Continuing the trend of excellence?

I realized today, as I was downloading and archiving my journal, that I’ve passed the thousand-entry marker. Without really thinking about it too much. I think the best that I have for that is, “Sweet, d00d!” and I continue on with whatever I was doing before. Today was a relatively uneventful day. Shopping and lunch, harassment of family, looking at some pretty neat pictures, talking with people. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll write out my VEWPRF cards or something. Then I can mail them all away on Monday or Tuesday. Which means that I probably need addresses from the people that I want to send material to, and that I don’t already have somewhere. I think, though, that most of the people I’m sending cards to, I have the addresses of. If I have some left over, maybe I’ll put them out at large to the friendly-list and see who might want a genuine silveradept commercially-bought VEWPRF card.

A sad thing crossed my desk today - someone I knew from my high school was killed in Iraq recently. Now I really do know someone who’s dead from this pointless waste of time, money, and people. We needed not to have gotten involved in the first place, and now that we’re in it, we need to find a viable way of extracting ourselves before we do more damage, waste more time, and kill more people. Bring the troops home. NOW.

Llewellyn reminds us that even the words of great masters can be interpreted in new ways. In the same sort of vein, Eris explains who the real victim of the Original Snub is.

Speaking of Ozy and Millie, (actually, this is just a cheap transition that has almost nothing to do with O+M, except that their books are available through Lulu) Lulu is expanding itself to Canada. Through Lulu expansion, O+M may make it to worldwide audiences. For the moment, though, Canadians can rejoice and get their hands on Lulu books, assuming all goes well.

For as much as I’m wishing it would go away, it continues. Namely, more about how many retailers believe "the country" wants everyone to celebrate Christmas and nothing else, and are changing their policies to match. Sound business sense though it may appear to be, it makes several of the nutjobs who believe in this “War on Christmas” look legitimate. In a potentially worse matter, religion is guiding the way people do their jobs more and more. We strongly suggest that people find jobs that will be copmatible with their religious beliefs (or lack thereof), rather than trying to tailor their jobs to fit their religious beliefs. It is thoroughly likely that the latter may result in discipline or costly lawsuits to the workplace. Yet again, it appears to be solid business practice. Oy.

Wiimote playing FPS games in Windows. Bluetooth power, some fidgeting about and configuring, and you can play FPS games using the controller. Although the turning is fairly smooth in the game demo, perhaps with some fine-tuning on the sensitivity, one could achieve the blazing speeds that others use with their mice. Although constant jumping would probably be a bit of a tire. Still, novel concept - if this catches on, Wiimotes could find a nice niche as general-purpose devices, like pointers and wireless mice. Okay, so it’s probably just geek chic, but still, I like seeing people do things like this. A behavior that can probably be curtailed safely, though, is the proliferation of BlackBerry orphans - the ubiquity of communication means that the office can more easily intrude on family time. This is not good for things like driving or raising children.

The longstanding promise of a million dollars to anyone who can make conclusive proof of paranormal activity by James Randi may have a few more strings attached than you think. If you somehow manage to make it past judges that are seeking to deny your application with prejudice, you might have a shot at people who assume that you’re cheating, mistaken, or delusional and will actively seek to deny you. It’s going to be rather difficult to win that prize when the whole deck is stacked against you. Be sure to read all three parts.

In the “looking in all the wrong places” department, a story of Canadian truckers having their lunches seized by zealous border officials, apparently determined not to let any food not made in the U.S. into the U.S. for fear of contamination. I think that kind of effort could be better spent elsewhere, say, looking for people who might actually be dangerous?

Soon, though, it might be bloggers and YouTubers who are the dangerous ones. The Washington Post tips its hat to blogs and Youtube, which it says helped the Democrats win close races in the recent election. As an aside, I note there’s much less furor over potentially inaccurate voting machines. Are the Democratic supporters that afraid of their margins of victory that they’re willing to certify as good the very things they were campaigning so hard against before the election? Doesn’t say much about their confidence of victory. Either way, the blogosphere thanks the Washington Post for noticing, but I think it gives them too much credit.

A prominent cancer scientist was apparently on a chemical company's payroll for twenty years and never told anyone about it. This would throw his objectivity into dispute, most certainly, especially since he cleared chemicals as noncancerous like Agent Orange. This is why you have to be transparent from the beginning. If you cover something up and later it gets found out, it casts a cloud over all your work. If you admit to it up front, you might get it dismissed out of hand or scrutinized harder, but if your results stand up when other scientists repeat the experiment, then it strengthens your reputation. Isn’t science supposed to be about repeatability and transparency? Better science work seems to be going on at Johns Hopkins, which is following in Timothy Leary’s footsteps and testing the effects of psilocybin on volunteers, trying to see if the things that cause “bad trips” could be reduced or alleviated. This may lead some people to claim that it’s only drawing us closer to the time where we’re all on drugs to keep us sedate sheep. If such should happen, I’m pretty sure that people will start reading H.G. Wells as a visionary of the future, rather than an idle speculator.

In other potentially dangerous revelations, the Prius's manufacture process may not be as green as people would like to think.

If the timeline presented on What Happens To Your Body If You Drink A Coke Right Now is accurate, then people don’t really need the caffeine in it, do they? The sugar/acid combination does just fine at spiking you up and then tossing you down for a crash. For the future, it's probably best if you don't drink the Martian water, as you have no idea what’s in it, or in what concentrations. Lastly, be careful of the negibozu. They might be infected with E, coli.

beinArt: A surreal art collective. When you want to look at sinking Jesuses, or perhaps you’d like to see what could have inspired the design of the toys in Sid's room in Toy Story, then here’s a good place to look. This art collective might pair well with the torn posters Flickr pool. And they’ll definitely compliment My little C'thulhu.

I hope that thalass and fairykiss aren’t in the middle of the brushfires happening in the southeastern part of Australia. Something that generates enough smoke for it to have a picture taken by a NASA satellite is a bad, bad thing.

The BBC reports, for reasons inexplicable, that prophylactics made according to international sizes may be too large for some men. They then go on to explain that smaller ones are available for sale in the country, but it’s not a widespread thing. So again, why did this report come out again? Was it a slow day at the BBC news offices? Or perhaps worldwide it was a slow day, as we get commentary telling us what we already know: that Britney Spears is setting pro-sex feminism back decades with her romps.

Perhaps to help take our minds off the fnords, we can peruse Anxiety Culture‘s webpages. Lots of flash involved, and it appears to be integral to navigation, so use at your own risks.

Last marks for tonight. It’s another stunning example of the Zero Tolerance philosophy at work, as an high school SCA re-enactor has been told his senior photo cannot have his broadsword. The weapon must either be cropped out, a different photo submitted, or the student can be left out of the yearbook photo entirely. I’m certain this must be some sort of Zero Tolerance policy, because an administrator with an ounce of sense in his head would realize the sword is harmless. It’s not like the photo is flashing gang signs with a Glock 9mm. It’s mail and swords. Use some brainpower and let the photo in because it’s not going to hurt anyone or promote any sort of violent message.

Anyway, I’m going to bed. Already looking forward toward 2000 entries, which should happen in about four years or so. We’ll see where I am then.

Last week, yo.

Assuming I survive the week physically (which I really hope to do - after all, dying before you’ve managed to make anything of yourself just sucks), I will have only one semester left. There is, indeed, light at the end of the tunnel. Now, if finding work is as easy as doing classes, then I shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right?

torakiyoshi, I would like to send you VEWPRF correspondence, but I have no destination address. If such could be provided in private communications, that would be fantastic. It’ll also be a chance for you to get any needed data from me. For the grand majority of those selected to receive VEWPRF correspondence, the objects will be posted tomorrow. Some of you may have to wait until later, or will have your correspondence hand-delivered if a suitable meeting time/place can be arranged. Yes, that was how I spent a significant part of my day. I’m rather glad I could, too.

Verizon CSR gets confused on the difference between .002 cents and .002 percent of a dollar. The link is to a page that then links to the conversation. Now, my science and accuracy-insistent people, do you see the problem here? 2/1000 of a cent is different than 2/1000 of a dollar. If the quoted price is .002 cent/kb (2/1000 cent per kb), then that’s the rate. If it’s supposed to be .002 dollars, (2/10 cent per kb) then that’s what should be said. Of nothing else, to prevent this kind of numeracy difficulty (I’m trying to this of the appropriate opposite for someone who has numeracy. I can’t recall it.) Otherwise, your own reps will be confused by marketing’s doublespeak, and ripe to be embarrassed by someone who actually notices. (This is also another reason why I suggest that all laws and regulations must be understandable by very young children. It cuts the confusion down for everyone.)

Even if only in symbolic gesture, someone has introduced a bill to impeach the President. Someone on her way out, frustrated by both parties’ leadership, makes her statement. We probably need a Congress full of people who are willing to crush party politics, rather than forcing out the people who are willing to look beyond the parties.

Apparently available on the Internet is a CIA manual on Coercive Questioning. This is a trange thing to appear on the Internet. A summary of Chapter IX as well as the link to the final document is available on Daily Kos. Kos claims that this document has been recently declassified, which makes me wonder if anything actually detailed in it is actually current practice. Even if it isn’t, the ideas outlined in the Kos summary are disturbing, yet they also have a ring of truth to them. Were I in the business of needing to coerce information out of someone, I might well resort to the tactics outlined there. So much for “we do not torture”. (We already knew it was bullshit, but this is just more.)

From here, an eclectic collection of books, chapters, and other things, all available in PDF format for free download. I’m not sure if any of the material there is actually of any use, but it’s there. Welcome to the Brainsturbator Library. There could be quite a few gems in there, if you’re willing to sift. If you do find something good, let me know. I can always use more reading material. Speaking of reading, Merriam-Webster says "truthiness" describes 2006 best. I think I agree.

Your Blog Should Be Green
Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff.
You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas.
However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog.
What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Yet another “onoez” sort of thing - some people do, indeed, have trouble disconnecting from their on-line lives. We knew this. For a while now. Some people will have difficulty with any new medium, using it to the point of addiction. Some people are still so very socially anxious that they do well behing the screen as opposed to in person. This has all been known. The fact that this is a growing trend suggests something about the American lifestyle - perhaps we need more socialization options outside our computers? Of course, that means believing that the streets are reasonably safe, that other people are not all monsters or molesters, and that people might actually enjoy doing things in the company of other people. Novel concepts, all of them.

Also something we’ve known, but that is actually disturbing. Societies where women are not empowered have all their children, not just daughters, suffer. From not enough food, or from being unable to get complete education because they’re being pulled out for doing domestic chores. We need to improve the lot of life for a most of the world in general, but if people insist on having focus areas, improving women’s statuses is a good place to focus.

In some senses, it was a slow links day. That’s okay, though. Tomorrow begins the last week of what will hopefully be my last fall semester. I’m pretty psyched about it, honestly.