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Mmmmmm, Shepherd’s Pie. Making it this time with the cheese underneath the potatoes, a good salt/pepper mix on the meat and onions, and making the potatoes properly.... oooh, yummy. I have to make sure that I leave some for tomorrow’s lunch, because I’d eat that right up. Hopefully it reheats to just as yummy tomorrow.
Those interested in figuring out what Mayor 9/11 might be like as president probably don’t have to look too far past Mayor 9/11's days as a prosecutor in New York to see what kind of attitude he would bring to the office of President. He might take that “strike first, obtain proof later” mentality toward Iran and others, and I don’t think that the military wants to start fighting additional fronts right now. Or it might turn inward and really put the thumbscrews on the American people through the Department of Homeland Security. More reasons why Mayor 9/11 is probably not a good choice.
In other domestic news, a leader of a Sea Scout troop has been accused of sexual molestation of his charges. The same Scoutmaster once sued the city of Berkley after the city said that the Scouts would have to pay rent on their berthing because the Scout policy on homosexuality and atheism conflicted with the city’s nondiscrimination policies.
An advertisement for a paranormal mystery show uses directed-audio technology to make sound appear out of apparent nowhere. It cuts down on the noise, but it might make some people jump in fright when audio appears next to them. I kind of want something like that available for the library - it would be awesome to have teens jamming along to the latest song while the rest of the library didn’t hear a thing.
Mr. Gore's Nobel acceptance speech compares his and Mr. Nobel's lives, each suffering a premature death and devoting themselves to the cause of peace afterward. With extra material about how the current climate change might melt off a polar ice cap in seven years.
In different technology materials, a maglev wind turbine? Using magnetic levitation, one (really big?) turbine can supposedly outproduce an entire wind farm by itself. That’s impressive, if those claims are true. This and other items indicate the increasing commitment to green energy, supposedly topping $100 billion US for this past year, with wind power leading the way. Will the nightmare scenarios be avoided? Probably. In what capacity, I don’t know.
Beer's getting more expensive because hops, malt, and steel have all had a huge price jump. It may not be yet apparent, but it will get that way pretty soon. The price of beer going up? How unfortunate for those being driven to drink by all the other stuff becoming more expensive.
Tom Abate talks robots and says that right now, robotics is about where computers were in the 1970s. We’re already seeing humaniform robots performing various tasks. Over the next few decades, programming might refine to the point where we might have the predecessor to the NS-5. We could also develop an A.I. or have a robot revolution. We’re kind of hoping that last one isn’t a revolution where the robots decide the humans should be exterminated. At the same time, we could do without dating site malware that can social engineer humans. Wouldn’t that make it a candidate to be Turing tested? If people can’t tell the phisher from the real thing, then we could have a problem, but also a success in developing programs that pass the Turing test. That’d be an entry for Famous Firsts.
Other interesting tech involves the Acme Portable Three-LCD Surround System. It’s a computer in a box that you can carry around with you, and it has three monitors. Pretty neat. Now, the real question is... how much does it cost? Well, the prices aren’t marked on it...
Since it’s December, all sorts of year-end retrospectives are on their way. The New York Times Magazine presents The Year In Ideas, from Airborne Wind Turbines to Zygotic Social Networking. Neatorama does them one better with the top 10 most unusual VEWPRF trees, with the bottom being a tree that is merely inverted. NPR posts David Sedaris reading from his "Santaland Diaries", done first on NPR in 1992, and apparently only getting more popular with time.
What might make headlines for all the wrong reasons is the claim by University of Illinois-Chicago researchers that they have discovered the gene controlling a fruit fly's orientation. This means absolute squat for finding a similar gene or sequence in humanity, if such a thing even exists, but there are probably rumblings on both sides of the argument about what to do if it does turn out there’s some reliable biological trigger to orientation.
However, tonight’s naked grab for power, money, and the headlines comes from Fark, who has filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark office for "Not Safe For Work". The widespread usage of NSFW will probably work against Fark, not to mention that enforcing said trademark would probably be a bigger hell than the *AA cabal trying to enforce their copyrights.
The last two tonight are probably put together because of a common theme more than anything. One is the story of a Texas woman, employed by Haliburton, who says she was gang-raped in Baghdad by co-workers, told that if she went for help, she’d be fired, and accuses the government and Haliburton of covering it up. Even worse, the “contractors are immune from local laws” stuff might apply in these cases, too.
But the last for tonight, on a more creative note, is Feministing's Call for Submissions on the subject of Yes means Yes!, which asks contributors to write prose pieces about how empowering female sexual pleasure helps to dismantle “rape culture”. From what I guess, if the mode changes such that we think that women enjoy sex and have free license to engage in it for their pleasure, in addition to their ability to refuse it from anyone they don’t give their enthusiastic consent to, then the people who do rape are easier to spot, and much more likely to get the book thrown at them at sentencing, and the culture will shift away from tolerating rape. If you have the drive for such a project, give it a whirl. You might just get published.
I’m going to bed, however - must get up nice and early to go to work, and then prepare foodstuffs, and eat, and go back to bed. All while also managing to do stuff like these blog posts.
Those interested in figuring out what Mayor 9/11 might be like as president probably don’t have to look too far past Mayor 9/11's days as a prosecutor in New York to see what kind of attitude he would bring to the office of President. He might take that “strike first, obtain proof later” mentality toward Iran and others, and I don’t think that the military wants to start fighting additional fronts right now. Or it might turn inward and really put the thumbscrews on the American people through the Department of Homeland Security. More reasons why Mayor 9/11 is probably not a good choice.
In other domestic news, a leader of a Sea Scout troop has been accused of sexual molestation of his charges. The same Scoutmaster once sued the city of Berkley after the city said that the Scouts would have to pay rent on their berthing because the Scout policy on homosexuality and atheism conflicted with the city’s nondiscrimination policies.
An advertisement for a paranormal mystery show uses directed-audio technology to make sound appear out of apparent nowhere. It cuts down on the noise, but it might make some people jump in fright when audio appears next to them. I kind of want something like that available for the library - it would be awesome to have teens jamming along to the latest song while the rest of the library didn’t hear a thing.
Mr. Gore's Nobel acceptance speech compares his and Mr. Nobel's lives, each suffering a premature death and devoting themselves to the cause of peace afterward. With extra material about how the current climate change might melt off a polar ice cap in seven years.
In different technology materials, a maglev wind turbine? Using magnetic levitation, one (really big?) turbine can supposedly outproduce an entire wind farm by itself. That’s impressive, if those claims are true. This and other items indicate the increasing commitment to green energy, supposedly topping $100 billion US for this past year, with wind power leading the way. Will the nightmare scenarios be avoided? Probably. In what capacity, I don’t know.
Beer's getting more expensive because hops, malt, and steel have all had a huge price jump. It may not be yet apparent, but it will get that way pretty soon. The price of beer going up? How unfortunate for those being driven to drink by all the other stuff becoming more expensive.
Tom Abate talks robots and says that right now, robotics is about where computers were in the 1970s. We’re already seeing humaniform robots performing various tasks. Over the next few decades, programming might refine to the point where we might have the predecessor to the NS-5. We could also develop an A.I. or have a robot revolution. We’re kind of hoping that last one isn’t a revolution where the robots decide the humans should be exterminated. At the same time, we could do without dating site malware that can social engineer humans. Wouldn’t that make it a candidate to be Turing tested? If people can’t tell the phisher from the real thing, then we could have a problem, but also a success in developing programs that pass the Turing test. That’d be an entry for Famous Firsts.
Other interesting tech involves the Acme Portable Three-LCD Surround System. It’s a computer in a box that you can carry around with you, and it has three monitors. Pretty neat. Now, the real question is... how much does it cost? Well, the prices aren’t marked on it...
Since it’s December, all sorts of year-end retrospectives are on their way. The New York Times Magazine presents The Year In Ideas, from Airborne Wind Turbines to Zygotic Social Networking. Neatorama does them one better with the top 10 most unusual VEWPRF trees, with the bottom being a tree that is merely inverted. NPR posts David Sedaris reading from his "Santaland Diaries", done first on NPR in 1992, and apparently only getting more popular with time.
What might make headlines for all the wrong reasons is the claim by University of Illinois-Chicago researchers that they have discovered the gene controlling a fruit fly's orientation. This means absolute squat for finding a similar gene or sequence in humanity, if such a thing even exists, but there are probably rumblings on both sides of the argument about what to do if it does turn out there’s some reliable biological trigger to orientation.
However, tonight’s naked grab for power, money, and the headlines comes from Fark, who has filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark office for "Not Safe For Work". The widespread usage of NSFW will probably work against Fark, not to mention that enforcing said trademark would probably be a bigger hell than the *AA cabal trying to enforce their copyrights.
The last two tonight are probably put together because of a common theme more than anything. One is the story of a Texas woman, employed by Haliburton, who says she was gang-raped in Baghdad by co-workers, told that if she went for help, she’d be fired, and accuses the government and Haliburton of covering it up. Even worse, the “contractors are immune from local laws” stuff might apply in these cases, too.
But the last for tonight, on a more creative note, is Feministing's Call for Submissions on the subject of Yes means Yes!, which asks contributors to write prose pieces about how empowering female sexual pleasure helps to dismantle “rape culture”. From what I guess, if the mode changes such that we think that women enjoy sex and have free license to engage in it for their pleasure, in addition to their ability to refuse it from anyone they don’t give their enthusiastic consent to, then the people who do rape are easier to spot, and much more likely to get the book thrown at them at sentencing, and the culture will shift away from tolerating rape. If you have the drive for such a project, give it a whirl. You might just get published.
I’m going to bed, however - must get up nice and early to go to work, and then prepare foodstuffs, and eat, and go back to bed. All while also managing to do stuff like these blog posts.
