![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Let us play more - 09 January 2008
Jan. 10th, 2008 12:16 amWell, here we are again, at the end of another day. Whether good or bad, we survived again. Huzzah.
Net Neutrality has no place with AT&T, it appears, as Ma Bell has installed technology that allows them to inspect and filter web traffic, as well as having plans to assist the *AA cabal in their hunt for people to scare. The filters are supposedly there to sniff out pirated content. What they are actually going to do? I don’t know, but I wonder what’s going to be silently blocked and nobody told. P2P is potentially on the chopping block, even for legitimate purposes. I can imagine the roar if WoW fans find that At&T is filtering out their updates.
My professional self cheers at the capture and recovery of more than 1,000 Akron Library items stolen by a person who had opened 34 different library cards in her childrens' names and various other fictitious identities. We’re baffled, though, as to why someone would steal all that material from the library. What I’m hoping is that it was some sort of kleptomania disorder, and not something like being a self-appointed censor of library materials.
Against the federal government for their enthusiastic lack of response to Hurricane Katrina: 489,000 claims, for more than 3 quadrillion dollars, and still counting.
For those who have upcoming primaries, a timely reminder regarding the positions of Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee with regard to abortion - they both want it banned. That’s Constitutional Amendment ban, not just overturn Roe ban. Although it may not take their election to overturn Roe - the Supreme Court has steadily been permitting more and more restrictions on abortions, while not actually permitting them to be outlawed. Regardless of one’s personal opinions on whether or not abortions are murder or lifesaving, the choice must be available. It is very pro-death to ruin both mother and baby’s life and fail to provide appropriate support for the mother who is forced to carry to term, regardless of her economic or health situations.
Congresscritter Robert Wexler, having already clamored for impeachment several times, offers an argument that even though violence has gone down in Iraq, the surge has failed by its own stated goals. Temporary peace, but we’ll know whether anything lasting has been built when the troops start returning home. Assuming that they are able to do so any time soon.
Rounding out the political section,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
setissma implores the voting populace to elect someone better than Mr. Bush, who won’t clamp down on scientific research, who won’t tell us a twisted story of how abortions are evil and cut subsidies of birth control, pushing an ineffective and useless abstinence-only education in its stead, who won’t say that it’s okay to hate your fellow if s/he’s homosexual, who will fight to preserve peace where and when needed, rather than spending billions trying to be a conqueror and nation-builder. The next President of the United States should be someone who can lead, inspire, and restore confidence in the office, the government, and the country. We do not want someone who claims that the laws requiring archival of his communications don't apply to courts requiring him to see whether material supposedly gone missing is in those archives. The Plame-outing e-mail might be in the backup, but Mr. Bush insists that the courts don’t have jurisdiction to review the record-keeping practices of the White House, nor to require the White House to check and see if their “missing” documents are in an archived copy.
Very odd and not recommended for anyone, a man convinced himself that he had the fabled "mark of the beast" on his hand, and so he cut it off and microwaved it. I foresee antipsychotic medicine in this man’s future. Of course, I won’t be able to convince James Randi of my predictive abilities. And even if I wanted to, in two years, the prize money for his mystic Million Dollar Challenge will be gone. Not that anyone could actually hope to win the money, with Randi being able to dismiss any application out of hand, insist on his own testing protocols, and generally stack the deck in his favor so that those trying to win his money have to do everything just right or start all over again.
Staying on about the same WTF level, but lowering the lethality potential a tick or two, Taser mp3 players. Self defense of 50,000 volts and a 1GB music player. It’s the perfect combination... for someone.
Significantly less dangerous, perhaps following in the same vein of the gentleman who sold the Guitar Hero III present for his son when he discovered his son smoking marijuana, a mother has sold her son's car after she found alcohol under the seat. No mercy from this mother. Drinking and driving is certainly no laughing matter, and so Mom has justification for it. In a few years, I wonder if Mom and Dad will want a car for the kid again, just so they don’t have to do all the shuttling around. Of course, I don’t expect the son to be anything other than grounded or restricted for a while.
In technology, power exoskeleton for farm work soon to be available in Japan. From here, we’ll get to fully-encased power armor, and... y’know, I think I’m treading perilously close to something [CLASSIFIED] in the FLEET archives, so I’ll stop now. China has a big year for space planned, with many launches and missions on the schedule. So keep an eye out up there for the Chinese rockets.
Dropping back down to Earth, Playstation Portables will come with Skype, after a firmware update. Great for when one is within range of a Wi-Fi spot... and if the person being called uses Skype. If not, using tiny mobile phone projectors, one might be able to achieve the same effect with a regular mobile. Although, it would be a static image, rather than a moving one.
Let’s talk about art - specifically, the creator of the popular series Genshiken talks a bit about how otaku culture has changed, and how Japanese otaku should and shouldn't be mainstreamed. It’s kind of odd hearing a creator talk about how much he really doesn’t want his fan base’s ideology to become popular, but I think that’s because of the different connotations that otaku has in American and Japan. Anyway, further art is the Infinite Cat Project, which has cats watching cats watching cats watching cats all the way back down to the original cat, Frankie.
And then we’ll move onto money, with a list of 10 very much hated money-saving tips.
Last for tonight, a bit of humor. Now that we know the Mozart effect is at best, temporary, why not try out some other composer effects and see if they’re a bit more permanent. If that’s not going to work for you, maybe the attempt to ban swearing, table-dancing, drinking contests, and profane music from bars will do enough to get you into side-splitting laughter? No? Braaaaaaaaaains Food Pyramid, then.
If that didn’t work, try sleep, like I am.
Net Neutrality has no place with AT&T, it appears, as Ma Bell has installed technology that allows them to inspect and filter web traffic, as well as having plans to assist the *AA cabal in their hunt for people to scare. The filters are supposedly there to sniff out pirated content. What they are actually going to do? I don’t know, but I wonder what’s going to be silently blocked and nobody told. P2P is potentially on the chopping block, even for legitimate purposes. I can imagine the roar if WoW fans find that At&T is filtering out their updates.
My professional self cheers at the capture and recovery of more than 1,000 Akron Library items stolen by a person who had opened 34 different library cards in her childrens' names and various other fictitious identities. We’re baffled, though, as to why someone would steal all that material from the library. What I’m hoping is that it was some sort of kleptomania disorder, and not something like being a self-appointed censor of library materials.
Against the federal government for their enthusiastic lack of response to Hurricane Katrina: 489,000 claims, for more than 3 quadrillion dollars, and still counting.
For those who have upcoming primaries, a timely reminder regarding the positions of Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee with regard to abortion - they both want it banned. That’s Constitutional Amendment ban, not just overturn Roe ban. Although it may not take their election to overturn Roe - the Supreme Court has steadily been permitting more and more restrictions on abortions, while not actually permitting them to be outlawed. Regardless of one’s personal opinions on whether or not abortions are murder or lifesaving, the choice must be available. It is very pro-death to ruin both mother and baby’s life and fail to provide appropriate support for the mother who is forced to carry to term, regardless of her economic or health situations.
Congresscritter Robert Wexler, having already clamored for impeachment several times, offers an argument that even though violence has gone down in Iraq, the surge has failed by its own stated goals. Temporary peace, but we’ll know whether anything lasting has been built when the troops start returning home. Assuming that they are able to do so any time soon.
Rounding out the political section,
setissma implores the voting populace to elect someone better than Mr. Bush, who won’t clamp down on scientific research, who won’t tell us a twisted story of how abortions are evil and cut subsidies of birth control, pushing an ineffective and useless abstinence-only education in its stead, who won’t say that it’s okay to hate your fellow if s/he’s homosexual, who will fight to preserve peace where and when needed, rather than spending billions trying to be a conqueror and nation-builder. The next President of the United States should be someone who can lead, inspire, and restore confidence in the office, the government, and the country. We do not want someone who claims that the laws requiring archival of his communications don't apply to courts requiring him to see whether material supposedly gone missing is in those archives. The Plame-outing e-mail might be in the backup, but Mr. Bush insists that the courts don’t have jurisdiction to review the record-keeping practices of the White House, nor to require the White House to check and see if their “missing” documents are in an archived copy. Very odd and not recommended for anyone, a man convinced himself that he had the fabled "mark of the beast" on his hand, and so he cut it off and microwaved it. I foresee antipsychotic medicine in this man’s future. Of course, I won’t be able to convince James Randi of my predictive abilities. And even if I wanted to, in two years, the prize money for his mystic Million Dollar Challenge will be gone. Not that anyone could actually hope to win the money, with Randi being able to dismiss any application out of hand, insist on his own testing protocols, and generally stack the deck in his favor so that those trying to win his money have to do everything just right or start all over again.
Staying on about the same WTF level, but lowering the lethality potential a tick or two, Taser mp3 players. Self defense of 50,000 volts and a 1GB music player. It’s the perfect combination... for someone.
Significantly less dangerous, perhaps following in the same vein of the gentleman who sold the Guitar Hero III present for his son when he discovered his son smoking marijuana, a mother has sold her son's car after she found alcohol under the seat. No mercy from this mother. Drinking and driving is certainly no laughing matter, and so Mom has justification for it. In a few years, I wonder if Mom and Dad will want a car for the kid again, just so they don’t have to do all the shuttling around. Of course, I don’t expect the son to be anything other than grounded or restricted for a while.
In technology, power exoskeleton for farm work soon to be available in Japan. From here, we’ll get to fully-encased power armor, and... y’know, I think I’m treading perilously close to something [CLASSIFIED] in the FLEET archives, so I’ll stop now. China has a big year for space planned, with many launches and missions on the schedule. So keep an eye out up there for the Chinese rockets.
Dropping back down to Earth, Playstation Portables will come with Skype, after a firmware update. Great for when one is within range of a Wi-Fi spot... and if the person being called uses Skype. If not, using tiny mobile phone projectors, one might be able to achieve the same effect with a regular mobile. Although, it would be a static image, rather than a moving one.
Let’s talk about art - specifically, the creator of the popular series Genshiken talks a bit about how otaku culture has changed, and how Japanese otaku should and shouldn't be mainstreamed. It’s kind of odd hearing a creator talk about how much he really doesn’t want his fan base’s ideology to become popular, but I think that’s because of the different connotations that otaku has in American and Japan. Anyway, further art is the Infinite Cat Project, which has cats watching cats watching cats watching cats all the way back down to the original cat, Frankie.
And then we’ll move onto money, with a list of 10 very much hated money-saving tips.
Last for tonight, a bit of humor. Now that we know the Mozart effect is at best, temporary, why not try out some other composer effects and see if they’re a bit more permanent. If that’s not going to work for you, maybe the attempt to ban swearing, table-dancing, drinking contests, and profane music from bars will do enough to get you into side-splitting laughter? No? Braaaaaaaaaains Food Pyramid, then.
If that didn’t work, try sleep, like I am.
