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Yet another fun thing - 26 September 2007
Sep. 26th, 2007 11:26 pmStorytelling went better this time - much more interactivity planned into the programme, and so things worked out better for me. Had a better sense of flow, and still had more than enough time to do things with. Overall, a much smoother performance. A better telling of frog stories than the last one. Whee, fantastic, now only to do something like it fourteen more times, twice each week. And that’s the end of the fall sequence, the first of four - fall, winter, spring, summer reading. And then we start it all over again.
Once again, we go off into the realm where nothing is certain, but it’s guaranteed to be a good ride - here’s today’s round-up. The UAW strike may be over, as a tentative agreement was reached between the parties. Everyone wants to go back to work. I’m also told that Michigan’s having trouble passing a balanced budget and so there may be governmental shutdown while that gets hashed out. You wonder whether it’s just another symptom of the self-destructive behavior of the state, or that for the moment, since it’s been yoked to the automobile industry for so long, that when the car market goes, it takes Michigan with it. That’s one thing about not being in that state - no longer do I hear about the minutiae and errata of the goings-on there. I could ask, of course, but where’s the fun in that?
Things of more importance, then. Such as today being an anniversary day where Stanislav Petrov avoided sparking a nuclear confrontation with the United States by correctly determining that supposedly incoming missiles launched from the United States were a false alarm. Considering how close we’ve probably come to igniting the world in a radiation bath, it’s a wonder we’re still here today, for one, and for another, why countries insist on building and maintaining nuclear weapons. We saw what the crude ones did. Today’s are much better than those. Why have thousands of them anywhere in the world?
A bill is moving through Congress that would bar any military veteran diagnosed with a disorder that might be a danger to self or others from owning a weapon. This designation can be made by “a court, commission, committee or other authorized person”. [Edit: As it turns out, the bill is actually more about making sure that people placed on the gun ban list really are dangers to themselves and others, and wants to expunge any records currently on it that are less than that.] What the article writer seems to think is that this gives any psychiatrist the power to prevent a veteran from owning a gun in their life. And that may be true, but one would hope that the professional diagnosis of a psychiatrist is something that carries some merit, rather than just being another opinion. As it turns out, anyway, the bill isn’t actually that scary. It tightens some requirements on who actually makes it to gun ban list and ensures that the appeals/removal process actually happens. First article writer appears to gave been going for the worst-case scenario.
According to American Samidzat, Mr. Bush violates executive orders as well as the rule of law, including one that forbids assassination attempts - if you consider the public hanging of Saddam to be such a thing, then maybe that one was violated. Point that AmSam is making, though, is that Mr. Bush was discussing the possibility of an option that is not open to him by an Executive Order, and is thus disobeying the Executive’s commands as well as the Legislature and the Judiciary. Cheney claimed to be a fourth branch of government, Mr. Bush is acting like one, it seems. We take time out here to say welcome to the party, Mr. Ellsberg, with regard to the increased abilities of the Executive and the potential for another event to turn the United States into something significantly more overtly oppressive. There, now that welcomes have been given, let’s return to the task at hand.
The Council of Europe will debate a resolution criticizing creationism next week. There’s a certain sadness that this is required in the first place, but there are some people convinced of the rightness of their cause that a religious interpretation of the universe’s beginning has to be in the public schooling systems. For matters with bigger potential effects, anti-abortion groups plan on suing the Planned Parenthood in Auroroa, Illinois, for supposedly libelous statements made by PP about the anti-abortion groups. The cake-topper, though is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance of Kansas City, that denied a claim of miscarriage care as an "elective abortion". (Consumerist, which I have heard, may have a reputation for inflating the drama score.) That particular insurance company location seems to want to do all they can to ensure that no claim gets paid that doesn’t have to be.
I sigh at the following material, simply because I know of its silliness, and I can hear a certain group of people screaming about how much this is a degradation of their religion - Vogue apparently thought it would be in, well, vogue, to do a fashion shoot based around the idea of the Christian idea of Satan worship. The outfits are silly, the props are sillier, and Vogue probably had a laugh at being able to pass this off as serious stuff.
And continuing the trend of having follow-up material present in a succeeding entry, there’s a gigantic follow-up to the Media Defender material talked about earlier, namely that the leaked e-mail has led to even more leaks and data becoming available, such as plans from the Attorney General of New York to contract MediaDefender to collect data on possible child pornography traffic through the Internet, effectively outsourcing police work to private contractors. Beyond that, since one of Media Defender’s techniques for stopping P2P is “poisoning” things like BitTorrent downloads, thanks to the leak, which garnered plenty of personal information as well, the source code of many of MediaDefender's aliases and programs has been released. So those who operate trackers and servers can automatically deny anything that has the MD signature on it or looks like it. Which doesn’t necessarily stop them from continuing to try. After All, MediaDefender was behind the MiiVi thing, too.
In response to the welcome provided to the president of Iran, Iranian scholars have posed some questions to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger and invited him to come to Iran to see and talk with the intellectuals in that country. I’m sure that President Bollinger would receive just as warm a welcome in Iran as the Iranian president was perceived to have received at the students of his university.
Basically, what sums up this section, I’d say, is the Dunning-Kruger Effect: The more you know, the less you know you know, but the less you know, the more you think you know. And somewhere, that’s proven with the mere existence of chocolate-covered bacon. Or chocolate with bacon chips.
Wired gives us a look inside the Burning Man festival with a photo montage of the "Best of Burning Man". There is a link to a second gallery, if more pictures are wanted, but many of them are repeated here in the second and slightly larger gallery.
Anime fans, be wary, possibly, as Japan's toughening the stance on copyright violation - which could put fansubbers in hot water. Maybe. It depends on how aggressive the copyright holders want to get after those persons that subtitle and then release the copyrighted works for a wider distribution. (I wonder - if the source material is a DVD, does fansubbing violate thw whole “For private home use only” clauses?)
Orangutan apparently offended by picture taking, revenges by stealing backpack and trousers of photographer. Nothing quite like the anecdote that says you were detrousered by a monkey. In public. Hopefully the underclothing was tasteful.
Google may be offering competition to Second Life, possibly collaborating with Arizona State University to launch "My World". Hearsay and rumors, all sparked by a questionnaire, so no stock to be put in those things yet. Maybe later something more substantive will appear.
Stealth jetski to be used for patrolling waters and frightening people who want to cross into the country. I think it’s just me, but the design looks kind of like the bottom skirt of a Dalek. “You are in violation of our borders. You will return. Obey! Obey! Exterminate!” Again, that could just be me.
Last for tonight is a sort of encouragement to us all as someone described the feeling of what happens when one is enlightened, and the results that have come from that. At least, it sounds to me like an attempt to describe the feeling that one gets when enlightenment strikes. For some smaller pieces on how we might all get there, a combination of speech from Alan Watts and animation through Chris Brion and Todd Benson, who also work on South Park . Trey and Matt tapped the two to do the drawing work for Mr. Watts’s speeches. It’s always fun to watch a visual being composed to someone speaking something other than a strict narrative of events. When conversation turns to the things that can’t always be easily filmed on screen with actors, directors, and scriptwriters.
I had a thought about how it seemed odd that I was adjusting to my working life with little for tears or ruptures or other things holding me back and making me nostalgic, but truth be told, my life was already in a fairly portable stage for the last few years - with an Internet connection, I can talk to people that are across the country and across the world. If not that, I have a cellular phone that I can use, especially if I have a craving to hear voice. Of course, I suspect in about three months, I’m going to feel that loss very acutely, unless I decide to spend money to buy plane tickets right around the Solstice and go see people for the exchange of gifts. Here’s hoping that by that time, I will have people to go celebrate such things with here, if I should elect to remain here. And having no vacation available to me, I don’t think I’m going to have much for sufficient time to go and enjoy it. I was going to puzzle over it, but then I remember the piece that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bladespark linked to initially about how men seem to favor many shallow attachments, rather than few deep ones. As such, since I didn’t really have that many deep connections, uprooting myself and zipping across the country must have been easier.
Of course, it’s possible that it just hasn’t really sunk in yet that I’m three days’ hard driving from home, and I’m not going to be able to stop by on the weekends for dinner and to chat about life, too. There was something about how I’m probably missing the point by looking toward things like that, instead of enjoying what I have in the here and now. I also need to realize that while I will be paying out the nose for my student loans for the next ten years or so, I am making a professional salary - I can live on this wage, and will do so. I don’t have to worry as much that my funding sources are suddenly going to dry up and an emergency will hit. I suppose this is, to some degree, what “independent living” really is about. Not that I plan on being a big, big spender any time soon, but I have to admit to myself that it is okay to occasionally go get something that will provide some happiness. Just remember to buy enough shelving units so that the collection doesn’t outgrow them. It’s a complicated, transitional phase of life, moving from studying days to working days. I think I’m still working out with myself what this means. There’s rejoicing at completing the university phase of life (even if I’ll be paying for it down the road) which sort of gets rolled under by the pressing need to begin the working phase of life. I saw that coming, I think. Somewhere along the line, I knew that the tendency would be to go from “Hooray, graduation!” to “Must-find-job” to “Time-to-work-hard.” And while working hard is something I have to do, I need to remember to take time out to celebrate what I’ve achieved so far.
Zo. Congratulations to me, then, upon the achievement of three of the four major life goals I’ve set out for this point of life. The fourth will arrive in its own due time, by its own mechanisms. So once I get my stuff, I’m going to buy a desk and chair, both so that my butt doesn’t complain about writing long entries and as a signifier of my success. Now, if the rest of my stuff would arrive from home, that would be fantastic, but one thing at a time.
Also, you don’t notice how accustomed you are to certain operating system and browser behaviors until you have to change both OS and browser, and you do something, expecting a particular reaction, and get nothing, to your annoyance. Which reminds me - there should be an upgrade coming down the pipe within a few weeks. That should be interesting to sit through. Might devote a Saturday to it.
Once again, we go off into the realm where nothing is certain, but it’s guaranteed to be a good ride - here’s today’s round-up. The UAW strike may be over, as a tentative agreement was reached between the parties. Everyone wants to go back to work. I’m also told that Michigan’s having trouble passing a balanced budget and so there may be governmental shutdown while that gets hashed out. You wonder whether it’s just another symptom of the self-destructive behavior of the state, or that for the moment, since it’s been yoked to the automobile industry for so long, that when the car market goes, it takes Michigan with it. That’s one thing about not being in that state - no longer do I hear about the minutiae and errata of the goings-on there. I could ask, of course, but where’s the fun in that?
Things of more importance, then. Such as today being an anniversary day where Stanislav Petrov avoided sparking a nuclear confrontation with the United States by correctly determining that supposedly incoming missiles launched from the United States were a false alarm. Considering how close we’ve probably come to igniting the world in a radiation bath, it’s a wonder we’re still here today, for one, and for another, why countries insist on building and maintaining nuclear weapons. We saw what the crude ones did. Today’s are much better than those. Why have thousands of them anywhere in the world?
A bill is moving through Congress that would bar any military veteran diagnosed with a disorder that might be a danger to self or others from owning a weapon. This designation can be made by “a court, commission, committee or other authorized person”. [Edit: As it turns out, the bill is actually more about making sure that people placed on the gun ban list really are dangers to themselves and others, and wants to expunge any records currently on it that are less than that.] What the article writer seems to think is that this gives any psychiatrist the power to prevent a veteran from owning a gun in their life. And that may be true, but one would hope that the professional diagnosis of a psychiatrist is something that carries some merit, rather than just being another opinion. As it turns out, anyway, the bill isn’t actually that scary. It tightens some requirements on who actually makes it to gun ban list and ensures that the appeals/removal process actually happens. First article writer appears to gave been going for the worst-case scenario.
According to American Samidzat, Mr. Bush violates executive orders as well as the rule of law, including one that forbids assassination attempts - if you consider the public hanging of Saddam to be such a thing, then maybe that one was violated. Point that AmSam is making, though, is that Mr. Bush was discussing the possibility of an option that is not open to him by an Executive Order, and is thus disobeying the Executive’s commands as well as the Legislature and the Judiciary. Cheney claimed to be a fourth branch of government, Mr. Bush is acting like one, it seems. We take time out here to say welcome to the party, Mr. Ellsberg, with regard to the increased abilities of the Executive and the potential for another event to turn the United States into something significantly more overtly oppressive. There, now that welcomes have been given, let’s return to the task at hand.
The Council of Europe will debate a resolution criticizing creationism next week. There’s a certain sadness that this is required in the first place, but there are some people convinced of the rightness of their cause that a religious interpretation of the universe’s beginning has to be in the public schooling systems. For matters with bigger potential effects, anti-abortion groups plan on suing the Planned Parenthood in Auroroa, Illinois, for supposedly libelous statements made by PP about the anti-abortion groups. The cake-topper, though is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance of Kansas City, that denied a claim of miscarriage care as an "elective abortion". (Consumerist, which I have heard, may have a reputation for inflating the drama score.) That particular insurance company location seems to want to do all they can to ensure that no claim gets paid that doesn’t have to be.
I sigh at the following material, simply because I know of its silliness, and I can hear a certain group of people screaming about how much this is a degradation of their religion - Vogue apparently thought it would be in, well, vogue, to do a fashion shoot based around the idea of the Christian idea of Satan worship. The outfits are silly, the props are sillier, and Vogue probably had a laugh at being able to pass this off as serious stuff.
And continuing the trend of having follow-up material present in a succeeding entry, there’s a gigantic follow-up to the Media Defender material talked about earlier, namely that the leaked e-mail has led to even more leaks and data becoming available, such as plans from the Attorney General of New York to contract MediaDefender to collect data on possible child pornography traffic through the Internet, effectively outsourcing police work to private contractors. Beyond that, since one of Media Defender’s techniques for stopping P2P is “poisoning” things like BitTorrent downloads, thanks to the leak, which garnered plenty of personal information as well, the source code of many of MediaDefender's aliases and programs has been released. So those who operate trackers and servers can automatically deny anything that has the MD signature on it or looks like it. Which doesn’t necessarily stop them from continuing to try. After All, MediaDefender was behind the MiiVi thing, too.
In response to the welcome provided to the president of Iran, Iranian scholars have posed some questions to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger and invited him to come to Iran to see and talk with the intellectuals in that country. I’m sure that President Bollinger would receive just as warm a welcome in Iran as the Iranian president was perceived to have received at the students of his university.
Basically, what sums up this section, I’d say, is the Dunning-Kruger Effect: The more you know, the less you know you know, but the less you know, the more you think you know. And somewhere, that’s proven with the mere existence of chocolate-covered bacon. Or chocolate with bacon chips.
Wired gives us a look inside the Burning Man festival with a photo montage of the "Best of Burning Man". There is a link to a second gallery, if more pictures are wanted, but many of them are repeated here in the second and slightly larger gallery.
Anime fans, be wary, possibly, as Japan's toughening the stance on copyright violation - which could put fansubbers in hot water. Maybe. It depends on how aggressive the copyright holders want to get after those persons that subtitle and then release the copyrighted works for a wider distribution. (I wonder - if the source material is a DVD, does fansubbing violate thw whole “For private home use only” clauses?)
Orangutan apparently offended by picture taking, revenges by stealing backpack and trousers of photographer. Nothing quite like the anecdote that says you were detrousered by a monkey. In public. Hopefully the underclothing was tasteful.
Google may be offering competition to Second Life, possibly collaborating with Arizona State University to launch "My World". Hearsay and rumors, all sparked by a questionnaire, so no stock to be put in those things yet. Maybe later something more substantive will appear.
Stealth jetski to be used for patrolling waters and frightening people who want to cross into the country. I think it’s just me, but the design looks kind of like the bottom skirt of a Dalek. “You are in violation of our borders. You will return. Obey! Obey! Exterminate!” Again, that could just be me.
Last for tonight is a sort of encouragement to us all as someone described the feeling of what happens when one is enlightened, and the results that have come from that. At least, it sounds to me like an attempt to describe the feeling that one gets when enlightenment strikes. For some smaller pieces on how we might all get there, a combination of speech from Alan Watts and animation through Chris Brion and Todd Benson, who also work on South Park . Trey and Matt tapped the two to do the drawing work for Mr. Watts’s speeches. It’s always fun to watch a visual being composed to someone speaking something other than a strict narrative of events. When conversation turns to the things that can’t always be easily filmed on screen with actors, directors, and scriptwriters.
I had a thought about how it seemed odd that I was adjusting to my working life with little for tears or ruptures or other things holding me back and making me nostalgic, but truth be told, my life was already in a fairly portable stage for the last few years - with an Internet connection, I can talk to people that are across the country and across the world. If not that, I have a cellular phone that I can use, especially if I have a craving to hear voice. Of course, I suspect in about three months, I’m going to feel that loss very acutely, unless I decide to spend money to buy plane tickets right around the Solstice and go see people for the exchange of gifts. Here’s hoping that by that time, I will have people to go celebrate such things with here, if I should elect to remain here. And having no vacation available to me, I don’t think I’m going to have much for sufficient time to go and enjoy it. I was going to puzzle over it, but then I remember the piece that
bladespark linked to initially about how men seem to favor many shallow attachments, rather than few deep ones. As such, since I didn’t really have that many deep connections, uprooting myself and zipping across the country must have been easier. Of course, it’s possible that it just hasn’t really sunk in yet that I’m three days’ hard driving from home, and I’m not going to be able to stop by on the weekends for dinner and to chat about life, too. There was something about how I’m probably missing the point by looking toward things like that, instead of enjoying what I have in the here and now. I also need to realize that while I will be paying out the nose for my student loans for the next ten years or so, I am making a professional salary - I can live on this wage, and will do so. I don’t have to worry as much that my funding sources are suddenly going to dry up and an emergency will hit. I suppose this is, to some degree, what “independent living” really is about. Not that I plan on being a big, big spender any time soon, but I have to admit to myself that it is okay to occasionally go get something that will provide some happiness. Just remember to buy enough shelving units so that the collection doesn’t outgrow them. It’s a complicated, transitional phase of life, moving from studying days to working days. I think I’m still working out with myself what this means. There’s rejoicing at completing the university phase of life (even if I’ll be paying for it down the road) which sort of gets rolled under by the pressing need to begin the working phase of life. I saw that coming, I think. Somewhere along the line, I knew that the tendency would be to go from “Hooray, graduation!” to “Must-find-job” to “Time-to-work-hard.” And while working hard is something I have to do, I need to remember to take time out to celebrate what I’ve achieved so far.
Zo. Congratulations to me, then, upon the achievement of three of the four major life goals I’ve set out for this point of life. The fourth will arrive in its own due time, by its own mechanisms. So once I get my stuff, I’m going to buy a desk and chair, both so that my butt doesn’t complain about writing long entries and as a signifier of my success. Now, if the rest of my stuff would arrive from home, that would be fantastic, but one thing at a time.
Also, you don’t notice how accustomed you are to certain operating system and browser behaviors until you have to change both OS and browser, and you do something, expecting a particular reaction, and get nothing, to your annoyance. Which reminds me - there should be an upgrade coming down the pipe within a few weeks. That should be interesting to sit through. Might devote a Saturday to it.
