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Today was spent mostly crushing puny humans with the great might of the Overlord. Well, okay, mostly, his minions, but we don’t necessarily need to go there from here. But we did do our readings for class tomorrow, package and prepare our assignments to turn in, and cross our fingers that our paper will be well-received. It is a significant part of the grade, after all. (30%?) Based on previous incarnations of paper-writing, I’m pretty sure it won’t fail out, but there’s always that worry that this one’s a bomb. And considering I’m out of my school on this one, I may not have adhered to conventions that I don’t know about. Ah, well. If it tanks, it tanks. I’ll still have to revise it for a grade anyway. Another 10% of grade depends on good revision. But this weekend away from stress has been a fantastic thing - hopefully next week’s assignment in Rails doesn’t begin the whole process over again. If those instructors are really right, and that learning well what I just did is going to help me lots down the road, where the pattern repeats itself many times, then hopefully I’ve just put a strong foot forward on completing my project correctly.
Anyway, enough with my personal stuff. You’re all here for the links, anyway.
Even Newsweek has picked up on the escalating tensions between Iran and the Unites States, especially in Iraq. This isn’t necessarily “day late, dollar short” material, but come on, if it’s in Newsweek, then it’s pretty apparent that this is happening. Newsweek suggests that we're already fighting a hidden war with Iran, with strong potential to become an open war. They chronicle the missteps that have happened over the last few years, with the two countries almost coming to agreements, but then things flying apart when neither side could find what they wanted.
The terrorism thing with the towers, in New York, it happened. Who it was done by is in dispute among some, but who benefited from it, well, that one can probably be answered easily: The Republicans and the Bush Administration. Now that it’s been a while since then, and the things that were supposed to be good for us (just as the cost of our liberties. No biggie.) have fallen flat, and the country is siding more and more with what is perceived as the liberal position, Mike Gallagher has decided that it's the wrong course of action, and that liberals need to be shut up again. Possibly through the means of another terrorist attack happening. Jesus's General says this is not an isolated incident, but Cold War mentality being played out in a War of Terror disguised as a War on Terror. (Okay, maybe that’s overstating things - still, the poster emphasises that these people really do believe that America Versus The (Communists) Terrorists is How it Should Be.)
The writer of American Fascists, Chris Hedges, says that the Radical Christian Right is Built on Suburban Despair, taking an example of how people (in this particular example, women who have had abortions) often have their fear of the real world, with its consequences and inequalities and problems, preyed upon and offered the chance to be certain of their reality, their lives, their afterlives, and the chance for redemption by embracing the Jesus movement and working to atone for their wrongs. These are the people that promise to protect us from reality, if only we’ll give them ultimate power and let them take our rights away. He says that people like this welcome the End Times because they feel there’s nothing in the world worth saving. Which seems rather odd, because the whole idea of Jesus as Intercessor is to stop the world from being destroyed, a theme which started with Noah and went through... is it Abraham who begs the agents of YHWH that if he can find five good people in a town, then the whole town should be spared? Anyway, the intercessor theme continues throughout the writings, because at times, there’s nothing that YHWH would like to do more than to crush the world and humanity and start all over again. Maybe it’s over-optimism that they’re part of those who will be raptured, while the rest of us suffer and die. Even then, though, that doesn’t seem like a very nice thing to wish on your especially if your reasoning for doing so is that s/he doesn’t believe the same way you do.
In Niger, old-school methods like tending saplings and planting around them, rather than uprooting them, have helped the country stop turning into a desert. Roots hold soil and water. More roots hold more soil and water. Having trees around means you have to plant and plow a bit differently, but in the end, it appears to have really helped the soil return to fertility. Hrm. Maybe agribusiness could stand a little help from the trees along with their crop rotations.
Ever wanted to have your own cult? Think that brainwashing the masses into doing your bidding, be it money, power, sex, or suicide, would be interesting? Well, check out Cultspace, a place where you can start your own holy religion. You might be the next Discordianism... or the next Heaven’s Gate. Choose wisely in whatever you decide to do with your followers. And recall, the cults on Cultspace are only as serious as their founders are, which could be anything from tongue-in-cheek to rant and rave. Salt and season accordingly.
Harvard named a woman to the presidency, making Drew Gilpin Faust the first female to hold the office in the school's history. As people at the University of Michigan and elsewhere have known for a while now, naming a woman to your top spot does not, in fact, make the world crumble. Best of skill and fortune to the new president. (I suppose this makes somewhat of a points - gender differences are still big enough in the country that something like this is newsworthy. On the flip side, now that Harvard’s done it, everybody else should be comfortable with doing it as well, right?)
If you use Skype as a communications software, an update is definitely in order, after Skype revealed one of the plug-ins for Windows routinely read the BIOS as part of its DRM scheme. Skype plays this down as being normal, which it may be (anyone who can confirm or deny on this?), and that they don’t actually retrieve any of the data that is read out from the BIOS. Apparently, because it b0rks on newer platforms, they’ve removed it in the latest release. This seems to be following the trend that software gets more and more intrusive in the interests of enforcing DRM. Even if Skype didn’t do anything with this data, or actually read it, are users potentially at risk from having that data used by someone else? What are the possible bad consequences of a scheme like this?
That’s the rest of what I’ve got tonight. Speaking of rest, I should probably go get some. If I get ambitious, I might even go into town tomorrow and do some class looking-up. If not, I’ll do it on Tuesday. It’s nice to know that I can get my work done, when I need to get it done, and that I’ll be able to do so well. I just have to actually, y’know, do it.
Anyway, enough with my personal stuff. You’re all here for the links, anyway.
Even Newsweek has picked up on the escalating tensions between Iran and the Unites States, especially in Iraq. This isn’t necessarily “day late, dollar short” material, but come on, if it’s in Newsweek, then it’s pretty apparent that this is happening. Newsweek suggests that we're already fighting a hidden war with Iran, with strong potential to become an open war. They chronicle the missteps that have happened over the last few years, with the two countries almost coming to agreements, but then things flying apart when neither side could find what they wanted.
The terrorism thing with the towers, in New York, it happened. Who it was done by is in dispute among some, but who benefited from it, well, that one can probably be answered easily: The Republicans and the Bush Administration. Now that it’s been a while since then, and the things that were supposed to be good for us (just as the cost of our liberties. No biggie.) have fallen flat, and the country is siding more and more with what is perceived as the liberal position, Mike Gallagher has decided that it's the wrong course of action, and that liberals need to be shut up again. Possibly through the means of another terrorist attack happening. Jesus's General says this is not an isolated incident, but Cold War mentality being played out in a War of Terror disguised as a War on Terror. (Okay, maybe that’s overstating things - still, the poster emphasises that these people really do believe that America Versus The (Communists) Terrorists is How it Should Be.)
The writer of American Fascists, Chris Hedges, says that the Radical Christian Right is Built on Suburban Despair, taking an example of how people (in this particular example, women who have had abortions) often have their fear of the real world, with its consequences and inequalities and problems, preyed upon and offered the chance to be certain of their reality, their lives, their afterlives, and the chance for redemption by embracing the Jesus movement and working to atone for their wrongs. These are the people that promise to protect us from reality, if only we’ll give them ultimate power and let them take our rights away. He says that people like this welcome the End Times because they feel there’s nothing in the world worth saving. Which seems rather odd, because the whole idea of Jesus as Intercessor is to stop the world from being destroyed, a theme which started with Noah and went through... is it Abraham who begs the agents of YHWH that if he can find five good people in a town, then the whole town should be spared? Anyway, the intercessor theme continues throughout the writings, because at times, there’s nothing that YHWH would like to do more than to crush the world and humanity and start all over again. Maybe it’s over-optimism that they’re part of those who will be raptured, while the rest of us suffer and die. Even then, though, that doesn’t seem like a very nice thing to wish on your especially if your reasoning for doing so is that s/he doesn’t believe the same way you do.
In Niger, old-school methods like tending saplings and planting around them, rather than uprooting them, have helped the country stop turning into a desert. Roots hold soil and water. More roots hold more soil and water. Having trees around means you have to plant and plow a bit differently, but in the end, it appears to have really helped the soil return to fertility. Hrm. Maybe agribusiness could stand a little help from the trees along with their crop rotations.
Ever wanted to have your own cult? Think that brainwashing the masses into doing your bidding, be it money, power, sex, or suicide, would be interesting? Well, check out Cultspace, a place where you can start your own holy religion. You might be the next Discordianism... or the next Heaven’s Gate. Choose wisely in whatever you decide to do with your followers. And recall, the cults on Cultspace are only as serious as their founders are, which could be anything from tongue-in-cheek to rant and rave. Salt and season accordingly.
Harvard named a woman to the presidency, making Drew Gilpin Faust the first female to hold the office in the school's history. As people at the University of Michigan and elsewhere have known for a while now, naming a woman to your top spot does not, in fact, make the world crumble. Best of skill and fortune to the new president. (I suppose this makes somewhat of a points - gender differences are still big enough in the country that something like this is newsworthy. On the flip side, now that Harvard’s done it, everybody else should be comfortable with doing it as well, right?)
If you use Skype as a communications software, an update is definitely in order, after Skype revealed one of the plug-ins for Windows routinely read the BIOS as part of its DRM scheme. Skype plays this down as being normal, which it may be (anyone who can confirm or deny on this?), and that they don’t actually retrieve any of the data that is read out from the BIOS. Apparently, because it b0rks on newer platforms, they’ve removed it in the latest release. This seems to be following the trend that software gets more and more intrusive in the interests of enforcing DRM. Even if Skype didn’t do anything with this data, or actually read it, are users potentially at risk from having that data used by someone else? What are the possible bad consequences of a scheme like this?
That’s the rest of what I’ve got tonight. Speaking of rest, I should probably go get some. If I get ambitious, I might even go into town tomorrow and do some class looking-up. If not, I’ll do it on Tuesday. It’s nice to know that I can get my work done, when I need to get it done, and that I’ll be able to do so well. I just have to actually, y’know, do it.
