastic toys, and reports that he himself would love to own one, if he could afford it. "I only make around 400 Yuan [about $50 US dollars] per day, and almost all of that goes to helping to feed my family. I'd rather go to school than work, but at least I'm producing a product critics have called 'whimsical and full of magical delight'."

Tan Meng sometimes pretends to be the characters from the film with his little brother. "I tell Bao Bao that the smoke coming from the factory across the street--that's the one that makes Nike shoes, they are so colorful!--is really magical, and that's why it makes him cough so much." Tan Meng and Bao Bao will get to see the film, and are eager for it: "We had to save up two months to afford the tickets, but we did it. We have to see it late at night because that's when my fourteen-hour shift ends."

In Africa, however, reactions to the new film have been mixed. One young girl in Tanzania was interviewed for this report. She said, "Well I haven't had much interest in Harry Potter's magical and thrilling adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, since, you know, my big sister died of HIV. She was the only one in the family that could read, so I don't know what happens after the Sorcerer's Stone." Unfortunately, she won't be seeing the film because the nearest cinema is two dozen miles away, and she can't afford a ticket anyway.

Later during the interview, she said, "I think it's great that the West has spent over 2 billion dollars on Harry Potter DVDs, lunch boxes, and action play-sets, though. Really great. Say, this interview about the imaginary magical wizard and his flaming goblet is great and all, but would you have anything to eat? It's been a few days and I'm getting pretty hungry."

Guns and Girls

2005-11-14T02:11:00.000-05:00

In case anyone was wondering, there was no column this week due to Veteran's Day. I suppose technically that means that as a service to our brave servicemen my writings were witheld from the public eye.

Can't say that I blame them; my writing has been banned by the Geneva convention for excessive sarcasm.

Anyway, as long as I'm being acerbic (25% more Acerbitates than the leading brand!) I'd just like to ask why every fucking girl I've ever fucking met that seems to have anything interesting going on in mind or body has a motherfucking long-term boyfriend who is a dolt or an asshole or a doltish asshole.

Goodnight.

Interesting Diagrams Make Me Hot

2005-11-08T22:17:00.000-05:00

Can you find homo sapiens? We're this little subtree of a subtree of a subtree:

New Column!

2005-11-06T01:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, now I'm all caught up with the column postage:

President Confident That Miers, No Wait, Alito Will Be Next Justice
Amid White House Halloween Festivities, Bush Expresses Surety

Tom "Do-Over!" Olson

President Bush announced on Monday, which was also Halloween, that he is nominating presidential attorney Harriet Miers, er, sorry, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. to be the next Supreme Court Justice. The president's speech, which praised Miers'--oops--Alito's long legal experience and respect for judicial boundaries, was followed by the new nominee's withdrawal--acceptance!--the new nominee's acceptance of the nomination.

The President, whose amazing capacity for certainty which some have unfairly said comes "in the face of obvious evidence or even lack thereof," showed that he is "willing to stay the course and follow through, and gets it right the first time. Second time, I meant second time," according to one internet blog.

"I'm pleased to announce my nomination of Har--Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Alito is one of the most accomplished and respected lawye--judges in America, and his long career in public service has given him an extraordinary breadth of experience," said Bush during his opening remarks.

The President, wearing a cowboy costume to celebrate Halloween, went on to say that, "Sam Alito showed a passionate commitment to the rule of law, and he gained a reputation for being both tough and fair. During his time as my personal lawyer . . . I mean during his time on the 3rd Circuit, Judge Alito has served with distinction on that court for 15 years and now has more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years." The president, whose pair of shiny, pearl-handled six-shooters were actually toys according to one anonymous White House source, elaborated on M--Alito's long service and the wealth of opinions he has authored over the years.

After the President's speech, Alito stepped forward to give a short acceptance speech. The judge, whose costume included a red bandana tied around his head, a large gold earring, a few blackened teeth, a live parrot, an eyepatch, and a cutlass, opened his speech by saying, "I am deeply honored to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court, and I am very grateful for the confidence that you have shown in me, especially since I was only passed over for the job twice before, by Roberts and Miers."

Alito's choice to dress as a Caribbean pirate was seen negatively by some Americans, as a Gallup poll shortly thereafter showed. "Our numbers show that 53% of Americans reacted unfavorably to his costume," said Edward Teach, one pollster, adding that "They seem to think that he may plunder abortion rights or make the individual's protections from state power walk the plank."

Conservatives have been hesitant, er, enthusiastic in their support for Alito, whose long judicial career shows that he is the well-vetted conservative Supreme Court nominee that Bush's base has been hoping for. Fox News reporter Felix Adler, dressed as a circus clown for the White House event, remarked afterwards that, "We've been promised a strict constructionist who does not legislate from the bench . . . well, you know, unless it's legislation the Right would pass if it had the votes," he added, honking a small horn and assuming a strange, surprised expression as his large bow tie began to spin rapidly.

Meanwhile, on the political left, support for Alito has been more mixed. Senator Joe Biden, the well-known Democratic senator from Deleware and 2008 presidential hopeful, was not so sure about Alito's--not Miers, she withdrew--nomination. "I'm not so sure about him. At times he's ruled in ways I strongly dislike, and we all know how I love to speak my mind," said Senator Biden shortly after the speech. He was dressed as a bowling ball, one of nature's bluntest objects.

New Column!

2005-11-06T01:10:00.000-05:00

This is last week's column, because I'm slightly behind (reminder: last week was nearly Halloween):

Organizations Report Successful Blood Supply Efforts
Vampire Overlords Pleased, Cancel Upcoming Macabre Harvest

Tom "A positive" Olson

The Red Cross reports that, although the nation's need for blood donations are ongoing, for now at least the shortages created by recent natural disasters have been remedied. The organization, whose motto is "Together, we can save a life," stresses that for the maintenance of an adequate blood reserve to continue, "We urge Americans to continue giving."

Meanwhile, in the US House of Representatives, a body are rumored to be in thrall to the hideous forces of unlife, has voted unanimously in favor of House Resolution 220. H. Res. 220 officially recognizes the efforts of America's Blood Centers, an organization which supplies America and its vampiric overlords with the majority of its life-giving and unlife-sustaining blood and blood products.

The House of Fangs, the shadow-government that secretly controls international politics and trade from its Gothic headquarters in upscale Manhattan, is pleased with the news. A pale but dangerously beautiful spokeswoman stated during a press conference that, "We, your dark masters, are glad that you've managed to restock blood banks despite recent troubles with hurricanes and other natural disasters. Our planned culling of the stumbling herd that is humanity, which would have been necessary had blood supplies not been restored, has been suspended for the forseeable future."

With a strange gleam in her eye that the Christian Science Monitor characterized as "ravenous or hungry," she further remarked that, "Though of course we intend to continue feasting upon you in carnivorous bloodlust now and again, the wholescale reaping of human life and its sweet vermillion nectar will not be necessary."

Humanity, long kept fat for the awful slaking of the undead legions' unnatural thirsts, is relieved that Screaming Blood Reaving 2005 has been cancelled. Religious organizations around the country have suspended 24-hour prayer services, though Goths everywhere report disapointment, especially players of Vampire: The Masquerade or Vampire: The Requiem. Instead of being Embraced by The Kindred, they plan to get jobs at Hot Topic and move out of their parents' basements.

Elsewhere, commentators have expressed doubts that the nocturnal aristocracy that rules from the shadows is sincere in its promises. Paul Kruger of the New York Times, for example, wonders if, "Our trust in a separate race of humanity that sees us as cattle is well-founded. With their terrible strength and the need to feed, they could easily turn on us again."

These worries are evidently not without cause. During the recent press event, Washington Post reporter Samuel G. Boodman reporter said, "It has been shown that vampires can feed on nonhuman blood sources. What do you say to critics who claim that the HF has been using scare tactics to try to sway public opinion?"

"Our preference for human food sources is well-known," the FH spokesperson said, a sadistic grin spreading across her face. She then snarled, leaped over the lectern at the HF press room and onto the questioner, sinking her now-elongated canines into his neck. His strangled cries grew more desparate as she fed upon his life-force, and within moments he was dead. There were no more questions from reporters.

The Ancient Art of Editing Text

2005-10-27T21:38:00.000-04:00

So I had to do some presentations not too long ago, for a class that was, essentially, a joke. No offense to Professor Rubenstein; he did a fantastic job with the class, even though there is really no room in the CS curriculum at UNH to make us into effective public speakers. There just isn't time, and a two-credit course isn't going to fix that.

So, I decided to have fun with it, as I am usually wont to do.

Behold the results, either in pdf or OpenOffice format.

(PS - For those nontechnical people in the audience (hi mom!):

vim is a text editor, kinda like . . . well there is no analog in the nonprogramming realm, really. How do I say it? notepad is the program in Windows that does the same thing, except the difference between notepad and vim is like the difference between a rubber mallet and a construction company.
I study kung fu; it came through a bit in the presentation, perhaps.
This is the third bullet. Bullets make the following sound: BANG!

The end.

Chinese Ball Exercise

2005-10-23T14:09:00.000-04:00

I was going to make a dirty joke, but anyway.

I Finally Saw Serenity

2005-10-23T01:26:00.000-04:00

What a great film!

"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

New Column!

2005-10-22T12:48:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why, but for some reason this hasn't been posted to the paper's online edition. The editors said it was fine (with a few small modifications, the exact wording of which I can't seem to find on the website), so I assume it's some sort of error. I hope you all enjoy it.

Study: UNH Faculty Lacks Mad Scientsts
Evil Geniuses Also in Short Supply

Tom "Mwah ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Olson

The American Association of Univeristy Professors, an association of university professors here in America, released a major report last week in which several universities, UNH among them, were noted for their relative lack of diversity among the faculty. Although some universities were criticized for their lack of ethnic or even ideological diversity, UNH drew particular attention for its complete failure to employ a single mad scientist or evil genius.

The "Annual Report on the Diversity of the Profession 2004-2005" is very clear about this criticism, even though the report itself is completely fictional. You know, because this column is a work of satire, parody even. That means it's made up and everbody knows it. Not real. Been doing it for two years, folks. Just so we're clear. Anyway.

The report cited several earlier measurements which noted a general shortage of "insane cackling", "terrible corruptions of nature", and "other clear signs of the academic freedom necessary to nurture scientific madness or twisted genius. " These judgements were made after extensive surveys of our campus, and those around the world.

For example, here at UNH, Giant electrical switches that resemble mouse traps are rarely used. Likewise, there are few Tesla coils, Jacob's ladders, or Van de Graaff generators anywhere on the grounds. Twisted mockeries of biology that reflect humanity's self-destructive need to play God are nearly unheard of here, and no UNH scientist has built a Doomsday Device since the Megathrust Ultrabearing of 1915.

In addition to the physical evidence, surveys and psychological studies have shown that UNH scientists are not sufficiently insane and, sadly, none have amibitions of world domination or destruction. None are drunk with power, and none enjoy sadistically toying with the hapless subjects of their dark experimentations. The report goes on to state that, "It is most disheartening to record that not a single UNH professor has laughed maniacally while activating a huge machine of hideous power in the entire history of the university."

The report comes shortly after another dubious mention by the rather less- fictional Princeton Review, which noted that UNH is one of the most homogeneous student bodies in the entire United States. Although President Hart maintains, as always, that the university is "committed to diversity," others have wondered whether admitting more alternative views of the role of science and technology is really warranted.

The International Diabolical Masterminds' Union, for its part, has responded to the finding by writing an open letter to the university, admonishing it to take Mad Science and Evil Studies more seriously: "You are not realizink zee vast potential of our research, vee zink. Perhaps a small demonstration of ze powa of our vast intellect is in order, ya[sic]?"

The letter, which was written in sinister green light in the sky over Durham earlier this week, probably by the IDMU's secret orbital death-laser satellites, also pointed out that several Mad Science disciplines have been gaining ground in recent history at universities around the world.

At Syracuse, for instance, Corruptozoologists have perfected a virulent Chrysanthemum, whose population is purportedly doubling every six months. The success of the plant, which should dominate all life on Earth within a decade, should garauntee adequate funding from the Center for Things Man Was Not Meant to Know for at least that long. The only known drawback to the plant is that its stems must be pinched carefully early in its life, "to encourage branching and create a nice, full plant with many flowers that will look good in any yard," say the researchers, who wrung their hands, clad in black rubber gloves, in eager anticipation.

Conversely, at MIT, scientists have enjoyed similar success. Earlier this year, in their perfect arrogance, they have opened a terrible portal to a parallel dimension under the Cyclotron building. Researchers were delighted to observe horrible, disfigured creatures regularly shambling through the portal to terrorize the good citizens of Cambridge. Their findings have already earned accolades from experts in the field for heretofore unprecedented zombification rates.

The letter from the IDMU concluded by threatening us with "total annihilation" if its demands were not met "immediately." These demands include several nuclear warheads, the setting aside of a jungle-covered island near Costa Rica for their sovereign and exclusive use, and several hundred billion dollars in gold bars.

Its last few sentences seem to contradict this rhetoric by exclaming, "Fools! Your small-mindedness vill bring your ruin! You cannot reject us vith impunity! Vee vill destroy you all! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!" UNH officials read the eerily glowing message in the clouds above Thompson Hall with no small concern, and are considering "various responses." So far these have not been disclosed.

Comment By Randal L. Schwartz

2005-10-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

This is what Randal had to say about my reaction to the recent retraction of my Kingsbury column. Apologies for not posting it sooner; I had to carefully consider my response. Anyway here it is:

"You have no *right* to say what you want to say using *someone else's* press.

Please don't abuse what the first amendment is about. It weakens the case (through a "chicken little" effect) when we really need it, and it's appropriate."

He's right and I agree with him; I don't have anything like that right. The point I was trying to make was that my work had already been published and was publically available when events conspired to censor me.

The broad view of events is this: Somebody powerful (several somebodies, in fact) didn't like what I had to say, and through a purely procedural (and easily correctable) conern my voice came to be muted. That's censorship, and it is an evil. Not the worst of evils, perhaps, but an evil nonetheless. Honestly, I'm sure it wasn't done maliciously (or even intentionally), but by whatever means, criticism of the powerful has been obscured by meek apology.

I don't know, it sounds an awful lot like an example of erosion of the free press to me.

Son, We Need to Talk

2005-10-14T18:55:00.000-04:00

I just got back from a meeting with the Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. We had a short discussion in which he reassured me that the likelihood of legal proceedings is negligible, which I'm definitely happy about.

I'm pretty sure myself, the paper, and the university would be safe from litigation anyway, largely because what I did, present fabricated statements as a real person's interview responses, is protected by precedents set by the US Supreme Court, most notably in--I can't even write this with a straight face--Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. Interestingly, I've falsely portrayed the court a few times as well, particularly while discussing Justice Scalia's thighs and how hot Justice O'Connor is (don't get me started! Rowr!).

The other thing the Dean stressed to me is that I may want to more seriously consider "the consequences of my actions" in the future. Although this is a very reasonable thing to say given the circumstances, my work shows that I do take the consequences of my writing very seriously. The body of my work to this date, over thirty published pieces across five semesters and three successive editors-in-chief, including one headline piece on the front page, demonstrates that. I have been very grateful to receive appreciation from university administrators, faculty, and students. I have also been very grateful to receive earnest criticism, too.

So I took him seriously when the Dean suggested that my column might be in poor taste given the circumstances; that is definitely a real criticism. After all, he argued, more than a hundred million dollars are on the line, between the renovations at Kingsbury and those of other nearby buildings, and that money is largely donated. Suggesting, as I did, that that money is being wasted could make things highly unpleasant for him and other university leaders who must justify their spending choices to the donors. I don't seriously believe that my work could've done any real harm to the project, but I absolutely take his point.

The Dean also suggested that the column run in the future with some sort of a header or disclaimer, making it more obvious that the work is of a satirical nature. Ironically (he wasn't at UNH at the time) in past years my work has run with a title: "The Definitely Not Satire Column" is what it used to be called. As luck would have it my original editor in 2003 required this precisely because she was concerned about people mistaking my work for actual journalism.

I believe they are right about that. I've read the print version myself and upon cursory inspection it certainly does look an awful lot like a serious news article. The column problably should have some sort of header like it used to.

Of course, actually reading the column should convince just about anyone that it's not serious. The false quotation of a real person is obviously false, especially within context. For crying out loud, does anyone actually believe that one of the partners of "Paulien & Associates" is really Donald J. Associates?

Lastly, I'd like to mention that I offered to help smooth things over by giving a statement or offering some sort of apology or conciliatory message. It was declined repeatedly, by both the Dean and my editorial staff.

So, hopefully, that's that.

Controversy, You Say?

2005-10-14T14:31:00.000-04:00

Well, I must be a real satirist now because somebody is "considering options" in the legal sense, probably either against me, the paper, or the university. Although I personally doubt that it will lead to any actual legal action. Hopefully once apologies are made and everyone understands everyone else's intent things will settle down.

On the other hand, I've officially experience my first chilling effect, because Paulien & Associates' inquiries have spooked my editing staff enough to remove it from the online edition of the paper. It has now been replaced by an apology on behalf of the editors; the paper copy is still circulating all over campus (over 6,000 issues from what I understand). More on this as the story develops, but I must say that I am not happy: My first ammendment rights as a citizen of the United States of America have been harmed today. Not in a big way, it's true, but harmed nonetheless.

I guess the issue is that I used a real guy's name (Daniel K. Paulien of Paulien & Associates) in a work of satire. It is a parody; this fact I think is fairly obvious. I basically attributed fictional quotations to him which portray him, his company, the Kingsbury renovation project, and the entire architectural & college improvement industries in a, well, a pretty negative light.

As a quick background, my column is a two-year-old tradition at the school paper. It's basically a weekly fake news article in the tradition of The Daily Show or The Onion. What I've done in the Kingsbury column is not new; I've attributed false quotations to authority figures in several places before, from the President of the University to (of course) the President of the United States. Although I never heard anything from President Bush on the subject, President Hart was a terrifically good sport about it, and in addition to thanking me personally she seemed to get a kick out of the humor too. (Update: The Lord of Hosts has informed me that I also did it to Him once; He took it in stride as well.)

Again, more on this as I discover more. I ~~have~~ had a meeting with the Dean of the College of Engineering & Physical Sciences ~~in a few minutes~~ just now, though I'm told I'm "not in trouble." (Update: I'll post more on the meeting and such shortly.)

~~I'll link up all this post later on; no time right now!~~ I've linked up everything I could think of.

New Column, with new Extra-Spicy Controversy!

2005-10-14T14:12:00.000-04:00

my column has caused a bit of trouble; details forthcoming. In the interests of free speech, here is the original:

New Kingsbury Hall "Severely Flawed"
Recent Construction Reveals Serious Design Problems

Tom "The Concrete Block" Olson

SKANSKA, the company managing the extensive renovations and expansions at Kingsbury Hall, has been forced to answer a number of unpleasant questions recently. Documents obtained by The New Hampshire's investigative team reveal that a number of university organizations, including CEPS and possibly an undisclosed "high level" administrative office, have been privately communicating with SKANSKA.

These documents, mostly emails between SKANSKA and the university, show that university officials have expressed "serious concerns" regarding allegedly serious flaws in the new construction.

First among these is the presence of several odd angles in roofs and walls throughout the new structure. Most egregious of these according to the emails is the "strangely-shaped roof" of the building's southern edifice. According to the mailings, the "long, shallow angle" of the roof is "seemingly a serious construction flaw, for there could be no rational or aesthetic reason for such a shape." These strange and sometimes very sharp angles seemingly occur in several places around the building, and are so glaring that one email wonders if the construction workers were "engaged in some kind of prank."

According to several university officials who spoke with us on condition of anonymity, there are other concerns as well. Some worry about about some kind of unreported budget shortfall, as a number of "naked steel girders and bare concrete walls" are visible around the new building, despite claims by workers that such visibility is intentional. "I just can't believe that," said one source, "I hate to say it, but I suspect that they must've run out of money for bricks to cover up the steel parts and finish the concrete." The source also expressed similar doubts about "intentional" dramatic overhangs.

Evidently, these features, if they really are errors, could be costly to the project as a whole. According to UNH Professor of Accounting Jill Bohr, the strange design could have been made "nearly 15% more efficient for the same price, or else offered the same usable space for about 10% less money." Given that the project is costing over $50 million, that means the design wastes approximately $5 million.

SKANSKA was quick to defend itself, both in private communications and during a press release given later. SKANSKA stated in the release that, "We can prove that our work exactly matches the plans we received from Roth [Partners Architects, Inc]. It's our job to construct the building as it is designed, and those designs went through an extensive review process, which included university administration and members of the community. We're confident that this building, with its bizaare exposed structural elements and strange angles that produce wasted space, is what we were asked to build."Rothman, the firm responsible for the architecture of the building, was quick to defend its work as intentional and not some kind of error. "We designed it that way on purpose," they said, continuing, "No, it doesn't provide any functional benefit, and no, it doesn't look very good, and yes, it does waste construction materials and plenty of money. But darn it, we're an avante-garde architectural firm focusing on the latest, most trendy architectural thought, regardless of how 'ugly' or 'crooked' the result may seem to the unwash--er, the uneducated."

Paulien & Associates, a consulting firm hired to help plan the Kingsbury renovations, also defended its role in the process. Daniel K. Paulien said recently in an interview, "Let me assure you that their designs reflect the the lastest in postmodern design. Your need for straight lines and right angles reflects a passe, modernist attachment to conformity and unity which is sadly backward. We wanted to break out of the old ways, not because we had any better ideas, but because we make more money if people think we are doing something revolutionary or innovative."

His partner, Donald J. Associates, agreed wholeheartedly, adding that "We've found that this practice garners high fees regardless of whether or not the innovation is warranted or not. Let's face it, my new Mercedes ML350 isn't going to pay for itself!"

And In Other News

2005-10-08T01:04:00.000-04:00

Americans Prepare to Celebrate Genocidal Racist Slaver Day

Columbus' Legacy of Mindless Cruelty and Ignorance Lives On

Tom "Indigenous Resistance" Olson

Although UNH neatly dodges the issue by calling the holiday "Fall Break," the rest of the nation celebrates Columbus Day with no small enthusiasm. The holiday has been celebrated on various dates throughout the world, but here it will be observed on Monday.

In one second-grade classroom in Springfield, Pennsylvania, for example, Judith Bloomfield teaches one of her favorite lessons, the story of Columbus' discovery of the New World.

"Did you know Columbus is personally responsible for the oppression and misery of thousands of natives of the Caribbean?" asked the teacher. The students, all energetic young children roughly seven or eight years old, ooh and ahh amazedly. The class was similarly impressed and delighted to learn that, in addition to Sailing the Ocean Blue in 1492, Columbus also Murdered By the Score in Fourteen-Hundred Ninety-Four.

"I want to be an explorer when I grow up! Maybe there are Martians I could put into forced-labor settlements and cow with my superior technology and ruthlessness?" one student said while discussing Columbus' many merits. They made small construction-paper Taino natives and then the teacher taught them how the enterprising Columbus ordered their hands cut off if they failed to produce a certain quantity of gold on a regular basis. Giggles and laughter ensued as the students cut off the paper hands of their figures and colored the stumps with red markers. "I'm using a white crayon to draw the bone sticking out!" one innovative student said triumphantly. "I want to start a forced-labor farm someday!" said another.

In a less-American sector of the US, Berkeley, California, Columbus Day has been renamed to the unpatriotic Indigenous Peoples Day. These subversives, heedless of the long American tradition of honoring the explorers who committed the first pioneering acts of genocide in the New World, have been heavily criticized for their revisionism. They claim, highly erroneously, that Columbus never realized he had reached the New World.

"It's clearly incorrect. I mean, he would've known by the umbrellas in the coconut-drinks and the steel drums that he was in the Caribean and not in China or India!" said Ms. Bloomfield in response.

Likewise, in Denver, Colorado, Native Americans are protesting the yearly Columbus Day parades once again, despite the mayor's protests that police expenses related to containing the protests will be significant.

Eslewhere in Springfield, citizens are preparing a grand parade to commemorate the occasion. The boy scouts will be participating by carrying several dozen flags, one for every ten thousand natives subjugated to the will of their superior European masters.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will also joining the fun, celebrating Italian cultural heritage by presiding over the New York City parade as Grand Marshall. Scalia says his "Thighs of Justice" have healed from their burns, which was a concern for his participation in the parade. They had been recovering from injuries sustained on a metal slide earlier this summer, while the Justice was enjoying Supreme Court recess on the Supreme Playground.

Many businesses around the nation are also getting into the holiday spirit. At a used car lot in downtown Springfield, smallpox-covered natives have been painted into the windows. The proprietor promises a very generous sale to celebrate the holiday. "I'm calling it the 'Comitting Genocide on High Prices!' That's why I'm shooting this commercial, and these Indians! Haw!" he said, putting on a mock-Rennaissance Italian gentleman's costume and preparing to shoot (with blanks, for safety) a few Indians, played for the commercial by his employees.

The public library has joined in the fun by constructing a complex diarama depicting the arrival of the first Native Americans in Europe. The auction block, according to the librarians, was particularly complex to construct, as were the challenging postures of the slave-buyers and the disease-ridden emaciated natives. They quipped as they worked, "Those bony ribs were such a challenge! Why didn't the savages wear decent Christian clothes!"

Something Awful: Funny After All

2005-10-08T01:02:00.000-04:00

while(this.sides.hurt()) { laugh(); }

.sig ephemera

2005-10-06T12:43:00.000-04:00

"You're either with us or against us in the war on terror." - George W. Bush
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." - Obi Wan Kenobi

Holy Shit That's Fucking Huge

2005-10-04T13:10:00.000-04:00

From Wikipedia:

'The parsec (symbol pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. It stands for "parallax of one arc second", and is approximately 19,131,554,073,600 (19 trillion) miles.'

A light-year (6 trillion miles) is approximately equal to 0.3066 parsecs.

Damn.

Welcome! Try the Kool-Aid!

2005-10-03T21:43:00.000-04:00

Let's all give a warm welcome my good friend Michele Filgate to our fabulous military communications project--now a year-round Mardi Gras/shopping mall--that I've taken to calling the Internet. A round of applause, please, let's make her feel at home.

New Column!

2005-10-01T19:03:00.000-04:00

Royal Society Gives Bounty to Intrepid Explorer

Tom "Pithy Like the Helmets" Olson

For the first time in history, an adult, live specimen of a giant squid (Architeuthis Julesvernicus) has been drawn out of the briny, unknown deeps of the Pacific Ocean and captured.

Dirk Savage, the famous British explorer and cryptozoologist, recovered the creature after months of searching in the Pacific Ocean, near the exotic oriental isles of Japan. "It took several months of searching in the Pacific Ocean, near the exotic oriental isles of Japan," said Savage during a interview on Monday, "But the inevitable march of science could not be slowed, not even by this beady-eyed monster from the black depths!"

Proudly standing with his bandaged arms folded across the chest of his ripped khaki shirt at a dockside in the Pacific, he grinned for the cameras. In between drags on a cigarette, his steely eyes glinting in the Pacific sunset, the famous inventor, explorer, naturalist, playboy and former fighter pilot-turned-wealthy industrialist recanted his tale of heroism and aquatic danger.

"It started with rumors. The native fishermen around here tell a tall tale of telling but fantastical detail. Thanks to my multilingual companion on all my daring and exotic adventures, Bobo the Monkey--say hello Bobo, there's a good chap--I was easily able to determine a probable dwelling-area for the fabled beast, which I believe can grow to a length of several hundred feet."

According to Savage and his Turkish assistant and bodyguard, Haliph, they hired a ship and set about laying traps for the beasts, whose great eyes can see for miles even in the murky depths of the sea. "The first difficulties we had were Burmese pirates. Luckily, my months at the Academy of Fencing in London served me well, once I was able to disarm a ruffian and take up his blade," said Savage, while feeding Bobo a slice of mango.

"After that, it was smooth sailing until the storms rocked our tiny ship for four days, tossing us about like some plaything in a child's bathtub. If I hadn't lashed myself to the tiller, we would've been lost for sure," said Savage.

Finally, the band of adventurers encountered the near-mythical sea monster approximately ten miles off the remote island of Chichijima, where natives still dance about the fires wearing paint and sinister wooden masks.

"We nearly didn't make it," recalled Savage, "Because the beast, full of malice, was using its giant tentacles to tear at the rigging and drag the ship under, no doubt to feast upon the crew, but we persisted, throwing harpoon after harpoon at the impossible monster from the unseen aquatic darkness. Firearms were useless against the creature's thick, slimy hide, but finally we felled it by harpooning it through the eye. After that it was easy work, we made it fast to a line and towed it into Osaka Bay."

Unfortunately, the discovery was not without sacrifice. "The ship's Captain, Nathaniel Barns, lost his left hand down the monster's beaked maw, and I nearly lost Bobo in the confusion. I'd thought he'd gone overboard and tearfully said goodbye to him, only to discover him later hiding in a crate. The scamp!" cried Savage, petting his petulant primate pet affectionately.

Lord William Rutherford Sussex Chesterfield-Avonsworthwaters III, the current president of Britain's Royal Society, couldn't be more thrilled with the discovery. In a ceremony full of pomp and statesmanship, he bestowed the Royal Society Scepter to Savage yesterday. The event was briefly interrupted by Savage's old nemesis, Doctor Henkel, who is evidently still sore over his nation's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, in which Savage himself earned his ace-pilot status.

After the disturbance, in which a large metallic contraption nearly turned the Queen to ice, Savage gave a short speech extolling the virtues of humanity and made frequent reference to the "March of Science!"

Savage says he plans to spend his bounty of 15,000 pounds on new khaki shirts, which frequently become torn or ripped during his adventures.

Wow, Spam Really Gets Into Everything

2005-09-27T23:33:00.000-04:00

So the only comments on my blog have been spammers.

Ergo, no more comments allowed.

Stir-Fry Recipe

2005-09-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

Michele was bugging me about my stir-frying recipe. I asked myself, why not inflict it on the world? So, here it is:

General Advice

Mix & match the veggies however you like. Feel free to add in new ones, but remember that light, leafy veggies cook very quickly, while dense root or stalk-like veggies take longer to cook through. Add them at an appropriate moment in the cooking process.
Stir-frying is an active frenetic thing! The more you stir and toss the food, the better it will be. Use high heat, and cook it fast! If you wait too long, you'll turn your stir-fry into a nasty pile of mushy, oily sludge.
Don't cover the pan! You want water to escape from the vegetables; it keeps them crisp.

Ingredients

Long-grain rice (generally about 1 cup raw rice will be enough for the stir-fry)
1 Handful of Ninjas (Fresh, Not Dehydrated)
Several Very Small Rocks
1 Small Piece of the Berlin Wall (Optional)
1 Red or Orange Pepper
1 Vidalia Onion
1 Large Head of Broccoli
About 12 Medium or Large White Mushrooms
Roughly 1 pound of Extra Firm Tofu, Chicken or Shrimp (Don't use shrimp if you're Michele Filgate; it'll kill you because you're deathly allergic)
Soy Sauce
Fresh Ginger (about a cubic inch)
Lime Juice
Salt
Corn Starch
A Tiny Replica of The Statue of Liberty (pewter works best)
Several Tablespoons of Oil (I like sesame but be careful; it burns easily. peanut or olive are good oil choices too)

Instructions

Start making the rice. It'll finish about the time the stir-fry is done. Follow the directions on the package. Don't fool with it too much; rice cooks best when you leave it alone.
Slice up the meat or tofu into pieces about an inch or two on a side. Marinade if you'd like, but don't conflict with the ginger/lime flavors.
Slice up all the vegetables; generally each veggie nodule should be no more than an inch or two on a side. Make little bush-like florets out of the brocolli. Slice up the ginger into tiny little cubes about a millimeter on a side. Smashing it a bunch with a cooking mallet is just as effective and much more enjoyable.
Heat up a few tablespoons of oil in the wok or frying pan at medium-high heat. Once a drop of water pops and sizzles on the surface, add the ginger. Stir it around every few moments until it browns slightly (no more than three or four minutes).
If you're cooking meat, add it in now and cook until it changes color (chicken and shrimp will turn white). This won't take long. Once it does lower the heat to a gentle simmer and then wait for it to cook mostly through (another four minutes or so, I guess).
Remove the meat and put it on a plate. I generally use a clean one.
Raise the heat to a notch or two below the highest setting and wait for the wok to heat up again.
(Gently!) throw in the Broccoli, tossing vigorously for about two minutes.
When the brocolli starts to change color but is still quite crisp, toss in the onion and the mushrooms, again, tossing vigorously at high heat for another two minutes or so.
When the mushrooms are shrunk and the onions are starting to become translucent, add in the pepper fragments, again stirring vigorously for a minute or so.
Let the whole thing cook for a few moments while you make a corn-starch-and-lime-juice mixture. Add about a tablespoon of corn starch to about a half-cup of water (cold water, not warm or hot!) and stir it up. Add in the lime juice, then put it aside.
Re-add the meat to the wok and toss the entire mixture until the meat is cooked through but don't let the veggies lose their pleasant crunch!
Lower the heat, stir up the corn-starch-and-lime-juice-and-water and pour it in, stirring constantly. Continue stirring until the corn starch as glutinated into a gravy-like consistency.
Season with salt or a small amount of soy sauce to taste; a bit of sugar or honey can cut excessively sour lime flavor nicely.
Put the whole pile of stuff in a big bowl and serve. The rice is ready by now; serve that too. Don't let people put soy sauce on their rice, that's really lame.

Has Anyone Seen It?

2005-09-26T21:53:00.000-04:00

So I'm having a completely awful time with my OO homework. Some of the frustration is due to external factors (no comment) but I'm definitely part of the problem here. What the hell happened to my programming? I mean, I hardly accomplished a thing over the summer, and now I can't seem to write a lousy for-loop.

I'm not sure what happened to it, but I'm having trouble locating my talent. If anyone happens to run into it, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know.

On the other hand, the frustration has been intense enough that I felt compelled to rent the third disk of Firefly and watch all four episodes in two days. What a great show! I mean, I feel I've already seen it, what with Cowboy Bebop and Trigun and all, but it's still great to see that live-action sci-fi isn't completely dead.

New Column!

2005-09-23T10:18:00.000-04:00

New Religious Cult Spreading Across Campus
Koh-Fi Faith Now Campus' Second-Largest

Tom "Double Shot" Olson

UNH, in addition to its infamous lack of ethnic diversity, was also largely monocultural with regard to religion, at least until recently. Christianity has always been the second-largest religion on campus, after Alcoholism, although many students follow both faiths.

However, this long-standing truth of university life may be changing. A new religion has spread throughout the student body and is rumored to be followed among the faculty and staff as well.

Although new to UNH, Koh-Fi, as the faith is called, has been present for "At least as long as Christianity," according to UNH Professor of Comparative Religion, Crystal Folger. "Originally," said Folger in a recent interview, "The faith was based in Ethiopia, but spread to Muslim countries during the first millenium. From there it has moved around the world, often changing its headquarters but maintaining a large if unvocal flock of believers. It is even followed in substantial numbers here in America."

According to Folger, the focus of the religious practice is based around awakening or wakefulness, and does not require regular attendance to meetings or services. "In fact," she said, "The religion is most often practiced in solitude, typically in the early morning. Sacred objects are used during the rituals, such as hot water, special so-called Koh-Fi cups, and a curious black powder which has minor psychotropic properties." A ceremonial black or brown drink is made, which is then drunk as a symbol of awakening or obtaining wakefulness.

Despite these effects, the substance is not controlled under the Federal Controlled Substances Act, in spite of studies that have shown that possibly millions of Americans, many of them college students, may use the powder daily. Medical studies have shown that it may even be habit forming. Over the years various conspiracy theorists have charged that the failure of the government to criminalize the substance is due to a substantial number of secret Koh-Fi practitioners in the government, especially in law enforcement.

Students, who are particularly amenable to the faith's message, have joined the new religion in increasingly large numbers. "Last year, only seven or eight students had joined the Awakened," said Samuel Presso, the university's local Bee'n Master, a Koh-Fi term that signifies leadership in the Koh-Fi community.

According to Presso, the main focus of Koh-Fi is to achieve a fully alert or awakened mind. This is accomplished, he said, by consuming the ceremonial drink, which is also called Koh-Fi. "We are open also about our many brothers and sisters who have Awakened through alternative means," he says. "Some of us are more traditional, and drink a stronger, more powerful sacred drink. Those people we call the K'poochin Oh. They are more, how do I say it? Excitable I suppose. There are also the L'attay, who believe that true enlightenment comes from mixing both light and dark. But they are all welcome at the Koh-Fi Shyopps," he says, meaning the traditional meeting place of Koh-Fi practitioners.

Still, some university citizens are nervous about the growing new faith. "I'm certainly not going to try some strange African drug just because they say it brings me to Nirvana or whatever," said Vanessa Pyre, a confirmed opponent of Koh-Fism. "Everyone knows that the only spiritual beverage choice is the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, taken in Holy Communion along with our special Jesus Crackers!" Other, less adamant students have udeen unimpressed by Koh-Fism, or have even likened the "wakefulness" brought about by the rituals to the effects of drinking an ordinary can of Coca-Cola.

For recent converts, however, the effects of Koh-Fi are nothing short of miraculous. Earl Riser, a senior computer science who somehow manages to have class at 7:40 AM (the Geneva convention specifically prohibits this; evidently the international community considers it psychological abuse), can't help gushing about his new faith. "It's as if the morning isn't miserable anymore!" he says emphatically. "Praise the Brew! My eyes have been opened! I can't wait to share Koh-Fi with all my friends. May the Beans Never Wither!"

Axiomatic Theater

2005-09-21T21:53:00.000-04:00

The lies continue. This time I'm blogging something that isn't at all my column (look for that tomorrow or the next day). I apologize. Anyway, I had a thought, and I thought I'd share it:

Truth is almost as worthless as falsity if it inspires no action.

First Column of the New Semester

2005-09-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

Evidently I'm a dirty liar. I meant to post my new column last week; yet I did not. Dangit.

As has become usual, the editorial process introduced more errors than it corrected. So, I've provided it in unedited form instead:

While You Were Loafing:
A Back-to-School News Update

Tom "Chevy was Funnier" Olson

Attention students: While you were away from our esteemed four-year day care center, important events unfolded in the world at large. We know you're really here for barely-legal sexual promiscuity, binge drinking, drug abuse, narcisissm, hockey, clique-worship, and video games. However, if you could resist your naked lust, vice, and conformism for a few moments, you may be interested to know that while you were putting your body on display on a beach somewhere, big things were happening both here and abroad.

Although we know nobody actually reads the paper unless we put a hamster on the cover (and frankly, that kind of disturbs us), we thought the few of you who bother might like to know the following:

Disasters

The Big Easy has been renamed The Big Disaster Relief Debacle. Officials are pleased, however, that only poor people suffered as the flood waters rose. In fact, FEMA did such a great job that the director of the relief effort, a former Bush campaign worker with no emergency management experience, was himself relieved of duty. He was so happy with his own performance that he resigned altogether three days later. Some Islamic fundamentalists have renamed the storm Hurricane Al-Zarqawi. In response, the rest of the world gave them the finger.

In Great Britain, crazy a-rabs bombed the London Underground and one of those funny double-decker buses they have there. In response, police officers shot and killed an innocent man who had nothing to do with the attacks. Scotland Yard later apologized and invited the family over for tea and biscuits.

Really Great Britain, the country that is 93% more awesome than Great Britain, offered its condolences.

It's Your Government

It was revealed that Karl Rove leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an active CIA field operative who at the time had been critical of the now completely incorrect connection between Iraq and WMDs. As it turns out, that's only a teeny tiny bit treasonous. President Bush was then caught in an teensy little web of hypocrisy when he refused to fire his chief political advisor, despite promising to terminate "whoever was responsible" last year.

Despite the worst budget deficit in American histroy, Congress threw several billion dollars at the petroleum industry in tax incentives and other benefits. Everyone agrees that it is only coincidence that the US consumes more petroleum per capita than any other country, even among those with an equivalent quality of life.

The fossil fuel industry, which has been stunningly profitable for many years, was very pleased with the return on its $360 million lobbying effort, and promises to take the legislative branch out for ice cream after dinner if it behaves itself. John, Judd, Jeb, and that other New Hampshire congressman, on the other hand, were sent to their rooms for voting against the bill.

Steaming Pile of Justice

It has been an active summer for the nation's highest court. Since the court is in recess, many justices have taken the time to climb on the monkey bars and and play on the see-saw. In July, Justice Scalia burned his legs on the metal surface of the slide on a particularly sunny day, though he is confident that his "thighs of Justice," will be ready for action when the court reconvenes.

The legal experts working for each justice were delighted to learn that their official title was renamed, from "Law Clerk" to "Law Customer Service Associate." The change accompanied a number of others included in this year's policy manual, which hangs next to the French fry machine in a three-ring binder.

In the most unexpected ruling in several years, the Supreme Court judged that Emminent Domain applied even when property is seized and then redistributed to commercial developers. Evidently, tax revenue and other economic benefits satisfy the requirement that seized land must be put to public use. Legislatures around the country reacted immediately, feigning outrage for obvious political gain.

Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court. College students everywhere had no idea who she was, despite the fact that she is widely considered to be the hottest Justice in Court history. "I'd like habeus her corpus some time! Gavels are damn sexy!" said one student during a survey.

Chief Justice William Rhenquist died earlier this month, creating two vacancies at once. The Honorable John Roberts is currently answering questions for the US Senate, which must approve his appointment to the nation's most pimpin' judicial position. His role on the Supreme Court is virtually assured thanks to his personability and his years of experience on the Pepperoni and Mushroom Court.

Thank Our Caucasian God We Don't Live There

Iraq completed a full draft of its constitution, despite losing several points for turning it in over a week late. The electorate is, "Very disapointed" with the constitutional convention, especially so early in the semester.

Sunni citizens are distraught at underrepresentation in the proposed government. When confronted with the fact that they boycotted the constitutional election several months before, Sunnis generally cover their ears, shouting "Allahallahallah! Not listening! Allahallahallah!"

In related news, Carbomb: The Musical opened last month in Bagdad, earning smashing reviews.

People continue die of starvation and AIDS in Africa in numbers we would find shocking if we bothered to know what those numbers are. White people around the world attended the Live 8 concerts to make themselves feel better about their apathy towards their own governments' colonialism.

Victor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President elected during the dramatic Orange Revolution last year, fired most of his ministers recently, claiming gross incompetence. Evidently, they could not spell the word "Yushchenko."

China finally agreed to revalue its currency, but only partially. This prompted a worldwide run on the worthless plastic doo-dad market. The Yuan was formerly fixed against the US Dollar, which, argued US officials, artificially worsened the trade deficit with The People's Republic and harmed the US economy. The diplomatic leverage gained by this action did not help a mostly state-owned company purchase American petroleum company Unical, however.

Entertainment

Nothing really interesting happened in the movie industry over the summer, since they largely turned out derivative, unimaginative crap. DVD sales are now propping up the entire film industry. Experts say that, curiously enough, although consumers aren't willing to pay $10 to watch a bad movie in the theater, they are willing to pay $20 to watch a bad movie many times.

In related news, voice actors have been arguing for royalties from video games. Game developers, who generally work 60 hour weeks for months or even years before and after the couple of weeks in which voice recordings are taken, told them to "get bent."

Who Let Him Have a Microphone?

In August, Pat Robertson, the host of a conservative religiously-oriented cable news program, publically advocated the assassination of the leader of a sovereign nation, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez, who was democratically elected and continues to draw a 70% approval rating in his country, responded with an angry retort and a lawsuit.

To his credit, Robertson then apologized. According to sources close the Lord of Hosts, he also has repented and asked forgiveness from the Jesus Christ, the Messiah, whose blood washes us clean. This is important, because as Robertson himself has frequently maintained, the End Times are upon us.

Lagomorphs: Not Just Rabbits

2005-09-13T22:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, I lied. One more post:

Lagomorphs include not only hares and rabbits, but also Pikas. Aren't they cute?

We have some here in America, too.

I'm not sure, but I think a certain Pokemon probably gets his name from this family of creatures. I had no idea!

Lagomorphic Overabundance

2005-09-13T21:44:00.000-04:00

I'm experiencing a bit of a problem lately.

There is an old Okinawan proverb: "He who chases after many rabbits ends hungry." See the appropriate reference; a number of excellent yet unrelated quotations and maxims may be found therein.

Anyway, the point is, I've got too much to do, and not enough time.

Therefore, I will have to let go of this blog for the time being.

Good news though: I'll be posting or linking to my weekly column in the school paper instead. Look for the first on Thursday or Friday.

The Petroleum Crisis Doesn't Scare Me

2005-09-02T10:45:00.000-04:00

Lately, thanks to the terrible crisis in the Gulf states, we've seen an incredible spike in gasoline prices. Finally, people seem to be waking up to the idea that we need to do something about how much petroleum we use. A lot of people have been worried about this for a long time, specifically how it might run out and what we'll do as a society if it comes to a real shortage.

However, it's no big deal. Seriously.

In a way, we have our wasteful oil-guzzling culture to thank. Since we consume so frivolously, there is tremendous potential for increased efficiency. I'm not any kind of expert (on much of anything) but my instincts tell me we could cut our fuel consumption by between 25% and 50% if we really put our minds to it. Though it would be a costly change, it wouldn't need to be really painful for anyone.

Let me give you an example. As any commuter will tell you, more than 90% of the cars on the road at 8:00 AM near any metropolis have a single occupant. If we used the meetup idea for carpooling, we could organize the shit out of our commuting workers. If half our commuting population decided to carpool at an average occupancy of three persons per vehicle, we could reduce the morning trafic by more than a third.

That's only one small area of potential improvement, and there are others. Our cars are, on average, the least efficient in the developed world. We seem to be enamored of malls and suburbs, neither of which are particularly fuel-efficient. We live too far from where we work, which is tremendously wasteful. It doesn't have to be this way. We can change. All we have to do is decide that we really want to.